Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

 NOW:

“Arising from Caniformes, (Order Carnivora), and Simiiformes, (Order Primate),” Cas tilted his voice to his lecturer’s timbre, “and often called, in formal environments, the Lupins and the Simians, or Lupine Sapiens and Homo Sapiens, or to simplify further, often called the wolves and the apes by everyday folks, the Pack and the Troop, dogs and monkeys, or most frequently on the street—us and them.” He lowered his chin and raised one eyebrow at her. He had heard her outburst and intended to make sure she knew it.

“We evolved independently, in parallel, to produce two species that bear remarkable resemblance to each other in ontogeny, capacity, and function, despite our very different philological lineage. In other words, while we are all simply people, human people, and we look almost the same, we aren’t the same. Simians are recognizable by their rounded ears and their long dexterous fingers. Lupins uniformly have points to the tips of their ears and generally have short and somewhat furry, Hobbit-like fingers.” He held his hand in front of his face and examined his own thick fingers. “There are more anatomical differences below the surface, but these are the easiest to look for when you meet someone for the first time and need to be certain.”

He was babbling. He stopped speaking to collect himself, and as expected the exasperated woman across his office desk huffed an annoyed sigh into the break. “Doctor Novak,” she said with as much disdain as she could fit into two words, “Don’t give me a ninth-grade science lecture. Give me my son back!” Her voice had risen in volume and intensity as she rose from her chair and leaned menacingly over the desk. “I have been very patient with you, but my patience has run out! My son is a minor, and you will return him to me this minute, or I will have the police collect him and charge you with rape!”

Castiel wasn’t intimidated, but his Facility didn’t need a protest lawsuit right now, and the boy needed to stay where he was. This is why it’s bad policy to allow Simians to adopt Canine children, he confirmed silently. They don’t understand. You spend your entire adult life educating people about the needs of the Pack. You build the facilities and support structures, the communities and the laws that will protect them. Endless hours spent in research and in front of Congressional committees and eight years into it, you find yourself in front of a woman who should most definitely know better, with your cock still damp from having been tied inside her son’s channel, trying to explain to her why he needs this; trying to calm her, bring her back to the front part of her brain. That reptilian section of the brain—both species shared that. Emotions run high sometimes, and Castiel wasn’t helping. His calm was revving her up even worse.

He sighed.

“Mrs. Lister, Jeremy is sixteen years old. You knew this day was coming when he Presented as an Omega. I remind you again that as a Lupin, he is a full-grown adult now. He entered The Facility of his own accord, on his own two feet, with full agency to do so. He is in good hands…”

“It’s not the HANDS I’m worried about, and you know it, Doctor!” she interrupted, still not retaking her seat. “I know what goes on back there. You wrap it all up in medical words, but you and your dogs are raping him while you distract me in this office, talking! I’m not leaving until you give me my son back!”

Castiel ran a hand down his face in frustration then schooled himself back to calm. “Jeremy is in Heat, Mrs. Lister, and he needs care. He is too old—too developed—to go through it alone. The risks are real and substantial. I am very sorry that you and I had no opportunity to discuss Jeremy’s care before he checked himself in, but I assure you that he’s precisely where he needs to be. If he leaves with you and he doesn’t get the care he needs, he faces physical, mental, and emotional complications—possibly irreversible ones, possibly severe ones.”

Castiel allowed his voice to grow firm and authoritative. “No one, I repeat no one, is being raped on these premises. Jeremy is being closely monitored with cutting-edge equipment. He’s being knotted by highly trained professionals who have only his best interests at heart. That may sound like rape to a Simian, but I assure you it’s not. Jeremy will be Claimed—temporarily Claimed,” Cas was quick to interject as he saw her face darken again, “By three of our staff members who will also serve as his instructors over the next twelve weeks.”

Castiel paused to allow the new information to sink in then added, “One of those three instructors will be me. I had only just come untied with your son when I was called to my office to speak with you. I assure you, Mrs. Lister, your son is fine. He’s responding well to the Claiming process, we’ll provide you and your husband with a full explanation of his test results, and his Heat is running its course as well as can be expected. He will not, however, be leaving The Facility for the next three months. He needs this training period more than most wolves his age. To be completely frank, he is woefully behind his peers in understanding his own biology and his place in the Pack. He is in a vulnerable position right now. Were I to allow you to pull him out before he completes the process, he runs the very real risk of permanent mental, emotional, and physical damage. It is imperative that you understand this, Ma’am. Omegas can die from Heat-distress if they do not receive the care they need. It happens every day. It’s not going to happen to your son, not under my watch.”

Castiel strode aggressively through the bright, overlit hallway, bursting through swinging doors with a purpose. A portion of his brain that sounded very much like Dean noted that he probably resembled one of the characters from Dr. Sexy responding to a STAT call, and he chuckled to himself despite his stirred state of mind. It had taken far too long to get that woman who never should’ve been granted a wolf pup to raise in the first place, to give up her tirade. Cas finally managed to hand her off to Billie and escape. Billie and Charlie would take care of everything—calm her and explain where her Primate maternal instincts were leading her wrong—much better than Castiel was doing. The ignorance that still suffused every part of the common populace was exhausting to Castiel.

It’d been five long years since he and a few fellow researchers had started their crusade to apply their findings to real people—to try to lower the mortality and insanity rates of young Lupins.

The Pack had lost so many Omegas over the last two-hundred years; corresponding with the cultural shifts that brought the Pack out of their rural, forested communal villages and into the cities; corresponding to the Lupin rejection of their ancestral ways in attempts to assimilate with the Primates. Two-hundred years of utter abandonment of Pack wisdom and common cures, their stories, their rituals, their practices, their sacred way of life had resulted in a rapidly disintegrating population of wolves, trying desperately to be what they’re not, wasting away and going crazy in back allies. They’d traded their sense of Pack for the shiny glass and steel skyscrapers and the horseless carriages the apes had, and the Pack was suffering for it. Castiel fumed every time he thought about it, and it was raising the hairs on the back of his neck as he busted through another swinging door on his way back to check on the boy. Wolves were not apes. They needed the Pack. They needed the hierarchy, the Claiming, the discipline, and the sex. Wolves needed to be bathed in the semen of their alphas and needed to feel the iron hard hand of their Dominants on their flanks. Every scientific study over the past twenty years showed the same result, in unequivocal terms: Wolves were not Apes.

Cas finally arrived back at the South Wing where new arrivals were processed. He walked into the control room between rooms 107 and 108 and addressed Dr. Harvelle who only glanced up at him briefly before turning back to her screens. “How’s he doing?” he asked her.

“He and Jo just untied. The Claim reads strong and clean—not as strong as yours, but... She did a good job with him. He’s clearly straight, Alpha. Reading his body language, I don’t think he’s ever been with a man before. He was much more relaxed with Jo. Of course, he’s only sixteen…might not have fucked many people at all yet.”

Cas just hmmed in response. He’d picked up one of the clipboards and was scanning through the readings. Hormone levels, pheromone spikes, musk releases, heart rate all normal for an adolescent in Heat after a solid Claim-fuck. Cas glanced through the one-way glass into the room. Jo was standing now, dressed in a robe and leaning over the boy’s head. One hand stroked gently through his hair, and he subtly leaned into her touch as the fingers on his right hand twitched slightly. Cas couldn’t hear her words, but he trusted her to care for the pup.

Cas had known Jo almost as long as he’d known Dean. Those two were practically a matched set, always together, nearly siblings in their closeness. She was barely more than a pup herself in some ways, but once she’d Presented as an Alpha and her penis had unsheathed for the first time, she learned quickly to harness the power that her Secondary gender brought with it.

Jo was good. Very good. Jeremy’s body looked like it had melted into the thin mattress. He was utterly relaxed. Cas resisted the instinct to enter the room and assert his more Dominant Claim which was fresh enough to pull at him. He wasn’t needed here right now. Everything was under control. He looked back at Ellen in front of the glowing screens.

“Jo’s last?”

Ellen took a moment to respond. She seemed a little distracted when she looked up from the report that had her focus. Then her brain caught up with the question. “Uh, yeah. Yes, Alpha. Benny followed right after you. No complications, everything went textbook. We’ll let him sleep a bit, then we’ll have Charlie clean him up and get him fed before showing him to the dorm. Usual process except we sped it up a lot due to his Heat and in case that nutcase tried to break him out. Was that really his mother storming the castle? What was that all about?”

“Yes.” Cas ground his teeth a bit then intentionally released the tension in his jaw. “She’s not Pack. I have no idea how an ape couple adopted a wolf-pup, but she apparently tracked him here, as you say, stormed in, and demanded that we stop raping her son and release him back to her custody. There may be trouble if Billie can’t get her to understand.” He ran a hand down his face again, pressing a bit into his eyes to extinguish the premonition of losing everything he and Bobby, Benny and Dean had built.

He blew out a breath and stiffened his posture. That wasn’t going to happen. They’d built it carefully. They had allies in Congress, in the State Legislature, and even locally, who had painstakingly placed laws over the years to protect the Pack from just this sort of Primate interference. They were solid. They were fine. Young Omegas like Jeremy would never again have to face the cold, awful claws of insanity in the face of ignorance and fear. Never again. Cas caught Ellen’s concerned, maternal look and huffed a laugh.

“I’m worried about you, Alpha,” she admitted with a shrug. He smiled kindly and placed a firm, calming hand on the back of the Omega’s neck. Ellen, Dr. Harvelle, was a shining poster child for the possibilities that were within reach of an Omega who got all the care they needed to thrive. She’d persevered through the bias and assumption that an Omega was just not capable and come out on the other side a world-renowned researcher with a medical doctorate and a bedside manner unlike anything the betas or alphas could mimic.

Nevertheless, she was an Omega and prone to the needs of that designation. An Alpha’s firm touch went a long way to keep her grounded. Castiel never let a single interaction go without touching her. They both needed the connection, and with every simple touch, the Pack grew stronger. Ellen had faced the world alone for too long. Now she was Cas’ to care for, whether she knew it or not, and he held that responsibility sacred. Ellen took a few breaths of the Alpha’s scent and then shook herself a bit. “Cas, we’ve got this. Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else? I thought Dean was waiting for you.”

“He is,” Cas admitted. “I needed to swing by and check on Jeremy before I lock us in for the afternoon. I, um, I think I need this time more than Dean does, and it may take a while. Did someone check that the suite is stocked? It’s not time for our Ruts yet, but you never know….” Cas trailed off. He was looking back into the room beyond the glass which had been darkened. Jo was seated to the side, quietly cleaning a probe while the pup—no not a pup anymore—the Omega, slept peacefully. Cas’ eyes really didn’t register what was in front of him. His mind was elsewhere.

Ellen looked up at him knowingly. “Yes, Alpha. Fully stocked. You’re good to go even if one or both of you Trips over into Rut.” She paused, then continued carefully, “Do I need to have medical on standby?” In the room beyond, Jo stood and opened the door to a quiet knock from Charlie. The redhead smiled as she entered. With no prelude, Charlie approached the sleeping form and began gently to sponge him down with warm cloths. A surge of pride struck Cas. These people were so good—good at their jobs, good with each other, good to their clients. Charlie didn’t know that the Facility Director was watching her work, and yet every touch was tender and careful. The staff of The Facility, all of them, genuinely cared about their clients and about each other.

Cas couldn’t repress an overwhelming feeling of pride in what they’d built together. The mission of The Facility was understood and shared by everyone involved, from Becky at intake, to Sam the Lead Enforcement Officer, from Research to Outreach and everyone in between. Cas heard Ellen chuckle again and mutter quietly, “Better get going, Alpha, or you may find a less compliant Sub in your suite than you expect.” Cas brought his attention back from where it had wandered with the realization that an inability to focus was a classic symptom of a growing need to scene. Ellen was right, he needed to get going.

He tightened his hand on the back of her neck a bit in gentle remonstrance, lest she forget her place, then released her. “Let him wait,” he chuckled darkly. Cas was actually hoping Dean would be a brat today. He needed the release that came with an intense scene, and no one brought that side of Cas out better than his alpha-Sub, longtime research and business partner, but never-more-than-friends-who-scene-together…where was he going with this? Oh. Right. Down the rabbit hole that was his relationship with Dean. Cas turned on his heel despite his previous statement and left the room. Dr. Harvelle was right. She, Jo, and Charlie had young Jeremy well in hand. Billie obviously had Jeremy’s mother lined out if Charlie’s presence in the processing room was anything to go by.

Over the next couple of days, Jeremy’s bonds with Cas, Benny, and Jo would be used to help him adjust to his place in The Facility and to his classwork. He would be evaluated, examined, and tested, physically and emotionally. Today’s Keller Test results would be fed through the computer algorithms to determine Jeremy’s Tertiary designation. So far, Cas knew he was a healthy, if somewhat maladjusted straight cis-male Omega. The Keller Test would tell whether he was Submissive, Neutral, or Dominant. Cas could nearly always predict the results before they came out. He was famous for it, but ethics forbade him from using that instinct where clients were involved. There was too much risk of damage being done by forecasting a designation that turned out to be wrong. The data were never wrong. They would wait for the data.

His mood darkened and settled as he left the South Wing and headed back toward his own suite of rooms in the North. Dean had probably already been waiting for him when Cas and Mrs. Lister were shouting at each other what seemed like ages ago right next door. Dean was not patient when he got the itch, and Cas was late. He was stopped twice on the way: once by Becky to sign Jeremy’s matriculation form, and once by Bobby to confirm that Cas would be at tomorrow’s Board of Director’s meeting. Neither interruption took very long, but Cas was antsy by the time he reached his door. He stood for a moment outside, took a calming breath, slipped easily into his Alpha-Dom persona, schooled his face, then turned the knob and walked in, letting the door close and lock behind him on its own. The only words that made it to the hallway before the door latched were, “Up, Sub. Over the arm of the sofa. Ass in the…” He didn’t open the door again for the next sixteen hours. As it turned out, a call to have medical on standby would’ve been a good idea.

Chapter Text

THEN:

Dean was a nineteen-year-old undergrad majoring in Secondary Education at a small, private college in the heartland, one that catered to Lupins and that butted right up against the monolith that was the imposing University of Kansas. He was nearing graduation and stopped in at the campus dive to celebrate with a few classmates. Dean liked living in a town comprised mostly of Pack. The rules were different here than they were out in Main Street USA. The bar, for instance, took custom from wolves who were still legally underage, honoring the tradition that Lupins reached their maturity and majority at sixteen. The party had fizzled out—too close to finals. One by one, his stressed friends vanished to cram for their tests in the last few hours before they had to sit for their tests.

Dean was about to shrug it off as a lost cause and join the great cram-fest but was startled on his way out the door when he caught sight of his professor for Gender Studies stomping the rain from his boots under the awning outside. “Good evening, Dr. Novak,” Dean said politely. He held the door as the professor approached.

“Ah, good,” said the doctor. “Just the lad I was hoping to see here. Are you leaving?” he asked.

Confused, Dean frowned a bit and replied, “I was about to, I guess. My friends all took off to study, and I felt a bit guilty, so…” Dean trailed off and looked down. His teacher always left him feeling a little off-kilter, as if he knew something shameful about Dean and was waiting for the right moment to reveal it. Dean hoped this wasn’t that time. Why would his professor be hoping to run into one specific student out of so many? The last time Dr. Novak had fixed his stern blue eye on Dean specifically was a fiasco that still made Dean’s blood run cold, and that was years ago now. He was in no hurry for a repeat.

“Very wise decision.” Dr. Novak held his gaze for a second longer than seemed customary, but Dean couldn’t look away. Was he in trouble for something? Again? He’d turned in his project and both papers. Oh god, maybe he’d bombed the assignments. Then the prof continued, “However, if you can spare a few moments before you leave, I’d like to speak with you. I’ll buy you a drink if you’ll join me. It won’t take long, I promise.”

Dean considered the offer, his brow still furrowed. Was his teacher making a pass? Was this one of those skanky situations that everyone warned Dean about? They all said he was too pretty and needed to stay alert to inappropriate advances. He imagined stuffy, droll Dr. Novak trying to back the young alpha into an alley, and the thought made him laugh. Whatever this was, it wasn’t that.

“Something funny?” asked Dr. Novak, raising one eyebrow in a way that made Dean reconsider his assumption that the good doctor was a dweeb.

“No, uh, sorry Professor,” he stammered. “I can stay for a few minutes. What do you want to speak to me about?”

“Your future, Dean. I have a proposal for you. In fact, I have two.” Dr. Novak led Dean to a booth at the back of the bar. He looked extremely comfortable sliding into the seat. He looked like he lived here. Actually, come to think of it, he always looked at home.

Interesting.

Dean’s wolf cocked his head, thoughtful. Weird that he’d had never noticed before. Dean wasn’t usually one to miss a detail like that.

Once seated, the professor caught the eye of the bartender, raised two fingers, then dismissed him entirely.

Huh.

That wasn’t the kind of communication Zeke usually responded well to, even from an alpha. Zeke may be beta, but his bar was his castle, and he made the rules here. Dean’s wolf cocked his head the other way and furrowed its brow. Dean watched the interaction and filed it away for…he wasn’t sure what.

He was knocked out of his reverie when those deep blue eyes turned back to him. “I want to ask if you’ve considered graduate school, Mr. Winchester. I know you’re graduating soon. Frankly, I think I have an ideal place for you in my project, and I’d like to pitch it to you—see what you think—that is, if you don’t already have a plan for after you graduate.”

Dr. Novak stopped talking abruptly and looked at Dean. Dean sputtered. The fuck? A minute ago, he thought he was about to get reamed for unacceptable work and now the professor wanted to give him a job? Two beers were set on the table. The teacher thanked Zeke, who’d left the bar to deliver them himself.

Huh.

Dean had never seen him do that before, not for anyone.

“Any time, Alpha,” responded the bartender.

Dean was normally a quick study where people were concerned, and he heard the capital A in the bartender’s pronunciation of the honorific. He ran quickly through what he knew about his teacher and realized he’d really never seen him before.

“I haven’t got my after-grad plans in place just yet, but I’m looking for a post out west,” he mumbled, fidgeting.

What? It wasn’t like he hadn’t been trying, but jobs always seemed to open up for Simian applicants. Lupins were seen as too unpredictable and violent, especially alphas, and it was hard to land a teaching job without prior experience. “I don’t really have the money to keep on with school though, even if I wanted to. I was barely able to swing three years of undergrad.”

“I wonder if you would do me the courtesy of hearing me out? I think most likely, there are a few options we can take advantage of in terms of tuition and expenses.”

Seriously? Who talks like that? Dean was intrigued though, and as he said, he was approaching graduation without a job, so…whatever.

He nodded, sipping his beer.

“As I’ve mentioned in class, I’m leading a research project that will study issues of gender, sexuality, pack hierarchy, and the population decline of healthy, viable Lupins in North America. It’s a huge endeavor, probably biting off more than I can chew, but if I can pull it together, it could mean a great deal to our species everywhere. The scope is pretty small right now. The funding for the full study I have planned is not there, but if we can just get our teeth into it, I really think it could be important.” The professor had forgotten his drink and was leaning across the table, earnest and entreating.

“Sounds, um, cool. What does it have to do with me?”

“Dean, my interest in you is twofold: one is professional and the other...” He paused, glancing up at the ceiling as if choosing his next words carefully. “First, I don’t know if you realize this, but you are a top-notch researcher. You’re quick and insightful, you know how to keep digging until you get to the root of an issue, and then you explain it in a way that’s…captivating. I always look forward to reading your papers. I want you on my team, Dean. I’m convinced that you will do great things. Our funding is small, but I have enough to hire a small staff. You’d be paid for your work and given an office plus room and board. All I ask is that you consider my offer. I can show you the premise if that would help you decide.”

Dean stared in shock. Then he burst out laughing. Dr. Novak waited for him to quiet again. “I’m completely serious.” His dark tone was unlike any Dean had heard from him before. It sent a shiver up Dean’s spine and made his eyelids flutter. He took another drink. “You said twofold, Professor,” he reminded his teacher. “What’s the other?”

“First of all, please call me Castiel—or Alpha if you prefer. I’d like to work closely enough with you that we become comfortable in one another’s presence.” He paused long enough for Dean to nod.

Castiel? Really? Yeah, okay, Dean could do that.

“Second, Dean, I want to scene with you. Regularly. I believe you and I are ideally suited to keep each other balanced. I have had a terrible time of late finding anyone who fits the bill—at all, actually.” Castiel had held Dean’s eye through his offer, and he looked to be serious, but what the fuck?

Dean didn’t respond right away. He didn’t even blink, so the Alpha continued. “I don’t know to what degree my reputation has filtered into the undergraduate classes, but you may know that in terms of Keller scale ratings, the um…well the scale had to be redrawn after I took the test. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in as it means, among other things, that I find it extremely difficult to find a satisfying partner.”

Dean still hadn’t moved. Castiel’s voice had begun washing over him in a way he couldn’t explain, and he was mesmerized at the images his brain was supplying. “Omegas, even strong ones, are too delicate for the practices I prefer. Betas really don’t interest my Tertiary at all. What I want is a young, strapping alpha who’ll let me… Are you all right, Dean?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean’s eyes snapped back into focus. He wiped his chin when he realized he’d drooled a little. Jesus, how embarrassing. “Hold on. What makes you think I’m the right person for you? I haven’t even taken my Keller test yet. Don’t you warn us in class to never assume someone’s Tertiary gender until there’s data to back it up?” Dean was randomly throwing out words. He needed to stall long enough for his brain to click back into gear and tell him what the hell was happening right now.

“Very good, Dean,” his teacher praised, and Dean blushed. Damnit. “Yes, ordinarily that’s true, but I have been blessed with an uncanny knack for predicting the outcome of the Keller test. I don’t really need it to know where the data places you on the spectrum. Although,” and Castiel angled his head to allow the raised eyebrow to have more effect, “You will need to complete your evaluation prior to the launch of any sexual activities between us. I may know your Tertiary designation, but the test also pinpoints predispositions for a variety of kinks, and I would need to know those as well.”

“Kinks…” Dean whispered to himself. He was half-chubbed and leaking just a little. He shook his head like a dog and slapped his palm on the table, more to startle himself back into a rational headspace than to emphasize his point. His front-brain was finally catching up. The Alpha across from him didn’t flinch. He waited calmly for Dean’s response. “Hold up. Lemme get this straight. Did you just offer me a job so you can get your rocks off all over me? What the hell, sir? Is it even legal to launch sexual activities with a dude who works for you? You may have my gender pegged—I doubt it, but whatever—but you don’t know me. I hate to pop your bubble, Alpha, but ain’t that kind of a girl.” Dean moved to the end of the booth seat and started to stand. The chill bumps on his arms were wigging him out.

“Dean, please hear me out. It’s not like that. I’m being a hundred percent genuine with you, completely honest. There is nothing untoward about my proposals. They each exist independently of the other. You are free to accept both, either of the two, or neither. And yes, it’s perfectly legal. Courts have ruled that where Lupin Dom/Sub relations are critical to the health, wellbeing, and sanity of the wolves involved, there is a waiver for all conflict-of-interest claims unless there is evidence of abuse. It’s not illegal for you to accept a position on my project team and in my bed simultaneously. I assure you, my health and wellbeing are at risk if I can’t find a suitable scene partner.” Castiel lowered his chin and looked at Dean with dark eyes. “I expect you’ve struggled with the same problem.”

Jesus Christ, what this guy could do with his voice. And his eyes. And…fuck it all! Dean scooted back into the seat. “You know you sound like the worst type of cheesy romance novel about Lupins in Heat. You know, the ones written by Simian housewives with too much porn on their computers?” Dean muttered it nearly under his breath, but the professor heard him, and Castiel chuckled.

“You read those, do you?” the doctor teased.

Dean leaned back and resumed nursing his beer. “Tell me about your research project. Let’s start with that.”

Castiel lit up, leaned forward, and began speaking with the lighthearted excitement of a child.

Two hours and two more beers later, they were still deep in discussion. “You don’t understand, Dean. Yes, there are studies that hint at all of this, but their conclusions contradict each other, they really don’t focus on anything actionable, and there’s no peer review going on at all. We need to dig into the ugly guts. For instance, we know that Traditional Pack families who follow hierarchy and Pack Discipline in the home have much lower rates of mental illness, especially among the Omegas. We know the difference in the rates, but we don’t know why! Is it something about the stability, everyone knowing their places? Is it the open sex or the corporal punishment?”

“Cas, there are literally thousands of studies, like I said…”

Castiel cut him off, “But nothing ties them all together. That’s part of what I need to do here. I don’t just want to add another study on top of the rest that gets buried in some dusty file somewhere. Dean! I want to do all of it!” He was shouting and gesticulating, the passion uncontainable as his life’s ambition poured out of him and all over Dean in a deluge of words.

“We’re going to pull those studies together, separate the real data from the crap, and then build from there. We need massive numbers and deep investigations. I want to track individual subjects for years. We’re going to find out not only why Lupins behave the way they do, but what to do about it when it’s harming them. I need volunteers for test subjects, and we’re going to need a test facility where they’ll be safe. I’m going to build a training resource center, one that Primates have no access to.

“We need to pull the sex workers out of the back allies, train them responsibly, and put them in clean, safe rooms—provide a place where people can manage their Ruts and Heats with professional care. We need legislation to protect us from the fear and ignorance of the larger population. We need sanctuaries where any Lupin can seek respite, get a scene, have a good hard spanking, whatever they need. Can you imagine a world where Omega-Submissives can have successful professional careers? What if we find a way to keep them Balanced all the time? Wouldn’t they be as capable of leading fulfilling adult lives as the rest of us?

“And what about all the things we just don’t know? Everyone just makes assumptions, Dean. Like, why is the posterior womb only capable of single births? Why do nursing Omegas stay fully Balanced without needing to be adjusted? We don’t know these things because all the research has been geared toward treating our lineage as a disease, drumming all trace of our heredity out of us. We’re not apes, Dean! We’re never going to be apes! It’s time we started learning ourselves, so we can SAVE ourselves!”

In later years, when Dean tried to nail down the exact moment he fell hopelessly in love with Alpha-Dominant Doctor Castiel James Novak, he always came back to this one. Dean was hooked. He was all in. He had it bad. How, oh, how had he never seen this side of his boring professor before?

“What do you need from me, Cas?” Dean broke in. “Do you know where you’re going to start? What’s your budget? This is going to take money—a whole hell of a lot of money. Do you have a plan for funding?” Dean watched Castiel’s face turn sheepish.

“We have a grant from the College’s research fund for next semester, and I was planning to make enough progress to support refunding it again after that.” The Alpha ran a finger over his upper lip, back and forth.

“My god, Cas!” The nickname had come easily and immediately. Dean had fallen into the circle of Alpha, and now he too was completely at home. “You don’t have a plan at all! ‘Aight.” He pulled a napkin to him, dug a pen from his backpack, and started to scribble notes. “I’m on it.”

Dean looked up at Castiel without lifting his head. He knew he looked coy, but he also knew he was so gone, and he was “on it” in more than one sense. “This’ll be my first assignment. I’m going to secure you funding. How much do you need?”

They talked until closing time then agreed that the rest could wait. Castiel held the door for Dean and offered him a ride back home, but Dean declined.

Not yet, he thought.

“Hey, Cas,” he called down the sidewalk. “About the other thing… seriously, what makes you think we’re, what’d you say? Compatible?”

“It’s easy Dean.” Cas came back toward Dean slowly, like a hunting cat, his eyes deep, dark pools in the evening light. “I’m the most Dominant Alpha ever to be tested using modern tools, and I find you irresistible. I suspect that when you test, we may find you fall as far off the scale as I do—in the opposite direction.” Dean began to draw himself up, but Cas put a firm hand on the back of his neck, and all resistance failed him. “Just consider it. Please.”

“I’ll take your stupid test under one condition,” whispered Dean. When Castiel cocked his head for him to continue, he finished. “That you anchor it for me.”

“I can do that,” Castiel assured him.

NOW:

Dean would be fine. As a Board-licensed physician, Castiel was equally capable of treating wounds as he was of inflicting them. In fact, Dean looked spectacular. He lounged on the sofa on his side with his long limbs stretching like a cat. Castiel huffed at the feline image in his head as he bent over the back of the sofa and bandaged the gouges on Dean’s back. How could someone so innately Canine look so much like a cat when he relaxed?

“Better?” he asked.

“‘M awesome,” Dean slurred. He would be asleep soon, Cas predicted. Castiel allowed himself the luxury of taking in the beautiful lines of Dean’s long, pale body. He felt so much more grounded and present after their afternoon, and night, and morning together. They’d put their scening off too long—a sacrifice of their disjointed schedules and too many responsibilities. Dean’s role as Director of Training kept him on his toes round the clock, and Castiel’s title as Facility Director spoke for itself. The irony of running an institution predicated on providing wolves with the resources to keep themselves Balanced and healthy, but then failing to take advantage of those resources often enough for themselves was not lost on either of them. There just wasn’t enough time in the day.

“Do you have anywhere you need to be today, Dean?” Cas queried although he was reasonably sure he knew the answer.

“Uh, yeah. Got a Sub class at four. I haven’t pulled my notes together yet or even looked at my syllabus to see what I need.” Dean grunted as he tried to rock himself to a seated position. Cas’ restraining hand on his shoulder and the dawning realization that his ass was much too sore for sitting sent him rolling right back down onto his side with an “Oomph!”

“Easy there, Tex,” said Cas with a smirk when he spotted Dean’s pained expression. “Not yet. You need a solid two- or three-hour nap first.” Cas was in too good a mood to argue, so he imbued his words with his full Alpha-Dom authority. Dean’s Sub melted back into compliance, relaxing his head down onto the armrest and cat-stretching again. “Besides, you wrote the curriculum for this class. You can do it with your eyes closed. Sleep, then eat, then prep, then teach. I don’t want to see you with your head in your notes before two-thirty. I’m speaking as your boss, your Dom, and your friend, and I’ll know if you disobey me. I’d be happy to reawaken the sting in your ass if I need to, Pet.” Cas finished his instruction with a hint of humor that Dean didn’t find funny.

“Yes, Sir. I’ll be good. Think I’ve had enough sting for a while.” He strained his neck to assess the color of said ass before slumping back down. Cas was finished with the bandage on his upper back. He walked to the closet and pulled out a clean blanket.

“Sofa or bed?”

“‘M good right here,” Dean mumbled. Cas pulled the blanket over him, retrieved a bottle of water and a couple of Ibuprofen from the kitchen. He nudged Dean into swallowing the pills, set the bottle on the coffee table, kissed Dean’s forehead, then left the suite for his adjoining office.

It was only after the door to his office closed behind him that he realized he’d kissed his friend, and he sucked in a startled breath. Damnit. That was outside of a scene. Had Dean noticed? Was Dean awake enough to realize? Cas quickly scrambled through an assessment of the possible damage. They didn’t do that. They weren’t together. They were many, many things to one another, but they could never be that.

Cas’ own Keller score placed him as the most Dominant Alpha ever to be tested. He was a near perfect corollary to Dean’s Submissiveness. They matched in a satisfying Yin and Yang. Dean was the only wolf Cas had ever met who could take what he needed to dole out. And vice versa. Dean’s need to be controlled, beaten, and fucked was intense. They had started scening together years ago, the hunger in their eyes matching one another so perfectly they could communicate instantly without words. Both of them wanted, needed the other.

But.

Both wolves were alpha. They weren’t mates. Couldn’t Mate. Only betas could Mate with their own designation. It wasn’t fair, and it hurt so badly that despite their mutual desire to connect and the perfection of that connection, they never spoke of it. Never. Not once. To admit to each other in words how desperately they felt pulled to be lovers in every sense of the word, was to be confronted with the finality of how fruitless the attempt would ultimately be. It couldn’t be. To make matters worse, any day now either of them was likely to chance across his own True-Mate. So many Omegas came through The Facility each session. How neither of them had yet confronted his True-Mate was a bafflement to everyone.

Yet it was bound to happen, even for wolves as far into the edges of the chart as they.

Cas slumped into his desk chair and put his head in his hands. He loved Dean, was in love with Dean. He had been for years, maybe from the moment he first saw Dean. Nothing could come of it though. As soon as his True-Mate entered the scene, Cas would be compelled by instinct to Mate with them. And what would happen to Dean? How could he initiate a relationship with no future? He could never do that to Dean.

His love.

His only love.

The situation was hopeless.

A foolish part of Castiel longed for the day that one of them would meet and Mate with their True-Mates and put an end to the agony. He also dreaded that day. Watching Dean Claim some hapless boy would destroy Cas. Utterly. There was nothing for it, though. He had proven to himself numerous times that he was both incapable of walking away and unwilling to move forward. He was stuck. They were stuck. So, they researched together, wrote grant proposals together, co-authored legislation bills, served on community outreach committees, scened together to keep each other balanced, built up The Facility, aka The American Caniforme Research Institute, and silently loved one another with all their hearts. It would never be enough, but it was better than nothing. Maybe.

Just as he had done for the past eight years, Cas swept thoughts of Dean from his mind and got back to work. He went methodically through emails, sorting, answering, deleting. He made several phone calls and checked up on Jeremy and the two other Omegas who had matriculated at about the same time. Everyone was stable. Cas wouldn’t be needed for another few hours to work with them. He pulled a tray of peanut butter and crackers from his mini-fridge and ate them slowly, washed them down with a bottle of water, and ignored the strain in his gut pulling him to return to the Sub in the suite next door.

Cas spent two hours at the mundane tasks of a Facility Director. It was officially Administrative Boredom. This was not what he got into research to do, but it was what he needed right now—mundane, mindless tasks: schedules and rosters, budgets, funding, approvals, reviews, planning. Cas was finally starting to lose himself in the mindlessness of his work. It took several minutes for his conscious mind to clue in to what he was beginning to smell.

Before he was even aware, Cas’ body went rigid and his nose began huffing, straining toward the door into the exterior hallway. When his mind caught up, Cas white-knuckled the desk and began salivating. His world rocked and his axis tilted.

What the fuck was happening? What was that scent?

Cas stood without thinking, zombie-walked to the door, and left the office, passing directly into the hallway outside and leaving Dean without a thought. He didn’t remember doing so. Pupils blown wide and red streaks starting to spread across his vision, he moved down the hall, slowly at first and then with increasing speed as the scent grew ever stronger. Cas was unaware of being spoken to. Bodies in his path were barricades to his destination and were moved aside with no more thought. It wasn’t until a pair of strong arms encircled him from behind and stopped his forward progress that Castiel realized how far he’d travelled. He was back in the South Wing, steps away from the Omega changing room where new clients were bathed and prepped for their initial tests and CF’s.

“What’s your hurry there, cher?” rolled the smooth voice of Cas’ colleague from between his shoulder blades. Cas looked down at where his own hands were already trying to pry Benny’s fisted grasp from his solar plexus. Cas was confused and horny. Why would Benny be stopping him from getting to that scent?! That delectable, unbelievable scent. What the fuck was that smell?

Another pair of arms appeared near Benny’s, and Cas looked to the side where Sam stood rooted to the ground, braced and ready to tussle if Cas started fighting. Fighting sounded like a really good idea. He had to break free. There would be hell to pay for these two. Cas would make heads roll, but not right now. Right now, he had to get to that scent. It was inside his head now, inside his body. His cock was rock hard and leaking. Growls, starting from his gut, worked their way through his clenched teeth. Every fiber strained toward getting through that door. Getting to his Omega. His Omega.

Oh.

OH!

Oh, Fuck!

It dawned on him that he didn’t have an Omega, not one of his own anyway. Cas grabbed lucidity like a lifeline and held on. He stopped straining against the arms around him. He looked down again. There were now four fists holding him. The growling stopped. Jesus, did he really sound like that?

“Someone get Ellen and find Dean!”

That was Sam shouting, his mouth too close to Cas’ ear for comfort. Someone else took off down the hallway. All four pairs of arms began tugging, jerking him to another door, not the one he wanted, but the next one back up the hallway. Cas didn’t exactly cooperate, but he wasn’t fighting with his full power either. Benny huffed an appreciative laugh into the back of Cas’ head.

“There you go, Alpha. Easy does it, brother,” Benny soothed. “We’re going to get you to your mate, but we gotta check some things out first. You’ll thank us later.” Benny and Sam were methodically easing Cas toward the room next to the changing room. Had Cas not been out of his mind with want and lust, he would have named it the Scenting Room. For the moment, he didn’t give a fuck what it was called, only that it wasn’t where he needed to go.

True-Mate matches were common enough in The Facility that a process to protect both parties had been developed and practiced often enough, and everyone knew the routine, knew the signs. Everyone took up their roles without question. The other two pairs of arms, Cole’s and Garth’s, it turned out, were also leading him the same direction. Four on one, and it was still quite a challenge. Cas was Cas after all. With a final shove, all five men tumbled through the door. Garth managed to slip back out, pull it shut and lock it before Cas threw off the other three and regained his equilibrium.

Locked in, locked away from the scent of mate, Castiel’s instincts warred with each other. His fight instinct told him to defeat every wolf in the room, dominate and conquer. The fresh air in the scenting room though, also cut the intensity of the odor enough that Cas managed to get almost full use of his faculties back. He shook his head, sloughed the remaining hands from his person, and stood panting in the middle of the room. Benny, Cole, and Sam arced around him, blocking him from trying to burst through the door.

“Castiel?” Sam tried. “Are you with us, Alpha? Talk to me.” Cas said nothing, just heaved deep, jerky breaths and tried to come back to himself. That was a mate-scent? It was indescribable. Incredible. Nothing he’d ever experienced or researched had prepared him for this. He was animal response. He was millions of years of instinct crammed into a human package. He hadn’t even seen this individual, and he knew. He knew unequivocally.

Mate.

Forever.

Mine.

“She’s fine, Cas,” confirmed Benny. “She’s right next door. She responded before you did, so we knew it was someone on premises. They’ve got her. She’s not going to get hurt. She’s being washed and changed. She’s being prepped. For you. Give us just a bit, and we’ll pipe your scents through the ducts just to be sure.”

Benny’s voice floated over Cas, eliciting images. Bathing: water sluicing over creamy smooth skin. Skin that belonged to Cas. Prepping: a firm, wet dildo pressed sweetly in and out of a welcoming orifice. Cas’ orifice. She. They’d said she. Cas’ mate was a woman. He’d always wondered. Cas, as a pansexual, would’ve had no way to know what primary gender he’d be matched up with by the Universe. Secondary and Tertiary were no brainers; he’d get an Omega-Submissive, but he’d always wondered if it’d be a girl, a boy, or any of the myriad alternative genders that Lupins identified as. God, now he was babbling in his own head.

Sam’s radio crackled with Bobby’s voice. When Sam acknowledged, Bobby continued.

“Sam, Ellen’s got Becky starting the paperwork. We’re notifying the girl’s parents. They only just dropped her off about fifteen minutes ago. They shouldn’t be too far away yet. We should try to hold him off until they respond in case they want to speak with him first.” At the words, hold him off, Cas started growling again, low in his throat. His wolf didn’t like that idea at all.

“Uh, yeah. Thanks Bobby. Has anyone told Dean yet?” Sam asked quietly. The room was not large, and Sam couldn’t have spoken softly enough to keep Cas from hearing. Cas’ head whipped around at the mention of Dean’s name, but he didn’t move. His eyes burned into Sam’s. Sam immediately lowered his gaze.

“Yeah, but when Meg told him…he split. She didn’t know where he went, but his car’s gone. Looks like he really left.” Sam blew upwards into his long bangs which fluttered with his frustration. His big brother had bolted. Sam wasn’t surprised, disappointed, but not surprised. Everyone knew how Dean felt—everyone but Cas. The two of them, dancing around each other for years and years, acting like each was alone in their feelings when everyone who knew them knew the truth. Frustration wasn’t the word. “Okay then, we’re doing this without Dean,” Sam muttered back into the radio.

Ellen’s voice came through on the heels of Bobby’s. “Hey Sam. We’re ready over here. She’s ready. Have we heard from her folks yet? Should I start the scent fans?”

“Hold off on the fans a bit, Ellen,” Sam replied. “I don’t know what the status is on her parents. How old is she anyway?” he added as an afterthought. Cole was blocking the door, and Benny stayed just out of arms’ reach of Cas as the Alpha huffed and panted and tried to keep himself stable. Cas knew, with the brain-power he had left, that he had to wait until everything was ready, vetted, and signed, but god above, it was hard. Literally. Pre-come leaked through his trousers in a constant dribble. There was a keening in his ears that his front-brain suspected was coming from his own throat.

“Paperwork says she’s seventeen. Probably just graduated high school,” came Ellen’s voice. “She looks younger though, maybe fifteen if I had to judge from her face. We better wait for her alpha to sign off before we let Cas at her.”

There was a challenge in those words that Cas’ Alpha wolf sussed out immediately, and he jolted into motion toward the radio, captured it from a surprised Sam’s hands and growled into the transmitter, “I’m her Alpha, Ellen! No one has a say but me, you got that?!”

“Hear you loud and clear, Alpha!” Ellen shot back, uncowed. For an Omega, she was annoyingly hard to intimidate. Cas relinquished the radio and began pacing the perimeter of the room, looking for a way directly through to the girl he needed.

Mate.

Forever.

Mine.

His wolf paced with him. He began shucking clothing as he walked.

“Hold on there, chief,” said Cole. Cas snarled heatedly at him, and he took a step back. “Alpha, I mean. We’re gonna get there soon, but you gotta hold out a few more minutes. No one’s going to try to stop you. She’s yours. Your mate.” At that phrase, Cas actually purred. “We just need a few things in place first, Alpha. Please try to stay calm, and uh, maybe keep your clothes on just a bit longer…”

Fuck that. Cas was losing the battle to keep his wolf at heel. He glared at Cole, resumed pacing and pulled his button-down over his head, popping a couple of buttons in the process. The shoes came off next.

“They’re working as fast as they can. I swear, Alpha.”

“Cole, man, just shut up. You’re distracting him more than you’re helping,” offered Benny. The radio crackled back on to the sound of Bobby’s voice. “All right fellas. I got alpha Anderson and his mate here. They’ve been apprised of the situation, but it seems like they need a little convincing. I told ‘em who she was Mating with, and they don’t believe me. Ya hear that? They think I’m lyin’! Can Cas talk right now? They wanna talk to him.”

“Jesus, Bobby, really? It’s all we can do to keep him from killing us and breaking through the wall! He’s holding on by the skin of his teeth right now!” Sam cried. “They want to have a discussion?!”

Cas had about had it with waiting. He grabbed a chair, stalked toward Cole at the door and brandished it like a weapon. “Move beta. Right now.” His voice was remarkably calm, but scarce was a simple beta capable of refusing his Alpha authority. Benny slid into position to replace him as Cole dropped to the side. Benny put his hands up in front of him in supplication. Cas growled at him but didn’t attack.

“Where’s Dean when we need him, damnit.” Benny muttered acridly.

They all froze when a knock sounded from the other side of the door. Bobby called through, “Alpha? You in there?” Bobby clearly meant Cas’ sentient mind, not the room. Everyone in The Facility knew he was in the room.

“Robert Singer, open this door! Immediately!” Cas ordered.

“Soon, Alpha. Hold onto yourself just a bit more.” Cas was getting very tired of hearing that phrase. “I got an alpha here wants to have a short word with you. I want you to talk to him. You may not believe me now, but you’re gonna thank me later. I swear, Castiel. You need to talk to him. He’s your mate’s father.”

“Open the door.” Cas growled at Benny.

“Come in Bobby. Real slow.” Benny spoke through the door. The lock clicked from the outside, and the door cracked open. Bobby’s head peeked through, followed by his body. After Bobby, and guarded by Bobby’s bulk, came a man, an alpha of medium build, somewhat rounded by the soft ripening of middle-age. Cas drew himself to full height and postured at the man for all he was worth, snarling. Sam and Benny joined Bobby wordlessly as a human shield between the two alphas. Cole resumed his place by the door.

The man seemed unaware of the danger he’d placed himself in—himself and the others in the room. Castiel was holding his humanity by the thinnest of threads. Blood and destruction poured from his scent. Cas’ wolf was ready to kill to get out of the room and take his mate. This was crazy.

“All right, man. You see him here. I know you recognize who that is. Ya believe me now?” Bobby was trying to end this quickly and without bloodshed. Cas didn’t care either way. He took a step toward the man, and everyone in the room stiffened further. Legally, the young woman’s custodial alpha had a right to confront his daughter’s suitor. In reality though, doing so was an extremely dangerous undertaking, especially where an Alpha of Castiel’s stature was involved.

“Seriously, dude, this is crazy!” said Sam. “Get out. Sign the damn paper and let him Mate your daughter. You know you can’t stop it even if you wanted to.” The man looked completely out of his element.

Benny took pity on him. “Look, brother, I know you wanna protect your daughter, do what’s best for her, but believe me, she couldn’t be in better hands than to have Dr. Castiel Novak as her True-Mate. She’s gonna be safe, I promise. She’s gonna be fine. You just gotta let this happen now.”

The man met Cas’ bloodshot eyes, which couldn’t have been easy for him, even as a full alpha in his own right. “You promise not to hurt her?” he asked. “You swear you’ll take care of her? I didn’t bring her here to get hitched. I don’t believe in this True-Mate crap. I mean, uh, I never did before. Is he for real?” He directed this question at Sam on his right.

“Completely,” deadpanned Sam.

“Right. Um, yeah, uh right. I guess. Jesus, I’m not prepared for this.”

“Aaand, that’s enough,” interrupted Bobby. “You gonna sign? Cause we don’t really need it, just a formality really…”

“Bobby, stop.” Cas’ voice sounded forced, and everyone froze again. “What’s your name?” he asked the man standing between himself and everything he wanted.

“Reginald. Reginald Anderson … Reggie.” Reginald seemed finally to be aware of the precarious position he was in. His voiced quaked a bit, and he took a couple steps backward.

“Reginald Anderson,” Cas spoke with more control than could be believed of one in his position. “Your daughter is my True-Mate. She is mine, and I will brook no challenge to my Claim. I assure you, however, that she will be cared for for the rest of her long life, will want for nothing, and if it is within my ability to make her happy, she will be happy. Period.”

“Thank you, Alpha.” Reginald whispered. He had backed to the door and stood pressed against it, his hand behind him fumbling with the knob. “That’s all I wanted to know. I…I’ll sign the paper. She’s yours, Alpha. Please, please be good to her…she’s a good girl…” Reginald babbled his way from the room, and everyone but Cas breathed a sigh of relief.

Chapter Text

THEN:

The university seminars and punditry were Castiel’s idea. They provided the perfect audience to explore these issues in an open, honest, safe, and professional way. Each seminar not only allowed his team the opportunity to educate the public, both apes and wolves, but the registration fees brought in a significant revenue for The Facility’s maintenance. Usually, all four Facility Leads attended the panel discussions, either giving lectures about the results of their latest research or taking questions from the students in attendance and chipping away at the ignorance and fear between the two species. Even after years of public outreach, there always seemed to be more misinformation than good.

On the other hand, the conventions were Pure Dean. Raucous, coarse, obscene sometimes, and flavored with an air of titillation, they drew a completely different crowd. The Cons didn’t just raise money, they rolled in it. Cash absolutely poured in from conventions. As much as Castiel hated the idea that a huge portion of their annual budget came from drunk Simians drooling over his colleagues (his Dean) and getting off on the Lupin spanking demonstrations, he couldn’t deny the fact that the Cons provided an educational route to a different, but still critical-to-reach demographic. Plus, he had admitted once, they were fun. Dean was beautiful, and charming, and carefree, and willing to talk about anything. Lupins and Primates alike adored Dean and his brother Sam and reveled in the relaxed party atmosphere. Dean hired a house band to rowdy up the crowd, and then he and his brother appeared on stage like rock gods basking in the adoration of their fans.

The crazy thing was that they had fans, tens of thousands of them, maybe hundreds of thousands, and more every day. Everyone knew and loved Sam and Dean. And Dr. Novak was famous for his research and his, well, his badassness? Well-respected in the scientific community long before he published his groundbreaking research, Cas’ fame skyrocketed afterward. His straightforward manner and his gravitas lent just the air of respectability the issues required to pull them out from being crude and inappropriate frat house fare to being acceptable dinner table conversation and activists’ rallying cries.

Cas was invited to participate in TV news show debates as a pundit for the legitimization of Canid Traditional Pack behaviors in public. He also became a regular on Late Night and Morning talk shows as a medical professional on a mission to correct the thinking patterns of two entire cultures that were still steeped in ignorance and bias. He was persuasive, calm, passionate, erudite, and sweet. He always gelled easily with his interviewers, making everyone feel comfortable and at home.

And yet, out of his mouth dropped the coarsest language that television audiences had ever been permitted to hear over public airwaves.

Here was this nerdy-looking professor with a perpetual classroom demeanor casually using phrases like ass fucking and Claim-fuck and anal slick right out in the open—right there on the morning TV shows. But his cause was so dire and his passion for the subject so intense, that they allowed it. Audiences were riveted. It was ratings gold for the networks. Give people the sex that always sells but couch it in terms of public health; make it respectable.

Cas’ testimony in front of Congress in defense of the Lupin Public Facilities Establishment Bill was telecast in its entirety. Cas spoke for two hours on the history of the devolution of Omega mental health and how critical it was that Lupins be provided safe sanctuaries and public spaces to give and receive spankings, mating-bites, Domination-fucks, and the like. In the end, Congress approved the funding, new public facilities began to pop up in the bigger cities, and the television networks high fived all ‘round.

Cas was proud of his work to build public awareness and gain acceptance. But he washed his hands and rolled his eyes at the whole convention circuit. To Cas that was just Dean scratching his itches.

NOW:

Dean sucked down the two fingers of whiskey like it was mother’s milk. Yikes, that’s a gross analogy, he thought. Even his thoughts were starting to slur and lose coherence. The scene in his head wasn’t fading though. It ran on repeat, over and over and over again:

Dean had just been waking up on the sofa, feeling sore and deliciously relaxed—feeling balanced and solid, and—Fuck!—really fucking sore. Cas, as usual, hadn’t held anything back. Dean’s ass and the backs of his thighs were bruised. Beautiful, beautiful marks from his Dom. Like kisses. Like a brand. Dean had hissed as he reached around and touched the hot flesh of his ass. He’d managed to gain his feet and stumble to the bathroom to pee and check the damage to his back. Cas had applied bandages, and Dean knew there’d be hell to pay if he removed them. He sighed at the missed opportunity to see the artistry and just let them be.

There was a pounding at the door. Dean painfully pulled his sweats back up over his ass. He opened the door to find Meg, out of breath.

“Thank god!” she over-emoted.

Seriously, he hadn’t been in hiding. Dean was certain his short nap hadn’t girded him enough to handle Meg yet.

Thank god?

She shoved her way in, saying, “Cas’ True-Mate is here at The Facility. She’s here right now! It’s going down RIGHT NOW! Dean, he’s Triggered.” Meg was getting hysterical, but Dean had grown cold and still. “Dean! Did you hear me?! You gotta come, man! He isn’t going to listen to anyone but you. I saw him. His eyes were, like solid red. He’s lost it. He’s going to hurt someone. Wait, where are you going?”

Dean had turned on his heel. His head was buzzing, and his heart was pounding in his ears. He walked away from the hysterical beta. He entered the bedroom, grabbed his clothes, which a disconnected part of his brain registered had been laundered since yesterday afternoon. God, Cas really thought of everything. He dressed without answering Meg’s question. She fell silent, trembling by the door, the room full of tension that he didn’t try to comprehend.

Dean tied his boots in place, grabbed his keys from the side table and met Meg at the door. “Let me get this straight,” he addressed her much more calmly than he felt. “Cas Triggered. He’s meeting and Mating his True-Mate right now?”

“That’s what I said! Dude, you don’t need your keys. Just, c’mon before there’s blood everywhere.”

Meg’s face fell slack with disbelief when Dean nodded firmly, and then walked past her and out the exit turnstile nearby. She hovered in the doorway, unmoving, but Dean just kept walking without looking back. He started up his car and silently apologized to his Baby when her tires peeled on the roadway as he hit the blacktop outside. It wasn’t Baby’s fault, but it was time for a drink.

Hours later, he was definitively sloshed and mumbling nonsense into his chronically empty glass. “Zeke! C’mon man. ‘Nother one.”

Snockered may have been a better word.

Zeke hung up the phone and looked over his shoulder at Dean, his eyes full of pity. The fuck? “Sorry, Dean. I’m cutting you off. Sam’s on his way to pick you up, take you home to sleep it off. If I put a glass of water in front of you, you gonna drink it or toss it at me?” Dean just looked back at him, his eyes red and swollen. “Thought so.” Zeke turned away, saying softly over his shoulder, “Just be sure to get some water in you before you pass out, alpha, or you’re gonna hate yourself.”

(Too late), Dean’s wolf pointed out, as Dean lay his head on the cool wooden bar.

JUST BEFORE NOW:

“This isn’t a good idea,” Benny repeated. Cas was alone in the scent room. The fans had been turned on and the electrodes attached to his chest recorded his powerful response to the young Omega’s scent. They all agreed, when the electrodes’ receptors spiked off the chart that leaving the room had been the safe thing to do. If Cas had been difficult to control with just a whiff of Omega scent in the hallway, he would’ve been completely unmanageable when hit with her full, unmitigated odor. Her heart rate was likewise off the chart.

Based on the readings, the two wolves were unmistakably True-Mates. The Omega’s familial alpha had signed the release ceding her ownership to Castiel, a formality that wasn’t legally required, but smoothed the path to full ownership after the bite. Billie found the Andersons a comfortable room to await news of the outcome, although she warned them their daughter wouldn’t be available for them to visit for days at the very least. Nevertheless, they settled in to wait.

Cas and his Omega were both dripping with lust and ready to go, but the team had unearthed a … snag.

Seventeen-year-old April Anderson was dropped off that morning by her parents for her Keller test. The test hadn’t even started, and in fact her parents were barely out of the parking lot, when April began showing mating-response signs. Now, with a Dominant Alpha pacing within a locked room, his nostrils full of the scent of his mate and muttering “Mine” over and over again while searching for a weakness in the cinderblock-enforced wall, the staff was discussing how to manage the Keller test the young girl still lacked without getting them all killed by said Alpha.

“He’s going to be pissed when he finds out we made him wait just so she could be knotted by two others before we let him out of the room.”

“Yeah, thanks, Cole.” Sam rolled his eyes. “He’s going to be pissed anyway, and if we don’t go ahead and run the test, he may never be capable of letting anyone else near her. He can’t do the test all by himself. We need three different individuals, or we can’t build the chart.”

What had started as a research project—running Kellers on volunteer Canids to gather data—developed rapidly into a community service for all wolves to verify their Tertiary gender. The process couldn’t take place until the individual reached full sexual maturity, usually about three to five years after Presenting a Secondary gender at the onset of adolescence. The Keller test involved putting the test subject through three rounds of penetrative sex, fully to completion with fluid exchange and knotting (when alphas were involved), and then evaluating their vitals, hormone levels, behaviors, and physical responses.

It was a brilliant process, virtually fool-proof when proctored by a competent doctor. Dr. Harvelle was the best. Under her administration, a whole population of Lupins were being carefully directed to exactly the course of care and balancing that was right for them. Without the test, the special proclivities that came with the Tertiary gender were anyone’s guess. Guessing wrong had proven fatal to some wolves. Bobby, Benny, Cas, and Dean had partnered in expanding the scope of The Facility to give all wolves a safe, clean, and reliable place to learn their own special needs definitively. It was their life’s mission. There was no way Castiel Novak, visionary of the project, was going to allow his own mate to skip the crucial life-saving test.

Unless.

“You know, True-Mates are pretty much always a perfect fit with their partner,” Bobby interjected. “We know Cas’ Tertiary gender is Profound Dominant, and his Secondary is Deep Alpha. Maybe we can let them go ahead and Mate. I mean, if she’s for Cas, then she’s, what… Profound Sub and Deep Omega, right? Do we really need the test? If it’s important to him, he can schedule her later.”

“We have to ask Cas what he wants to do.” Sam was decisive as he slid off the desk he’d been perched on. “I’m going to talk to him.”

“Be careful, Sam!” Jo called after him, but no one made a move to stop him.

Sam stood outside the door, listening through the intercom. High-pitched huffs, growls, and occasional shifting of furniture sounded through the speaker. “Alpha?” he called softly. Cas responded immediately.

“Sam? Let me out right now!” A thump whumped against the door. “Where is she, what’ve you done with her?!” He sounded close to tears.

“Alpha, I can have her ready for you as soon as you say, but I have to ask you a question first. Can I, I mean, do you think I can talk to your uh, your doctor side or your Alpha, not your wolf? Alpha, it’s important for your mate. For April.”

“April? My mate’s name is April?”

“Cas, FOCUS! Please, Alpha, just listen to me.” Sam was beginning to doubt this plan would work.

“Samuel! Speak!” Cas ordered, clearly gritting his teeth in effort, clearly still in his wolf. Yeah, so here goes nothing. Sam expected at the very least to be looking for a new job tomorrow.

“You see, Alpha, she hasn’t had her Keller test yet. That’s why she’s here today. You were actually scheduled to anchor for her, you know, but now... Well, we, we all think we should go ahead with the test as planned. That way you can still anchor, finish up with a Mating-Claim, not just a Claim-Fuck like usual. The data will all still be usable, and you’ll start your lives together with all the information available to you to give her everything she needs. What d’ya think? Alpha?”

Cas had gone too quiet. A couple of minutes dragged by. Snuffling noises meant Cas was still right by the intercom, but Sam couldn’t guess his state of mind. He was about to give up when he heard Cas whisper, “Who?”

Sam knew this was the most dangerous part. If Cas allowed the test, but then lost it later when his wolf wanted revenge on anyone who’d touched his mate, people could get hurt. “Who do you want, Alpha? It’s your call. Who can you live with?”

“I, I think Garth for the first tranche,” whispered the Alpha, his voice shaky. “Then, Dean. I would be okay with Dean.”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief to hear Garth’s name. The beta was mild and sweet, he was impossible to be angry with or jealous of. He’d treat April well and kindly. But Dean. Choosing Dean was fraught with danger. Dean was cocky and assertive and hypersexual, plus he and Castiel worked side-by-side every day. And of course, there was that thing between them, that not quite relationship. It would be an explosion waiting to happen. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, Dean had taken off. Sam had an inkling where he was, which, if correct, would mean Dean was likely too soused to test anyway.

Sam had another idea.

“Dean’s gone for the day, Alpha. I think he’s probably drinking. Would you let me do it in his place? You know I’m careful. I promise not to fuck this up. Can you wait that long? We can push through quicker if you need us to.” A pause. “Alpha?”

“Dean’s drinking? He left … me?” Castiel’s voice sounded bereft, and Sam didn’t know what else to do. He needed to get Castiel’s mind off Dean.

“Alpha? Let me. I won’t let you down, I promise.”

There was a pause. Then, “Sam. Yes, I’ll wait. I’ve got hold of the wolf now. I need some water. Please. Sam, please be careful. Don’t hurt her. I…I can wait. I can weather this. I’ve waited this long to find my mate, I… can hold him for a while longer. Just, please Sam. Don’t hurt her…” Cas’ voice faded away with a whoomph that sounded like his legs had given way. Sam could picture him sitting against the wall below the intercom. A rush of sympathy filled him. The melodrama was quite unlike the great Alpha. He had to be significantly outside of himself to sound like a teenaged drama queen.

Sam turned to see Jo striding up with a bottle of water and a key. She unlocked just the tray slide and pressed the water through. Standing back up and grabbing Sam by the hand, she pulled him down the hall with her.

“Charlie’s getting April,” she explained while tugging him along. “Garth’s already in the Green room. Mom’s working out how much time she needs between sets. Usually, there’s about two hours between each round, but you know…Cas is already impatient. I can’t believe you pulled that off.” She glanced back at him severely. “Wouldn’t wanna be you right now though. Don’t fuck up is putting it mildly.”

Sam huffed and followed her into the control room.

“You heard?” he asked Ellen when they walked in, but it was Jo who answered.

“We had the intercom feed on. That was fuckin’ brilliant, right Mom?” Jo winked, and Sam rolled his eyes.

“Language, JoAnna Beth, please,” Ellen responded. Turning to Sam, her tone turned serious. “Sam, Garth’s going to try to work quickly. We think that making April wait as long as we have will help. We think we can start your round after just half-an-hour. She should be able to respond to both of you, even on a compressed timeline. Charlie is explaining everything to her now. I messaged Charlie while you were talking to Cas, and she’s onboard. She says the girl’s anxious and horny, but okay. Sounds like we’re a go, but it all depends on you. Garth’s got it easy. After waiting so long, April will willingly bend over for anyone with a dick on the first round. After that’s worn off though, she’s not going to be as receptive to you. You’re not mate, and she’ll know it. You will have to be assertive. No hesitation, none of your sweetness. You have to get in there and take her hard and fast, understand?

“Yeah, I get it.” Sam got it. He knew the risks. He just didn’t have a choice. Dean was gonna feel the rough side of Sam’s paddle when the dust cleared though. Sam was absolutely sure of that.

“She’s ready. Again.” called Charlie through the intercom. She mumbled the last word under her breath, but everyone heard it. Finally. There were other projects going today. There were classes and seminars scheduled. There was supposed to be a Board meeting. There were other Omegas matriculating into Eval and Training. There were three other Keller tests on the docket, but everything had come to a screeching halt over the Mating of Dr. Castiel Novak, heart and soul and spirit behind The Facility. Known and loved by all, he was their Alpha. His longterm failure to Mate had been a worry on everyone’s mind through the years. Today was a big deal. No one wanted to be left out.

Sam took up a spot in the Green room. He fluffed Garth’s cock casually, speaking to him softly. The first round was a milk run: if the testee was an Omega, the first round just called for him or her to be fucked. Simple. Didn’t need to knot, so a beta would do. Didn’t need to Claim, so it didn’t have to be a Dom.

The testers’ designations were fed into the computer along with the sensors’ readings, and the algorithm did the rest: Did she submit to a beta-Neutral? The algorithm factored in a certain weight toward her level of Submissiveness. Did she try to Dominate an alpha-Sub? Easy calculation for the computer program. It needed a certain number of variables though. That’s why three rounds were required. Sometimes the findings were obvious, just validation of what everyone already knew. The sensors didn’t lie though. Some Subs tried to pass themselves as Doms. The computer caught them every time, and the subsequent training taught them why it’s harmful to try to escape their true designations.

“Okay, Garth. You’re up. She’s in place. You’ve got this, man. Go get ‘er.” Sam shoved Garth gently toward the door. Cole pulled it open when the light flashed green, and Garth walked through.

The room was brightly lit. It was large enough to serve multiple purposes and hold a variety of instruments and equipment. Garth walked purposefully to the bed in the center. Both he and the girl were naked. She lay on her back watching him approach and writhing. There was a soft mewling sound coming from her throat, and her eyes were lust-blown.

She’d been fully aroused for over an hour waiting to be taken, waiting to be Mated, and in her lust, she was beautiful. Garth wasted no time. This was not his mate, it was just his job. Everyone on staff took turns in Keller testing. No one could skip an assignment based on their own sexual orientation or gender.

In essence, the way it worked was, Dr. Harvelle referenced the tables and determined which designations were ideal to evaluate a particular candidate, reviewed the staff options and made assignments. When your assignment came up, you fucked or bent over to take the fucking. Whoever, however, whenever. It was not a bad gig for a wolf. A Canid’s libido was roughly five times that of even the randiest primate, and they weren’t capable of an internal sense of sexual shame from their Tertiary aspects. Sexual congress for a Lupin was both less and more important than for a primate.

But we digress. There’s fucking going on.

Garth mounted the bed from the end and crawled awkwardly on hands and knees up to where the girl lay. Her eyes tracked him, but she made no move to reach out to him or to push him away. She showed no fear or revulsion. Her pulse quickened and her breath became shallow. Garth knew careful notes were being taken. Every sensor was recording every signal her body put out. Some were reading his own responses as well, for calibration purposes. It was all very complicated.

Garth leaned gently over her and kissed her mouth, testing. He caressed her cheek softly. She shifted her head into the touch and spread her legs just a bit. He reached down and guided his hard cock to her soft folds. This time would be missionary position and vaginal penetration. Garth pressed in with his hips until he encountered the barrier. She squeaked minutely, and then gasped loudly and moaned as her hymen broke.

Ah, shit, thought Garth. She’s a virgin. Was a virgin. Jesus, Cas is going to kill me. Too late now, he thought, and he began to fuck her in earnest.

It really wasn’t sexy at all, just a routine test fuck. Garth pumped mildly in and out until the friction built in his cock. The Omega made almost no noise after her initial deflowering, but she breathed more and more heavily and squeezed her eyes shut. Just before Garth toppled over and spilled inside her, he felt her vaginal walls pulse and squeeze his cock as her orgasm throbbed through the warmth surrounding him. He followed her, pumping through his release until they were both spent and semen leaked out around his flagging cock.

Garth gently guided her chin up until she looked him in the eyes. She was flushed and open. She was catching her breath, but murmured a soft, “Thank you, beta.” Garth smiled sweetly down at her. Kissed a benediction to her nose and her forehead, checked again that she was okay. She looked happy. He pulled out of her warmth, climbed off the bed and left the room without another glance. Aftercare was not his role.

Charlie entered the room on the heels of Garth’s departure. She carried a strange electronic meter about the size of a large cell phone. Lights on it blinked, and occasionally it beeped. Charlie spoke soothingly to the Omega while passing the meter in the air all around her body, pausing a bit near her head, her breasts, each armpit, her groin, and near her feet.

When she finished, she glanced at the one-way glass, just a mirror from this side, and evidently received a response of some kind, for she nodded and tucked the meter into its holster on her hip. Then she pulled an orange juice bottle from a small fridge in the room and brought over a blanket. Charlie climbed right into the bed next to the girl in her elastic foot-coverings, pulling the blanket over both of them. She cracked open the juice, put one arm around her young charge, and helped her to drink it.

“You did great, sweetness,” Charlie cooed softly. She smiled and continued, “We’ll give you about half-an-hour to rest. If you need a toilet, I’ll take you. You hungry?” The girl shook her head, took another sip of juice and snuggled in.

“Is it time for me to meet him?” she asked Charlie with big eyes, trusting completely.

“Not yet,” Charlie reminded her. “You have one more test round before you get to see your mate. You’ll like Sam. He’s nice, and he’ll be good to you.”

The Omega huffed sulkily. She’d waited a long time. It had felt like hours of beating her fists against the changing room door while Charlie did her best to calm her. Merely knowing that her True-Mate was just outside the door and she couldn’t reach him had exhausted the girl. She didn’t want to wait, but she was tired. She slipped into an easy sleep while Charlie held her close and stroked her stomach with the lightest possible touch.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“How ‘bout you in the tan shirt, on the end of the row.” Benny pointed him out, then waited for the microphone to make its way to the young man. He looked Simian from up at the front of the seminar classroom.

“Uh, yeah, hi. Thanks for coming all the way out to Maryland,” the man began. They all acknowledged his politeness with a nod. “I’m a senior here studying Public Relations. I was wondering if you could explain the difference between a Domination-Bond and a Claim-Fuck and why you don’t consider them rape.” His blush was visible from the front of the room, and Benny thought it adorable. Benny heard Bobby shift at the end of the panel table and deferred to him with a gesture. The question really touched on both Benny’s and Bobby’s areas of expertise, so it didn’t matter which of them answered.

“That’s an important question, young man,” began Bobby. “For wolves, as you no doubt already know, sex is not just a matter of pleasure, intimacy, procreation, connection, or love expression as it is for primates. Of course, it serves all of those purposes in our intimate private relationships with our special loved ones, but for us as a community, sex is one of two essential means of establishing hierarchy in our Packs—um, the other being corporal punishment. And hierarchy is the core of establishing a Balanced stable state of mind for individual wolves.

“Now, there is no such thing as a Domination-Bond, as you put it. There’s the Domination-Fuck…” Bobby interrupted himself parenthetically with a wave of his hand. “For all of you Primates who don’t like that word, I hate to be blunt, but the door’s over there. It’s a perfectly serviceable word, and there’s not another one that means the same thing, so if you’re going to stay, get used to the word Fuck. Say it out loud with me.” Bobby pointed out into the audience and gestured like an orchestra conductor. Everyone spoke on cue, all together.

“FUCK!”

There was laughter.

“One more time:”

“FUCK!”

Bobby nodded, satisfied.

“Good, okay, that’s out of the way. Where was I?” The audience and the other panel members were still laughing as he picked the thread back up.

“Right, the DF… Stay with me here, it’s a little complicated. A Domination-Fuck asserts or reasserts the hierarchy between two individuals in a way that creates a chemical response, a hormone release, in both of their bodies which reinforces the hierarchy. It’s a means for the Top to put the Bottom in their place. He used finger-quotes to clarify. “It keeps uncertainty out of the interactions between them, but it doesn’t create a permanent metaphysical bond between them after the act is completed. Domination-Fucks are used a lot during Omega or Sub training to help keep the student in the right state of mind to be receptive to the staff. Many traditional families also use the practice at home as part of their Pack Discipline regimen.

“The Claim-Fuck, or CF for short, is different in that it creates a very real and measurable, although usually temporary, chemical and metaphysical connection, or bond, between the two individuals that they carry with them when the act is over. The Mating-Claim, which involves the act of placing a scarring bite upon the Bottom’s body during the act of aggressive fucking, is the most intense version of Claim-Fucking, and is of course, permanent. Claim-Fucking is an act of domination and aggression, not sexual pleasure. It has a great deal in common with the Simian concept of rape, in that it’s most definitely more about power play than about sexual satisfaction. It is exclusively hierarchical in purpose. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s the staking of ownership of one wolf over another.

“I guess, CFs have that in common with the Dominance-Fuck too,” he added, looking at his colleagues for a confirmation nod, “but here’s the difference between these two practices and rape: The Claim-Fuck only produces a viable bond, and the Dom-Fuck only provides a sense of stability between them if the Bottom submits willingly to the Top. For wolves, the act of domination, done with respect, authority, and healthy intent, triggers the release of a variety of powerful hormones and body responses that then trigger responding releases within the willing Submissive.

“If the appropriate authority to Dominate or Claim is not present, and if the Submissive isn’t capable of rolling, there’s no connection. And in this case, when I say submissive, I really mean whoever’s the Bottom at the time. Depending upon the relationship, Tops and Bottoms can and do switch when appropriate. In our facilities, we monitor all testing and training interactions closely for signs of distress hormone from the Bottoms. Everyone receives assertiveness and self-defense training so we can keep one another safe. Omegas and Subs are trained that they have full agency over their own willingness when it comes to Tops who don’t have authority over them.

“For instance, as an alpha, I can’t grab a strange Omega on the street, knot her against her will, and produce a Claim-bond between us. Behaving in that way is rape—pure and simple. But if she is in an im-Balanced state and her custodial alpha stakes a claim over her body, she will Submit willingly. Then even though the act is aggressive, the outcome is very different. One is harmful and destructive. The other brings peace, mindfulness, stability.”

NOW:

There was already a battle underway when Sam opened the control room door. Voices, all raised, hit him from several directions at once. A smaller man might have stepped back, blown backward into the hall at the volume, but Sam wasn’t small. He slipped through without being much noticed and let the sound sink in, trying to figure out the cause of the ruckus.

“Second round. We’ve been over this. She needs a knot! Period!” Bobby had a vein standing prominent in his neck. They were all stressed.

“She’s covered without a knot, I’m telling you, Sam’s dominant enough to make up the difference! Jesus, just let me do my job!”

“Cas picked Sam—and Garth, come to think of it. You wanna be the one to tell him we swapped ‘em for someone else?! To Claim-Fuck his mate? You’re suicidal, Bobby.” Jo was definitely pushing the boundaries of acceptable discourse to a superior, but everyone was stressed.

“You wanna try to explain to him later that we hafta start the whole rigamarole all over again ‘cause the data’s fucked?” Bobby turned on Jo. Jo just huffed and headed for the door muttering under her breath. Bobby wasn’t having it. “Wanna say that loud enough for the whole class?” he used his alpha voice.

“I said, It’s your funeral,” Jo shot back and disappeared through the door.

Benny was slouched down in a rolling office chair in the corner with one hand on his brow. “Where the fuck is Dean? We need ‘im for this. Hey, Sam!” shot Benny, noticing him standing there with wide eyes, his checklist loose in his hand at his side. “You seen Dean? Can you fetch him, brother? This is right down his alley. It’s gonna be a clusterfuck without him.”

“Uh, yeah. I see that. No, actually I haven’t seen Dean since yesterday morning. I heard he took off, and my calls are going straight to voicemail.” Sam looked around at the group, noting the tension hadn’t abated at all. “I think I know where he is, but he’s probably not in any condition to work a Keller at the moment…or maybe even his own feet.”

“Can anyone here really say they’re surprised?” Bobby added. “He’s had it bad for the Alpha for so long, I’m surprised he even still eats off his own fork sometimes. No way he was gonna handle this, not without some liquid enhancement.”

“What do you need Sam?” Ellen looked up dolefully, her face was flushed and her eyes a bit glazed. “Shouldn’t you be fluffing by now?”

“Uh, it’s the checklist, Ellen.” Sam seemed hesitant to bring it up in front of two Directors. “It’s blank. Did you maybe give me the wrong one? We could just talk it through?” He looked around the room, noting that Benny and Bobby both had hard eyes on Ellen. “Or, uh, maybe you’ve laid it out somewhere, and I just picked up the blank one by mistake…” Sam trailed off for a moment. Benny had sat up straight and was nailing Ellen with his eyes. He looked…intense. “Like, just let me know, are we going vaginal or anal on this one? And do I do a full CF, or just my usual Dominance? Is she gonna have a plug in?”

“Ellen?” Benny broke in, one eyebrow at full attention and his mouth a hard line.

Dr. Harvelle was flustered and searching around the desk where she kept her forms but didn’t come up with anything. She didn’t meet Benny’s eye. He resumed, “Did you send Sam into a test with Alpha’s True-Mate with no instructions?”

“Of, of course not, alpha…It’s just… here somewhere…it all happened so fast. I know I did it. I. Maybe…” She stopped and looked at the floor. Her face had gone pale.

“Is that why Garth didn’t know he had a virgin on his hands? Christ, woman! This is not just any Omega!” Bobby shouted at her, and she cowered.

“Hold up!” Sam held a hand up between them. “Ellen,” he started, kneeling and speaking as kindly as he could. “When was your last Release? Are you overdue?”

Ellen looked up at him, stricken. Without speaking, she reached into her desk drawer for her phone. They waited while she pulled up the Lupin App that Omegas used to track their Balance adjustments, among other things. She was muttering to herself and shaking a bit. “It’s not been that…I mean, I know I had an appointment with…” Ellen sucked in a breath when the calendar came up on the screen. Balefully, she admitted, “It’s been three weeks, Sir.” She met his eyes, knowing she was in trouble.

Benny took over. “What’s your schedule? Every two weeks, right?” Ellen nodded slowly. “So, you’ve been administering a highly technical and complicated test to extremely vulnerable Lupins for a week outside of your schedule and you didn’t think to mention it?!” Yeah, Benny was pissed. “You could’ve damaged somebody, Omega! You could’ve done something unfixable! What happened!?”

“My Dom was sick,” she murmured, almost too softly to hear. “He was sick, and we were going to reschedule, and then I…forgot.” She finished speaking and looked down. There was nothing more to say.

Bobby stood. “Sam, to answer your questions: it’s anal, expect her to be untouched, come inside her, full Release if you can swing it. And yes, it’s a CF with full Domination. You need to cow her and Claim her. You can’t knot her,” he glanced meaningfully at Ellen but didn’t resume his previous argument, “So you gotta give her all you got. No holds barred. Also, use a bit of pain to tweak her. I think you should see if you can draw her out without touching her clitoris. You got it?” He looked at Sam intently until Sam nodded. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then glanced at the empty form in his hand, tossed it unceremoniously onto the desk in front of Dr. Harvelle, turned to the door and disappeared without a word.

Bobby turned his attention to Benny. “You want to take care of this, I take it?” Benny nodded decisively. Bobby regarded him for just a moment, then turned the doorknob and said over his shoulder, “I’ll send Cole in. You’ll need it documented.” And he left pulling the door closed behind him.

Ellen seemed to realize just how much shit was about to splatter across the proverbial fan, and she shrunk down a little in her chair, her eyes on the curled papers Sam had left.

“Who’s your Dom?”

“Travis,” she said softly.

Benny scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Of course, … And who’s your alpha?”

Ellen looked up sharply at this question, surprised that he’d asked. “Jo.” Her response was weighted with disbelief. Omega custody always fell to familial alpha unless Mating or a court order altered it. Benny knew who her alpha was. It had to be a test of Ellen’s capacity for rational thought.

Benny held her eye with a razor-sharp glare. “Your daughter let you get this far out of Balance?”

“Alpha…” she protested, then realized she had nothing. “Uh, it’s not like…I mean, she didn’t…know,” she finished up lamely, looking back at her feet. Shoelaces suddenly seemed very interesting.

The door opened, and Cole stepped in, looking expectant and eager. Benny didn’t give him an opportunity to speak. He held his hand out in expectation and waited a moment. “Hand me your paddle,” he said, when Cole seemed slow on the uptake. Cole’s hand strayed protectively to the elongated pocket down the outside of his jeans leg. He looked baffled. Borrowing an Enforcement Officer’s paddle was much like asking to borrow a policeman’s sidearm, and Cole didn’t want to comply. One look at Benny’s face convinced him the normally laid back alpha was in no mood to argue. Benny smirked humorlessly and raised one eyebrow. That eyebrow said, “Or else…”

“Uh,” Cole said shrewdly. He balked for just a moment, then produced the paddle and laid it, handle first, in Benny’s outstretched hand. Benny’s smirk deepened to smugness. He silently congratulated himself on killing two birds with one stone.

Beta-Doms had a well-earned reputation for being overbearing alpha-wannabe’s, and Cole was starting to fall into the trap of throwing his weight around, demanding attention and obeisance without the alpha authority to back it up. Really, it just made him a prick. Benny felt it was time to knock the beta down a peg. If only they could all be like Sam, he thought. Sam’s sense of protectiveness and care seemed to extend to everyone around him, especially Omegas. He was the most popular trainer and EO at The Facility. Even after having their backsides busted until they wailed, the Omegas he’d paddled adored him. He cared so much about them, and they respected, no, loved him for it. Cole was no Sam. Not yet anyway, maybe not ever.

“Keep the record for me,” Benny instructed him. “Also,” he swung the paddle loosely, “Make a note in the record to follow up with Travis and Jo. This whole episode reeks.” Benny turned to Ellen who hadn’t moved, while Cole sputtered a bit behind him. Benny ignored him. He knew Cole would obey. “I’ll catch up with those two later. Right now, I’m going to set you back to rights.” Benny lifted Ellen’s chin until she met his eye. She looked ashamed. Good. “I’m going to take care of you, Doctor.” His voice was not loud, but there was iron in it. Ellen nodded as much as his grip allowed.

“On your feet. Turn around. Clear the desk.” He was suddenly all business. Cole shuffled around a bit by the door, getting his cell phone in order. Sulking. Benny gave Ellen enough time to make a clean space on the desk. “Kick your shoes off and put your palms flat on the desk.” She complied wordlessly.

“Why am I about to paddle your ass into next week?” Benny’s voice was mild. He might’ve just been curious, but his hands were businesslike and efficient as he lifted the back of her skirt and tucked it into the top of her blouse, catching it on her bra strap. He edged the fingers of his left hand under the elastic of her panties and swept them to her ankles.

Ellen answered at once. She was already steadier, the tension sloughing off her like a flush of water. “I skipped my adjustment appointment, and I, um, I got flustered and confused. And I could have hurt someone?”

“That’s right,” agreed Benny, bringing the paddle powerfully down into sharp contact with the lower half of her right cheek, right where the crease with her thigh marked the bottom of her ass. It was meant to sting and throb. Heat suffused quickly through Ellen. She sucked in a quick breath and lowered her head between her arms, bracing herself for the long haul. “This behavior is not acceptable from you,” he reminded her conversationally, applying another swing with a pop to the exact same spot. Ellen held position but squeezed her eyes shut. “You don’t have the luxury of slipping up, Omega. Too many vulnerable people rely on your good judgment. Yes?” He swung again. Ellen whimpered but answered with a nod. “All right, then. Let’s get this done.”

Benny began a steady, hard rhythm. It went on for several minutes. He struck the same spot over and over again, never varying the speed, intensity, or location. Ellen struggled to get her breath right. Just when she let a breath out, another blow would land, and she’d suck in with no control. She feared hyperventilating, but Benny was watchful, and Ellen’s panic was unnecessary. The stinging burn built and spread from her backside into her middle. She could feel the building Release. She focused on it with all her might, trying to grab it and force it to explode. The strikes kept landing. Benny had nothing more to say. Ellen was on her toes, pressure in every breath and muscle building as each hit popped and echoed in the small room. It seemed to go on forever.

Finally, the heat began to crescendo. Ellen keened and dropped her head onto her hands, offering her ass fully to the will of the alpha behind her. The Release, when it came, took her breath away. It spread with a concussion out from her center and into every part of her body. She shuddered and groaned, low and deep, and loud. Benny landed one more strike for good measure. He flexed his arm and handed the paddle back to Cole.

Ellen was bent flat over the desk, panting into her folded arms. Her right butt cheek was practically glowing red, slightly abraded, sure to bruise.

“Better?” asked Benny.

“Yes, alpha,” breathed the doctor.

“All right, cher. You’re okay now. Just breathe for me. Get yourself together.” Benny released the back of her skirt and retrieved her underpants from where she’d kicked them across the room. He handed them to her. “Look at me, sweetness.” She looked up through tear-filled eyes. “Can you do this now? Or do I need to get Charlie to finish the test?”

“NO! I mean,” she lowered her gaze and found herself a tissue from the box in the corner of her desk. “I can do it. I just. I didn’t realize it had gotten so bad.” She swung her head from side to side. “I honestly just forgot. I haven’t done that before.” She looked up at him again. “It won’t happen again, sir. Forgive me?”

“You’re forgiven Omega. We still need to take care of your punishment, but let’s get Cas hitched first. The rest will keep.” Benny was back to his calm, soothing self. He wasn’t angry at Ellen, but both knew that an infraction this potentially dangerous couldn’t be allowed to pass with just a Balance adjustment. Ellen’s Release may have restored her equanimity, but she had yet to atone for the mistake. That would be a very different spanking.

With her head pulled back out of the fog and her body fully under her own control again, Ellen slid her panties back into place and retook her seat. If she leaned to her left a bit, well, she needed to list to port for the moment. She met Cole’s eye and nodded. He typed a quick response into his cell phone, then held it out for Benny to sign the screen.

“Am I excused, alpha?” Cole huffed.

“You can go,” Benny gruffed at him. “But Cole, we’re gonna have a chat later.” Cole blanched, mumbled an almost respectful response, and fled. Benny let him go. Priorities. As the Facility’s Director of Behavioral Studies, Benny was responsible for the EOs. The Enforcement Officers reported to him directly. He was beginning to regret hiring Cole. It looked like he wasn’t suited to the job. Not like Sam. Sam spoiled his boss. In the same position, Benny mused, Sam would’ve accepted the alpha’s decision, monitored the punishment dutifully, giving it his full attention, and offered the Omega comfort when it was over. Sam operated on compassion and instinct. Cole just seemed to want to hit people.

Enough.

Benny texted Bobby and discovered that, as exciting as Cas’ Mating was, Bobby had picked up the dropped reins that were needed to keep The Facility running. Someone had to keep the lights on. In the short time since he left Benny, he had contacted the Board members and cancelled the meeting, rescheduled the afternoon classes, and checked in on the other recently enrolled Omegas.

Good.

Next, Benny called in to the Green room and spoke to Jo.

“Yep. He’s fluffed and ready. Get a move on though, he’s growling at me,” Jo sassed.

Thin ice, young alpha, thought Benny, but he let that go too (for now), and he turned to the room beyond the one-way window. Ellen was speaking softly into her intercom, talking to Charlie. She looked up and caught Benny’s eye. Her gaze was clear and steady if a little tight. She was back. She nodded. Everyone was ready. Benny returned her nod and stepped back, crossing his arms and leaning his butt against one of the narrow tables full of monitoring equipment. Normally, a number of assistants helped out in here, but Dr. Harvelle could run this room by herself, and Benny wanted to observe her at work.

Benny couldn’t help the self-recrimination running through his mind. Dean would have handled this all smoothly and so much faster. How much had Castiel and his new mate suffered because Benny, not Dean, had been running the show. But then, he reminded himself, when shit got real, Benny stayed and slogged through. Dean had fled. Benny sighed. He couldn’t blame Dean at all. He was only human. A certain aspect of this Mating felt like a death in the family.

Benny’s train of thought stopped when the light above the door turned green and the door inside the test room burst open. Sam came through like a rhino bent on destruction. He wasn’t sultry or seductive, he was decisive. He was a conqueror. Ellen shivered a bit, her eyes on the Dominant approaching the bed, but she kept working, her hands moving easily across the monitors.

Sam was naked and glorious. His erection stood out from his groin, red and angry. His eyes blazed. He wasted no time. Taking hold of the Omega’s ankles he tugged, pulling her off the end of the bed while flipping her onto her belly. She yelped and grabbed for the headboard but missed.

“NO!” she shouted in a breathy high-pitched voice. “You’re not my mate!” The girl sobbed and kicked out at Sam, but he held her fast. He bent her across the end of the bed and leaned over her, biting her on the ear and growling, full of menace. His cock pushed up along her crack and he leaned deeper, pressing it into her.

“Be still!” he directed and the authority in his voice was unquestionable. She trembled but stopped struggling. His right hand took hold of her hip. His left held her firmly by the shoulder, more firmly than strictly necessary. The Omega whimpered again. It was pitiful, and she looked over her shoulder with wide eyes, but remained motionless otherwise. “Eyes front unless I tell you to look at me.” Sam was stern, commanding, and utterly in control. She snapped her head forward and closed her eyes for good measure.

In the control room Benny whispered, “Damn…” and blew out an impressed breath.

Sam didn’t look down or use either hand to line himself up. He rutted like a dog, fast, hard, and painful, searching by feel until his cock sank into her channel. She was swollen and slick, open and welcoming. Her ass embraced Sam’s groin, and she pushed back slightly at the feel. The Dominant slapped her ass and repeated, “Be still!”

She froze immediately.

Sam planted his feet, gripped her tight and plunged in, fucking deep and meaning business. The Omega went completely slack. Her body jolted and shifted with each punch. She had stopped trembling. Instead, a continuous punctuated moan emanated from deep in her throat, throbbing with the Dom’s hard thrusts. She curled her toes and went boneless.

The girl’s first orgasm brought with it a powerful Release from her Omega gland, the concussion visible to everyone watching and spiking the instruments under Ellen’s care. The second flooded her neocortex and her adrenal glands as the Claim landed. Wave after wave of hormone release reached out into the room and grabbed onto Sam’s as her conscious mind let go of all intent. The bond struck between them, and they both gasped, shocked at the recoil. Sam redoubled his efforts, rushing to completion.

He came with a howl as she reached her third climax on the aftershocks of the second. They screamed their release into the room, subsumed with pleasure. Then Sam collapsed on top of her and panted shallowly, his vision blacking out for a moment even as his cock slipped from her ass. It had taken no time at all. Or maybe it had taken hours. Sam didn’t know.

Ellen breathed out very slowly, glanced over her left shoulder at Benny and remarked, “That girl was a virgin an hour ago.”

Sam sucked in a breath and rolled off the Omega. April, he reminded himself. Her name was April. He pushed her hair gently behind her ear to get a look at the side of her face where it was tucked into her arms—to check if she was okay. The trembling had returned. Sam ran a hand firmly over her back. The bond between them lit with pleasure even as she leaned slightly into his touch. He chuckled softly. “Yeah,” he whispered just for her. “Me too.”

She peeked at him from over her arm, clearly uncertain. “It’s okay, April.” Sam continued his touch and helped with his other hand to accept the blanket Charlie held out to him. He leaned a little further onto his side, creating distance for her. “You’re fine. This was good. You were so good for me. Your Alpha is going to be pleased…so proud of you. You did great.” He eased her up and back onto the bed as he spoke gently into her ear and dragged the blanket along with them. He rubbed at her legs underneath the cover to check for stiffness and then moved on to her shoulders and arms when he found none. She was in good shape. She was strong and pliable. He found faint bruises on her shoulder and hip from his grip, but otherwise she was perfect.

“You’re perfect,” he told her.

Charlie moved calmly around the bed, wielding the peliomometer as she went. She hummed to herself with satisfaction. Glancing at the mirror for just a moment for some sign only she could see, she nodded and put it back in its holster. Charlie brought a chocolate bar and a cereal bar, holding them out for Sam to choose. He picked the chocolate, unwrapped it and fed April small pieces.

“What about my Alpha?” she asked timidly. “My mate? Is he going to be angry with me? Charlie said to let you… That is…” April began to worry herself into tensing up, shoving toward the end of the bed as if to flee the scene of her crime. “She said I should let you have me. Like that other beta, before. But you weren’t like him.” She was beginning to cry now, panicking in the wake of too many hormones, reaching toward Charlie. “Oh god! Oh, Charlie, what’d I do?!”

Sam shushed her quietly and eased her back down. Her bonded body responded and went easily, confusing her flustered mind. “Alpha’s not angry, sweet girl,” he assured her. Charlie stepped up and crawled onto the bed to bracket her, stroking her hair and murmuring sweet assurances in her ear. April stopped fighting and protesting. She slowly relaxed. Wide-eyed, she ate the small bits of chocolate that Sam fed her, and she began to listen to the comforting words they wrapped around her head like soporific balm. Slowly, she fell back to sleep.

In the booth, Ellen waved Benny over to look at the readings blinking on her monitor. As she slept, April’s slick production was beginning to go into overdrive, and her temperature was rising. A quick check of the readings from Cas’ electrodes showed that he too was starting to show the signs of a Triggered cycle. Benny grunted his acknowledgement. “We need to speed this up, get them Mated, and get them somewhere private. I don’t really want to have to watch these two at the height of their Heat and Rut. And once they’ve ramped all the way up, there’s no way we’re going to be able to move them to a private room.”

“You may not want to see it, alpha,” said Ellen flushing, “…but I kind of do. Just imagine Cas, in all his Dominance, completely unleashed.” Ellen’s eyes glazed over as her mind supplied images, “It’s going to be glorious.”

“It’s going to cost us a fortune in broken equipment if it all goes down in here.” Benny rolled his eyes. “How long before we can let Cas at her?”

“Her body needs at least another hour to process Sam’s Claim and rest.” Ellen responded.

“All right, then. Set the countdown clock. We’ll get Cas to the Green room in about thirty minutes. I don’t imagine he’ll need any fluffing.”

Ellen chuckled and thought, yeah, probably not.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“Hi, Dean! Hi, Sam!” she shouted into the mic cheerfully. “You’re my favorite, Sam, I want you to know. But my question is for Dean.” The two men shoved each other playfully on stage, ribbing good naturedly as if keeping score. “So, if you’re an alpha, but also a Sub, like, do you usually do the pitching or the catching in bed?”

Dean smiled in her direction, although he couldn’t really see her with the lights in his eyes. He considered the question a moment as if it weren’t the single most frequently asked question at conventions. “So, it really depends on the situation and the circumstances. When I’m working, it’s all about the needs of whoever I’m with, you know? When it’s play though…” he stopped and chuckled, a little abashed “I guess it still depends on who I’m with and what I’m looking for. I like to switch it up. A word of warning though for you alpha- and beta-Subs out there, and any Primates in the audience, this is for you too. Listen up. Anal sex is way more complicated for non-Omegas. If you don’t have a channel, you have to be very careful with this stuff. Before you play, get yourself trained. Don’t get hurt.”

Dean’s relationship with his boss—no, relationship wasn’t the right word—Dean’s intimacies with Dr. Novak were not a publicly disclosed thing. That was private. As far as the public knew, they were close friends and colleagues, although Dean was aware there was a subset of the fanbase that had begun a shipping campaign, insisting the two were closer than friends.

“Do you prefer one over the other, though?” she persisted.

“It’s actually kind of hard for me to know anymore.” Dean leaned forward on his stool, frowning in thought and deliberately avoiding his brother’s eye. There was judgment there. Dean could feel Sam poising to interrupt. He continued without giving Sam a chance to break in. “I spend so much of my professional time fucking…and being fucked,” he admitted with a tilt of his head. “…that I think my own personal needs are often met at work without trying. I can tell you that outside of work, I Bottom more than I Top, but if I wasn’t in this line of work, I mean, who knows, right?” Dean had no intention of relating just how rarely he wanted to Top his partner in his private life. That’s what Private meant after all.

Dean enjoyed showing off on stage. It was much more fun than those boring, interminable seminars Cas dragged him to. Honestly. How do you make talking about fucking up into someone’s ass so hard that slick literally splatters out into a boring subject? It’s like all those dullards had no sexual response whatsoever once you got them into a classroom. This, on the other hand, was awesome. Dean shifted his focus across the room to the microphone set up on the opposite side of the stage to listen to the next question.

“Hello, my name’s Janine. I’m a beta-Sub from Portland. My question is for both of you.” She paused to let them nod for her to continue. “So, I don’t have an alpha right now. My folks are both betas, we don’t have any other family close, and I’m single. I know there are Lupin centers opening all over the country, but Portland doesn’t have one yet. I’m kind of struggling ‘cause I can’t find a Dom who gets me. There’s a matching service, but they keep matching me up with pussies, uh sorry, excuse me…I mean, they keep matching me up with Doms who won’t go intense enough for me. Is that a big deal? Like, should I settle for what I can get, or…?” She trailed off, looking at the boys on the stage in misery.

Sam started first. “Hi, Janine. Thanks for your question. It was brave of you to ask, and it’s the kind of question that could wind up helping a lot of people, so I’m really grateful to you.” Dean nodded his agreement. “I want you to remember that you shouldn’t ever settle for care that isn’t right for you. Yes, it’s a big deal if you can’t get your bitch stroked the way she’s demanding. There’s a reason you feel those needs, and it’s really unhealthy for you to ignore them.” He fixed Janine with a stern look for even considering taking on a Dom that she didn’t respect. At least he hoped he was glaring at her. The lights were fucking blinding.

“Janine,” Dean broke in, “Do you have your Keller score?”

“Yes, alpha,” she answered promptly.

“And the matching service has it too?”

“Yes, sir. I included the full report with my application.”

“Dicks!” said Dean vehemently. He worked his jaw a bit and then glanced her way again. “It’s not an ACRI service, is it? It’s not us sending you pussies?”

“No, alpha,” she laughed. “It’s one of your competitors.”

Dean nodded in relief and went on, dodging the desire to trash the competition further. “Look, I know it’s hard to find a match sometimes, but Portland’s not that small. I know there’s gotta be someone who fits with you. What’s your Sub-rating, if you don’t mind telling me? …And my brother, and a thousand perfect strangers?”

“Um. I don’t mind. It’s um, that is, I’m a Profound, rating of fifteen.” She turned bashful when the audience laughed at Dean’s clowning.

“Yeah, no,” Dean remarked seriously. “That’s not so rare. You shouldn’t be having trouble. Are you in the one-on-ones later? We can make an assessment and give you some resources, get you squared away.”

“Yes, alpha. I have a ticket for one-thirty.”

“Great!” Dean enthused, winking at her cheekily, “I look forward to it.”

Sam broke back in, “Thanks Janine, see you in a bit. And for anyone else out there who’s having trouble finding a match. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT settle for less than you need. If you are having trouble getting it, contact us by website or phone call. It’s a free service. It really works. We have the most extensive networking system in the world, and we don’t fuck around with pussies!” Sam was pissed that the community services in so many places were still often lackadaisical and backward.

The audience broke into boisterous applause.

Yep, thought Dean, this is awesome.

NOW:

Moving Cas from the scenting room to the Green room was no easy task. He was irritated and impatient, barely holding his wolf back by the scruff of its neck, and he’d stripped his clothes off some time ago, unwilling to pretend at civility any longer. He was single-minded and completely lost in the mandates of anatomy and internal chemistry. It took four alphas, plus Cole, to escort him safely into the Green room with a minimum of property loss or personal injury. Castiel growled and snarled at everyone. Benny considered trying to fit a muzzle on him before the transfer but decided that would just piss him off.

The chemistry behind the True-Mate bond was not one that was fully understood yet. Many Lupins didn’t believe it really existed, writing the anecdotal evidence off as heat-of-the-moment Mating due to an alignment of Heats and Ruts that made Mating seem like a really good idea in the fog of the hormones. But those wolves hadn’t seen what the staff at The Facility had seen. Too often, wolves who weren’t anywhere near one another would go suddenly feral at a scent that had no effect on anyone else and make a beeline toward someone who was sprinting their direction as well. They would crash together, all teeth and claws and Claiming, Mating on the spot with no shame or hesitation, caring not a fig about who might be caught as an unwitting witness, and showing no regret afterward. When that happened, evaluations done on the pair later always showed a near perfect correlation of genders and proclivities, even down to the intangibles. The same Universe that made life so hard on the Canid species at times, clearly had a genuinely sappy heart as well to give them this. The problem was wolves had to be in scenting distance of each other to Trigger the reaction. There was no foolproof way to predict a match on paper yet. They could make educated guesses and get close, but the proof was still in the nostrils.

Castiel paced in the Green room, every muscle tensed. His cock was engorged and enormous. Slippery spots on the floor where he’d dripped pre-come were scattered from one side of the room to the other. His eyes were nearly completely red, and he kept one hand wrapped firmly around his erection as if ready to guide it to its target. He tried the door every time he passed it and huffed like a beast when it remained locked. He knew she was in there, and he only had one thought in his head.

Mate.

Ellen kept an eye on him through the closed-circuit feed. “Charlie, you and Jo clear out of there as soon as she’s in place. I don’t want anyone else in the room when he enters. We’ve got to trust that his instincts will keep them both safe until the bite takes hold.” There were instances they’d all read about where an alpha accidentally maimed his own mate once lost to the fever pitch of Rut and Mating drive. But this was Alpha. He wouldn’t hurt her. Castiel had never caused any injury that he didn’t intend. Ever. Property damage happened on occasion but never unintentional harm to a wolf. He was the ultimate ideal of a Dominant Alpha in control.

Charlie finished positioning her—belly down, resting on her shoulders, ass up, face pressed into the bedding, feet spread wide. She was a perfectly presented gift, and her mate should zero in on her ass as soon as he entered the room. The Omega writhed and moaned, turning her head to one side. “Hurts, Charlie,” she complained. “Everything’s on fire…please. I need…”

“Shhh, baby. You’re okay. You’re going into Heat. I know it hurts. Your Alpha’s coming. He’ll make it all better. Listen to me. He’s going to mount you, okay? It’ll feel weird at first. He’ll knot you, so it won’t be like Sam. It’ll be better. I promise. Way better.” She stroked April’s back softly and repositioned her backside where April had let it drop, trying to thrust her hips into the mattress in response to the Heat driving through her veins. “He’s going to bite you, and you’re gonna want him to. It’ll make you feel so much better. Don’t be scared if it hurts and bleeds when he does it. Just…let him. Promise me? Don’t fight him. Remember what I said. Listen to what your wolf wants you to do and do just that. Only that.”

“Okay, Charlie,” she replied in a tiny voice. Charlie scanned the room quickly, checking that all the instruments were set correctly and everything was in place. She gestured Jo out of the room and followed her into the control room. There was no way she was going to miss this.

The control room was packed. Everyone had the same idea. Bobby put his finger to his lips to remind the two women to avoid distracting Ellen from her work. Dr. Harvelle glanced around the room to make sure all was in readiness. Then she reached over with a shaking hand and released the door lock to the Green room, turning on the green light.

Everyone watching seemed to freeze and stop breathing in anticipation. Alpha-Dom Doctor Castiel Novak wasted no time. He threw open the door and burst through it. As expected, his eyes zeroed in on his target, and he was on her in a second, all motion and aggression. Completely feral, Alpha snarled and clawed at her body, manhandling her into the placement he wanted and shoving his cock as far in her channel as it would go. He mouthed at the back of her neck, chewing aggressively, but not breaking the skin. He shook her by the back of her neck with his teeth like a terrier with a rat. The Omega went completely pliable under his attentions.

One large hand circled around her small middle, pulling her body into his, and the other braced them both, straight-armed against the bed as he drove his cock into her, hard and fast and relentless. The growling continued, deep and raw from his throat, and she answered with a high wail. She strained her head up and back, seeking his face and baring her throat to him. The arm around her middle shifted to reach all the way across her chest to grasp her opposite shoulder, pulling her torso off the bed entirely and bruising a handprint into her upper arm. Her arms dangled loosely, but he held her up, their weight on their knees and his braced arm, his thrusts driving them up the mattress. They both edged awkwardly forward on their knees to stay balanced. He used her hard and mercilessly. It was an act of complete ownership, acknowledged chemically by both bodies. His mouth sought the side of her throat, and he sucked and teethed, teasing bruises along her throat.

She cried out and thrashed her head against him in panic. The Alpha roared, and he slammed her down against the mattress, driving her face into the bedding with the force of his weight, fucking into her harder. He grunted loudly with his effort, each thrust driving his burgeoning knot into her channel ruthlessly and then dragging it back out again, covered in her profuse slick. He continued rutting into her open channel. Any resistance from the Omega forgotten or abandoned. She Submitted. She rolled. She was his. Utterly.

Sweat ran down the two bodies, their coupling an aggressive blur of motion, thrusting and grunting, and building. She moved her lips, silently at first, and then whispering the same words on repeat, “Alpha, Mate me. Please.” she said it over and over, the Alpha’s thrusting put sharp punctuations in the words as her volume increased, “ALPHA! Mate Me!... ‘M Yours!” and she came suddenly. A spasm that originated from her Omega gland and passed through her cunt and her channel bathed him in slick, a baptismal benediction of their union.

The Alpha’s mouth found her right shoulder. He took her between his teeth, high at the curve where her neck became her shoulder, above her collarbone—high enough it would be difficult to hide with a shirt collar. He tightened both arms around her and pulled her into his body, mindlessly shoving his knot in once more where it locked and stayed. They shared a powerful grunt of effort between them. He covered her body with his own, flattening both against the bed, crushing her small frame, and he came, throbbing. His teeth sank deeply into her flesh, and the Mating-bond burst into place with a punch that made both of them cry out, the Alpha’s lips pulling into a rictus and flexing against his straining voice without pulling his hold free. His hips continued thrusting and grinding through his orgasm. He moaned and rocked into her, thoroughly debauched and utterly lost to instinct.

Except for her uncontrollable trembling, the Omega went completely still under her Dom’s weight. She barely breathed. Sweat, blood, spit, slick, and come bathed her, covered them both. She lay boneless, trembling from the adrenalin, but peaceful, spent and exhausted, waiting on her Master’s will. For a few moments they simply breathed together, shallowly, as he covered her with his body, then his hands began to release their tight grip. He started stroking them up and down her sides, his palms big enough to wrap nearly around her waist. His strokes were tight and firm, leaving white bloodless trails where they’d passed and then pulling folds in her flesh on the way back down. He breathed in heavily through his nose and seemed to realize that he still had his teeth buried in the flesh of her shoulder.

Slowly, he released his bite and pulled his head back to look at the damage. He flattened his tongue and licked hard slowly across the bleeding wound. The Omega responded by tucking her head and tensing her body. She moaned in pleasure, and he felt an aftershock ripple through her channel and massage his cock where it was tied fast. He shuddered at the sensation. His cock released another spurt of come deep inside her ass. He pulled himself carefully up onto his arms, allowing her to breathe easily at last, looked down upon his mate and said in a rough awkward salutation, “Hello April, welcome home. I am Castiel, your Alpha, and I’m a very lucky man.”

It was iconic awkward Cas, but Dean wasn’t there to roll his eyes and call him a dork.

His mate twisted around enough to regard his face and get her first real look at the wolf she’d just tied her life to. His eyes were Cerulean blue, deep and beautiful and concerned. She allowed herself to feel the Mating-bond now attached deep in her middle, right at her center of gravity. It felt weird, like an elastic cord that stretched from its starting point at her spine about even with her bellybutton and extended through her navel to attach at its other end to the wolf whose huge cock was tied inside her ass. She closed her eyes and collapsed back to the bed, exhausted, unable to hold herself up any longer. She still felt too warm, her ass and her cunt both still throbbing and wet with her Heat. And now she was sticky.

Her mate’s hand reached gently around her and guided her body to the side so that he was no longer lying on top of her, and they relaxed into a more comfortable spooning position. He didn’t remove his arm but tightened his grip, holding her close. He laid gentle kisses along her neck and throat, occasionally passing a flat tongue across the mating-bite and stroking her hair with his free hand. She breathed and felt the newness of it all, taking it in—his touch, the firm lines of his body behind hers, his large cock tied tightly in her channel still pulsing occasionally as he completed his release. She felt utterly safe, safer than she’d ever felt before in her life.

And she felt completely naked in more ways than just physical. She was aware that the couple were being watched, but more than that, she was aware that he could feel her inside his head, as she could feel him. She examined the feeling carefully and felt his wonder expand as she pushed at their new bond. He returned the sensation, and it felt good—amazingly good. She sent a stroke down the length of the bond, and he shivered at the touch inside his mind. His responding touch included a huff of amusement and a tightening of his grip around her body.

The door cracked slowly open. Jo cautiously slipped just her head in. After a moment, she followed with the rest of her body. Cas spotted the intruding alpha and growled deep and menacing from his throat, a warning and a promise.

“Right, sorry,” said Jo. “I’ll get Charlie.” She backed out of the room. Charlie replaced her immediately. She moved easily around the room, never looking directly at the tied couple and never getting closer than strictly necessary. Charlie had years of experience dealing with possessive alphas who were still tied after Claiming an Omega. She had told the alphas in the control room it was stupid to try to send Jo in first, but nobody listened to the beta.

Charlie pulled a clean blanket from the shelf and passed it to Castiel, approaching the bed slowly, keeping clear of the Omega’s side, keeping her eyes down, extending her arm as far out as she could so he could lean backwards and take it from her. She began taking peliomometer readings while he worked to spread the blanket over his mate and himself. She looked toward the control room and was about to put the meter away, but was notified somehow through the glass, and she ran the readings again. After the second run-through, she evidently received a green light to holster the meter.

Once it was stowed, she pulled two bottles of juice and Castiel’s favorite protein bars from the fridge. Approaching the bed again, she stopped when the Alpha started to growl at her. This kind of possessiveness was common from several of the alphas on staff, but she’d never seen Cas do it before. She stood completely still, her eyes down. After a minute or two of tension, Cas’ hunger and thirst seemed to rear their objections.

“Hand me those,” he said, with a gruffer-than-normal voice.

Charlie stepped forward slowly and put the snacks into the hand that reached backward to her, then repeated the action with the drinks after he’d set the snack bars on the bed behind himself.

“Charlie,” Cas intoned, breaking her out of the glaze she’s slipped into, probably a response to the high oxytocin levels suffusing through the room. “Go away.”

Cas meant it, and she fled.

Sam pulled the door open and stepped into the cool, dark dive-bar. His eyes adjusted quickly as he walked in. “Hey Zeke,” he greeted with an upward thrust of his chin.

“Hello, Sam,” replied the bartender. He didn’t pause his work but did glance up briefly.

Sam stepped up to the bar, approaching the spot where his brother had his head nestled down into his arms. Sam picked up a loose wipe-rag from the counter, flipping it around a few times until it was coiled tightly on itself. He flicked it out expertly to snap perfectly right on the seat of Dean’s ass with a loud Pop!

“The FUCK!?” Dean jerked off his barstool, immediately awake and alert. Also pissed. He spun around, rubbing the pained spot with his hand and fixing Sam with an alpha glare. “Damnit Sam! Fuck, that hurt! You ever do that to me again, I swear I’ll rip both your balls off!” Dean’s eyes were red from drinking, not alpha hormones, so Sam wasn’t especially moved. He knew his older brother too well to be much cowed by him anyway, knew everything Dean was capable of, and even in his deepest alpha state, Sam wasn’t scared of him. They just didn’t work that way.

Sam congratulated himself on a well-executed strike. Just like a pro, he thought, then chuckled because, I mean, Sam’s job was to strike people on their asses, so yeah, he was a pro.

“S’not funny, dude,” Dean protested. “I’m still bruised from last night. That was way outta line.” Dean tended toward bitchy when he was drunk and morose.

“I don’t wanna know about last night. But you totally deserved that pop, man. You cut out and left all of us high and dry. We needed you there.” Sam wasn’t about to baby his brother.

“I seriously, seriously don’t wanna talk about this with you right now. Or ever. With anyone. Ever.” Dean sank back down on the barstool and started to lay his head back down.

“Oh, no you don’t.” Sam hauled him back up with a grip on his upper arm and frog-marched him to the door. “I’m taking you home to sleep it off. Then we are going to talk whether you want to or not. Thanks Zeke!” he called over his shoulder as he helped his brother through the door.

“Of course, Sam.”

Sam drove mechanically, his mind on the matter at hand rather than his driving. He’d walked the short distance to the bar from The Facility, which was located right on campus, so he grabbed Dean’s keys and parked his brother in the passenger side of his own car.

“Try not to puke,” he instructed as he slid into the driver’s seat. Dean glared at him but didn’t speak.

At the house they shared, Sam practically lifted Dean out bodily and carried him to his bedroom, one arm pulled over Sam’s shoulder and most of Dean’s weight supported by his brother’s strength. Sam unceremoniously dumped him in his bed and began removing shoes. When Dean spoke, Sam wasn’t certain Dean really wanted to be heard; his voice was so quiet.

“Did he go through with it, Sam?”

Sam’s heart broke for his big brother. He looked up to the head of the bed and sighed. Dean’s body was slack, but his head was lifted, looking back down the bed, meeting Sam’s eyes. His whispered voice sounded broken.

“Yeah, Dean. He did. I’m so sorry, man.”

“Whatever.” Dean tried to brush it off.

Right.

As if.

“Was bound to hap’n sooner or later.” Dean dropped his head back to his pillow. He spoke to the ceiling. “I guess I’m in the market fir new Dom. Oh, hey baby brother, you’re a Dom…y’all all run round t’gether right? Y’know anybody wants to beat a alpha ass every now an’ then? Not right away, ‘cause I seriously think I’m good f’r a few weeks at least… Went out with a bang and shit…”

Sam didn’t answer. He pulled his brother’s boots off for him then unbuckled and removed Dean’s belt, sliding it through the loops, around his body. He went for the button on Dean’s jeans. Dean stopped him with a hand to his wrist. “Leave it.”

Sam huffed up into his bangs. Dean was in for a world of hurt over the next few months. Sam wanted to be patient with him, but… Sam pulled his wrist out of Dean’s grasp and went right back to work. “You’ll be asleep in no time, and I’m not going to leave you to sleep in denim. Just take them off and go to bed.” Sam succeeded in slipping the jeans down both legs and over Dean’s feet, taking his socks with them. Dean closed his eyes, harrumphed, and rolled onto his side. Sam sucked in a quiet breath when he saw Castiel’s marks down both of Dean’s thighs. Wow. That was… Yeah. Sam shook his head. None of his business is what it was. It was none of his business. Dean had to know he’d flashed his bruises at his brother, but he seemed not to care.

Sam was an EO, so he knew impact bruises and abrasions. He knew Dean’s body, too. Sam had been called in to correct almost every member of the staff at one point or other (some bratty Subs more often than others. Thanks for that, Dean.) And too, he’d grown up with Dean. Sam knew in precise calculable terms just how much force over how long it would take to leave marks like that on his brother’s thighs. He suspected that Dean’s dark underwear hid even more severe damage. Cas always focused on the ass when he punished. It’s something you knew about the people you worked closely with.

“You want me to bring in some arnica for the bruising?” Sam asked softly.

“I said leave it!” Dean answered without turning back over. Sam left the room and closed the door. He texted Benny to let him know Dean was safe at home and to check on Cas. Sam had skipped out on witnessing the Mating, too concerned about his brother’s state of mind and getting him home. Sam wanted to be there for his brother. He hurt badly for him. He wanted to try to fix everything. Maybe nothing would have to change. The Facility staff included a number of workers who were Mated outside of work. Their society didn’t even pretend to expect monogamy where hierarchical or therapeutic sex was involved. There was no reason on paper that Castiel and Dean couldn’t carry on scening as they always had, except that Dean’s heart had just shattered into a million pieces, and once Cas emerged from his Mate/Rut craze, his would follow.

Sam grabbed a beer from the fridge and headed to his room. It was early, but he was done for the day.

Chapter Text

THEN:

Sam punched Dean affectionately in the shoulder when both brothers packed into the SUV, heading back to the nearby hotel. He teased, “You know, I’ve heard you spin some of your answers a little when they get kinda personal, but I’ve never heard you straight-up lie like that before. Something you want to talk about?”

“The fuck are you talking about, man?” Dean wasn’t really listening. He was considering different cuts of steak for dinner and trying to remember if the hotel restaurant had more than one type of pie as he trawled his Twitter feed.

“When that girl asked you if you’d rather top or bottom,” Sam replied, fixing his too-astute eye on his brother’s face. “You said you switch it up depending on who you’re with, even in your free time.” He paused a beat, then continued when Dean didn’t respond. “Dean, when was the last time you were with someone new in your free time? Never, right? Not since college? Dude, I know you. You’re so monogamous, you put fifty-year-old Baptists to shame. And yeah right, as if Castiel would ever bottom. Like, I can’t even picture how that would work. So, if you’re not sleeping around, and you’re not topping your scene partner, who exactly do you top? Contract scenes don’t count.”

Dean snorted. “Mind your own fucking business, Sam. And quit picturing us fucking. It’s creepy.” There was alpha warning in his voice.

The alpha tone had no effect on Sam. In public, Dean’s persona tilted toward the alpha. He was confident, charismatic, assertive, gregarious, and pretty damned cocky. But from his private relationships, Dean’s Submissive wolf took what it needed. The Doms in his life who knew him and cared about him stroked his wolf privately, freeing him from having to show a Submissive side to the world. Sam was a major part of that matrix, and he knew it. It’s how they rolled. It wasn’t sexual. It was Tertiary.

“See? That’s what I mean. You’re way too touchy about the subject even to talk about it with me. You never used to keep stuff from me. C’mon, Dean, lighten up. You can trust me, man. And I really think you’re holding in stuff that you need to talk with someone about.” Dean still didn’t respond. He typed into his cell phone, his face a hard line. “If you can’t talk to me, at least try talking to Jo, okay? Dean?”

“Jesus, Sammy! Can you drop the touchy-feely crap? Please? I don’t really feel like lighting candles, playing Yanni CDs, and going full Dr. Phil with you about who I’m fucking in my free time! Why do you care?”

Dean’s mistake was ending his tirade with a leading question. Sam took it as permission to continue. “I care, big brother, because you being hopelessly in love with your scene partner is not something you can avoid dealing with like you are. One or both of you stands to get really hurt.” Sam was ready to stop all the bullshit deflecting and get serious with this conversation, make Dean face it head on for once, so he turned his Dominant voice all the way to full throttle and spoke directly to Dean’s Sub. “Just tell me, yes or no, are you in love with Castiel? Be honest.”

Dean visibly struggled with his Sub wolf to keep it from rolling onto its back in submission and spilling everything. “None of your fucking business, Sam,” he finally managed. His teeth gritted, and his jaw clenched with the effort. Damn Sam and his invasive questions.

Sam nodded. “I’ll take that as a yes. But, Dean, you need to get your head into a place where you can admit it straight out—at least to me. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, I think it’s great. If it would help, I can paddle you into the right head space.” Dean’s eyes darted to the paddle handle sticking out of Sam’s thigh pocket, and his tongue nervously moistened his lower lip. Sam went nowhere without it. It wasn’t a bullshit offer. Sam was good at his job. He knew how to work Dean into a deeper connection with his wolf. Dean shuddered but didn’t speak. He put his hand to the car door and unbuckled his seatbelt. “We’ll talk later,” Sam added as the SUV pulled up at the hotel door. “I’m serious, Dean! This conversation is not over!” But Dean was already through the sliding door and bolting toward the elevator.

Dean’s mind buzzed with frustration and upset.

“Nope, nope, not gonna happen. Nope. Sam can just butt the fuck right back out again. Him with his stupid beta-Dom, tell me right now fucking voice. I’m the fucking alpha here. Who does he think he is? I don’t owe him a goddamned thing…Butt the fuck out.” He’d begun repeating himself while he paced and muttered, so he headed for a shower and decided on a solo dinner in his room to avoid giving his brother another chance to ambush and harangue him.

He was just pulling sweatpants over his damp backside when someone knocked heavily on his door.

Shit.

He rolled his eyes and considered leaving Sam in the hall to fester, but his big-boy brain reminded him it wouldn’t do any good in the long run. Sam was a pitbull when he got his teeth around something he’d decided was important. He never let go until he got what he wanted. Dean’s whole body sighed in resignation, and he slunk to the door, checking the view port before twisting the doorknob to release the lock. He didn’t pull it open, though. He strolled petulantly away and took up a spot at the other end of the room, his posture defiant: arms crossed, chest out, chin high and firm, feet spread just so to make him appear as threatening as he could, trying his damnedest to evoke a grizzly. Dean was by no means a small man, but against his moose of a six-foot-four brother, he’d need all the posturing he could manage.

Sam pushed the door open and entered, allowing the spring to slam it closed again behind him. “Really, Dean?” he admonished. His brother’s childishness was not helping, and the beta’s flat expression spoke more to the subject than his words did. Sam held up bags of fast-food takeout and set them on the small table along the near wall. “We need to talk.”

“I was planning on steak for dinner tonight. Thanks for asking,” Dean bratted.

“That’s fine,” Sam replied airily. “I’ll eat mine. You can order up room service or wait until we’re done talking and go find whatever you want. There’s a steakhouse across the street. I don’t care what you do, but you’re not leaving this room until I’m satisfied.”

“Little too kinky for me, little brother. I’m not into incest,” Dean pushed. He knew how this was likely to go, and he knew he wasn’t going to win, but he could never seem to help it when his mouth took off on him like that. He wasn’t about to make it easy on Sam.

Sam ignored the remark, digging into one of the bags and spreading out his food. “Just tell me this, Dean. Why won’t you admit you have feelings for Cas? It’s not like you to be ashamed of, well, anything.”

“What do you want me to say?” Dean didn’t relax his stance or his defiance. There was no point to this conversation. Nothing he could say was going to change the circumstances. He told Sam, “Nothing I could possibly say is going to change the circumstances.” If Sam didn’t know Dean’s inner mind was a cesspit of shame and loathing, Dean wasn’t about to clue him in now.

“What circumstances? You gotta know he cares about you as much as you do him.”

Dean scoffed loudly and turned to face the window. Shame suffused his body, setting his fingertips to tingling and running a high flush up his cheeks. He didn’t want his brother to see it on his face. He couldn’t do anything about his scent though. “Right. Of course,” Dean scoffed with a shaky breath. This is why he never had this conversation. “Sam, he’s Castiel-Fucking-Novak. He’s the greatest Lupin researcher, like, ever. He’s a fucking genius, and he’s powerful and important. He saves lives. I’m just his scene partner. I get him off so he can focus on his job and do it right. It’s not an L-O-V-E, love thing. It’s…therapy.” He turned back to see how his words were being received.

Sam looked stricken. “Jesus, would you listen to yourself? You really do have your head so far up your own ass you don’t see it. How do you not see it? Yeah, man, he’s Castiel-Fucking-Novak.” Sam rolled his eyes, but then they hardened and pierced Dean with intent. “But you’re Dean-Fucking-Winchester! Dude, you two are so freakin’ perfect for each other, it’s, it’s crazy.” Sam straightened in his chair and took up an official-looking expression.

‘Shit, here it comes,’ Dean thought. He slammed the kennel door on his wolf, cutting it off from reacting.

“Dean, I want you to talk to Castiel. Tell him how you feel. See what he says.”

“No.”

“Dean.”

Dean broke. “I said NO, Sam! This is none of your goddamn business! You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter if I love him! It doesn’t matter if he was stupid enough to love me back—which he doesn’t. It. Can’t. Happen.” Dean advanced on his brother slowly, punctuating every word with an air jab of his pointed finger. “How would it even work? Huh? Boyfriends?” he finger-quoted and imbued the word with sarcasm. “Marriage and Mating and pups? I’m not equipped!” He gestured sharply at his midsection.

“What happens when his True-Mate shows up? Huh? Or mine if I even have one?” Dean sent his voice into a high register and affected a simpering expression and a breathless run-on sentence, “Oh, look, I’m really sorry. I know we’re True-Mates and your hormones are in overdrive, and what I’m saying will ruin your life and all, but I’m already kind of off the market with this alpha dude over here—who I’m not Mated to—and I’m totally resisting my own instinctive drive to Mate you ‘cause, I just really love this dude soooo much that I can throw millions of years of evolution out the window for him. Sorry ‘bout the fact that you’re Triggered now with me, and you can’t ever Mate anyone else, and you’ll go insane with want and need and…”

Sam’s stern face gave way to pity. “Jesus, Dean. Is that what you think? Look, alpha-alpha couples aren’t common, but they do happen sometimes. There are avenues for raising pups together. You’re not the first couple to face being ill-equipped for having kids of your own. There’s a way. There’s gotta be.”

“There isn’t!” Dean interrupted him. “You want me to confess?! Need to hear me say it? Fine! I am completely lost on Cas. I love him, man, with all my heart and soul and body. I have since the beginning, and that’s not ever going to change. He doesn’t love me, Sammy. Not like that. I mean, yeah, he loves me. He’s Alpha, and he loves the whole Pack. He loves you and Bobby and Garth and even Meg, but not like, love, love. Not like I love him. And even if he did, it wouldn’t matter. You say there’s gotta be a way, but there isn’t. There isn’t, Sam! Sometimes I think about nothing but this. You got any fucking idea how many times I’ve been through this? I’ve been over every possible crappy scenario there is, man!” Dean’s voice cracked and his eyes moistened. Damnit.

“It. Can’t. Happen. So just drop it! I mean it.”

Sam was rendered speechless. Dean felt the tiniest spike of smugness tinged with guilt. His brother had insisted on pushing. Served him right.

Sam’s voice was quiet and kind when he spoke, gentle. “I’m glad you told me. I’ll help however I can, but just…” He stopped speaking, not knowing what he wanted from Dean. This sucked, and his heart went out to his big brother. “I know one thing though. You’re wrong about Cas. He’s just as gone for you as you are for him. He loves you, Dean.”

“Really, Sam? He told you this?” Dean felt raw and wrung out. He wanted out of this conversation yesterday. “Like, just walked up to you and threw it on the table: Sam, I have it real bad for your brother. No? Damn right, no!”

“What are you, in the fourth grade? No, okay? No, he didn’t write out a note, pass it in class, and say, Hey Sam, I like your brother, do you think he likes me back? Circle Yes or No. But, dude. Seriously. Seriously?”

Dean shook his head. “Listen. I’m not in denial. I know you think I am, but I get to see him in a way no one else does. I get to see under the mask, Sam. He’s not anybody but himself when we’re… scening… together. I would know if he was, like, in love, or whatever. I would know.” Dean was done. He stalked into the small bathroom and slammed the door.

Sam sighed, picked up his meal, leaving Dean’s on the table, and left.

NOW:

The audience in the control room all exhaled at the same time. Meg was the first to speak. “Goddamn, that was hot.” She was nothing if not classy.

“Jo, I want you to go in first. Get the readings. Castiel may lash out, and I want some strength in the room,” Bobby directed with his eyes on the Alpha’s face through the glass.

“Guys, he can’t attack. He’s tied. But he could get riled and hurt both of them if he scents an alpha. Send me in. He won’t be threatened by a beta,” Charlie suggested. “It’s a bad idea to put an alpha in there right now.”

“I’m not taking any chances with your safety, Charlie. Be ready, but let Jo go in first,” the alpha was adamant. Charlie knew better than to press.

‘Whatever,’ thought Charlie with a clandestine roll of her eyes.

After the two ladies left through the Green room door, Benny cleared his throat. “I believe y’all all have work needs attending to. Thanks for coming and all, but party’s over. Everyone back to your own stations. Get moving. Let’s let Doctor Harvelle finish up without the zoo getting in her way.” He herded most of them out, letting Bobby assume the task of chivvying them all back to their stations once they ambled through the door. Benny pulled Travis and Cole to the side before they made it out. He was about to lay into them when Jo pushed back through the exiting bodies. Good, he thought. Set ‘em all back on their heels at the same time. He gestured Jo over as well. She joined them with a puzzled frown.

Once the room was clear but for the five of them, Benny checked in with Ellen. “You got this, sugar? You need anything before we go?”

“I’ll be fine, alpha.” She glanced over her left shoulder, still listing somewhat to starboard. “Thanks for your help. All of it.” Ellen buried enough meaning in the words that he heard what she meant. “Is it all right if we settle up later? Tomorrow, maybe? Or, whatever you think, of course, Sir.”

“Don’t worry about it right now, Ellen. I want you focused on nothing but this right now. That’s Cas in there. Can’t afford to multitask this.” He gestured with his chin at the processing room where Castiel was up on one elbow, leaning over his new mate, licking slowly along her throat and lazily pumping his hips just a bit, ignoring Charlie completely as she roved about, getting readings. “Tomorrow is fine. I’ll put Sam on it. When those two are ready to move, call me. I want to help with that.”

Benny turned back to his three charges who seemed confused and decidedly nervous. He made his voice cool iron, “Come with me.” And he left the control room, not bothering to hold the door for them.

They wound up in one of the empty Omega classrooms that was outfitted with all kinds of standard punishment equipment. He faced them. “You three are all due a serious what-for meeting, and we’re gonna do it right now. You’ll give me your full attention while we talk. Go ahead and strip from the waist down and face me: shoes, socks, underwear…everything. You can leave your shirts on.” Benny knew that the quickest way to make a lasting impression on a non-Omega was through humiliation, and he wanted to make this impression last. Half dressed, asses hanging out, standing shoulder to shoulder was damned humiliating.

It took a moment or two for the three of them to process the order and realize he was serious, then they quickly complied, still baffled. Two beta-Doms and an alpha-Neutral faced Benny with wide eyes and genitals exposed.

“I’ll start with you, Travis.” Benny placed himself directly in front of the beta. “You Dom for Doctor Harvelle, correct?”

“Yes, alpha,” said Travis, still not aware of where this was going. Benny knew who all of Travis’ charges were. It was an academic question.

“When was her last Balance adjustment? Do you know?” asked Benny with an eyebrow raised.

Travis faltered with a frown. “Oh. Um. It was, I guess… uh. Yeah, I was sick, like a week and a half ago, I guess it’s been now. We had scheduled a spanking, but I had to cancel. Told her to reschedule with another Dom through Becky. Did she not…?” It dawned on Travis where this was going, and as he made the connection. Jo followed suit.

“Wait,” said Jo, squaring up to him, “didn’t you check up on her after you got back to work?”

“Did you?” Benny fixed his gaze on Jo. “Travis may be her assigned Dom, but damnit, Jo, you’re her alpha. This is primarily on you! So, your mother, with all her responsibility and everything she’s got on her plate and all the wolves who depend on her has two, count ‘em, two wolves in place to watch over her and neither one of them could be bothered to notice that she was out of Balance for a week!” He paused and let the guilt and discomfort sink in long enough that they were both very uneasy.

Cole shifted. “Sir? I had nothing to do with the doc being twitchy. Can I go?”

“You shut up and stand there and wait your turn!” Benny snapped. “I’ve got a whole different ax to grind with you, beta!” He glowered for a moment and then turned back to the other two. “Falling out of Balance is unacceptable for any Omega, but it’s downright dangerous for an Omega with Ellen’s responsibilities. Shut up!” he snapped when Travis looked like he was going to say something. “No excuses. I’m not even gonna ask what you’ve got to say about this, because there’s nothing to say. You’re both in the wrong here, and you know it. You’re both getting strapped for this. I trust after today it’s not going to happen again.” Benny gestured to the spanking bench in the corner and selected a leather strap from several hanging on the wall. “Travis, you’re up first. Put your ass on the bench.”

“Yes, alpha,” Travis responded glumly. He didn’t hesitate to get into position though. He knew he had it coming and wanted nothing more than to get to the other side. Benny stepped up, flexed the strap between his hands, giving it a quick but thorough inspection and then reached back and laid it down hard on Travis’ backside. The beta grunted and flinched but didn’t break position. Benny took up a steady rhythm of heavy strikes, leaving red welts across his butt without breaking the skin. Travis squeezed his eyes and grunted in time with the landing blows, holding tight to the hand bar. It didn’t take much with the stiff strap Benny chose to leave an impression. After fifteen hard strokes, Benny stopped, huffing a little. He hadn’t held anything back. He helped Travis rise with a soft word that the punishment was complete. Beta-Doms didn’t respond to lengthy reprimands the way a Sub or an Omega would. Better to keep it short and powerful. Make an impression hard and fast, and then be done.

Travis’ face was beet red, a match in tone to his ass.

“We ever going to have to do this again?” the alpha asked sternly. Travis shook his head and sniffled, not really capable of speech yet. Benny accepted it. “Get dressed, beta,” Benny told him. “Sign the form and leave it on the desk. You’re excused.”

As Travis was leaving, Benny turned back to the two remaining culprits standing beside one another, fidgeting, still uncomfortably nude from the waist down. “Be patient,” he said to Cole, noticing the beta’s impatience. “You really don’t want to rush me through this, I promise.”

“You ready, Jo?” he asked, as if any answer but, Yes, alpha would suffice.

“Yes, alpha,” she said, eyes still on the floor in front of her. Without looking at him, she approached the spanking bench and lay across it, her bare ass lifted higher than her short stature was accustomed to. Benny wordlessly adjusted the bench settings, lowering her to the correct spot so her abdomen and back didn’t take any strain. “I’m sorry, alpha,” she managed miserably. “I don’t know how I let that happen. Is she, better now? I mean, did someone take care of her already?” Jo was craning her neck around, seeking Benny’s eyes with her own.

“She’s fine now, Jo. She and I had a little chat before Sam’s round. With your permission, I’m planning to see to her punishment too.” Jo nodded her acquiescence. “All right, then. Don’t go bugging her about it. She’s Balanced, and she’s well in hand, so I want you to let it go, ya hear?”

“Yes, alpha. And Benny, I’m really very sorry. I swear it won’t happen again.” Had Jo been an Omega or a Sub, Benny would have added an extra swat for using his name during a punishment, but alphas didn’t work that way, so he let it go. Punishing Jo this way was a bit of a stretch as alphas could only handle corporal punishment while a part of their psyches retained a connection to their childhoods. At twenty-seven, Jo would soon lose that connection entirely. Benny hoped she hadn’t yet. He was about to find out.

They both were.

“I know, sweet girl. We’re going to take care of it right now, once and for all. I trust you to see to your Omega mom from here on. You’re good to her, Joanna Beth. Don’t linger on this. Let it go.” He took up his spot and readied himself. “Here we go. Brace yourself.” He swung the strap. He laid twenty hard swats against Jo’s trembling ass. She took it very well for an alpha. She broke position a couple of times, and she didn’t even try to stop the wails and the free-flowing tears, putting all her focus in staying on the bench, not making a run for it. Even young alphas did not do well with corporal punishment generally. Most of the time, it was counterproductive, but Jo’s transgression had been egregious. She deserved this strapping and Benny gave it to her in full.

She lay limp and sobbing when he stopped. He laid the strap across the bench and placed his hand tenderly on her back, rubbing lightly. “You’re all done, little alpha,” soothed Benny. “You did great. I’m proud of you. C’mon, now, it’s all over. Just breathe. You’re all right. It stings, but you’re not damaged. You’re fine, sweetheart.”

She looked up at him with snot, spit, and tears making a mess of her face. “Stings??” she croaked, pissed. “My god, Benny!” she sniffled hard and hiccupped. “I think you flayed my ass off!” Benny chuckled. She was fine. Rage was a typical alpha reaction to pain. Her outrage meant she was maturing. This time next year, she would be too old to spank. He felt warm affection for her. That was the sassy Jo he knew and loved. He helped her stand.

“Watch the sass, there, alpha,” he scolded good-humoredly. “I can lay you back over and have another go if you need it.”

Jo’s face shifted from bright red to pale so fast, Benny nearly laughed. Her hands covered her striped backside. “No, please. I get it. Shutting up now.”

“All right, then. Get dressed, give me a hug, sign the damned form, and get out of here.” Benny hugged her tightly. He loved the little alpha a lot, and he hated punishing her.

Benny took a deep breath to re-center himself. This one wasn’t going to be so straightforward.

“Cole,” he started, coldly meeting the beta’s eye as the door closed behind Jo. “Do you remember back at your pre-hire interview, I asked you a question about how you saw the role of the EO in the pack? You remember your answer?”

Cole scowled slightly and stammered before finding his words. “I think I said something like how the EO brings the structure of the pack into focus, puts the nails in the boards that hold the structure together. Something like that. That’s still how I see it, alpha. Something wrong with that?”

Benny narrowed his eyes. “Maybe I’m just starting to understand that you’re focused mostly on hitting those nails, and not so much on watching out for the integrity of the boards.”

“We done with this analogy now, alpha? ‘Cause I don’t know what you’re on about.”

Benny growled fiercely at him and stepped right up into his space. “Watch your tone with me, boy! I’m not about to put up with it. Sam may let you off-leash a bit, but rest assured, I’m gonna choke right up on that fucker until you get the picture.” Benny was seething, and Cole barely resisted stepping backward out of the direct line of Benny’s brutal eyes. “You don’t like that analogy, fine. Let me lay it out for you in plain English. I’ve seen you brutalize and intimidate your charges for the last time. You are here to enforce the rules, Cole. You are to apply appropriate punishment where it’s warranted—and at the staff’s direction only, not whenever you feel like it, however you feel like it. You’re a fucking train wreck, man—and a lawsuit waiting to happen if you don’t get reined in. I’m beginning to think you don’t have any fucking idea what your role here is.” Benny stepped back. Cole stood motionless, gaping in shock.

“Now. That said, you’ve got a lot of potential. I’ve seen you act well on instinct when you aren’t trying to be something you’re not just to impress somebody. You’ve got good responses when you get the fuck out of your own head—your own expectations. I don’t know who put those on you. It’s none of my business. But Cole, if you don’t figure it out, and soon, you got no place here. Am I clear?”

“Crystal clear, Sir.” Cole was not happy, and he wasn’t taking the message well. He fumed.

“Way I see it, you got two options right now,” said Benny. “You can lay your ass across that bench and take the strapping you deserve for being a domineering asshole, or you can get dressed, clear out your locker, and leave for good. I’m serious, beta. Your choice. You decide right now whether or not this role is for you.”

“Jesus, Benny,” breathed Cole, dropping the incensed tone. “I don’t want to quit. I like it here. If you weren’t happy with my work, you could’ve just said.”

“I did just say,” Benny snapped harshly. “And I don’t remember whining and self-pity being one of the two options.”

“All right, all right, I’m going.” Cole shuffled toward the bench.

“Excuse me, beta?” Benny was so done with this conversation. He wasn’t getting through, and part of him said he should cut it short right now, fire Cole, and skip the punishment. There was no use strapping the boy if he wasn’t going to make it as an EO anyway. Enforcement officers needed to be cut from a particular cloth, and Cole might just be the wrong fabric. Benny reminded himself that there was a steep learning curve for many of their new hires. Most of these pups had been raised without the traditions and pack standards to fall back on. He resolved to keep trying with Cole. There really was a spark of potential in the beta if he could just get over not Presenting as an alpha. It was a common problem.

“I’m sorry, Sir. I meant, yes, alpha.” Cole adjusted the height of the bench for himself then draped his body over it, settling in like he’d done this a few times. No doubt he had. Probably had a domineering alpha bring him up. That would explain a lot. Benny resolved to recruit Sam to mentor him, try to draw out any protective instincts from deep within, try to build up his confidence. But that was for later. Benny picked the strap back up and inspected its integrity again. He took a couple of swooshing swings. “I’m not gonna warm your ass up before we start, so brace yourself. We’re just going to jump right into the main event like I did with Travis and Jo. You hear me?”

“Yes, alpha,” came the muffled reply. Cole’s face was buried in his crossed arms.

Without further conversation, Benny swung down hard. His fourth punishment in as many hours, and his arm was really feeling it. This is what we have EO’s for, he thought. Why am I doing this myself? Cole’s body jolted forward, and his arms came unfolded. His hands reached for the holding bars where they should’ve been from the outset. He yelped and sucked in quick, loud breaths. His body was too tense. “Relax your butt for me, or this is gonna hurt way more than I intend it to, beta.”

Cole just groaned. He tried, but relaxation was beyond his reach at the moment. Benny smoothed his hand over Cole’s clenched cheeks for a few passes until the beta managed to loosen up just a little. “There you go. You can do this. You’re going to be fine. It’s just a spanking… Breathe for me, man.” Cole took in a lungful and let it back out. He managed to keep his butt unclenched. Barely. For now.

Benny took his position again. He wasted no time applying the strap back to the beta’s ass. Benny and Cole both wanted to be done with this experience. Benny was as methodical as usual. His arm was hard, giving no quarter. If it was worth doing, he was going to do it right. The strap popped loudly across the beta’s reddening backside, landing precisely where the alpha wanted it, leaving stinging welts up and down the curve of his ass. Cole stiffened again, but Benny pressed on. Better to get it over and done than to keep trying to relax the man who was in too much pain to make any conscious decisions about his body tension. But it was telling about his mindset where corporal punishment was concerned. That same tension worked its way into both sides of his equation, and it was a disconnect from a Lupin’s natural state. Cole cried out with each stroke. Like Jo, he let himself voice his pain, the snot and tears flowing freely. Unlike Jo, he resisted the message being sent.

At last, Benny stopped swinging. He strode away long enough to hang the strap back in its place then helped Cole stand. “That wasn’t a good time for me either, brother,” Benny told him. “I don’t want to have to bend you back over that bench, but I will if you force my hand. Totally up to you now. If you got a question about how to handle a situation with one of the students or staff, and you’re not sure what we want from you, you come ask me. Or talk to Sam. No more going off half-cocked and swinging first, asking questions later. I mean it, Cole. If you don’t have a work order, you don’t swing. You’re on probation, beta, from right now until the internal investigation committee releases you.” Benny fixed the beta with a piercing eye, trying to assess where his head was at right now. He really couldn’t tell. It didn’t bode well, but the next few interactions would tell if Cole’s ass would send the message up to his brain.

“All right, get dressed and get back to work. I want a one-page report from you by end of day tomorrow on what we talked about here and what changes you plan to make. No complaining.” Cole had almost broken in with a whiny complaint but thought better of it and stayed quiet, pulling his pants back into place. Benny let him go, shaking his head.

Dean had never in his memory regretted anything as much as he regretted waking up with sunlight streaming through his window. His stupid, fucking, stupid digital clock, in its stupid, sarcastic, judgmental, glaring red laser lights announced that morning was just about gone. Dean didn’t even get a brief respite of blank memory in his stupid mind before everything crashed down in full technicolor.

Nice.

He was supposed to be at work right now. He was supposed to be at the front of his Sub class, guiding young hearts and minds, leading them into a grand and glorious future, teaching them the wonders and freedom of fully embracing their Submission—owning it, loving it…

Dean hadn’t called in to let his team know he was…incapacitated this morning. He jammed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets, hoping to spring the little fuckers free so they’d stop pulsing in his head, and he rolled onto his back….Aaand, he rolled right back onto his side.

Damnit, Cas!

Dean breathed in deeply through his nose and let the pain course through his body. He ached. Everywhere. He relaxed deliberately, letting go of each muscle group one by one, counting slowly and breathing evenly as Castiel had taught him to do years ago. His head throbbed. Nausea sent him dashing to the toilet before he’d finished the full-body routine.

Christ, he thought, wiping his mouth with the hand towel he’d swiped from the bathroom and stumbling from the bathroom back toward his room. Could things get any suckier?

“Mornin,’ princess.” Benny’s voice floated from the kitchen as Dean crossed the hall.

Yep, now it’s suckier.

Dean groaned but reversed his path and headed toward the coffee pot in the kitchen. Benny and Pam sat at his kitchen table with Sam.

Terrific, he thought loudly. The shrink is here. For me.

By the look of things, they’d all been comfortably ensconced and chatting about him, strategizing, no doubt. Dean filled a mug with aging coffee, killing the pot. He rinsed it out and replaced it under the brewer. He inspected the sludge in his mug. A strident part of himself urged him to drink it thick and black as punishment for his weaknesses—all of them—but he expected his stomach would probably reject it as-is, so he dumped a crap ton of milk in. He straightened his shoulders, schooled his face, and turned around to face the jury, stirring.

“Morning. What brings half the Behavioral Department to my house this morning?” he snarked, sitting at the only empty chair and sipping his sludge. Sitting reminded him of everything he was trying like hell not to think about.

“We’re worried about you, Dean.” Pam said bluntly. “You seem to have taken Castiel’s Mating pretty hard, and I want to offer to talk through it with you, when you’re ready.” She noted his closed-off body language and the green tinge in his face and knew it wasn’t going to be today. “Also, we wanted to check on you today. Make sure you’re okay.” She reached for his hand where it rested next to his mug. He didn’t draw away from her touch (‘Cause he’s a touch-slut, all right? Sue him), but he didn’t look at her or thaw any either.

Dean shot a hard look at his brother, communicating his annoyance that a single night of indiscretion had mobilized the entire intervention protocol. It had been one fucking night, for god’s sake. Sam had the grace to blush and avoid his gaze.

“All right, well… you’ve seen me. I’m fine. Hungover as hell, but fine. Just, I probably need to take the whole day off.” He directed this last to Benny who, since Cas was indisposed, was officially Dean’s boss for the moment. “I’ll be back tomorrow, pick up where I left off with the Subs. The class is in good shape; they can afford to lose a couple of days. I’ll make sure they catch up in no time. I think today was mostly practice anyway.”

“Dean, stop babbling,” Sam broke in with his eyes on his coffee mug.

“Take the week, Dean,” said Benny. “I want you to do whatever you need to do to get your head back in this game, and I won’t listen to any arguing. You’re no good to anyone fucked up like this. I’m not letting you anywhere near clients until Pam signs off on your mental state. You got me, brother? That means no teaching, no contracting, no testing.” Dean gaped, at a loss for words. Benny held his eyes unflinchingly. Dean read his unmovable steadfastness and nodded miserably. “Call Becky and schedule any services you need. I mean it. You’re important to all of us. Frankly,” Benny admitted, “yesterday taught me just how much we all depend on you. We can’t do this without you, Dean, but we need you at your best, not wasted, exhausted, strung out, miserable….”

“Thanks Benny, I think he’s got the picture,” said Pam. Dean shot her a grateful look.

He liked Pam, really. They got on well, had partnered quite a few times in demos and training classes. They gelled, flirted, sassed each other. But Dean had never used her services as a psychologist, as such. He wasn’t sure how successful talking things out could be. It wasn’t like he had issues he didn’t understand and needed help sussing them out. If anything, Dean was too self-aware. He didn’t need a psychologist, he just hurt. The grownup that lived really, really deep inside him told him there was nothing he needed but time. And distance. (And Cas. ((Seriously, shut the fuck up. Right now.)))

…counting parentheses in his head made it throb again.

“All right. I’ll take the week. Sleep it off. But seriously, folks, I’m fine.” Dean looked around and realized no one was buying it. God. Fuck them. He didn’t need this bullshit. Dean scraped his chair rudely back and lurched to his feet, leaving the undrinkable coffee. He left them all sitting there and returned to his room, slamming the door much too hard for his tender condition. Let them finish talking about him and what’s best for him, and how to help him, and… Just. Jesus. Fuck them. Don’t they have better things to be doing right now? Dean fell face down on his bed, wallowing pathetically. When had he turned into a thirteen-year-old Omega? Oblivion sounded pretty good right about now.

He closed his eyes and sought refuge in sleep.

Chapter Text

THEN:

SUBMISSIVE—Dean wrote in big block letters on the chalkboard at the front of the room. He underlined it and turned around to face the students, still holding the chalk in his hand as he wandered a few steps forward. “Welcome to your first day of Sub class. We’re gonna have a good time together. Going to learn a lot, grow in confidence and power, gonna braid each other’s hair, and build a campfire where we all hold hands and share our darkest fears… Nah. I’m kidding, of course.” Dean’s class laughed nervously. They would soon begin to shed their tension borne from the unknown—just a bit. Obviously, if their instructor could make jokes right off the bat, he couldn’t be all bad, right? He’s either pretty fucking cool or a complete psycho. They were optimistically hopeful for the former.

The rumors about Sub class, usually from teens whose best friend’s cousin’s neighbor’s big brother had been through it, was that it was practically an orgy of bending over, being endlessly fucked and spanked, and screaming, “Thank you, sir, may I have another!”

The class was understandably scared out of their wits.

“No, what we’re going to be doing in this class is giving y’all the resources and skills to go back into your own lives in the environments you know, with the people you care about, and be your authentic, Submissive selves. Now, note that I didn’t say subservient, or passive, or any of the other synonyms your cell phone will bring up for you. In fact, let’s do that. Get your phones out and Google the word submissive, and let’s make a list of synonyms up here on the board.” Dean headed back to the chalkboard and waited. “Just shout ‘em out to me. I want everything Google has to give you.” A couple of voices started at once and Dean began to write.

“Compliant,” “Docile,” “Obedient…”

The list took a few minutes and by the end, most all of the students were speaking up. Dean marked who seemed reticent to join in and made a note for himself to check their profiles for shyness ratings. He had ways to draw them out that weren’t confrontational.

“Okay, good. Y’all did great. I think that’s the longest list any of my classes has ever come up with. I think some of y’all clearly strayed into the Urban Dictionary…but it’s cool.” Dean began working through the list with his chalk, ruthlessly crossing out the vast majority of contributions. He left, Compliant and Obedient alone and faced the class once more.

“For all of the Canid species, all the way back to the first dog-like whatever… foxes, I guess, I dunno … the Submissives of the pack have shown a certain set of behaviors. It’s instinctive, and it’s necessary. A pack made up of all lead-dogs wouldn’t be a pack at all, right? For us Lupins,” he gestured around and included himself, “the instinct has crystallized into a formal set of behaviors that are controlled by the wiring inside our brains and our endocrine systems. It isn’t voluntary, it cannot be altered, and it’s somehow determined before birth. For those of you interested in the research, I can hook you up with some really long, boring reports. For the rest of you, just know that we’re still digging hard into the physiological and psychological pre-sets that determine the Tertiary designations for all of us.” Dean smirked at them, “As for me, my hypothesis,” air quotes from Dean, “is that my Mom ate too many Brussels sprouts while she was carrying me, and it turned me Submissive. I hate those nasty little balls of green slime! I’m convinced there’s a link.” Several students giggled.

“So, being Submissive isn’t something we control, but what is it? ‘Kay, well, in essence, it’s a need to demonstrate Compliance and Obedience, or rather, by having Compliance and Obedience drawn from us by an appropriate authority figure, or Top.” He underlined those two words on the board.

He turned around and snapped his fingers for their attention. “I want this to be super clear, folks. When I say Top, I don’t mean the one doing the fucking versus the Bottom, who’s getting fucked. Yes, it works that way most of the time, but throw out your Primate vocab. For us, the Top is whoever’s in charge. It’s that simple. Whether they are catching or pitching, the Top is always the one calling the shots, and the Bottom is the one expected to comply. Subs are Bottoms when they Sub. Period. Any questions about that? Ask me now while we’re on this subject. Otherwise, you’re gonna get real confused, real fast. No?”

Dean gave them a minute to think about it, and then nodded and returned to the board.

“For wolves (meaning us, meaning the two-legged kind), Submissiveness shows itself in the need to be Taken-in-hand, or Directed.” Dean paused, thoughtful, then continued, “Even for Subs who want to be good for their Doms, those who really choose to be obedient, they need to have their wolves sparked with some kind of an initial Dominant trigger—a voice, a direction, or an action that their wolf responds to. Just being good to a Dom is not enough to stroke the Sub wolf. It has to react to something.”

Dean marked out a new section on the board with a “T” table. Above the left side he wrote, “Lupin,” and above the right, he wrote, “Simian.” “I wanna make this very clear to all of you. Submissiveness as it works out for wolves is not the same thing as what the apes are doing. We’ve all seen the movies and read the books out there about ape BDSM practices. Fifty Shades sold how many copies? Right? So, let’s take a look… Can anyone tell me an aspect of the Simian form of submission? Don’t worry if you’re right or not, we’re just makin’ a list here. Shout some words out at me.”

Someone said, “Service,” and someone else said, “Twenty-four/seven,” then “Bondage.” Dean heard a contemptuous voice from the back shout, “COLLARING!” and Dean made a face as he wrote that one. Apes trying to mimic Lupins had been using collars on their submissives for decades, and it rubbed wolves the wrong way every time. Collars were for dogs, not people. It was Dean’s only real point of contention with what the Primates did.

They continued filling out the list with Dean writing as fast as he could. When the voices petered out, he dropped the chalk and walked around his desk, resting his butt against it. His face went serious. “Y’all listen up ‘cause this is important. What the apes do when they live a Dom/Sub lifestyle is different from what it is for us. But. And get this now because I’m going to have zero tolerance for any kind of disrespect about their practice in my classroom…yes, that means I will spank your ass…what they do is awe-inspiring at the very least.

“Everything they do is done by connecting through external forms of communication with one another without any kind of biological base-instinct or bond connections. Most apes who live this way will tell you that they feel it’s a personal affinity or drive of theirs, that they are inherently dominant or submissive, but in the human version of the Primate Troop, there’s no definitive hierarchical structure that’s maintained through this kind of behavior. Submissives among our ape colleagues place themselves voluntarily into the Service of their Dominants—capital “S,” Service. That’s not what you can expect to do with your Doms. We’ll get into the differences more later. In fact, I’ll be bringing in a Simian guest speaker who lives “The Lifestyle” as a twenty-four/seven Submissive to share his experience with us and answer our questions. He’s a really interesting guy. I think you’ll like that class.”

Dean stood again and returned to the chalkboard. “No, what we do is, like I said, different.” He began scribbling a few words on the board under the title, Lupin. “For Lupin Submissives, the best correlation I can give, and don’t hate me for this—I’ll explain in full over the next few weeks—is that we’re a little like naughty pups when we’re in this state. It’s not a matter of providing the Dom with the gift of our Service. It’s that we need to be Taken-in-hand, controlled and corrected and dominated. I guess you could say that in the Simian version, the focus is on what the Submissive can give to the Dominant and vice versa, while in the Lupin version, it’s about what the Dominant takes, what the Top has to elicit from the Sub to pacify the needs of both their wolves. In a way, it’s not true submission at all, you see, because it isn’t voluntary. It’s necessary, and it’s natural, but the driving force comes from the Top.

“Frankly, I think the Simian way may be deeper, more real, and certainly more of a gift…but, we’re stuck with our biology, soooo…it is what it is. I will warn you all that playing BDSM with the Primates is a very risky endeavor. I do not encourage cross-species power-exchange play. Seen too much go wrong with that dynamic over the years. Now, it is possible to set up your own households to mimic what the Primates are doing, if you and your Dom wanna do that, but just know—it’s harder than going with your instinct. Way harder… Remember, this is complicated shit. That’s why we need three months to teach it to y’all. Pay attention, and you’ll do fine.”

Dean continued with the class, introducing important topics one by one to pique the class’s interest, get them looking forward to the weeks to come, not be scared of it. Just before time ran out and they’d finished their practical exercise, the class was putting their clothes back on and getting their breath back, several unsatisfied slowpokes grumbling that there hadn’t been enough time on the buzzer. Dean broke in with a loud voice over the hub-bub.

“Hey, listen up. Before you pack up. Another point for y’all to think about! Look around you. Notice there are no Omegas in this class. Someone give me a guess as to why that is.”

“Because separating us out keeps us from getting distracted and fucking them all the time?” shouted a mouthy alpha-Sub in the back whose erection was still hanging out of his pants.

“Wrong, Neil. Thanks for guessing and get your chubby buttoned in before I come back there and smack it. No. Omegas are in a class by themselves because they are in a class by themselves. They deserve the highest level of attention and respect we can give them. You lot, much as I love you, can get by just fine on instinct and reading through a pamphlet from your high school Health teacher. You’re not going to go insane if you get this wrong, you’ll just be really uncomfortable. And by the way, Neil, and anyone else who thinks Omegas are toys to play with—I am a hundred percent deadly serious. You get zero warnings in this class or anywhere in this Facility. You keep your body parts and your comments to yourselves, or your ass will pay the price. Do it twice, and you’re kicked out for good. While you’re a student here, you fuck only when instructed, and you are not going to be allowed to fuck any Omega students. I’m gonna teach you respect if I have to pound it into you. Clear?”

“Yes, alpha,” the class responded in chorus.

“Neil?”

“I said, yes alpha,” Neil shot back testily.

God. Alphas, thought Dean.

Still projecting his voice, Dean continued. “If you’re an alpha, your first responsibility is to protect and honor the designations who submit to you. PROTECT, not FUCK. Fucking is secondary, and there are safety rules we’ll go over later.

“One last thing, Hey! Listen up! Ever notice that when we write, we always capitalize Omega and only alpha when referring to a Pack Alpha, even when it’s an honorific on someone’s name?”

“And at the beginning of the sentence,” chimed a beta girl in the front.

Dean needed to learn all of their names. “Yeah, and at the beginning of a sentence, you grammar nerd.” He winked at her playfully, and she blushed crimson. He called out to the class who was starting to gather their belongings to leave, “For next time, each of you is to write two pages about why that might be. Why do Omegas get a capital letter, and you don’t? You don’t have to do any research. I want your opinions on the matter. Think it through for me and hand it in tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, you guys are killing me. Go on, class is dismissed, get out of here.” The grumbling faded as they hustled out of the room and either to the parking lot to head home or up to the dorm if they boarded onsite.

Dean grinned as he erased the board. He really loved teaching. I’ve got these fuckers, he thought.

NOW:

Cas came back to himself slowly, floating gently back to Earth on a blissful cloud. He was fairly certain he’d slept at least a little, for returning to consciousness was like waking up from a long sleep. He knew where he was and the essence of what had happened, although many of the details were fuzzy. Probably for the best. He vaguely remembered using his bluntly trimmed nails as claws and chewing (chewing?) on the Omega’s neck. His body was still vibrating a bit, just a gentle buzz. He hummed with pleasure and stretched out, arching his back to work out the kinks. It was very rare that he had the opportunity truly to feed the beast inside him. If he could have seen the great, hulking wolf right now, it would look bloated and sated, lolling on its side with distended belly, picking unconcernedly at its teeth with a toothpick and belching. The wolf was utterly satisfied, for once.

Cas reached out to the small Omega spooned in front of him. She was lovely. Her features were even and delicate. Her hair a golden blonde, medium length and sleek. He remembered wide-set, pale blue eyes, although for the moment, she slept, and they were hidden. He stroked her face and hair with the lightest of touches, in awe at the feelings she already elicited from deep inside him.

Cas was aware he’d come untied from the girl. The wetness that covered the mattress where their groins had met was cold and sticky. It was becoming uncomfortable. As much as he’d love to stay curled up around his mate and never move again, Castiel was a very practical man. He could feel the stirrings of his Rut, Triggered prematurely by the mate-scent, starting slowly to ramp up again. He was back from the fog of Claim/Mate/Mine, but still had to contend with another three or four days of Mate/Breed/Fuck before his body would be purged of the powerful hormones driving him to reproduce.

Castiel estimated he had somewhere between fifteen and forty-five minutes before he succumbed to his Rut and felt compelled to take her again. She looked exhausted, so probably a shower would have to wait. But a change in venue was definitely in order, a sponge-bath at least, and maybe something more to eat. Castiel sighed in happiness. Happiness felt really nice. He hugged his mate close for a moment, then sat up, careful to move slowly in case he became dizzy.

As he sat, his bare legs dangling over the side of the bed, getting his bearings, Ellen opened the door from her control room and slipped in. “Alpha,” she said simply, sniffing the room for signs of aggression pheromones, getting a feel for how safe he was to approach. She balanced between keeping her eyes focused down, and surreptitiously scanning his face for signs he might attack.

There was no need for the trepidation. Cas was back to full control. “Come in, Ellen,” he told her gently. “I trust everything went well? How is she?”

“Yes, Alpha. Everything’s just great. You both did really well. She’s very strong, and from preliminary data, you look to be a good match. Not that that would be a surprise, but it’s really lovely to see a couple come together like that. I’m happy for you.” While she spoke, Ellen filled a wash bowl with warm soapy water and wheeled it on a cart over to where Castiel sat. She handed him a clean washcloth. “I expect you want to do the honors, Alpha.”

“Thank you, Ellen. You’ve done an excellent job watching over us both. You have my deepest gratitude.” The Alpha touched Ellen’s hand in a quick connection, then wetted the cloth in the soapy water and began sponging off his mate’s limbs. She moaned obscenely when he washed between her legs, and he chuckled at her. “Had quite a day, hasn’t she?”

“You both have. I’m sorry that your Mating took so long. We couldn’t think what to do about the Keller test. I think it all worked out okay, but it couldn’t have been easy to wait so long with her scent in your wolf’s nose.”

Castiel rinsed the cloth off and started wiping her back and buttocks after rolling her gently over, out of the wet spot. “It was—difficult, but you and the others made the right call. I’m glad it’s done. I certainly wouldn’t want to share her now that we’re Mated.” He was thoughtful for a moment, engrossed in staring at her damp skin. “Gives me new respect for wolves who undergo the test after they’re Mated. I never realized what a sacrifice it is to know someone else has a Claim on my mate.” Castiel paused again, thinking. He stood barefoot on the slippery floor and began washing himself the same way he’d cleaned his mate. It would have to do for now. There wasn’t time for anything else. She was stirring, chilled as the warm water cooled on her flesh.

“Help me remember, Ellen. I know I chose Garth and Dean to test with her, but it seems like that’s not what happened. Who…?”

Ellen stepped in quickly with an answer. “Garth didn’t leave a Claim, and Sam took the second round. It’s Sam who’s got a Claim on her right now. We’ll take care to keep him away from her until the Claim wears off. I’m sure you won’t need him close to her for anything. You’ll be able to care for her just fine on your own over the next few weeks.” Cas nodded. Yes, he could most definitely do that. The problem would be when he needed to go back to work, having to tear himself away from her. That wasn’t going to be easy.

“Does it look like she’ll be rating out at the edges, like me? Can you tell anything yet, Ellen?” Cas ran a single finger down the delicate line of the girl’s face, peaceful in sleep.

“I can’t really say yet for sure, Alpha, but I don’t think she’s extreme—rare maybe, but not…we’ll just have to wait and see.” Ellen fidgeted with the bathing bowl, and Castiel could tell she was troubled by something. He lowered his head to grab her eye and raised his brows in question.

“She was a virgin, Sir. Garth took her vaginally, and Sam through her channel. I fucked up and didn’t leave that for you. It got hectic today, and I was un-Balanced, and I’m sorry. Um, Bobby had to take over with the test instructions to Sam, and he didn’t think about reserving you her virginity. It’s my fault for letting my adjustment lapse. I fucked up. Sir, I’ve got an appointment tomorrow with alpha Lafitte for my atonement, but I wanted to let you know so you can add to it. You should, Sir. I damaged your property.” Ellen’s verbal diarrhea took Castiel completely by surprise.

“Shh, shh. It’s all right, Ellen. I’m not angry. There’s nothing we can do about it now. I’m sure Benny will do a fine job of covering for whatever misdeeds you owe without input from me.” He pulled her face upwards gently with a hand under her chin. “Are you Balanced now?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

Cas turned back to April. “She doesn’t look old enough…and a virgin. How old is she?”

“She’s seventeen, Alpha. I can’t account for her still being a virgin. This last year her Heats must’ve been intolerable. Sir, her parents just left. They waited until we knew the outcome and that she came through healthy and safe. They seem to care for her. Didn’t strike me as Progressives. I don’t think they are the kind of people to deny her access to an alpha, and she looks healthy. It’s a mystery. You’ll have to ask her.”

Ellen saw his eyes go soft as he met his mate’s eyes, just fluttering open and focusing up at him. His eyes stayed locked on the girl’s, but he spoke to Ellen. “I love her so much, Ellen. I only just met her. I…I don’t even remember if I’ve heard her name, but I already love her like she’s been a part of me my whole life.”

“April, Alpha. Her name is April, and it looks like the feeling’s mutual. So how about you go over to the closet and grab a couple of robes, get yourselves moderately decent, and take another snack and drink from the fridge. You two were asleep for two hours. I’m going to call Bobby and Benny to give you an escort back to your suite.”

The Alpha nodded vaguely but didn’t move as Ellen stepped back out. He couldn’t tear his gaze from the depth of his mate’s pale blue eyes. They were bottomless, weren’t they? They were…beautiful.

“Alpha,” she said softly, sitting up. “I’m cold. The doctor said there was a robe in the closet?” She slid down from the high bed, breaking their staring and followed the Alpha who shook off his reverie to meet his Omega’s needs. They clothed themselves, and he helped her select a snack.

After they ate the small protein bars, he looked seriously at her, taking both of her hands and sitting on the edge of the bed to put his eyes nearer her level. “My apologies, April. It was rude of me to talk about you like that, as if you weren’t right in front of me. I don’t know what to say…Everything feels very awkward to me right now. I don’t really know you at all, but I feel as if I know you more intimately than I’ve ever known anyone. It’s very strange. Please, be patient with me.”

It was the strangest speech from an Alpha she’d ever heard. She didn’t know quite what to do with it. She settled for sending a caress through the Mating-bond, straight into his mind. A confirmation that she too, felt intimately connected to him. She settled herself in his arms, tucking her head against his chest beneath his chin. He responded by wrapping her tightly and resting his chin atop her hair. He sighed, replete.

Yeah, they both thought, this is good.

The intercom crackled on. Bobby’s voice was too loud, and it disturbed the peace of the processing room. “All right, folks. We’ve got your Honeymoon suite all set up. Whenever you’re ready, just head out the door through the Green room, and we’ll get you safely back home.” Castiel shook his head in light amusement. Honeymoon suite?

He led his mate through the door, holding it open for her with one hand and keeping hold of her hand with the other. Castiel had no intention of letting go of her in public, even if this wasn’t really public, not even for a moment. He found Benny and Rufus waiting outside the door.

“Mazel Tov,” said Rufus gruffly with as much warmth as he ever had, and he took the lead down the hallway.

Bobby joined them, and they set off for Cas’ private suite. “The escort isn’t necessary, Bobby.” Cas grumbled. Bobby just grunted back at him. No one else was in the corridor. Castiel suspected they’d cleared it deliberately. Christ, he thought, what did I turn into under the mating-hormones that they think THIS is necessary?

Once safely delivered to the Novak suite, everyone made themselves scarce very quickly. Bobby reminded Castiel he need only call or text if they needed anything and that Bobby, himself, would be checking in periodically to make sure no one needed bandages. Bobby suspected he had a pretty good idea what kind of play any True-Mate match of Castiel’s would want to get up to. Cas wasn’t for the weak of heart. Or body. The Universe would not be cruel enough to match him with a mealy, delicate Omega. Of course, if she did turn out to be too mild for her mate, there was always still Dean, but that wasn’t a consideration right now.

The Rut/Heat cycle hormones and the smell of Omega slick were getting thick enough to smell in the air, so with a last reminder to Cas to leave the hormone sensors on in the whole suite, he beat it back to his own office.

Truly alone at last with April and her blue eyes, her silky, silky hair, and her slim build, Cas didn’t try to fight off the building need. Standing in the foyer where they’d been left, he lowered his chin and fixed a predatory gaze on her face, stripping off his robe as he stood. “I want to take you, April.” He said it matter-of-factly, like he was mentioning it had started to rain, but the look in his eyes spoke differently. His eyes were the window to his wolf. The wolf had cast aside its toothpick, licked himself obscenely, and risen to full glory once more. Its head was low, eyes fixated, ears pointed forward toward its target.

“I want to take you right here on the hard, cold tile floor, but I’m going to ask you first. I want to hear your answer when I ask. You’re going to answer me out loud, do you understand?” Cas was enjoying the slow build in his gut, in his groin. There was a fire in his belly, but it simmered rather than exploded, and he reveled in the control he somehow maintained even as his Rut caught hold of his genitals and swelled them obscenely.

“Yes, Alpha. I understand. I want you to…”

“Not yet, Omega.” He stalked toward her very slowly, holding her eye like a predator does its prey. “Mind that you follow my instructions exactly. I will always tell you exactly what I want. If you obey me, in word, action, spirit, and thought, you will be rewarded. For every act of disobedience, you will be punished. For some things, you may get no warning. I expect complete Submission from you. You will not say no to me.” He narrowed his eyes as he continued striding forward very slowly, not quite reaching her although the distance wasn’t far. “Do you understand me?” His voice was cold iron scraped over gravel.

She whimpered, but whispered, “Yes, Alpha. I understand.” She breathed shallowly. A dribble of slick broke free and ran down the inside of her right leg and all the way to the floor. Her eyes had gone golden, masking most of the blue. Her cheeks were flushed, and she trembled.

“Good girl.” He took the last step and drew himself up to loom over her, using his immense Alpha-Dominant power to make his position as her mate abundantly clear. “April,” he intoned. “May I fuck you on the cold, tile floor until your back is red and raw and you’re gaping with my seed?” He reached for her, one hand sweeping her thin robe off her shoulders to pool on the floor, and the other grasping her hair at the back of her head and craning her head back sharply.

It wasn’t really a fair question, since he’d already fed her the correct answer, but April’s wolf was a horny bitch, and she’d waited long enough. “Please, Alpha! Please fuck me on the floor. I want you to take me right here.” There was barely enough breath control for her to get the words out. His arms swept her literally off her feet. She hit the floor hard with an “Oomph” although the hand in her hair protected her head more tenderly than might should have been expected, and she landed safely.

He put three fingers to her mouth, and she took them in immediately, sucking them and slaving them with her tongue. Her eyes slipped closed. She lost herself to the sensations rocking back and forth between them through the Mating-bond.

“Open your eyes,” he told her sternly. “Look at me. Always at me.” She snapped them open and found his face. “I expect you to stay focused on me at all times while I touch you unless I tell you otherwise or your position makes doing so impossible. That is a Rule, and I will punish you if you break it. You’ll not get a warning.” As he spoke, he pulled his fingers from her mouth and drove them deep into her. She locked her eyes on him and groaned, almost a growl, driving her hips up and back to pull him in deeper.

The Alpha chuckled darkly, pulling his hand away and spanking the side of her thigh, leaving a perfect handprint. “You take what I give you, and nothing else. It is not your decision how fast, how hard, or how deeply you get fucked. Or even if you get fucked at all. You are mine. Your body, your pleasure, and your pain belong to me to do with as I will.” He resumed fucking her roughly with three fingers in her pussy. The slick ran copiously down the crack of her ass, and she cried out, trying so hard to hold his gaze and keep herself still at the same time. She wondered with what little thought she had left if the noises coming from her throat were permitted. He hadn’t said to be quiet, and she didn’t think she could stop them in any case. She thought that if he didn’t take her within the next twenty seconds, she would explode. She didn’t have any control left, and the pain of her Heat was building again.

“That’s my very good girl,” he told her. His eyes had lost all but a tiny ring of blue around the iris. A mix of Alpha red and blown wide black pupil changed his visage entirely. She hoped her eyes were responding with a ring of gold, but they would do whatever they were going to do. She couldn’t tell, and she couldn’t worry about that now.

Castiel held back long enough to turn his wolf into a slathering, demanding beast again. Then he released hold of it. He snatched his fingers out of her wetness and thrust them back into her mouth. She tongued at them hungrily, taking whatever he gave, just as he’d told her to. He lined his cock up and pressed slowly into her hot, silken center, testing her resolve, giving her a chance to be good for him…or not. She growled again, and whined high in her throat, but she didn’t close her eyes, and she didn’t press her hips up to meet his.

“Good, good, good girl. So good for me. How did I get so lucky?” The question, of course, was rhetorical. He fucked her powerfully, smoothly, and rhythmically, not really in control, but apparently, his wolf wanted to draw it out as long as possible. Her ass and shoulders squeaked against the tiles as his thrusts drove them relentlessly, but slowly across the foyer floor. “Close your eyes, Omega.” He spoke harshly, unable to avoid allowing his wolf to speak for him. They broke their gaze, and he tucked his head over her shoulder so he could really get to work, picking up the pace with a slow build into a ruthless pounding, curling his mass around her tiny form.

She clawed at his back, trying to find purchase somehow. She felt like she was falling, endlessly falling through space. Her whole body zinged with a pleasure she couldn’t have known before today. She kept her eyes tightly closed and felt his mouth close around her right nipple, sucking harshly. She was so tired. Too tired to process. Too tired to feel, and yet, the ceaseless thrusting continued, and it felt soooo good. “Alpha, help me!” she wailed. “I’m falling! Help me.” She finished weakly, hardly catching her breath.

“Fall, Omega! That’s a good feeling. You’re safe to let go. Let go and fall! I’ll catch you!” She came with a scream that felt like it ripped from her throat. Her Alpha caught her and held her tight through the pulses that went on and on. Slick was everywhere. Maybe it was Alpha come, she realized they were tied again, although he was still thrusting and grunting heavily. Most of his weight rested on top of her, pinning her down. It didn’t feel confining though. It felt like a safe place to let go of herself. She floated, blissful, and took what her Alpha gave her, slowly drifting away into a safe cocoon of sleep. He never let her fall, and when she awoke, daylight was breaking through large windows over an enormous white bed. Her Alpha snored softly beside her, his hair ridiculously messy, but his embrace warm and snug. The Omega drifted back to her cloud of sleep.

Chapter Text

NOW:

When Castiel awoke, his wolf was happily frolicking. He kept his eyes closed for a few more minutes, watching the great black monster roll joyfully in the warm grass, letting the sun warm its belly while the grass took care of that itchy spot in the middle of its back, flinging its huge head from side to side and snapping at its own tail at each apex, only to flip back to its feet and bound across the flower-strewn lawn in ecstasy. It was a few minutes of pure bliss. Cas smiled as he opened his eyes to find a pair of pale blue ones laughing at him.

“Have a good dream, Alpha?” she asked him. Castiel hummed serenely and pulled her warm body on top of his.

“Not as good as what I’ve woken up to.” He kissed the tip of her nose. Castiel could feel his Rut pulling his attention back down south, and he could think of no reason to deny the urge, intrigued to discover that it was an urge and not a demand, a soulful pull toward the warmth of her crotch, but not the usual mindless fire inside his gut. It was almost like observing another alpha’s Rut.

Registering the sensation of building Heat within their new bonds and her thrumming desire that mirrored his, he lifted her hips easily and wiggled a bit as he lowered her back down, angling himself to spear her on his engorged cock. They shared a low guttural moan of deep satisfaction. The ping that sang to him through the Mating-bond was new and delightfully strange. He could feel her pleasure as he filled her. He could send satisfaction right back through the bond, and it became a reverberating, echoing, building harmonic of pleasure passed back and forth between them as they fucked leisurely.

Cas was in no hurry, a novelty considering he was still mid-Rut. It was the strangest Rut he’d ever experienced. His wolf, usually so insistent and demanding, so severe, couldn’t be bothered to stop skipping in the sunshine. Cas rolled his eyes at the big dog and pulled his Omega’s hips down hard, burying his knot while he drove himself up into her warm body again and again and let the smooth, wet heat embrace him.

He built speed and power slowly, taking his time, working himself into a slow but steady urgency. Cas felt her Omega gland Release again as she came hard on nothing but the feel of his cock inside her, clutching his shoulders and calling out. In a compartmentalized section of his brain, he marked that she didn’t need clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm, and he counted himself lucky. He’d always enjoyed the sensitivity of an easy O. Her eyes never left his face. He thrust a few more times, slow and hard, grinding her groin against his on his upstroke before clenching his jaw and following his beautiful mate over the edge with a loud groan.

After, they spooned tenderly together, speaking saccharine things and petting one another’s wolves as they lay curled together in the soft grass.

Cas’ Rut only lingered for a couple more days, and April came back to earth shortly after. It was a strange cycle for both of them. Their wolves seemed content to couple slowly and sensuously instead of the usual hard-driven pounding Claim that makes the romance books about Lupin love one hundred percent accurate. Two weeks after that, two weeks that saw them both keeping isolated from the rest of the world, holed up in Castiel’s small but well-appointed suite, Castiel accepted a cup of coffee and a smile from his mate in his suite’s small kitchenette.

“Thank you, April,” he purred, touching the small of her back. He rarely stopped touching her when she was within arm’s length. She poured a glass of juice for herself and began to kneel on the floor next to his feet as she had been doing for the past two weeks. Cas raised her gently and motioned toward the empty chair. “Not right now, love. This meeting is about you, and you’re entitled to be a part of it. Go on Ellen. You were saying?”

Ellen and Bobby sipped their coffee as the four Canids went over the results of April’s assessments. April seemed to find the discussion well out of her depth and intimidating, listening without comment for the most part. To Cas, none of it was particularly surprising until they reached the section on April’s Omega Release response. Ellen advised that Cas would have to find an inspired way to provide true punishment for the girl’s Sub training without sparking her intensely masochistic pleasure triggers. “It’s not going to be easy, Alpha. She still needs frequent Balance adjustments—probably about twice a week—so you can’t just give her creative pain-free punishment. If you whip her, she’ll probably Release for you, but she’ll enjoy it too much to serve as effective punishment, and her ability to learn may be hampered. On the flip side, she tested extremely low for brattiness. She’s a good girl who will try to please her Dominant. I don’t expect she’ll deliberately break many rules. Still, Alpha, she’s a twenty-three on the Secondary scale. She’s going to need punishment as a part of her Balancing matrix. It seems her Releasing and her Balancing may require opposite approaches.”

“Would you suggest working in her Releases as part of a system of rewards?” Cas asked. “If she enjoys impact-play, and she needs it to Release, I see no reason it can only be applied as punishment. Maybe we can find something else she dislikes for that. There’s no rule I’m aware of that says Ozzies can only be punished corporally.”

Bobby nodded. “That’s true, but you might want to talk it over with Benny. It may be an easy fix to just work pain and Release into her playtime. I expect there may be a curveball we’re missing. I get the sense she’s not that simple. I’ve never seen a twenty-three who could get by on just play.”

April interrupted cautiously. “My father—my alpha from before—always said that…he said he could only get me to fully Release when I was in trouble for something. He says it only works when I feel guilty. But I don’t like to break rules. I hate it. Makes me feel awful inside.” She stopped speaking abruptly and lowered her gaze to her hands in her lap. Cas didn’t like seeing her so uncomfortable in a discussion that had so much direct impact on her life. He sent her support and comfort through their bond, and she nodded silently but didn’t say anything more.

It was a strange puzzle, but Castiel determined to deliver everything his Omega needed. He spent late evenings researching ways around the Omega-Sub’s highly masochistic base setting. He tried a few things out with April, guided by her father’s advice, and discovered the key indeed lay in her sense of guilt when a Rule was broken. When he struck her for play or stimulation, she loved it, moaning her orgasm to the sky, and thanking her generous Alpha for providing. But she never Released more than a trickle. However, when her Alpha-Dom applied the same strap with a stern visage and a harsh voice after she failed to meet his requirements, even absurd requirements, she cried piteously, her Omega-gland Released completely, and she swore to behave, seeking forgiveness. She and Castiel agreed that she needed many, many Rules, too many to adhere to, too many to remember—providing opportunities to fail, seek harsh reprimand, and then find absolution and Release.

After weeks of twenty-four/seven Sub-training, Cas felt grounded and steady. His relationship with April mostly stable, for the next few weeks, Castiel began slowly increasing his work responsibilities while maintaining a firm focus on getting to know April. For the time being it was easier to continue living in The Facility suite provided him as Director and institutional Pack Alpha. Cas planned to move his mate into his own home for good once her twelve-week Ozzie training was complete. He focused most of his hours on orienting his Omega to his preferences and his strict Rules and helping her learn how to make her way around The Facility. Slowly, he also began scheduling business meetings and trying to catch up on email—so much email.

Cas was disappointed to see that Dean had declined his meeting requests, filing his reports electronically just prior to the meeting times but never appearing in person. He missed seeing the green-eyed Sub, missed his goofy sense of humor and irreverent twinkle, missed his razor-sharp analysis of the goings on in the world. He just missed Dean. Somehow, wherever Cas was and whatever he was doing, he found himself trying to share his thoughts, observations, or experiences with Dean only to realize that his favorite alpha wasn’t there. It was unnerving to say the least. The two of them had been joined at the hip for years as they built this place. Cas felt like his left arm was somehow excised. His texts went unanswered, and his calls went straight to voicemail.

The two hadn’t seen each other since before Castiel’s Mating. Cas thought he caught the back of Dean’s head as he entered rooms on several occasions but didn’t intentionally pursue his friend. They were just on different schedules, right? Busy, like always.

But no. As the weeks passed, Castiel saw and spoke to the rest of his Facility Pack like normal but never ran into Dean—Sometimes he kept April close. Occasionally he left her alone in the suite. And sometimes he left her with Meg or Charlie. She seemed to be making friends with both women. Cas wasn’t sure how good an idea a friendship with Meg would be, but he wasn’t about to try to control his mate’s relationships. She was her own woman, as much as that was possible for an Ozzie as deep as April. Maybe April would even turn out to be a good influence on the bratty nurse—But wherever Cas was, it seemed Dean wasn’t. What’s more, he began to hear and see signs that Dean’s work was suffering. It was most definitely not like the alpha to submit poorly thought-out reports, skip crucial planning meetings, or fail to register the new round of research volunteers. He even canceled two scene sessions with Cas. That was really strange. Dean usually jumped at the chance to get his freak on with the Big Bad Wolf himself.

Cas brushed aside a growing worry that Dean was avoiding him for personal reasons. That would mean that Dean had personal reasons to feel torn at Castiel’s Mating, and that hinted at things Castiel knew to be impossible. He told himself Dean meant to give the Alpha space after Mating, space to adjust, nothing more. He considered the implications that Dean might be nearing a Tertiary Fall, but the scene they’d plied just before Cas scented his mate and fell head-first down the True-Mate well had been intense—intense enough to Balance Dean for months. Cas wanted to give Dean space to work through the shift in dynamics between them, but he couldn’t allow Dean’s work to suffer without a response. As Director of Training, Dean reported directly to Castiel.

It wasn’t personal. It was business. Castiel had no choice but to address the alpha’s slacking.

And despite his fierce reputation, the Alpha was truly a very patient man. By his way of thinking, if you’re the most dominant of Dominants, it isn’t necessary to yell to get your way. At least, that’s what Cas always found. But Dean’s behavior was beginning to irk him, and the Alpha was beginning to feel that Dean was taking advantage of his hands-off approach. He made a note to seek him out soon.

It came to a head on a Tuesday, late in the afternoon.

Jo barged into his office without knocking, sounding annoyed, sounding like she was in the middle of an already initiated argument. “Alpha.” He had his medical coat half off, planning to head back to his suite and his mate. “I’m glad I caught you. I need to know; are you planning to enroll your mate in this session of the Ozzie class? We’ve held it up a couple of weeks to make sure she didn’t miss anything. Dean didn’t want to get started and make her wait a month for the next one, but it’s getting to the point we can’t wait any longer.”

“I don’t understand, Jo. The Omega-Sub class was scheduled to begin two weeks ago. Surely you haven’t postponed a whole class just for one student. We don’t do that. We never do that. Besides, I’m perfectly capable of seeing to April’s Ozzie training myself since she missed the enrollment period. I’d expected to, in fact. Whose decision was this, and why was I not consulted?” Cas dropped from grounded and steady to sweaty-palmed shaky in an instant. Quite suddenly, he was not himself. He felt constricted in his own skin, and he felt intensely exasperated. Had he not known better, he might assume he hadn’t scened recently. But that was ridiculous. He and April had shared an intense session just yesterday afternoon that had been immensely satisfying. She was so good for him. Cas’ white lab coat still only halfway off went right back on, an unconscious attempt to posture and intimidate the young alpha. It worked. Or something did. Maybe it was just Cas.

Jo stammered, clearly not expecting his snippy response and sharp scent. “I, oh, well. We thought you would wanna…I mean, I know you can, but you’re so busy, and Dean’s such a good teacher. Plus, she’ll make friends with the other Ozzies. It’s good for her socialization, so we just...”

“I asked you questions, Jo. You’re babbling, not answering.” She didn’t get to finish her thought.

“Yes, Alpha. Um, I guess it was Dean’s call to postpone the start, and I didn’t realize that he didn’t ask you about it. I guess?” Her inflection went up at the end of her statement, a clear indication she had no idea what to say, what he was looking for. He hated when people tried to mollify him.

“That’s it!” he snapped, heading briskly to the door. “I’ve had enough. Where’s Dean? I’m getting to the bottom of this right now!”

“I…” was all Jo knew to say. She’d never seen Cas so, prickly.

Cas stormed out of his office and into the corridor just in time to see Dean approaching the exit to the parking lot. “WINCHESTER!” he bellowed. Dean, almost to the turnstile, tucked his head immediately at the sound and looked for a moment like he would keep going, but then turned slowly and walked gravely back up the hall, swimming against the tide of employees taking their leave for the day. He visibly braced himself for a confrontation long overdue.

“Yes, Alpha?” Dean spoke perfectly respectfully, except for how he didn’t.

Cas snapped, “You put eight Omega-Subs in a holding pattern for two weeks instead of starting their class. That’s two weeks of boarding fees we’ll have to refund and a hell of a lot of wasted resources. I want an explanation. Right now!” The Alpha gestured Dean into his office, shooed Jo out, and closed the door in her face.

Dean affected a disinterested drawl. “We were waiting for you and your mate to come down from the clouds, or whatever. Wanted to let her take part. Ya know, if that’s what you wanted, not that you’ve been doing much communicating on the matter.” Dean shrugged and faced the wall, studying the diplomas he’d seen thousands of times, adopting an air of nonchalance although the tension across his shoulders gave away the lie.

“And what have the other students been doing for the last two weeks?”

“Orientation, mostly. We’ve got them doing some practice exercises and working out as a group in the gym.” Dean sounded like he didn’t give a rat’s ass.

Cas stared at Dean for a moment, baffled. The day Dean Winchester stopped caring about training Ozzies would be the day the sun stopped moving across the sky. What the hell? “Why did you not seek my permission to alter the schedule? These people have lives to get back to, alpha. They have schedules and commitments outside of this Facility. We can’t arbitrarily lengthen their training course. Why did you not consult me?”

Dean lit up with fury and spun to face Castiel. “Because I’m the fucking Director of Training, that’s why! I’m directing their training. That’s my job! That’s what I’m here for! I shouldn’t have to run every minuscule decision past you. I don’t need a fucking babysitter!” He planted his fists on the desk and loomed over it, right up in Castiel’s face.

What on earth? Castiel’s jaw dropped. “Dean, what’s gotten into you? I don’t understand this behavior.” Cas was unnerved by the man’s reaction. Raw rage etched deep furrows in the lines around Dean’s mouth and eyes.

“Whatever.” Dean deflated and turned toward the door, placing one hand on the knob and looking at the floor. “From now on we’ll stick straight to the training schedule as posted. If you want your girl in the class, have her there tomorrow at eight. Can I go?”

“What? No! Dean, we haven’t talked in weeks, and you’re dangerously off-balance. Sit down and tell me what’s going on with you.”

Dean stiffened. He snapped, “No. You asked me a work question, which I answered. It’s past my shift, so I figure I’m off the clock and under no obligation to hand over my personal life just ‘cause you feel like playing Oprah.”

The scent of fury rankled in Cas’ nostrils. His head tilted subtly, and his brow furrowed. “Why are you so angry? Dean, talk to me. Have I done something wrong?”

Dean scoffed rudely. “Nope.” He popped the P. “You’re peachy. I’m just really hungry. See, I worked straight through lunch so I could get that curriculum review to my boss by the deadline. I’d like to go home now, get some food in my gut before I pass out. I’m sure you understand.” As usual, he could have quit while he was ahead and not given away the whole kit and caboodle, but his mouth was a little bitch which betrayed him. As usual. “Just go on back to your sweet Submissive Omega mate.”

“Ah,” said Castiel coolly. A light bulb flickered on. Inside, he began to squirm uncomfortably as if this conversation were starting to scratch at an area he needed to keep undisturbed. Dark still waters moved menacingly beneath the surface. He adopted a stoic face and proceeded as if he had no emotions in play. “I understand. Dean there’s no reason to feel threatened by my Mating. It needn’t have any effect on my scening with you or our professional relationship. I’ve been looking forward to reconnecting with you, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear about that.” Inside, Cas’ wolf began to pant uncomfortably and whine, pawing at Cas’ leg to get his attention, but Castiel ignored him. “In fact, I was very disappointed that you canceled two scenes with me. You could clearly use the opportunity to let off some steam.”

“Threatened? Threatened? Fuck you, Castiel!” Dean was livid, as alpha as Cas had ever seen him. Cas’ wolf lowered his ears and snarled, incensed that the Sub would speak to his Dominant like that, but Cas didn’t allow any sign of his turmoil to show on his face.

“I can smell the cortisol you’re putting out, the norepinephrine. You need to scene. Badly. It’s not good for you to remain this stressed.” Cas struggled to keep everything he’d always hidden from Dean locked beneath his stoic visage. His wolf slavered and whimpered. It dug divots in the loamy soil beneath its paws. Its eyes glowed with a blue inner light. Castiel ignored it.

“Fine. I can contract my next scene. I’ll check if Raphael is free.” Dean turned to go again.

“What?! No, Dean! Raphael would be a terrible Dom for you. Look, as your boss, your friend, your Alpha, and your Dom, I insist you let me…”

“I don’t want you to touch me!” Dean lied, rage pouring from his eyes. His wolf threw itself against Dean’s chest and demanded he walk the declaration back, but Dean stood firm. “You’ve got no say in this, Castiel! You’re my boss, and yeah, we’ve been friends for a long time, but you ain’t my Alpha, and you’re not my Dom unless I agree to it!”

Castiel’s wolf whined mournfully, sitting next to his knee and looking up plaintively into his face. Something was terribly, terribly wrong, and the wolf didn’t like it at all, but it felt impotent to alter the course. “My playtime is none of your goddamned business!”

Castiel was at a loss. He couldn’t make heads or tails of Dean’s behavior or his ire. This wasn’t the time or place to call the Submissive down. Dean was firmly planted in his Secondary—his alpha headspace—not his Tertiary Submissive. No, Cas needed to understand. Flummoxed and desperate, and beginning to panic, he pleaded, “I don’t get it, Dean. What do you want from me?” his cool demeanor finally cracking under the simultaneous onslaught from his Submissive and his own wolf.

Dean went still, focused on the wall again, refusing to look at Castiel. He sucked in a deep breath as if steeling his nerves. When he spoke, his words came out clipped. “I want you to sign my transfer papers to work for Henrickson in Dallas.” Dean’s voice had grown still and cold again, belying the fact that a bomb had exploded in Castiel’s head. (The Sub’s leaving,) cried the wolf in Cas’ mind, (You can’t let this happen—tie him up! Don’t let our beautiful Sub leave us!) But Dean couldn’t hear Castiel’s wolf, and he went on. “The new Facility down there isn’t drawing the clients it should, and their statistics are crap. Victor thinks it has to do with the training department. He offered me a job playing snoop, posing as a rank-and-file teacher to see if I can figure out where the kinks are. I’m gonna take it. I hear Dallas has warmer winters than Kansas.”

“What!?” Cas sputtered. “Nonsense! You can’t leave. Dean, you’re needed here. You run…everything, almost. We’d be lost without you. I’d be lost without you. What on earth are you talking about?! All the classes, all the studies…”

“You can let me transfer to Dallas, Alpha, or I’ll just quit and go to work for Gordon.” Dean sounded defeated. He still couldn’t meet Cas’ eyes.

“Dean!” Castiel was appalled.

“It’s your choice, Castiel.” Dean turned toward him, taking a shaky breath. “It’s only ever been your choice.” He finally met Castiel’s eye, green met blue, and then the green overflowed. Dean’s breath hitched. He wanted to stop talking but couldn’t. “Just answer me this, Cas. All this that we’re doing here, all the precision and scheduling, the research and training, all the control and the trust…if it doesn’t give us any damn choices, about our own lives, ‘bout our own destiny, if in the end, we’re still just slaves to our bodies…what’s it any good for? What’s the fucking point?”

“Oh, Dean.”

“You know what, man? You can take your self-righteous, holier-than-thou, big-bad Dominant pity and cram it up your ass! I don’t want it!”

“Dean, no.” Castiel was shaking and pale now. His wolf leaned heavily against him, seeking comfort that wasn’t there to give. “You can’t leave me.” He stopped abruptly and caught Dean’s eye again reaching across the desk but not quite touching him. “Don’t leave me. Dean, I love you.”

Castiel’s voice trembled, meeker than Dean had ever heard it before, and he wanted. Dean wanted so badly to accept the invitation that lay on the other side of those words. But he couldn’t. He was forced to shove his own wolf out of his way. It steadfastly blocked his path, leaning in heavily and bracing against being shifted, but he managed it, barely. He had to stop this conversation in its tracks. It couldn’t be allowed to go down that path, couldn’t allow himself to consider it.

He would shatter.

Shoving right into Castiel’s space, Dean fumed. His words came out stilted and breathy. “You don’t get to say that to me! Not like this. Not now! Not after…” Dean breathed hard through his nose as he snapped his mouth closed. He closed his eyes, sending more tears shamefully down his cheeks.

How had he turned into this? Who was he anymore?

What the hell did Castiel even mean by that?

Dean continued after a moment, in a voice utterly devoid of emotion, “I’ll have Jo and Sam get the Ozzie class started for you tomorrow at eight and let Ellen know to reschedule all my test appointments. I…” There was nothing left to say that wouldn’t destroy his resolve and shame him to his core. He paused at the door and collected his self-respect. He closed the door gently behind him.

Motionless in the office, Cas stared blankly at the door through which his love had vanished.

Castiel’s wolf lifted its head and howled.

Bobby found him late that night, sitting at his kitchen table, idly stroking his Omega’s hair as she leaned against his leg. She looked exhausted and miserable. Bobby put her to bed then confronted his friend.

“Heard about Dean from Jo. Heard he’s leavin.’ You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

“I was stupid, Bobby.” Cas lifted his gaze, wholly bereft, and met the older alpha’s concerned eyes. “And now it’s too late.”

“Well, fuck,” agreed Bobby.

Six weeks went by. Dean breathed through his nose, fast and shallow, his lips closed and pulled tight across his teeth. He grunted as the strap added another line across his flank. Tears sprung up. He let them fall freely. There was no shame in crying through a strapping. It was cathartic and kinda the whole point. His grip turned white on the hold bar as he held on with all his substantial strength, and his mind raced. Another stroke landed. Another stripe. This time an open-mouthed shout. Maybe the next stroke will knock me out of my head, he thought.

The punishment was going wrong. All wrong. Yeah, it wasn’t fun, it hurt like hell, and he would most decidedly find a way to avoid riling up this particular beta again if he could, but he wasn’t living in his Submissive. He shouldn’t have been able to occupy his front-brain right in the middle of a punishment that he had coming to him. That’d never happened to him before. It was fucking with his head. It was entirely the wrong persona for the situation, but he just couldn’t get there. And god, he needed so badly to get there. He moaned in frustration. And rage.

The strap landed again. Dean growled.

In the six weeks since his move to north Texas, Dean had yet to try out a scene partner. He meant to. He had logged onto the Facility scheduler several times, only to back right out again. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. This one here was a freebie, in a way: not requested overtly, but granted, nonetheless. Dean’s brat mouthed off one time too many. Only, it wasn’t enough, and Dean had no idea what to do about it. He held on tightly, let the tears splash across the wooden spanking bench, and hoped better times were coming. Please, god, let better days be coming.

The strap stilled. Dean didn’t try to rise. He lay with all his weight on the bench and breathed. The tears didn’t abate.

“Do you have something you’d like to say to me, Submissive?” Ruby’s voice eked out silky and pretentious, the bitch.

Dean’s jaw clenched so tightly he couldn’t answer at first. His mind bounced back and forth between, give her the answer she wants and, be a little shit.

“You hit pretty hard for a beta,” he grunted.

She didn’t rise to the challenge though. She knew what he was doing, and she refused to be baited. By institutional policy, she was here to apply punishment, not stroke his wolf into blissful Submissive oblivion. By personal proclivity, she thrilled at his dissatisfaction and wrath. A cruel smile turned her face into a rictus.

Cas would’ve humored my wolf, Dean thought, followed by a mental castigation as he roped in the piteous whining and slapped it down, Aaaargh! Stop it! Enough! God, I need help. His mind raced again, and he dissolved into sobs upon the bench. Everything was wrong, off-kilter, spinning out of control. Dean had never felt so lost in his life.

Ruby misinterpreted the outward manifestation of Dean’s inner turmoil—or at least she pretended to. A sobbing Sub was a Sub well-spanked. “I may hit like a beta, kiddo, but you cry like a little girl. And hard-hitting or not, I turned your backside practically glowing, soooo, once I hear the three little words I’m looking for, Dean-o, we’ll be done here.”

The words Kiss my ass sprang immediately to mind, but Dean was certain those weren’t the ones she was expecting. He sighed and reined in his tears. There was no use dragging this out. It was a lost cause where his Sub was concerned. He wasn’t going to get there, not with Ruby holding the strap. He needed his Alpha.

“I’m sorry, beta,” he finally gave her.

She grinned at him. “Thank you, Dean. Perhaps you’ll remember from now on that just because you were hot shit up in Kansas doesn’t mean you’re anything whatsoever in Texas. Around here, you answer to me, got it? If I say an Ozzie’s earned a punishment, then you agree with me, and you get your ass out of my way. That’s how it works here, and don’t you forget it. Next time you interfere with my training techniques, you’ll walk away bloody.”

Wow. Dean didn’t even try to enumerate everything that was wrong with her tirade. She had it all backwards and upside down. And he’d be on a slow spit in hell before he’d let himself walk past an Omega being punished unfairly. He stood up from the bench and forced himself to move with dignity despite the fact he’d left it on the leather cushioned bench, left it back in Kansas in Castiel’s spartan office. She didn’t have to know that. He checked in with his wolf but got nothing but his great gray back and a cold shoulder. The wolf still wasn’t speaking to him.

Hadn’t spoken to him for six weeks.

“Hey, Bro!”

“Ah, Gabriel,” Cas intoned as he entered his own office to find his older brother slunk low in the visitor’s chair with his feet crossed upon Castiel’s desk. “Get your feet off my desk.”

“You look like you were spit out of a paper shredder,” Gabriel offered helpfully. Then he went on:

“Backward.

“Through a wind tunnel.

“While it’s raining.”

Those crossed feet hadn’t moved.

Cas waited with enduring patience. He’d learned through the years that Gabe needed to be Gabe and any attempt to alter his behavior was fruitless. “Have you finished?” asked Castiel tonelessly.

“While being swarmed by bees.”

“Thank you for your assessment, unsolicited though it was. It’s good to see you, too.” Cas settled into his chair and regarded his brother. The Omega looked really good, healthy and Balanced, but for the tightness about his eyes. “So, to what do I owe this honor? And get your damned feet off my desk.”

“I came by to check if you’d seen this yet.” Gabriel flung a folded newspaper directly into Cas’ chest. He caught it mechanically but didn’t glance at it before laying it on his desk.

“I’ve seen it.” Cas kept his eyes on his brother, his face impassive. Gabriel raised an eyebrow. Below, on the desk, unacknowledged by her younger son, Naomi Novak’s face peered judgmentally from the front page underneath the damning headline that read,

LUPIN CONGRESSWOMAN CO-AUTHORS BILL TO DEFUND WOLF-AID Certain to Face Off Against Her Own Son Again

Cas shook his head. “We were aware of the rumors months ago. We have allies where we need them. The bill won’t even make it out of committee. She’s just posturing, probably trying to solidify Primate alliances on the hill.” Castiel sighed tiredly and spoke in a monotone. It’s all he’d been able to manage for six weeks now—the six weeks since he’d lost Dean. Every conversation these days was a chore.

“You’re going to tell me this doesn’t bother you?” Gabe wasn’t buying it, but Cas had long since given up trying to understand or control their mother.

“What do you expect me to say?” Cas mumbled. “Naomi has made her decisions and chosen her own path. I have no more control over her life choices than I do yours.”

“So, it’s Naomi now?”

“She hasn’t been much of a mother in a very long time,” Cas wasn’t giving Gabriel the emotional response he wanted, so Gabe tried another tack.

“I just wanna know what you’re going to do about it. You want me to arrange for some well-positioned pipe bombs? I know a guy. We can end it right here.”

Cas huffed a small laugh. It felt nice. “Keep your pipe bombs under wraps, big brother. Please. I beg you.”

“Whatever you say. You’re the boss,” Gabe scoffed.

Right. As if Gabriel Novak had ever acknowledged an Alpha’s claim over him, much less his baby brother’s.

Cas took a deeper look at his brother and spoke again, “You didn’t come here to talk about our mother. You knew I was already on it.” Gabe quirked a smirk at him. “What do you want? And get your goddamned feet off my desk!” Cas abruptly shoved the Omega’s feet, toppling his brother unceremoniously all the way out of his chair and onto the floor. The chair tipped over on top of him.

Gabe didn’t respond to his rude upheaval. He merely stood, pulled the chair back upright and made himself comfortable again, tossing one of Castiel’s stress balls to himself as he spoke. “I’m worried about you, Castiel.” He paused, and after a moment rested both feet, crossed at the ankles, upon Cas’ desk. “Not sleeping very well, are you? Having trouble concentrating on your work? Word around the halls says you rarely eat in the cafeteria with the Pack anymore, and I wonder if you’re eating much at all. Your eyes kinda sank into your face. You look like shit.” Gabriel delivered the whole thing without once looking away from the ball as he tossed it into the air, caught it, and repeated.

He caught the ball with a dramatic flair and held it, fixing his brother with his eye and growing somber. “Are you taking care of yourself, Castiel? And I don’t mean dental hygiene. ‘Cause, man, you really do look like crap.”

“I’m fine Gabriel, and it’s none of your business.”

“Aaaaaand, that’s the biggest load of horseshit you’ve ever tried to cram down my throat.”

“Gabe.”

Cas tried. He really did. But his brother was right, and he was too tired to keep up a front. Had it been anyone else in the world running this intervention, Castiel would have had no trouble keeping his Alpha-Dominant persona firmly in place. But his brother knew how to read Cas better than anyone. (Not better than Dean), spoke his wolf.

True. Not better than Dean.

But Gabe was good. Gabriel knew when to press and when to brat and when to wait it out and say nothing at all. This time he waited silently and looked Cas in the eye, his head low and his brow lifted in expectation.

“I really, really miss him,” Cas admitted although it was news to no one.

“So go get him.”

“I can’t. He left me. He left me. He walked away, Gabriel. He made it abundantly clear he wants nothing from me, and he moved a thousand miles from here. I can’t follow him. That’s not what he wants.”

“I’ve never known you to walk away from anything you want without a fight, Cas.” Gabe drilled hard into his brother, offering no pause. “Why are you still camped here in your suite, man? Why haven’t you brought her home yet? What are you waiting for? Is it because home isn’t home without him? Is it because carrying your mate over the threshold makes it real? Man, I watched you on live television confront your own mother in congressional committee and call her delusional in front of the whole world. I never expected to see you act a coward.”

“What do you want me to do? He left. I’m Mated. That’s all there is, end of story. Besides, I couldn’t do that to April. I need her too much. I love her too much, and she’s good to me, Gabe. You don’t know; she’s so good to me. I couldn’t do that to either of them. What do you think I can do? Alpha compulsion doesn’t work that way. And what am I supposed to do, buy a massive bed and expect Dean to be fine with sharing?”

“Stop, goddamnit! Stop coming up with bullshit excuses! Jesus. Christ. Just. Here, listen…try this. Say…just pretend…you got to choose for yourself, Cas. Imagine that your wolf could point his muzzle toward what it wanted most in the world and could just keep traveling until he reached it, could reach out and claim it, take it home and own it. If you could have what you want—whatever you want—just for you…what would it be? No bullshit this time. There’s no rules, man, there’s no biological mandate…just you deciding what’s best for you. What do you want, Castiel?”

Castiel snapped. “I want Dean! I have wanted Dean forever, but…”

“No but, Castiel. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have what you really want ripped away from you to where you can’t ever get it back. Not ever. You’ve got a chance to fix this. I didn’t get that chance. Mine’s gone. Yours is in Dallas, living a miserable half-existence, waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass and tell him how you feel. Look at your wolf right now, Castiel. What’s he doing?” Gabriel was intent on keeping Cas’ eyes locked with his.

Castiel’s wolf stood tall and stubbornly resolute, daring to hope that his master would act on his brother’s words, but Cas barely glanced at him. “Gabriel, I can’t. What would I even say? How would it work? How would I talk to him? God, I want…!” Castiel pushed his hands through his hair and then rubbed at his face in frustration. How was it possible to love two such different people with all his heart? He loved them both, needed them both, equally: one brand new, fresh and clean and hard-wired into his soul, the other hard-won and deeply enmeshed in Castiel’s history, in his dreams and his hopes.

Differently, but equally.

“Okay, then, sounds like you’ve got some strategizing to do. I’ll leave you to it. Good talk.” He smacked his palm against the desk and stood. Gabe’s normally chipper demeanor appeared from nowhere as if the intense and piercing version of his brother had never been. It threw Castiel. He sat motionless and stared at his office door, reminiscent of weeks ago. He sat long enough for his Omega to come looking for him and find him rocking wordlessly. She knelt to hold him tightly, offering all the comfort she could to her grieving Alpha through their shared bond, and then she took him to bed.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“Our guest speaker today has asked me to keep his introduction short, so I’ll just quickly mention that he is a practicing physician specializing in adolescent Lupin development, he’s a renowned research scientist who has, almost singlehandedly turned everything we thought we knew about Canids on its ear.” (Castiel cleared his throat uncomfortably at singlehandedly but didn’t interrupt.) “He’s the founder of a massive, specialized research and implementation facility for the betterment of Lupin lives across America, which is now expanding to include three new facilities in as many states. He’s been a longtime advocate and activist for the enactment and defense of laws protecting wolves’ rights to live authentically as wolves. Please welcome our esteemed guest lecturer today, Alpha Doctor Castiel Novak!”

The large seminar room erupted in applause as Cas took his place at the lectern and picked up the slide projector remote, fiddling with it a little.

“Wow. Thank you for the kind words.” Castiel stood stiffly. He was annoyed at his friend. They’d agreed to a simple hand-over of the podium, and now he had to sacrifice some of his precious lecture time re-humanizing himself to the student audience. He looked out at the assembly. The room was crammed full, even to bodies standing along the back and down both sides. “I didn’t, um, realize that General Human Anatomy was so popular a course these days.” The class chuckled as a group. Clearly, many of those in attendance weren’t enrolled in this course. Evidently, his celebrity and reputation preceded him. Castiel didn’t mind the class-crashers; the more people, especially Primates, he got a chance to talk to, the more ignorance fell away. Fame and charisma could be useful.

“When I took this course as an undergrad, we didn’t even fill a room a quarter this size. I thank you all for coming. I hope to be of use to you in your growing understanding of the beautiful living, breathing entities that make up the Lupine Sapiens Omega population.” He removed the mic from its stand and stepped off the podium so he could pace and move freely. Movement soothed his wolf and helped him think more clearly. As he spoke, Castiel settled into his element. This is where he was most at home in his professional life—in front of a class, speaking passionately about his work.

“I trust some of you will continue on in the same direction I followed, going on to become doctors or scientists. For those participants, I implore you to keep an open mind about wolves and to learn everything you can to assist you in your work. We desperately need ape allies. We actually need all the help we can get to keep our movement headed in the right direction. For those whose interest in the subject is less professional, please know that you are equally welcome here and equally important in helping us to become free to be, as Dr. LaMarque stated, our authentic selves. So, let’s begin.”

He pressed his remote’s button and brought up upon the large screen a drawing of a male Omega’s lower abdomen, his genitalia, digestive tract, and reproductive structures. “Your class is far enough into the semester that I know you’ve learned about the reproductive structures of your own Homo Sapiens’ anatomy. (And by the way, parenthetically, I will be using the terms ape and wolf to distinguish between the populations. It’s just easier that way. Please note that I am aware you are not apes any more than we are wolves. I reject the notion that Homo Sapiens are somehow more entitled to the terms, human or people and I will not be using those terms. I do beg your forbearance and ask that for the purposes of this lecture, you please just go with it.)”

Most of the class chuckled. Not all, but most.

Good enough, thought Castiel.

“So, as you’ll notice on the screen, the male Omega wolf is strikingly different in form than the same region of a male ape. His penis is smaller, both in girth and length than is average for an ape, although of course, there is a significant range of what’s normal. In general, Omega’s penises are between three and five inches when fully erect. Also, the scrotum and testicles are less prominent. However, the myth that male Omegas lack paternal fertility is just that: a myth. Male Omegas do produce fertile sperm, and they can impregnate females, producing viable offspring. It occurs less frequently because of the numerous other contributing factors that funnel male Omegas away from opportunities to father pups, such as social, biological, physiological, and psychological drives for him to take a receptive role in sexual encounters. But they should be respected and honored as one of only two gender designations among sentient beings on this planet with the capacity to play both maternal and paternal roles in reproduction. The other being, of course, Lupin alpha females, but since today’s topic is Omega anatomy, we’ll leave the alpha ladies for another lecture.”

He clicked his remote again, and the next slide focused in closer on the posterior uterus and channel. “As you can see, the male Omega has developed maternal reproductive organs. We’re not going to get into the evolutionary theories about how the posterior uterus came to be, but I will be including links to some of the most promising research on the topic with your professor for him to share with you all.

“The anatomy of the posterior uterus, ovary, cervix, and channel can be seen in this image in fairly good detail. It resides just above the sigmoid colon and posterior to the small intestine which, unlike in apes, winds its way around a small depression where the uterus lies. They essentially occupy the same space until pregnancy advances far enough that pressure from the growing uterus forces the entire digestive tract into a caudal position. So, the developing fetus is positioned on top of its mother’s intestines. Omega males frequently suffer from digestive difficulties during late pregnancy, and this is the primary reason. Gravity is a bitch, as they say. It’s vital that the Omega mother practice a regular exercise routine to strengthen his pelvic floor and uterine musculature to prevent the uterus’ support structure from getting lazy and just lying upon the intestines.

“The Omega’s posterior womb is associated with one ovary, seen here. The ovary and Fallopian tube mimic that of female humans, with the exception that there is no pairing. Incidentally, and we still don’t understand this, Omega pregnancies through the Posterior uterus never produce multiple births…only singles. There are several research projects underway to discover what prevents multiple fertilization from single eggs as happens occasionally in Primary uterus pregnancies, but they’ve not been completed yet. These are exciting days to be a Lupin researcher. We’re making enormous discoveries all the time, and I encourage you all to consider adding your voices and talents to the search.” He grinned, blushed, and cleared his throat. “Sorry, commercial over. I get a little excited sometimes. Where was I?”

“So, the cervix, also a virtual replica of the female’s structure, leads to the Omega channel. The channel, like the posterior uterus, is unique to Lupin Omegas. Omegas of both primary genders have these structures, and both are fertile through them.” He changed slides again. The new image showed the same male diagram, but now also included the female Omega reproductive system as well. The female’s primary womb, with its dual ovaries and classic T-shaped Fallopian tube structure could be clearly seen, but she also had the identical posterior womb as the male.

“Yes, it is possible and not at all uncommon for an Omega female to carry pregnancies in both wombs simultaneously. It’s riskier, of course, and birthweights of the pups carried this way average slightly lower than those of single-uterine pregnancies. There’s just not a lot of space in there and having pups growing both above and in front of the digestive tract does uncomfortable things to the Omega in question. But Lupin gestation takes a mere thirty-one weeks in comparison to the forty weeks that you Homo Sapiens endure.

“The shorter gestation supports larger litters; plus, Omega females are generally rugged and strong. Too, they have a very high tolerance for pain, and they heal quickly. This kind of pregnancy is everyday stuff to our strong and beautiful Omega women.” Cas smiled at a young ape lady in the front row, and she blushed. “There is a short window for fertilizing both wombs at once. Once the pregnancy hormones ramp up, they stop all further ovulation for the duration of subsequent pregnancy and nursing. So that means it’s not possible to have staggered pregnancies at the same time. Usually, both wombs are fertilized during the same cycle of the Omega’s Heat, when she is most receptive and most fertile.”

“Let’s talk about the channel for a few minutes.” Castiel clicked to the next slide. It was a photograph of a male Omega’s ass as he lay on his back with his legs spread obscenely. His small cock was erect and standing proud over the man’s pubic hair. His balls were pulled up close to his body, out of the way of any activities. The Omega’s anus gaped open. It was drenched with slick which covered the entire region and appeared to be flowing freely from the red, puffy orifice. The camera flash showed the glare of wetness down the cheeks of his buttocks. A frisson of energy passed through the room at the titillating image.

“This is the male Omega in full arousal during estrus, or Heat. The muscles of the anus have relaxed, the production of channel fluid, a natural lubricant we call slick, is in overdrive, and the entire region is swollen, both interior and exterior. What you can’t see from the picture is that as the channel swells inside the Omega’s body, it pinches off the rectum’s access to the anal opening. Let me make clear, while the digestive system and reproductive channel share the same orifice, only one has access at a time. It is in all ways the same type of mechanism that keeps the male bladder from passing urine through the urethra while the penis is fully erect. Those of you with penises will understand.

“When penetrative sex occurs, the partner’s penis fills the Omega’s channel, not their rectum. Of course, if sex is attempted with an Omega who is not in the least aroused, rectal penetration may occur, and it can do significant damage to the Omega. This usually only occurs in cases of rape of the Omega. On the plus side, Omegas are extremely responsive to sexual signals from their partners and Packmates. Their reaction time is nearly immediate. Not that I’m encouraging anyone to try to take an Omega by surprise to see if you could catch their channel off guard. Doing so is rape. Don’t even think about trying it. But from a hypothetical standpoint, as long as the Omega is remotely willing to couple, the channel will prepare itself, pinch off access to the rectum, and lubricate itself quickly enough that the couple need not be concerned about hitting the wrong hole, even if they go from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds.”

Cas air-quoted twice. He found over the years that using some everyday language in his lectures cut through the tension and stuffiness of the subject, letting him communicate better.

“Controlling this response is the Omega gland. It’s located near the Omega’s lower mid-spine—attaching between the T12 and L1 vertebrae—anterior to the spine and attached to it through connective tissue and numerous ducts. It’s just about even with the navel. The Omega gland connects directly to the Reptilian center of the brain, the cerebellum, where involuntary response and instinctive behaviors arise. It also has direct connections to the posterior reproductive structures, creating a hormonal super-highway connecting the Omega’s instinctive impulses from their brain with the mechanical structures of their channel. This gland controls so much of what an Omega experiences in his or her life that essentially, regardless of the lack or presence any other classically Omega anatomical structures, having this gland is what makes an Omega an Omega.”

Cas sipped from the glass of water on the podium and then continued.

“One aspect of the Omega gland that we have struggled most to reconcile our modern civility with is its constant output of a stress hormone that is unique to the Omega called Omesol. Over time, if allowed to build up, Omesol creates a disturbance in virtually every organ system in the body. Omegas often describe its initial effects as brain fog or having a swarm of bees stuck in their head. From there, if allowed to continue to increase in concentration, the effects worsen. Its purpose is unknown. Some have postulated that since it keeps the Omega dependent on regular care from the Pack, it prohibits the most fertile members of the Pack from venturing away independently. It ties the pup-producers into a specific, subservient place in the societal structure. Again, let me reiterate, this is an ongoing struggle within the Wolfpack in general. As modern humans, we value the humanity and agency of every member of the Pack and are striving to overcome our past failings. But there is simply no way yet developed to render an Omega completely independent. Their level of this hormone must be constantly managed. Omegas who are allowed to go too long without releasing the buildup of Omesol face dire consequences to their health and sanity.

“I’m getting off the subject of anatomy now, but I believe it’s vital that the ape population be educated about this most misunderstood part of wolf societal behavior. The wolf practice of stimulating a Release in the Omega—that is, manufacturing an artificial situation that causes a sudden release of adrenalin which neutralizes the Omesol—is the single most controversial aspect of our societal pack behavior. There has yet to be developed any therapy or safe substance which can be administered to the Omega, including direct injection of adrenalin, which are at all effective in reducing Omesol levels. Until we develop one—or one of you develops one—we are limited to behavioral remedies.” Castiel clicked to a slide that showed a table of gradually worsening symptoms of Omega hormone poisoning. He didn’t read it to them, but he let them scan it for themselves while he continued to speak.

“There are three effective means of stimulating a Release: intensely satisfying sexual stimulation, intense and sudden fear response, or intense and prolonged pain. Obviously, you’ll have noted that they all have in common the need for intensity, but also obviously, where a pleasurable route can be taken, that’s much preferred. That means sex is the pathway of choice for many. But that precludes the idea that the Omega in question has a safe partner to participate in sex with, and it’s important to note that this is also the least reliable route. The certainty of Release through sexual orgasm is not at all sure, even when the Omega is very well-satisfied.” Castiel played up the end of that sentence, and the audience of students laughed outright.

“One note to be aware of: unlike orgasm through masturbation, a hormone Release cannot be achieved autonomously. An Omega can’t Release themself; they have to be acted upon by another individual. Believe me, many, many have tried. All fail.

“The option of scaring the daylights out of the Omega is forbidden by Pack law. The Omega’s reactions are impossible to control, and real harm can be done psychologically and physically when the situation becomes uncontrollable like that.

“That leaves prolonged physical pain as the safest, most reliable, and easiest to administer route for many Omegas. They tolerate it well, again, heal quickly, and it also often fills a psychological need deep in the Omega’s psyche, especially for the Ozzies, the Omega-Submissives. And of all the techniques to deliver pain, spanking is the least likely to cause injury, so it is the most common technique. Spanking and paddling are easily the most ubiquitous form of these techniques, although when combining triggering a Release with administering a punishment for misbehavior or training, strapping, caning, and switching are sometimes utilized.”

Castiel was aware that his reference to the Pack’s use of Domestic Discipline sent an unhappy riffling of tension through the apes, but he decided not to explain himself unless it came up during the Q&A. Wolves were not apes, and he was here to teach them about Omegas, not give a full treatise on everything Pack.

“Any questions so far?” Hands shot up all over the room.

NOW:

Castiel was lunching with Billie in the cafeteria. He’d decided Gabriel was at least right about that. He mustn’t let his depressive state impact his connection with the Pack. Billie was ostensibly finished eating, while Castiel had just started, but she remained, toying with the oil droplets floating in the juice her serving of green beans left behind. They’d talked through the latest developments from Congress, from his mother. Damn his mother. The issue was annoying, but well-in-hand. And now the two were chatting idly. Cas noted her reticence to get back to work. It was unlike the highly motivated beta who served as the Facility’s PR Manager, and he wondered about it just a little. Maybe she was just enjoying reconnecting with the Alpha. A little connection meant a lot in the Pack.

“Hey, boss!” said a voice from behind him. Cas turned to find Balthazar with a full tray.

“Ah, Balthazar. Please join us. It’s been much too long, Omega. What have you been up to?” As Balthazar sat, Castiel caught a lightning-fast interaction between him and Billie, just a slight raising of a brow and a slight nod in return. Had he not been watching at just the right time he would have missed the exchange.

Oh.

Now he understood why Billie was still sitting despite her empty tray. As if to confirm his suspicions, she suddenly excused herself and stood, clearing her lunch. Cas watched her go.

I’m being managed, he realized. Has the Pack put some kind of watch on me? I may have been down lately, but surely a round-the-clock watch isn’t necessary. He thought back over the last few days and realized that since his conversation with his brother, he hadn’t been left alone for more than a few minutes. He found himself offended, but as always, chose control. He vowed to find the wolf who was orchestrating Project Watch Alpha, though. He had three prime suspects.

Maybe four.

“Did you know, Alpha?” began Balthazar with his full mouth muddying his English accent, “…that mating regulations governing Lupins are completely separate, legally, from marriage laws that apply to humans in general?” Cas nodded at him. Yes, he knew the mating regulations well, as he’d helped author many of them. They didn’t interfere in any way with state or federal marriage laws. “So, for instance, if I got married to the beautiful Julia today, I could still Mate with Julianne tomorrow, and both unions would be legal.”

“Yes, that’s true Balthazar. Are you considering either? I thought you liked your relationships non-committal?”

“Oh, well, yes, I mean, that’s me, isn’t it? I’m not one to settle down. You know me. But I mean, hypothetically. As wolves, we have the option to Mate for life with that one special person, yadda-yadda. Primates don’t have that. All they have that fills the same slot is marriage, right? But what about if a wolf wanted to get married? We’re human too, just like the apes.”

Cas was at a loss. “Of course we can marry, Balthazar. Many Lupins marry to demonstrate their love and devotion to their mates outside of their Mating-bond commitment. You know this.” Castiel was confused. He couldn’t figure out what Balthazar was driving at. But Bal seemed barely interested in his own topic of conversation. He stuffed food down his gullet like a man starving. Castiel scented him discreetly, checking for signs of impending Heat or im-Balance, but found nothing untoward.

“But you know,” Balthazar angled a very cunning glance at Castiel. “There’s no law that says a wolf has to Mate and marry the same individual.” He slurped up the last of his pasta. “Excuse me, I’m late for a scene. Got a new alpha client, and she’s really hot! Must dash. ‘Ta, Alpha.”

And just like that the Omega was gone.

Cas sat there with his mouth hanging open. When had he lost his grip on the pulse of his Pack? What was that even about? Balthazar married?! No way. Even Mating seemed unlikely unless he encountered his True-Mate. Bal was The Facility’s most requested Omega scene partner. He had clients who came from three-hundred miles away every couple of weeks to scene with the sexy Omega or hire him twice a year to work through their Rut. Balthazar was a Neutral, but he loved sex and could play any role from delicate Sub to Topping from the Bottom to full-on Topping, although few wolves had that particular kink. The Alpha had never known him to seek an actual relationship with anyone.

Castiel didn’t remain alone for long. Dr. Barnes swung by his table and saw that he was finished eating. “Are you ready for our appointment, Alpha?” she asked. “It’s just about that time. I was heading back to my office now. We could walk together if you’re done here.”

No. He wasn’t ready to spend an hour talking to the shrink. The Board had expressed grave concerns about his mental stability and demanded he sit down with Pamela for a professional assessment. It was a formality, he told himself. He was fine, and he’d make her see that, but he wasn’t looking forward to it in the least. Still, there was no getting out of it, so he simply stood and carried his tray back to the front to drop it off. He led her out into the corridor.

As they emerged, a class of Omega-Subs passed into the lunchroom. It wasn’t the one April attended. Hers was weeks ahead of this one. These Ozzies were still wearing their light blue tunics, designating them as third-week students. Castiel reminded himself sadly that the color-coded uniforms were Dean’s idea, (and it had been an inspired idea). With the tunics that were changed out weekly, everyone in The Facility could spot the Ozzies at a glance and knew what level they’d reached in their training. It allowed them to be treated with kid-gloves early on, and then more strictly as their capability developed.

Several of the Ozzies squealed when they spotted the Alpha. They broke ranks and clustered around him, seeking connection. He smiled affectionately and hugged each in turn, offering tender touches and gentle words of encouragement and acceptance. They were sweet and vulnerable at this stage, and it added an endearing glow around each young face. “Go and get some lunch, now. We need you well fed. I’m sure your Dom has big plans for you after lunch. You all be good, now, do you hear me?” He smiled as they made their way in.

As the last passed through the door, Cas swatted him on the ass simply for being last. It was a gentle reminder to keep up and remember to stay in a pack. The Omega boy yelped in surprise and hustled to catch up. Castiel chuckled indulgently then nodded as Sam followed his class in to eat lunch. Sam smiled back, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. And just like that, Castiel was back in his depressing constant awareness that Dean had left not just Castiel, but also Sam and all his friends and family. Cas knew Sam blamed him for Dean’s departure. Hell, Cas blamed Cas for Dean’s departure.

Pamela waited patiently, and they resumed their trek to her office. To Castiel, it felt like walking to his own guillotine.

“Make yourself at home, please, Alpha,” she gestured. “This needn’t be formal in any way. In fact, I was just about to stop by for a chat when Bobby told me to call you for an assessment.” Ah, yes. No doubt it was also Bobby who put the Pack on twenty-four/seven Cas-watch. “I am very worried about you. I’m sure you’ve noticed that everyone is. You are a very good Alpha, Castiel. You notice everything. You take care of everyone, and I’m just wondering…” She sighed heavily. It was a touchy situation. A shrink had to get through to the uncomfortable parts of a patient’s psyche, but alphas were notoriously closed off, and this was not just any alpha. This was THE Alpha. She could screw this up badly if she wasn’t very careful.

Pamela sat in a soft chair across from where he perched stiffly on the sofa. “Castiel, who takes care of you?”

Cas was taken by surprise. That was not a question alpha-Dominants get asked. Ever. He thought for a moment. “Well, I guess everyone does to some extent. Certainly, my needs are met when I find connection with my mate, when we stroke one another’s wolves through scening. But also, when I work with clients, the tests, the training, and the contract scenes all give to me as much as I am giving to others through them. Does that make any sense? Plus, I’m sure you’re in on whatever is going on with the Pack…how someone just happens to be with me all the time? Watching over me?”

She smiled a private smile, proud of him for catching on to the plot. “Yes, Alpha, that’s all true, but I mean, who takes care of you, not just where do you get your needs met?”

“I don’t know what you mean. My mate, I suppose? What’s the difference?”

She was silent for a long beat, thinking about how to break through his walls. She really wanted to talk to his wolf. She knew one direct route, but it was kind of a low blow to go that way. Pamela threw caution to the wind. “Cas, tell me about your relationship with Dean Winchester.”

“What? No. No way. That’s private. No, I mean, it’s over and done with. There’s no point.”

“You said it’s private, but you were never private about your friendship with him. You’ve been best friends for years. You never tried to keep your relationship as scening partners private from your coworkers. According to our records, neither of you ever reported sleeping with anyone but each other outside of work. So, what’s private about it Castiel?”

Cas didn’t respond. He was embroiled in an internal struggle and a little too preoccupied to speak. Dean wasn’t Castiel’s best friend. That was Benny, had always been Benny. Dean was…something different.

“Castiel, you’re in love with Dean, aren’t you?”

He looked at her, straight into her eyes and held her gaze. “You already know the answer to that,” he accused.

“I do,” she admitted to him, still holding his eye. It was difficult not to break the stare, but he needed to be able to read the honesty from her wolf right now, to know he was safe enough to let himself be vulnerable.

“Does everyone?”

She nodded slowly but said, “Everyone but Dean.”

Castiel reeled. Everyone knew? Of course they did. He’d failed to keep himself under control. His great black wolf was always pushing, always demanding, always wanting and never caring who got in the way.

“I don’t know what to do about it,” he admitted miserably. “Dean was right to leave. I’m a menace. I hurt everyone I know. I’ve tried so hard for so long to figure out how to control myself by feeding my wolf, learning how to teach others to feed and stroke their wolves, but it didn’t do any good…” He was stopped by a sob. He clenched his eyes, suppressed the crying, and continued. “It’s too much. I can’t hold it all back. He’s too big and too demanding, and I can’t control him. I thought being Mated would satisfy him. April gives me everything. She trusts me implicitly to give her whatever she needs, and she lets me do whatever I need. Why is that not enough?! What more do I have a right to demand?! God, I’m the most selfish man I know.” He sucked in a breath. “My mother was right about me. It’ll never be enough. Nothing is ever enough.”

“Castiel, look at me. Please.” She waited until he met her eyes. “It’s not selfish or a sin to love someone. It’s a gift. Always. Loving Dean does not harm him. There’s no greater blessing a person can give to another than his love. Look, as I said, you take care of everyone, and you use up everything you are and everything you have on this Pack. And, Cas, I mean the whole American Lupin Pack. Loving Dean does not make you selfish. It’s a copout to look at what you’re going through and take it all on yourself.”

He stiffened at the word copout. Who did she think she was to tell him what he felt? But Pamela didn’t give him a chance to break in. “I suspect if you had had the chance, you and Dean would’ve Mated within weeks of meeting. You’re that perfect for each other. But you couldn’t, so you both stuffed all that love, all the desire to build a life together under wraps, took what you could and pretended the rest wasn’t there. Am I right?”

He nodded. It was all out of the bag anyway. No use trying to hide anything anymore. Maybe she’d be able to teach him how to move on.

Wait. She’d said, “You both…” No. That wasn’t right. This fucked-up mess was Castiel’s alone. Wasn’t it?

Pam watched his face and guessed where his mind had taken him. She took pity on his inner dialogue. “Alpha, everyone knows you’re in love with Dean, except Dean.” A pause to make sure he was listening. “It’s not really my place, but this is out of control, and it needs to stop. Listen to me. Everyone also knows that Dean’s in love with you. …Except you.”

Castiel gasped. He actually gasped, and his world reeled for a second time. That wasn’t possible.

“You two knuckleheads have provided this Pack with years of amusement as you danced around each other, completely oblivious. Both of you have been oblivious to the truth. I mean it Castiel, and this is serious. Don’t—please don’t—write this gift off as a weakness or selfishness. It’s the most important thing in your life right now. It’s more important than your research, more important than your Pack, more important even than your adorable, innocent young Omega mate. Don’t lose this, Alpha. Don’t let go of Dean Winchester. It will destroy you both and take the rest of us with you.”

Castiel stared at her. He couldn’t think at all. She wasn’t telling him how to move on, she was telling him to HOLD on. It didn’t compute. His wolf was suddenly standing as large as he could, with his head low and his ears forward, intent and focused and so, so hopeful.

She kept on, battering at the defensive wall he’d held up for so long, “All of your life has been about control. You don’t trust your wolf. You don’t trust yourself. You build walls around yourself with data and structure, and you’re right. For most Lupins, you’re right. It’s what we needed to do—all of this—to get back to our roots and instincts, to find a path to civilization that goes straight through our wolves instead of around them. We’d forgotten who we are, and it was killing us. But you’re forgetting some crucial points, Alpha.” She leaned way forward, nearly into his space, ignoring the tears that flowed freely down his face.

“We are not only our biology. We’re seriously fucked if we forget who and what we are at our core, but we’re so much more than that. We’re also people. We need intimacy, and not just the chemical kind. We need someone to connect with on our own level. We need someone to love simply because they are endearing to us, and not just because we share a Mating-bond or a familial tie.

“It’s got to be so much harder for you wolves out on the fringes of the scale. I wouldn’t know. As a beta, I can connect on the same level with most wolves I meet. But you, Castiel, you’re both a Profound and a Deep. There aren’t enough wolves out there that you can truly connect with for you to have the luxury of throwing one of them away.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “Dean was so angry. I don’t believe he loves me like that. How can you be sure?”

Pamela laughed at him. Actually laughed. At him. “Oh, Alpha.” She let herself end with an affectionate chuckle and sat back upright in her chair. “You’re too close to it all to see it for what it is. If it happened to Benny or Jo or Meg, you would have figured it out for them, then locked them in a room with whoever they were in love with and refused to let them out until they’d straightened themselves out. And don’t think I didn’t consider doing just that to you and Dean over the years.

“I have a few questions for you to think about and then I’ll let you go until next week. I want to talk again after you’ve had a chance to mull this conversation over for a while.” Cas didn’t think conversation was the right word. He’d barely managed to get a word in edgewise. “Just think about this: You say he was angry. Why was Dean so angry with you if he’s not in love with you? What does he have to be angry about at your Mating unless he loves you? Think about it. Also, why did he leave if not to protect and try to heal a broken heart? Another question I want you to think about long and hard, Alpha: Could you have acted any differently than you did when you encountered your True-Mate? Are you angry with yourself for succumbing to the biological mandate? Are you angry with her? Are you angry with Dean? Just think about it Castiel. You need to explore what’s going on before you have a prayer to fix it.”

Cas returned to his suite before April was released from class. She was doing well with Jo as her instructor. She was learning the basics of Omega obedience, her own sexual range and how to control it, also how to please both Doms and Alphas. She wouldn’t be using those skills separately like some of her classmates no doubt would, but some of the distinctions were important.

His mate was a quick study when she applied herself, and she accepted her paddling well when she was caught with her focus wandering. Learning to accept correction gracefully was a critical part of the class. Even the most astute students and the best behaved couldn’t avoid the paddle. It was a given in the class. Sometimes the instructor set the class to competitive games in which the winner received an orgasm in the manner of their choosing, and the last place loser got paddled hard in front of the class.

Castiel had worked closely with Dean to build the structure of the class. It was essentially an artificial form of Domestic Discipline applied to a classroom setting. All punishments were public and on-the-bare. (EOs needed always to be able to see the damage they inflicted.) The rules were explicitly stated. Follow them well, and you would be rewarded. Break them, and you would be punished. For instance, if the rule for a particular game was, don’t come in last, then everyone knew someone would be using the bench at the front of the room at the game’s conclusion.

Despite the strictness and the constant application of the paddle, the students enjoyed their work. They were learning a great deal, and they bonded closely with each other as friends. They were lighthearted and playful, reveling in the freedom of letting their wolves be themselves and knowing they’d be guided in the way their alpha wanted them to go. Jo was never unfair. She was gentle and kind, offering support and positive reinforcement more often than she took them to task. They hated disappointing her more than anything.

Well, April hated disappointing Jo almost more than anything. For April, a standing Rule in her home was that any punishment meted out upon her person by a party outside of her home would be delivered again twice-over by her Alpha when she returned to him. That’s exactly how he put it to her in his gravelly voice. She shivered with pleasure when he read this Rule out to her, but she’d come to hate it in the last few weeks.

April let herself into the suite promptly at 4:33. She went looking for her Alpha immediately and found him moving laundry into to the dryer. It never ceased to amaze her that the Facility Director and all-around important Alpha did laundry and housework for himself. He was too cute for words. “I’ll do that, Alpha.” She stepped forward to take over, but he was already finished and turning on the machine.

“No need, sweetheart, but thank you for offering. How was your day?” As he turned to face his Omega, April saw that his eyes were red-rimmed, and his face was puffy. He’d been weeping again. She hadn’t noticed internally, but then, he often dimmed the bond during his workday to keep from distracting her. She wanted to ask him about it but refrained for the moment. She knew his House Rules. It wasn’t time yet.

“I learned a lot today. We talked about Omega instinct and how to fight it when the wrong Top gives us an order, you know, one that doesn’t have the authority. Alpha Jo says she’s going to teach us self-defense, so we can fight if we need to. Oh, and I got to thirty minutes without coming today. That’s the longest yet.” She sparkled with excitement, so Castiel let her youthful enthusiasm feed him, a balm for his upset spirit.

“Good girl. And I know you can do even better. Would you work on it with me tonight? I would love to see just how far we can push your training.”

“Of course, Alpha. Anything.” She settled into his arms, still standing awkwardly next to the rumbling dryer. She moved easily with him as he guided her into the kitchen. “But I also got three paddlings today. I’m sorry, Sir.”

He held her away from him so he could see her face. “What were they for?”

April dug the punishment report from her pocket and handed it to him. He held it but he didn’t unfold it, waiting for her to tell him. Verbal confession was a big deal to him, so she met his eye carefully and said, “I left my homework report here in the suite when I left this morning. I had to come back for it. That was the first. Then I came in last place at the memory game. Do you know that one? Alpha gives us a long set of complicated instructions and we must wait until she’s though with all of them before we start. Then we execute them exactly as we’re told and in the right order. It’s really hard!” she whined.

“I know it’s difficult, April, but learning to listen carefully to instructions from your Top is very, very important. I’m surprised and disappointed you lost that game. Last place? You deserved to be paddled for that. And the third?”

This one was the hardest for her to admit. It was actual misbehavior, not simply failure to succeed like the other two. She felt very guilty, and knew she was going to get it. She ducked her head low and mumbled something incomprehensible.

“Unacceptable, Omega,” he corrected her sternly and lifted her chin. She still couldn’t meet his eyes, but she spoke clearly the second time.

“I fought with Veronica and Jimmy. They were being little punks, and I got in trouble for yelling at them to shut their stupid faces.” She bit her lip and blushed.

Castiel almost laughed out loud but stopped the outburst in time. Barely. She was so young and innocent and sweet. He sighed and released her face.

“What was it all about?”

“I’d rather not say, Sir. It’s embarrassing.” She pouted and turned her back on him.

“April.” That’s all he said, but there was much communicated in that one word, that and the persistent command he pushed through the bond.

“They were teasing me that with our age difference, you and me, there’s no way we have any kind of relationship but parent-to-child, like a…a Daddy-thing or something. I told them both it wasn’t like that, but…it got pretty ugly. I said some things I shouldn’t have said.”

“All right. I know how much it eats away at you when you feel guilty, so we’re going to take care of this right now.” He opened the report so he could determine what the stroke-count should be and whether she’d Released during her previous run-ins or not. “Afterward, I want you to take an Epsom-salt bath and relax while I make dinner. Go ahead and get yourself placed.” According to the report, she was given ten for forgetting her homework, just five for losing the game, and twenty for arguing in class. He owed her seventy tonight and could expect a substantial Release. She was a little overdue. He reminded himself to ask her more about the fight over dinner.

April was already naked and kneeling on the floor in front of the chair he preferred. It had low, wide armrests that didn’t get in the way during an over-the-knee spanking but provided enough structure that cuddling afterward was supported. He sat and reached for her wrist, tugging gently to have her rise and place herself on his lap.

His wolf loved this part. Having his warm, young, compliant mate naked over his lap made almost everything right with the world—almost everything—for as long as she was there. He touched her bottom gently, inspecting the damage the paddle had done over the course of the day. It wasn’t bad, just a little redness left now. There were no abrasions or bruises. Good. He intended for her to feel this, but he didn’t want her hurting in the salt bath.

“I’m extremely disappointed with you, Omega. You’ve already paid for your transgressions, and I believe you’ve learned your lesson. But I need to know I can trust you to meet your obligations to me when we’re apart. And I can’t have another wolf leaving a bigger imprint on you than I do. It upsets the balance between us. Take a deep breath, you’re getting seventy right now.”

He lifted his arm up, made his hand a flat plate of warm steel and brought it down hard. She barely moved, but he saw the line of tension that formed across her shoulders. So good for him. His mind went and broke the rules again, reminding him that Dean’s shoulders did exactly the same thing at the start of a long spanking. Castiel managed to push the thought away and concentrate on the job at hand, pun intended.

He spanked her hard and quickly, not so fast that it would be over too soon, but fast enough that she would struggle to deal with one blow before the next rained down. It was a spanking meant to create a feeling of building, rising, ever-increasing tension. He didn’t ask her to count or think or anything at all except just take it. He wanted her in her Sub mindset. He wanted to activate her deepest self, pull up all the guilt and then let it wash out of her once and for all in a gush. It was a spanking designed to Release both her Omega gland and her Deep Submissive.

She began to struggle, kick, and cry out. She begged for him to stop, but he cinched her back in by her waist, caught hold of her flailing arm, pinning it to the small of her back, and kept on. Her ass was glowing red now, from the fullness of the roundest part to the tops of her thighs. He felt it coming as much as she did. The Mating-bond was thrown wide, and while he didn’t experience her pain and impending Release the way she did, he could sense it all.

She Released with a deafening scream right at sixty, leaving him free to quicken and deliver the last ten in a rush, overwhelming her. She broke into uncontrollable sobs as he stopped and began to rub gentle circles on her back with his left hand while his right rested lightly on her throbbing backside. He let her cry out the last of her guilt and waited for her to come back to him.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, his cock had stiffened. He knew she could feel it against her belly, and he wanted. He pulled her to stand in front of him, supporting her with his large hands, to check her face. Was she too far gone? No. She was fine. (That’s my strong Omega.) She met his eyes, sniffling hard and still hiccupping, trying to bring the crying under control, but there was raw lust in her eyes. He stood and swept her up in a bridal carry, dumping her unceremoniously on the sofa. She yelped when her ass hit the leather but didn’t protest.

Castiel made quick work of his buckle, button, and zipper, pulling his cock out and letting his pants fall just enough to avoid scraping her flesh with the rough metal. She let one leg fall off the sofa’s edge and put the other over the back. His wolf breathed out in admiration. Their Omega was limber and willing. Castiel mounted her like an animal, thrusting fast and hard. It was the same tempo he’d kept with his hand, but it worked for this too. Her ass was too sore for much contact right now, but with her legs as wide as they were, he could get to her pussy just fine.

There was no play, no kissing, no holding or touching or caressing. He was savage and powerful, and they both loved it. His Omega craved his knot, wrapping her legs around his back as he got close, but he denied her this. He loved to ride the power of the wolf in him while keeping enough control to snap it back when he wanted. It was an exercise in control for himself as much as what his mate experienced in her class. She came hard, digging her nails into his shoulders. He pounded her through her orgasm, reveling in the pulses of tension he could feel massaging his cock, then he pulled out before his knot locked into place. Her feet and legs were forced to separate as he pulled up onto his knees, stroking himself to completion.

He painted her belly and labia with his copious fluid while she writhed beneath him. Now sated, his Omega’s ass covered with his handprint and no one else’s, his Omega painted with his come, he slowly stopped stroking and breathed himself back down.

April was soon delivered, exhausted, to the bath, and Cas wiped down, redressed, and cooking spaghetti in the kitchenette. That’s when everything inside him collapsed with no warning.

Castiel knew how to make spaghetti. Dean taught him to blanch and crush fresh ripe tomatoes, to select tender herbs and cut them with scissors so they wouldn’t bruise. Dean knew everything about cooking. Castiel wanted to make a wholesome meal for his mate. She’d been so good for him, and she deserved it. She would emerge from her bath relaxed, sleepy, and very, very hungry. He planned to have the meal ready to share by then. For the two mates, dinnertime was a very special part of their day. It marked an important change of persona in their interactions with each other. It offered them a pathway to build an adult relationship outside of the confines of their wolves and their Secondaries. Cas aimed to have any corrections or Releases for the day meted out and over with by dinner time so they could both come to the table with nothing hanging over them, no reason they needed to occupy their Secondary or Tertiary gender spaces. He wanted it to be a time that Castiel Novak and April Novak, though separated in age by nearly twenty years, could come together as two Mated adults and share a contented meal together.

Dinnertime was when they proved to one another that they weren’t trapped in a parental connection as April’s classmates alleged.

He liked to share the joys and stresses of his day and to hear hers. He liked to be domestically intimate with her. It was often a struggle, but they were getting better at it as they got to know each other. He admired so much about her spirit. He loved how spunky she could be and how she saw everything with a perspective his jaded age had robbed from him.

He chopped fresh garlic while he widened his Mating-bond, checking on her state of mind and sending her assurance of his love.

Love.

Castiel mused.

It was the strangest emotion. Not really a single emotion at all, but a cluster of everything that ties one person to another in an unbreakable bond. It was regard, affection, admiration, respect, amusement, pride, endearment, lust, wonder… it was strange and hard to nail down, but unmistakable nevertheless.

Castiel had loved April from the moment the Mating-bond snapped into place. He wanted never to be far from her. But it was a completely new kind of love for him. He’d heard new mates describe it so many times, but until he experienced it... It was not like most other types of love: neither learned nor earned, it was present just because. It couldn’t be questioned or broken. It just was. It was similar to the instant and unbreakable love that a parent feels at the birth of a child although of an entirely different type. His love for April was carnal, hungry, and raw, not parental, but it came from a similar place in his heart—right at the very center.

Nothing could ever destroy it. It was pure and whole.

Castiel didn’t see it coming. One moment he was stirring the red sauce, musing over his mate, and the next he’d flung the pan across the kitchen to splatter like blood against the wall with a loud clunk and a deafening racket. His breathing felt torn from him with a gasp as his legs gave way. He crumpled to the floor in the mess, the spilled tomatoes burning his arms where they’d splashed in his violence. He tucked himself into the tightest ball he could manage and sobbed great loud, ugly, heaving cries of raw unmitigated pain.

In no time, April was tucked in with him, still wet and naked, and now coated in red sauce, but tangling herself into his tight coil. He grabbed onto her and wept harder than he’d ever done before, rocking back and forth. She cried into his chest and held on tight, letting him have a release of his own, not speaking, not asking anything of him, but staying close, a warm, loving body for him to hold onto, keep him from flying apart.

After an unknown time, he quieted and stilled. She spoke softly into the silence. Now was the time—according to his Rules, even. It was suppertime, and that meant he didn’t need her Submission. She could speak openly and freely. So she did.

“I met him once, Alpha. Did you know? Before he left?” Castiel didn’t answer. He had nothing left to answer with. He just listened, letting her soft, sweet voice soothe him. “He came here to collect some of his things. He didn’t know I was in the back. He let himself in with his key. I was surprised and a little weirded out when I heard someone out in the living room, but I went out to check. I, Alpha, I’m sorry, but I was home alone, and I was naked. I expected it must be you, so I went to check. He was there with a box and he was putting books and CDs into it. He heard me and turned around. He saw me, like this.” She gestured at her nudity. Castiel still didn’t speak, but he clutched her and smoothed her wet hair. How could he be angry with her when he was in this state and there was spaghetti sauce dripping down the far wall? The pool underneath him was a little warm, but not hot enough to burn anymore.

It’s amazing how quickly sauce cools when it’s spread over every surface of the kitchen.

She went on. “He was kind to me, Alpha. He was sweet and gentle. He told me he was happy for us. I knew him of course. I knew all about both of you before I ever came here. I thought I might be lucky enough to pull one of you for my tester, but I never dreamed I’d Mate with one of you. And Castiel,” she used his name so rarely that it broke through his trance, and he looked down at her. “I never dreamed in a million years I’d be the cause of you losing your best friend and your only love. No, don’t.” He’d begun to protest. He loved Dean, he could admit that to her if he had to, but Dean wasn’t his only love. That wasn’t fair. But she kept on, not letting him break in. “I saw it when he spoke to me, Castiel. I knew in that instant what you are to each other, and I knew it was never going to fade. I see the same pain in you every moment of every day, and I saw it in him for just the few moments I had in his presence.”

She paused and stroked a red stripe down his chest. “What I don’t understand is why you’re letting yourself do this to yourself, to me, to Dean, to Sam and everyone here who loves you, and that’s everyone here. Castiel, we can’t go on like this. No, please listen to me. I give you my trust with no doubts and no questions asked. I trust you completely. Why can you not trust me, too? Aren’t we two sides of the same coin? Isn’t that how True-Mates work?”

“I trust you, April, but this isn’t about you,” his voice was gruff from crying.

“Not about me? Of course it’s about me, and you and Dean as well, but don’t think for one second that I am not being torn apart by all of this right beside you. You owe me more, Castiel. I deserve a strong wolf who will give everything he has to give for me. You deserve the same from me. Isn’t that what you told me? Right now, you’re broken. I never know from one day to the next what state you’ll be in, and Castiel, god! It’s all for nothing. All this pain and drama, for nothing.”

He just looked at her blankly. What was she talking about? Nothing?

“You and I can never be equal partners, my Alpha. We’re too far apart on the spectrum. No matter what we do or say, we’ll always have a power difference between us. Always.”

“April, no! Shhh, don’t talk like that. I can’t live without you.” He was shaking and had started to cry silently again. That sounded like a prelude to ending things. Even True-Mates failed on occasion. “Please don’t leave me. Please…”

April sighed. He’d misunderstood her completely, so she flooded the Mating-bond with love and comfort. No, no sweet little Alpha, not going anywhere. She held him tightly until he calmed back down a little, humming to him soothingly. This is going to be a hard sell, she thought, but I have to try, for all of us.

“Just listen to me, Castiel. You told me that learning to listen is important, right?” He nodded mutely. “Okay, look, you love me. I know you do because I can feel it through our bond. But more than that, you treat me with respect and so much gentle care. You are careful with me. I see it all the time. You give me the Dominant hand that I crave and need. You knot me with passion and strength, and it’s perfect. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You love me, Alpha. Please say it for me?”

“I do. I love you very much, my sweet Omega.” He was barely holding it together.

“That’s right. And I love you, too—just as much, but in a mirror image. You see? We’re a perfect fit for each other as mates. But we can never be partners, can never be equals. My love, I am not your equal, nor you mine. Do you understand?”

He thought he did, so he nodded, but he needed more. He still didn’t know where this was going, and he was entirely spent. His head spun, making him dizzy.

It wasn’t a new argument. Castiel’s research touched on the disconnect between mates at opposite sides of the spectrum, but it felt unexpectedly wretched in real life. He was aghast at the thought of being incapable of supplying all of her needs for intimacy and camaraderie. Surely if they were mates, they should be partners.

April continued. “You love your brother, right? You’d do anything for him? I don’t know if you know this, but even though he’s older than you, from what I’ve seen of the two of you, Gabriel is who he is because of you. That’s how strong your bond is with him. And yet, being his brother doesn’t mean you love me any less. If anything, having a supportive brother who watches out for you makes you a better mate for me because you’re a better person for your time with him. Still with me?”

“I am. I think I may have an idea where you’re going with this, but baby, it’s too big. I need you to say it straight out for me. I couldn’t bear it if I were guessing wrong. Please, April, just say it.”

“Good little Alpha,” she praised. “Okay, I need you to trust me more than you’ve ever trusted anyone in your life, way more than you trust yourself because I know how far that goes, and it’s not very far. Castiel, I need you desperately, but I need you whole. You aren’t ever going to get over loving Dean Winchester because he’s a part of who you are. That’s not something that stops. You’re mourning as if he’d died, but he’s still alive, Castiel. Meanwhile, you’re falling deeper and deeper into the abyss, and you’ll destroy yourself, me, Dean. Everyone.”

“Please tell me what to do? I’m so lost. April, please…” It was a singular moment of vulnerability for the great Alpha, one that might never come again, and April held it close with the awe that it deserved.

“Take me with you tomorrow,” she whispered. “We’ll go shopping together. We’ll choose a ring. Then you bring me back here and leave me with Jo.”

“What?”

“Go get him, Castiel. Bring him home and marry him. And don’t you ever, ever doubt that this is the right thing to do. I need you, Alpha. I will never leave you, or stop loving you, or doubt your love for me, but Dean fills something for you that I can’t. You need to fix this. Go get Dean and bring him home.”

Chapter Text

NOW:

“Alpha Novak!” Becky screeched as she flew toward him down the corridor just outside his suite. He was escorting his Omega to class after a tense and silent breakfast. Neither had wanted to burst the delicate bubble of hope that hovered just above Castiel’s head, so they barely breathed in one another’s direction this morning. It seemed too susceptible to...but Becky Rosen had no such compunctions.

“Calm yourself, Omega!” Cas snapped out with stern Alpha authority. He took hold of the back of her neck as she slid to a stop before him, and he pulled her face close to his. Wide brown eyes met blazing blue. “There are rules that govern how we comport ourselves in public spaces in this Facility, are there not?” She nodded quickly and broke his gaze to study the floor but didn’t speak. “Would you please remind me what they are?”

She was breathless from the mad dash to catch him, but too, from standing before him in his anger. She was too readily excitable, and she’d fucked up again. She took a gulping breath and told the floor, “No running, no yelling, no horseplay, no fighting, no unauthorized sex.” His grip tightened on her neck to an almost painful degree, but he didn’t say anything more. Becky risked a sidelong glance at his face. It hadn’t softened.

She whimpered.

“I’m sorry, Alpha. I thought I might miss you this morning. I need you to sign the security release for the new Omega Coordinator? He’s meeting Rufus at the foyer at six-forty-five, and he can’t get in if we don’t have the form signed.” Becky managed the whole thing without a breath and at top speed.

“I see,” responded Castiel, removing his large hand from her neck. “And pray tell, why would a text message or phone call to me not have sufficed? I’m certain either method would have served us better.” He pulled a pen from the pocket of his white medical coat and held his hand out for the form.

“I didn’t think of that, Alpha,” she gave back extremely sheepishly.

Castiel scanned and signed the form quickly. He knew the name on it, had selected Jo’s replacement himself, and felt The Facility was lucky to have hired the new Coordinator. He clicked and pocketed his pen, handed the clipboard back to the excitable Omega, and fixed her once more with his eye. “To assist you in remembering in the future, please submit a Punishment Order for yourself and present yourself to any EO of your choosing. Enter it as a Four-C level. Omega, I will not tolerate this kind of behavior. Screeching in the hallways is a particular pet peeve of mine. I am confident that you knew that as this is neither the first nor the second time we’ve had this conversation. Will there need to be another?”

Oh shit, he was doing the eyebrow thing. “No, Alpha! No, I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again, I swear.”

“Thank you, Omega. See that it doesn’t. If there’s another occurrence, you’ll be answering to me directly. And Becky, the Coordinator is a She, not a He. Jody’s a woman.

“Oh.”

Rufus burst forcefully through the door to the entrance foyer startling the middle-aged beta woman who was studying the arrangements of plaques on the wall. She spun to face him and dropped her bag. “Shit,” she swore and stooped to pick it up again.

“You the new hire?” he asked aggressively.

“Um, yes,” she managed and stuck a hand out for him to shake. “Jody Mills. I’m going to be the Omega Coordinator and Dorm Mom.”

“I don’t care what ya’ are, just as long as you follow my rules. So listen up! I hate going through this shit twice.” He left her hand hanging there awkwardly and turned to the security desk.

“Uh, right.” She put her listening face on and straightened up, following behind him.

“This here’s the employee entrance. We stagger the employee start times because the entrance process takes some time. You’re in the seven-a.m. pool. That means your butt walks through that door every day between six-fifty-five and seven. Not earlier, not later. Got me?”

“Got it,” answered Jody. She was a beta, and she could smell that he was as well. He wasn’t going to get a Sir from her just because he was cranky and authoritarian. That was going to have to be earned.

“You got your ID?” He held out his hand.

“Uh, yeah, it’s…” she had it ready in her pocket and handed it over to him.

“First thing we gotta do is get Mark here to scan your ID and issue you a security badge with your picture and thumbprint.” He handed the ID to Mark through the slot in the glass.

“Please stand on the line and look at the camera,” Mark told her. He grabbed a quick and terrible shot of her face, then took her thumb print using a touchpad on his desk. “Give me just a minute,” he told her and wandered toward the back of his small room to make the badge.

Rufus addressed her again. “He’ll issue you an Employee ID number that will tie in to your medical monitoring records through that badge. Every day at seven, you swipe in at one of these kiosks, like this,” Rufus used his own badge to open the little kiosk door. He entered the tiny space and ushered her in as well. It was too tight for two people, so she hovered in the doorway to observe. “Process works like this: you let it read your thumbprint here on the screen. Don’t be a dumbass and try to read a different thumb than the one you just gave Mark.” Jody chuckled while Rufus put his thumb upon the designated spot on the screen. It lit up and his name and personal data appeared on the screen.

He turned and caught her eye, “You ever do this, and somebody else’s name pops up, you call me immediately. No fucking around. Got me?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, so now it’s a two-step process from here. Security and Medical are looking for an ID match and to check that all your chemical, birth-control, and medication levels are normal, and that you’re not sick. So you…and it don’t matter which one you do first…you spit into one of these tubes, up to this mark,” he filled the tube to the mark with his saliva. It wasn’t much as it was a small tube. “Snap it all the way closed. It makes a god-awful mess if you don’t get it closed, so listen for it to snap.” He demonstrated clearly. Seemed simple enough to Jody. “Then you shove it in this slot and close the lid. You see the screen says, Received?”

“Yes, I see,” Jody responded politely.

“Yep, so then you grab one of these cups and pee up to this mark here.” Rufus casually unzipped and pulled his penis out with one hand, aimed at the inside wall of the cup and filled it just to the mark, then capped it with one hand and tucked back in. Jody was impressed with his control. “You got more to give than the cup holds, you just aim into that little basin behind you.” Jody turned and saw a tiny urinal on the wall at the back. Oh, yeah. THAT would be convenient for women, she thought sarcastically. She imagined trying to squash her thighs and torso close enough to the wall to get positioned correctly and resolved to ask another female employee how it was done. But Rufus demonstrated, saving her, “You just pull it out by this little handle on the bottom and straddle. Then shove it back into the wall when you’re done.”

Better, thought Jody.

“The pee-cup gets shoved into this hole here, then press the Go button.” Rufus continued his tour. “Wash your hands and wipe down anything you touched and any drops you scattered with one of these wipes here. Then wait for your results. It doesn’t take very long.” As if to prove him right, the screen blinked green and flashed, Entrance Accepted, Rufus Turner, Security Director.

“Then you take the samples back out, throw ‘em in the trash right here, and you’re good to go. And for the love of all that’s holy and sacred, clean up after yourself. None of us is your mama, and nobody wants to stand in someone else’s pee.” He motioned her back out of the kiosk and approached the turnstile at the end of the foyer. “When you get the green light, swipe your badge here, scan your thumb again, and push through the turnstile. If there was a problem with the test or your readings were off, the door over yonder to medical will let you in. They’ll figure out what’s wrong and get you squared away. If your ID doesn’t jibe with our records, the screen in the kiosk will tell you to go see the security window. Hey, Mark!” he shouted over Jody’s shoulder. “You got this beta’s badge done?”

“Yes, sir, Rufus. Right here.” Mark slid the badge to her through the slot with her ID. She reached for them, but Rufus got to them first and held them up in front of himself, holding her attention by holding her credentials hostage.

“Don’t lose the badge. Don’t come to work without it. The system screens for anything abnormal: drugs and alcohol, pregnancy, STDs, hormone imbalance, infections and illness, all kinds of science-medical crap that I don’t have to know. Don’t do any drugs that are not on your medical profile and keep up with your birth-control. We’ve never had an accident here and we don’t want to start now.” His eyes remained sharp as he spoke, not fucking around in the least. “When you’re on your own time, you fuck who you want, but you gotta report every instance of unprotected sex or sex with a new partner to your supervisor and medical immediately when you get to work next shift. They’ll assess your risks, limit your sexual contact with clients however they need to, and run tests for STDs until they’re sure you’re clear. Most of us just stick to fucking other Facility staff. Keeps the tests simple and keeps it all in the family, but it’s up to you. You go off and fuck some stranger you got no idea what they might be carrying, and you can just kiss any sexual contact onsite goodbye for the next six weeks.” Jody just smirked at him. She was happily Mated and monogamous on her own time. It wouldn’t be a problem.

“Don’t try to bring your pee in with you in a cup or baggie. The temperature won’t be right, and you’ll get busted. Happens all the time; new folks don’t wanna use the kiosk to pee, then they’re stuck out here ‘till I come smack their ass for being stupid dumb-shits.”

“Mornin,’ Rufus,” said a cheery red-headed beta woman on her way in the door headed toward one of the kiosks on the other side of the foyer. There were five on each side.

“Morning, Charlie,” Rufus called back. “Oh hey, Charlie!” he stopped her from stepping in. “You mind walkin’ in with Jody here. It’s her first day.”

The beta’s eyes widened, and her face lit up, “Absolutely! I mean, no, I don’t mind. I’m thrilled to meet you again. I’m Charlie!” She extended her hand. Jody shook it.

“Jody Mills. I met you at my interview.”

“That’s right. That was me. Okay, I’ll be out in a sec. You cleared already?”

“No, not yet. I just need my badge,” Jody looked at Rufus expectantly.

He handed it to her saying, “You got ten minutes from the time the kiosk releases you until the turnstile will lock you back out and make you do it all over again, so don’t be screwin’ around in here too long.”

“Thanks Rufus. I appreciate your help.” Jody told him sincerely. She liked him a lot. She expected they’d get along swimmingly once they got to know each other. Jody always preferred a straightforward, even gruff personality if it were genuine, to someone who was hard to read and fake, no matter how nice they could seem.

“Okay, then, you know what you’re doing in there?” Charlie nodded to the kiosks.

“I think I’m good,” Jody responded, watching Rufus disappear through the turnstile.

“All righty. See you in a sec.” Charlie stepped in and pulled the door closed, and Jody entered the one next to Charlie’s. More employees had come in, and the kiosks were filling fast.

It was going to be a whirlwind first day. Jody dropped her pants and positioned the cup.

Castiel felt fidgety. His body carried far too much energy to be sitting in the conference room discussing income streams, budgets, and future capital plans, but he kept himself contained and focused. Dean taught him years ago that none of his dreams would ever amount to anything without funding and thorough planning, and he’d been right. It was Dean, learning how to tap into the deep pockets of wealthy Lupin alumnae of the college, who made their first research project an unmatched success. Castiel paid attention and never again made the mistake of skipping over the dull stuff.

But today sucked. Sitting here through the interminable details sucked. Last night he’d given up trying to clean up and had left the red-orange mess in the kitchen to dry and stain the walls, ordering April a meal from the cafeteria. He couldn’t have eaten if he’d tried. The kitchen was officially closed, but there was always someone on staff ready to whip up a grilled cheese sandwich for the Heat/Rut rooms. Cas felt guilty for leaving the mess in his kitchenette for the Facility janitors, but it was beyond his capability to manage. He’d mopped up most of the liquid. April assured him with a gentle laugh that it was fine for the Facility Director to let the cleaning staff do their jobs once in a while.

After showering them both clean, he had made love to his mate gently and sweetly. He wanted her to feel how deeply honored he was by her trust in him and to connect their wolves. He had kissed down her throat to her mating-bite, sucking the scar into his mouth and tenderly torturing it with his teeth and tongue while thrusting slowly into her. She had clung to his back and moved with him easily. Her pleasure spiked when he bit down harder on the bite-scar, and she came with a startled gasp. (Oh, that’s interesting,) his wolf perked up and took notice. (Wonder if that would work without a cock up inside her. Or when she’s wearing clothes.)

(Down boy), Castiel thought to his wolf. (Not the right time.) He had finished up by knotting her, and they’d spoken quietly together very late into the night as he caressed her hair and skin. He needed her reassurance that it hadn’t been her distress talking earlier. She was right, he’d realized. He didn’t fully trust her. Hell, he still didn’t really know her. But he expected (demanded) that she trust him. It was unbalanced and unfair. The Mating-bond stood wide open. She was all there to be examined under his wolf’s sharp eye. There was no ulterior motive, no deception. April watched him watching her with cautious optimism. She was a book open to be read, and she was clearly fearful that he’d reject her proposal out of a misguided attempt to do the noble thing (which was very much in his nature,) his wolf pointed out unkindly.

But Castiel was through being noble. The more he put together all the conversations he’d had in the last few weeks that had touched on his feelings for Dean, the more he realized what a tool he’d been. (Is that the word Dean would use?) (Yep, that’s the one. Maybe douchebag.) They’d all tried to get through to him. Everyone had been pointing him toward this decision. He’d been stupid and blind, determined to push through something that couldn’t be pushed through and convinced no one would feel its impact but himself. He’d lain awake for hours, holding his miracle-of-a-mate in his arms, listening to her reassure him time and again that she wanted Dean in their Pack. She’d called him her mate-in-law. She’d sworn the three of them could make it work and tempted his wolf with how delicious it would be to have two Subs to play with, two that belonged to him for good. The wolf had needed no convincing. If wolves packed for travel, his bags would already have been stuffed in the car and he’d be panting out the window, nose in the wind.

Castiel was convinced too. At last. After fighting it so hard for so many years, after seeing no way past this conundrum and repressing everything he felt for Dean for so long, his tiny, teenaged mate entered his life and swept all his excuses to the side.

Just marry him.

It was so simple. The controlled part of his brain, the one he was loath to acknowledge for the moment since he blamed it for everything, spoke up like a little white angel perched on his shoulder. It pointed out that not knowing what kind of True-Mate lay in Dean’s future could be a sticking point. Surely, whomever Dean was destined to meet would want Dean all to himself? It was a fair point. Cas certainly wanted Dean all to himself. What damage would it do to Dean’s future relationship with his mate if they forced a previously cemented marriage to another man on top of it against the unknown mate’s will?

April had shushed him and stroked his face. Castiel had been unaware that he was speaking his worries out loud, but she whispered comfort into his ear. “We can do this, sweet little Alpha. Dean would not be True-Mated to someone unreasonable or overly possessive. It would be a bad fit. We just need to take each day as it comes, do what we need to do for the three of us, and when we become four, then we’ll make it four. We’ll all adjust. Trust me, please, and go to sleep. You’re so tired, little Alpha.”

It wasn’t as easy as simply packing up and heading to the jewelry store or the airport. April couldn’t afford to miss class. Jo was introducing self-defense techniques and assertiveness training. While Cas had no doubt that his mate could be assertive when she ought to be, he wanted her to have the jargon and rules of The Facility’s policies under her belt so she could avoid any misunderstandings that would get her in trouble. And Castiel also had commitments he couldn’t ditch, much as he wanted to. He was still closely involved as a Claimant-trainer in several of the students’ trainings. He had a session later in the morning with young Jeremy and another after lunch with Cecelia. After that, he needed to invest several hours of work at his computer doing administrative catch-up, and he owed the medical wing two hours of clinic time before the end of the day. For right now, the staff meeting was finally drawing to a close. He cleared his throat.

“If I may, before you all scatter for the day, I need to apologize for my behavior of late. It’s no secret, I’m sure, to any of you, that I have been inappropriately distracted of late. Distraught, even. I’ve allowed my personal life to interfere with my professional responsibilities. I am sorry for the burden my actions have placed upon you all, and I assure you that I have a plan that will alleviate the problem one way or another. Some of you, especially alphas Bobby and Benny have been picking up my slack without complaint. To you, I say a heartfelt thank you. I appreciate your bearing with me through this troubling time in my life, and I humbly ask if I can burden you further by asking you to continue covering for me for a little while longer.”

It was Castiel-speak, formal and awkward, but it cut right through the attendants’ activity. Those who had been shuffling papers or beginning to rise from their chairs froze. Every eye focused upon Cas at the head of the table. He looked about the room, briefly meeting every eye before continuing. “As you know, I am recently Mated. My taking a mate, while it is a blessing both to me and to April, my lovely mate, it has also been the catalyst that has driven a wedge between me and my longtime friend and work partner. What’s more, it’s damaged this Facility’s stability by driving our Training Director to transfer to another state and toppling a line of dominoes that is still rippling through us six weeks after his departure. It is a burden you have all shouldered admirably, but I am under no illusions that things are better as they are. No offense, alpha.” Castiel gestured to Jo near the other end of the conference table and nodded at her before he spoke further.

Jo shrugged. It was no secret she only accepted the position to prevent a stranger from taking over for Dean. His legacy deserved to continue along its trajectory.

“We’ve moved Jo Harvelle into the position of Acting Training Director and replaced her role as Omega Coordinator with a highly qualified and personable beta-Neutral named Jody Mills. Most of you know Jody already, at least by reputation, but I urge all of you to get to know her better. Jody will be a wonderful asset to the Training Department, and she starts work today. While I’ve offered Jo the job of Training Director full time, she’s communicated to me that she will not accept the position permanently but would be happy to take an assistant role under another Director’s leadership. The Board has agreed to create and fund an assistantship contingent upon finding the right wolf to head the department. This of course leaves us with a hole still in the Training Director’s chair. I intend to rectify this vacuum by personally travelling to Dallas to bring our Director home to refill the post where he belongs. I will need all of your assistance to cover my appointments and commitments in my absence.”

He stopped speaking, looking around at the motionless wolves at the table. No one moved.

“Um. Please?” he prompted. Their silence begged filling.

“What are you saying, Alpha?” Billie tried.

Cas frowned at her as if she’d spoken Cantonese. “I’m saying I want to go to Dallas and convince Dean to come home.”

“But what are you gonna say that would convince him to do that?” their Head Nurse, Meg, inserted, leaning far forward in her chair.

Castiel considered bullshitting them, but according to Pam they all knew the truth anyway. So he sighed and went for broke, bursting open eight years of deception. The lines of privacy cut jagged wounds in his gut as they ripped open. There would be no going back.

“I’m going to offer him his old job back. And I’m going to ask him to marry me. Please understand, neither offer is contingent upon the other. This is not extortion. It’s an earnest plea on both counts. And while I expect this comes as no surprise to any of you, it is new to me, this understanding that I have wasted many years being blind to something that stood, well, right in front of me. It’s time I set that right. Dean deserves better.”

The room went nuts. Papers literally flew into the air in the rush of bodies to reach him and shake his hand or hug him. The feeling of relief was palpable, like when the news of a ceasefire finally makes it to the front lines and everyone can stand down within the euphoria of having survived. Sam, however, waited for the crowd to thin. He worked his way to Castiel, his face carved from stone, immune to the celebratory atmosphere. Castiel braced himself. He wasn’t going to back down no matter what Sam had to say, so he faced the beta-Dom directly, making no move to posture. Castiel respected Sam a great deal and prayed they could soon be brothers. He owed it to Sam to face him now as a man, not an Alpha.

“Don’t you dare do this to him if you don’t mean it, Castiel,” bit Sam. “I’m serious. He’s been through enough over you. If you flash a ring in his face and then balk at the first sign of trouble, I’ll end you.”

“Sam, please. I hear you. I do. And you’re absolutely right.” The room was just about empty now as the crew headed to their various appointments. Jo punched Cas’ shoulder on her way back to pick up his mate’s class from their time at the gym. Cas kept his eyes on Dean’s brother. He needed Sam’s buy-in, and he deserved the grilling. Surely, no one knew better than Sam did what the last eight years had wrought on Dean. “I’ve been a fucking coward. For years. I deserve all your anger and suspicion, all of it. I won’t try to convince you I don’t. But I’ll make you the same promise I’m going to make to Dean and to April: I’m all in for this. If he’ll have me, if he loves me as I love him, I am utterly committed to building a relationship with your brother based on mutual love, respect, and equal partnership, and I’m not ever going to change my mind.”

“Tell me how you’re going to make it work,” Sam demanded, not softening to Castiel at all. “How are you going to make it fair to your mate? To Dean? How is this going to work, Alpha?” Cas was ready for this, so he started talking, sat on the edge of the conference room table and explained. He’d stayed awake late into the night going over and over how an alpha-alpha marriage could be made sustainable, especially with one of the two already Mated. By the end, as the lines creasing the beta’s forehead smoothed, Sam was onboard. He shook his head slowly at Cas though, trying to picture what kind of reception Cas had waiting for him in Dallas.

“He’s really, really pissed at you, man. I just don’t know… You may get your teeth knocked in before you have a chance to say a word.”

It was another fifteen minutes before Castiel managed to make it back to his office. He felt wrung out. Charlie had promised him she’d put her head together with Becky and Ellen to get his appointments divvied up. All he need do was get through today, and he was a free man. Cas got to work, and soon he’d assumed his businesslike persona again. He slipped through the halls to the small practice room where Jeremy awaited him.

“All right, Omega!” snapped Castiel as he closed the door behind him and found Jeremy kneeling in position in the center of the room, naked on the floor mat. “Let’s see what you remember. I’ll know if you haven’t been practicing.” Cas let a trace of alpha-reverberation eek through their temporary Claim-bond to remind the Omega that his Dom could sense deception. “Position four.”

The Omega kept himself on his knees, flattened his chest to the mat, pulled his spine downward and lifted his hips, flashing his channel. Number four was indeed a presentation position, but his ass shouldn’t be angled outward. This position was primarily for spanking, not fucking. It required that the spine stay either slightly bowed like a cat’s or flat, not pulled downward to display his hole like Jeremy had done. Standing near Jeremy’s right shoulder, Castiel brought the switch in his hand down sharply along the crack of his ass, directly against the Omega’s hole. If he was going to display it so flagrantly, who was the Alpha to miss such a lovely invitation? The Omega screamed and tucked his butt under.

“Let’s try that again, shall we? Position four, Omega.” This time the Omega-Neutral remembered the correct angle. His form was good, but Castiel noted that he still held more tension in his muscles than he should. He would learn to relax with time and trust. Cas sent praise and pleasure to him through the bond. “Very good. And now show me position twelve.”

The Omega flattened himself and rolled onto his back, pulling his knees to his armpits and holding them there with the insides of his own elbows. He was obscenely on display. Number twelve was Castiel’s personal favorite during scenes. It wasn’t good if you wanted access to an Omega’s penis or clitoris, but you could initiate any type of anal play from this position. “Relax your head, Jeremy. Just set your gaze on the ceiling. You don’t need to worry about where I am. Your Alpha will tell you if they want your eyes on them. If you don’t hear that instruction, keep your gaze perpendicular to your spine. Let go and float. Relax. You’re safe. You do not need to anticipate at this stage, only react. If I strike you, it is so you will learn. Pain is your friend. Do not fear it. Do not brace against it. Relax, Omega.”

Kneeling on one knee, Castiel slowly pushed two fingers into the Omega’s ass. He was already well-lubed. He felt young and ripe. The Alpha thrusted aggressively into his hole for a few moments, watching the response in his face and his cock, feeling for an increase in slick. Cas could tell the moment Jeremy stopped thinking and let go. “As a Neutral, you won’t need to learn Submission to a Dom to feed and stroke your wolf,” Castiel let his voice drop in timbre to allow his Alpha to communicate directly with the boy’s Omega brain. “But as an Omega, your pleasure and your pain belong to your Alpha. You, Jeremy, belong to the Pack Alpha. Right now, until your custody is decided, that’s me. You don’t need to think about anything but pleasing me.” Castiel added a third finger and picked up the pace, watching as the Omega began to pant. “Don’t think, just answer…what does your Alpha want from you right now? What would please me?”

“Ahh, god. Oh… nnnn, just… hold position and relax, keep my eyes straight ahead, please, Alpha…Ahhhh! Just…feel whatever you want me to feel.”

“Good boy. Very good. Do you want to come today, Omega?”

“Please, Alpha, yes!”

Castiel chuckled darkly. The Omega had too little control still. It wasn’t time for rewards like that. “I’ll tell you what, sweet boy. If you can come from my fingers alone, just like this, in the next five minutes, it’s yours for the taking.” Castiel reached out and pulled hard on one nipple, stretching it painfully while he kept three fingers thrusting fast in and out of the boy’s anus. He made no move toward the Omega’s prostate. It was virtually an impossible task, but Cas had seen Omegas do it before—Deep Omegas, anyway—so he worked hard to give the boy what he could by way of friction.

“You’re tensing up again, Omega. I need you to concentrate on staying relaxed. You need to focus.”

“ALPHA! PLEASE!!”

He wasn’t going to get there, and the teasing was driving him crazy. Cas fed him encouragement through the bond they shared and let Jeremy wash his frustration back over the Alpha.

“Time’s up, I’m afraid.” Castiel was only a little disappointed as he removed his fingers. “Maybe next time. You need to keep in mind that the pleasures of your body belong to me. If I choose to grant you a climax, you’ll receive one. If not, then not. However, you’re doing well considering how far behind you were from the others who grew up in Pack homes with an Alpha. Let’s see…show me position seven.”

They continued. Near the end of the hour Castiel finished the session with a light spanking to check the Omega’s emotional response to correction and examined his anus and channel with a speculum for signs of wear or irritation. He looked good: at ease now and fully Balanced. His records showed he’d Released yesterday evening during a punishment paddling.

Perfect.

“I’m very pleased with your progress, Omega.” Cas let his Alpha do the talking again. If he could have, he would have immersed the poor kid in the sounds of Alpha from sunup to midnight in an effort to make up the deficit his upbringing had left him with. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. Try to focus on the specific rules that are hardest for you and practice those positions. I’ll see you again as soon as I can, but I may be gone for the next couple of sessions. You’ll be in safe hands while I’m away. Do you have any questions for me?”

“No, Alpha. Thank you for taking so much time with me.”

“You’re very welcome, sweet Omega. You’re worth it.”

Castiel headed back to his office after dropping Jeremy off where his Omega class was assembling in the lunchroom after their private sessions. On the way, he paused to observe Cole’s work in the hallway.

Cole had Meg bent double, grasping her ankles with her slacks and underwear near her knees. Her backside was already quite red as Cole’s paddle fell several times in quick succession. Her vulva peeked between her cheeks red and swollen, but Cas had no reason to believe that was Cole’s doing. Castiel didn’t announce his presence or interfere. He merely observed. He knew Meg Masters well enough to be confident she’d earned the reprimand, but he also knew that Benny had expressed concern over Cole’s domineering behavior, and Cas wanted to see for himself.

“All right,” Cole said in a neutral voice, tucking his paddle back into its pocket. “Up you go.” He helped her to balance as she straightened. Neither of them had noticed Castiel yet, off to the side. Cas watched Cole search her face while he wiped the tears from her cheeks. “You’re okay, now. It’s all over. I’m really proud of you, beta. You did great, sweetheart.” Cole tucked the moist tissue into his pocket and stepped back, indicating with a gestured that she could get dressed again. “Do you have any concerns or questions? You know why that was necessary, right?”

Meg nodded as she fastened her slacks and gave him a shy hug. Cas marveled. The only time Meg was ever shy was just after a spanking. He was a bit envious of Cole’s place right now, considering how rarely Meg graced any of them with this kind of vulnerability. Cole hugged her back and chuckled softly. “Go on then, back to work.” He kissed the top of her head.

Castiel was very pleased and was about to say so, when Sam stepped out from a recess Cas couldn’t see from his vantage point. “Really good work, man,” Sam told Cole. “That was way better. You see how relaxed she was when she left? That’s what you’re looking for. You can’t think of it as punishing people for being bad. That makes you work from a place of retribution. You gotta think of it as helping them find and work through their accountability. Totally different mindset. Keep it simple. Don’t give out anything but what they need you to give.”

Castiel shifted and both beta-Doms turned to notice him. “Very good work, both of you.” Short and sweet. The scent of gratification filled the hallway. They both nodded with a warm “Thanks, Alpha,” and moved away, still conferring with their heads together. Cole looked back over his shoulder at Castiel with a pleased half-smile.

Castiel returned to his office and booked a flight to Dallas.

Maybe it really was that simple.

Castiel deplaned with the rest of the passengers into the humid Texas airport. He always flew coach when he traveled alone, so he was right in the middle of the herd that headed toward baggage claim. He couldn’t justify spending The Facility’s precious budget on a little more legroom for a five-hundred-mile flight, not just him.

He ignored the frisson of energy that followed him as he made his way to the baggage carousel. Many people, both wolves and apes, recognized him. The few wolves who didn’t know him directly could still sense the weight of his Deep Alpha designation and his wolf through his scent and bearing. No one approached him, but a number of cell phones tracked his movement. Wherever he walked, an open space magically appeared all around him. Castiel was accustomed to the phenomenon and ignored it. He had much bigger fish to fry.

For one, there was a tiny ring box burning a hole in his pocket. Too, he felt fragmented at the vast distance that now separated him from his mate. He could still feel her through the Mating-bond, but only distantly. Castiel clutched the box in his pocket, worrying the smooth velvet with his thumb while he waited for his luggage. His big, black, internal beast paced—back and forth, back and forth, swinging his huge head like a lion.

(Stop that, you’re making me nervous,) Castiel grumbled toward the creature at his core.

He finally collected his luggage and hailed a taxi. “American Caniforme Research Institute,” he told the driver. “Do you need the address?”

“Nah,” said the large man behind the wheel. “I go out there two, three times a week.” The driver studied him through the rearview mirror. “You don’t look like the usual scared wolf-pup I usually drop off though. You’re older. You’re no student.” The light of recognition snapped into his gaze, and he diverted his gaze back to the roadway. “You’re the head cheese out there, aren’t you? I know you.”

“Yes, that’s right,” agreed Castiel but offered nothing further. The driver let it drop and got down to business. Castiel closed his eyes and tried to rehearse what he wanted to say. It didn’t do any good. His mind was blank. God-fucking-damnit. This was a terrible idea! Cas breathed hard through his nose. (I can do this) he thought on repeat.

(You fucking better do this!) his wolf interjected. (It’s your fault we’re in this mess in the…)

(Shut up) Castiel explained.

Cas directed the cabbie to drop him off at the employee entrance. He badged in as an employee, as the networks between facilities were all connected to the same database, and he went to meet with the Facility Director, a former colleague of his from Kansas, Victor Henrickson. It was a courtesy call. As Alpha, Castiel didn’t need Victor’s approval to transfer Dean back to Kansas, but it would be a douche move, as Dean would say, to do it without giving Henrickson a heads-up. No director deserved to be blindsided like that.

“Alpha Castiel Novak!” Victor greeted effusively. “I haven’t seen you in forever, man! What brings you to Texas? You should’ve told me you were coming, or is this some kind of a surprise inspection from the home office?”

“Nothing like that.” Castiel extended his hand for Victor to shake. Henrickson was a good man. Cas liked him. Dropping in without calling ahead was a shitty idea. There was never enough time in the day for a Facility Director. Cas could’ve shown up only to find the Director was deeply involved in something he couldn’t extract himself from. It looked like Cas was lucky as Victor ushered him into the office and closed the door. “I want to talk about Dean. If you have a few minutes?”

“What do you want to know, Alpha?” Victor prompted.

“To start with, how’s he doing? As you know, Dean’s important to me, and we didn’t leave things between us in a very healthy state. I’m worried about my friend. Victor, this is a personal call. Is he scening?”

Victor seemed to take a minute to try to read Castiel’s question for hidden agenda. He answered directly, though, “Not that I’m aware. If he is, he isn’t doing it here. There’s nothing in the schedule with his name on it and he hasn’t reported any offsite sexual activity. Maybe he’s got a side piece that whips his ass without the sex. We do have a few folks who prefer it that way. Contact like that wouldn’t have to be reported. I gotta be honest though, he doesn’t seem the type.”

Castiel felt physically ill. He knew Dean. Sex was a major component to his Submission. If he wasn’t having sex, he probably wasn’t doing any of it. It’d been almost three months since Castiel’s last scene with Dean. He had to be in agony by now. Cas worried he was likely near a full Tertiary Fall, and that was always hard on the plaster. Cas’ wolf lowered his ears and growled at its own Alpha, demanding he fix this. Blame sat heavy on Castiel’s shoulders. His wolf wasn’t wrong.

(I’m working on it) he reminded the wolf.

He changed the subject. “How has he been doing at adapting here, at fitting in?”

Pssshh, Dean Winchester could fit in anywhere. Anywhere.

“Tell you the truth, Alpha,” Victor looked dead serious. He scratched his chin. “…his heart’s not in it. He spends all his time arguing with his colleagues, picking fights in meetings. He’s doing the bare minimum he has to not to get his ass fired. He’s got a fraction of the responsibility he had in Lawrence, and he’s barely cutting it. I’ll be honest, I brought him here on the hopes he could get to the bottom of our Training Department’s stagnant numbers, but not only isn’t he ferreting out the issues, he’s become one. Dean’s…I hope you don’t mind if I speak frankly, I know you’re friends with the guy… But he’s not the Dean Winchester I knew in Lawrence.”

Castiel took it in. He let his gaze fall to the front of Victor’s desk where a long scratch scarred the front surface. He breathed. He processed. Finally, he looked up and spoke. “Victor, would your training department be too adversely affected if I transferred Dean back to Kansas?”

Victor scoffed. “You’re the Alpha, Cas. You’re going to do whatever you want, aren’t you?”

Castiel just looked at him, waiting.

Victor shrugged and clicked his tongue. “Nah. I’ll be all right. Truth is, if he can’t get to the bottom of the rot I’ve got in my classrooms, I can’t use him. Besides, I never got the impression he’s planning on putting down roots. We’ve been discussing his recommendations for changes to the staffing, but I get the feeling it’s window dressing. I think he’s right on a lot of what he’s been saying, but none of that scratches into whatever’s spooking the locals away from signing on for training. What say, I put in a request for some staff upheaval, maybe a headcount boost to see it through. You take your boy home. And we call it even?”

It was extortion, and Castiel didn’t need to acquiesce to it, but he did want to preserve Victor’s good will. Something at the edges of his sense of smell hinted that he was missing something, but his vision seemed fogged, blurry around the edges, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He felt antsy in his own skin, twitchy. Had he been this way for long? Cas couldn’t recall.

“I can do that,” he agreed. “Call Donna in the business office and tell her what funds you need. Ask her to shoot it straight through to me for approval.” Castiel stood. He felt dirty. He extended his hand for Victor to shake once again, vowing to check more deeply into the goings on in the Dallas office. He should ask Dean to look into things around here. “Thank you for your understanding. Please let me know if I can be of assistance during your transition.”

“Always a pleasure, Alpha. Don’t you want a tour while you’re here? The staff and students would love to see you.”

I’ll just bet they would, thought Cas with a bitter taste in his mouth. “No thank you, Alpha. I really don’t have time at the moment. Do you happen to know where I might find Dean just now? Is he leading a class?” Castiel was overwhelmingly grateful that a dominance fight hadn’t been required to bring Victor to heel. He’d been aware of the manipulation tactics, and it was something he could willingly give. If Victor had chosen to dig his heels in more, Castiel might’ve been forced to take him. He hated doing that. It was bestial.

He rolled his shoulders into the itch at his spine.

“Dean’s off today.” Victor’s reply broke through Cas’ thoughts. “He’s probably at home. I’ll get Bela to pull up his address from the file.”

“Thank you. That would be very helpful.”

Twenty-five minutes later, Castiel stood outside Dean’s apartment door, willing himself to knock and just get it over with. He could hear the echo of his father’s voice chiding him for cowardice.

Finally, he forced his fist up and out and…

Dean slept in on his day off. Fuck it. He had the next two days off too, in fact. His plans for the long weekend were intricate. He was going to sleep until two, jack off at least three times, then get up and shower, change the sheets (yeah, eww!), and eat whatever was in his fridge. He was going to dress to the nines, drive to Fort Worth where the really hot cowboys gathered, and then hole up in an old-fashioned honkytonk for the rest of the night. Dance, flirt, get shit-faced, and hopefully let some beautiful blue-eyed, black-haired wolf fuck him into the fucking mattress.

Goddamn, he needed to let someone take him hard.

He rolled his shoulders into the itch down the middle of his back and shoved the rest of the burrito into his mouth.

He was at step four, mouth overfull with nuked bean burrito left over from three nights ago…four? …when someone knocked on his door. The fuck? Everyone he knew in Dallas was at work right now. Prolly some fundraiser or magazine salesman.

Whatever.

Dean pulled the door open without checking the peephole.

He froze. His vision did that crazy dreamscape special effect thing from the movies where his visitor appeared both closer and further away than he really was. Dean’s lungs locked up. His eyes locked onto a pair of concerned bright blue irises that weren’t looking away. He stumbled backward, unable to feel his legs moving, unaware of moving them, tried to speak but couldn’t get anything out, and noted the concern in his visitor’s eyes growing more intense as the blue eyes seemed to get taller very quickly.

Then everything went black.

“…hear me? Dean!” Something struck his face.

“Dude! Enough with the slapping already!” Dean raised his hands to block the next blow and opened his eyes to find his head cradled in Castiel’s lap, his body strewn carelessly on the floor. “I’m okay! Cas, I’m okay! Jeez, let me up.”

“Go slowly, Dean. I don’t want you to pass out again,” the Dom chided.

Right. Pass out. Again. How fucking humiliating.

“The fuck are you doing here, Castiel?” Dean pushed himself up slowly and shifted away from Cas to get some air and space and, just, it’d be easier the further away he was. He didn’t try to rise from the floor though. The floor seemed the safest place right now. Castiel followed his lead and remained sitting on the crappy, threadbare, bulk-rate apartment carpet.

“I came to check on you. I was worried. And it’s been a terrible few weeks without you. I needed to know you’re okay. Are you okay, Dean?”

“They don’t have phones in Kansas anymore? There are easier, cheaper ways to do this, man.”

“I needed to see you for myself,” Cas admitted. “I need to talk to you.”

“Ah. Right. Yeah. Talk to me. Where’s your mate, Alpha? You didn’t leave her five-hundred miles away, did you? By herself?” Dean leaned back onto the foot of the couch and let his head fall onto its seat. His eyes closed of their own accord.

“I did. Well, not by herself. Jo’s looking after her. Jo and Jody. You heard we finally lured Jody Mills to join us?” Cas heard himself babbling. “She’s staying in the dorm until I get back. My mate, that is. Jody hasn’t moved in yet.” Cas kept his eyes glued to Dean’s beautiful face. Dean wore a mask of anger, resentment, and hurt right now, but he was still beautiful, still Dean Winchester. He was the most beautiful man Castiel had ever seen. Cas had missed him so desperately, he couldn’t look away. “Dean, I know it hurt you deeply when we Mated.”

“Nope!” Dean cut in. He rolled over and stumbled drunkenly to his feet. Cas scented the air subtly, but he didn’t believe the man was drunk. The apartment smelled terrible. “Not gonna dredge that conversation back up. Just. Don’t go there, Cas. Talk about something else, anything else. Not that.”

Castiel sighed and changed the subject. “I spoke to Victor. He said you have some suggestions for changes here in Dallas?” He kept his seat on the floor. He crossed his ankles and braced his forearms on raised knees, gazing up at Dean.

“Man, this whole place is jacked!” Dean leaned forward, bracing his arms on the arm of his couch, suddenly full of vigor and passion. “They’ve got Alistair and Ruby fucking up the whole Training Department. They’ve got it all wrong, Alpha, and they’re beating and scaring the shit out of both the Omegas and the Subs! What they do to the Ozzies is fucking criminal. I told Victor to fire the two of them, but he’s slow walking for some damn reason. Said not to jump the gun. Said Bela sees it differently. You gotta rein this shit in, Alpha, or we’re going to lose everything.” Dean finally made eye contact again. “You’re going to lose everything. God, they think it’s about forcing shit and flinging their fucking weight around and yelling their asses off and throwing ass-beatings left and right! There’s, like, there’s no compassion, man. And those two are the worst, but the whole team’s a nightmare. No one tries to understand where the students are coming from, what they’ve been through, what they’re scared of… It’s just. It’s fucked up, that’s what it is. They’re building an assembly line of Omega fuck-holes to sell to the highest bidder. I’ve about got my final report ready to send up to Kansas. You can take the damned thing with you in hard copy now. This place needs an overhaul or a razing.” Dean’s rage focused in on Castiel. “How the fuck did you let it get this bad, Alpha?” Dean pointed an accusing finger at Castiel’s chest. “This is on you!”

“I didn’t know. Dean, I didn’t know. I haven’t been down here since we opened it, and the reports from Victor, well, you’ve read them. They don’t make it look anything like…” Castiel stopped.

No excuses, Alpha, his own Secondary growled, livid.

Dean was right as always. This was on Castiel.

Dean scoffed, “Victor! Victor Henrickson wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. He lets Alistair make all the hiring choices. I’m surprised he brought me in at all. Good ol’ Al fills all the empty spaces with his sadistic cronies. It’s sick. That man is a menace! He should be in prison, not leading a department. Swear to god, we trace far enough, we’re going to find a trafficking syndicate tied into this somehow.”

Cas blanched, but his spine stiffened. “I’ll take care of this, Dean. Fixing Dallas is now my second-highest priority, and it’ll get taken care of. Immediately.”

“Second-highest? You serious? What the fuck is more important than the clusterfuck going on down here?!”

“You are.”

“What!?” Dean gaped at him. His stance—feet set wide, arms crossed over his chest in fury and defiance, eyes red and blazing—it was so familiar, Cas ached.

For his part, Dean’s head spun. He’d wanted for weeks to pull the curtain back on this shitshow and sic his Alpha on them all, but he couldn’t bring himself to pick up the phone before he had every piece of evidence he needed. And his mind wouldn’t cooperate long enough for him to glue all the pieces together.

When Cas answered him, Dean thought his brain had skipped tracks again.

“You are, Dean. You are my highest priority right now.” Cas huffed a laugh in self-deprecation. “Pamela even told me so.”

And then the rage struck. Dean growled. His nostrils flared. He saw red, the likes of which he’d never known. The nerve. “No. Whatever you’re selling over there with your fucking blue eyes, I ain’t buyin’. NO, Castiel! Go home. You wasted a trip.”

“Dean, just listen to me. Please. We need to talk. We left everything so broken between us. It’s tearing me apart. From what I’ve heard, from what I can see, it’s doing the same to you. Victor said you’re not scening at all. Just, please hear me out. If you want me to leave once we’ve talked, I’ll go. I know you’re very angry, and I want you to tell me why. Do you even know? I need to hear you explain. What did I do wrong, Dean? Please. It’s killing me.”

“What did you do?!” Dean lifted himself to his full height. He found that he suddenly preferred as much of a height advantage as he could get if they were really going to have this conversation. “You got fucking Mated, man! You threw me over on a whim and got MATED to a teenaged virgin you’d never even fucking met! She’s sixteen-fucking-years-old, Castiel!” Dean’s eyes were wild, and he white-knuckled the edge of the couch.

Good. Now they were getting somewhere, thought Cas. He licked his lips and rose to his knees. He sat back on his heels as Dean paced.

“Oh, yeah, and then you threw out that you love me.” Dean turned on his heel and confronted the man. “You love me? Was that just to manipulate me into staying in Kansas and keeping me as an offseason spare fuck? Fuck you, Castiel! I’m not your sidepiece! You don’t get to pretend everything’s the same as it was. You owe me more than that! All those years, I was good to you, Sir! I did every goddamn thing you asked of me. I deserve more respect than to be passed over like yesterday’s fish!” He’d advanced threateningly by the end of the tirade, looming over Castiel with violence etched in every clenched muscle. Cas wasn’t concerned about the threat. Dean couldn’t harm him, but he ached for the pain Dean was in.

“That’s all true, except...” Cas forced his voice to stay calm and rational and not trip into Dominant tones. If he had any chance of convincing Dean he was capable of an equal partners’ marriage, he couldn’t sway Dean now with his power advantage. Dean hated it when Cas chose calm while Dean was furious, but Castiel saw no other way. “Dean, I do love you. I deeply regret telling you the way that I did, but I don’t regret the words. I wish I could go back to the beginning, years ago, and have thrown away all of my fear and have confessed what I felt for you from the start. I wish I’d been brave enough to be honest with you from the very beginning, but I can’t change what I’ve done.”

Dean’s chest heaved with the exertion of his rant, still hulking over Cas, but now he just looked confused. What the hell was Cas saying? “Cas, what the hell are you saying? You lost me.”

Castiel’s eyes widened, he sucked a deep breath in through his nose, set his mouth, screwed his courage to the sticking place, rose to his feet with a grace he didn’t feel, and went for it.

Anger and desperation flooded his veins. His voice came out in a snarl.

“I know you’re angry. I deserve it. And I’ll do whatever you need me to do to make up for the pain I’ve caused you. But, Dean, I had to Mate. I didn’t have a choice. You know that! You would’ve done the same. You would’ve done the SAME DAMNED THING! When you confront your True-Mate, whenever he shows up and sweeps you off your feet, you’ll fall just as hard and as fast and as inevitably as I did, and YOU KNOW IT! You know how this works!! So, why? WHY are you so angry with me?! I’m in love with you! You hear me, alpha? I’m in love with you, Dean Winchester, but that couldn’t have stopped what happened! Nothing could have. I love you. But that doesn’t matter. If you can’t love me back, it makes no difference. Thing is, if you can’t, then where does your anger come from? Dean, I need to know, are you in love with me, too? Please, I need to know.”

Dean stumbled backward as if he’d been slapped and landed hard on the couch. His mouth hung open. Those blue eyes. He didn’t know what was going on with his own eyes. He assumed they were a brilliant, alpha red. But he couldn’t look away from Castiel’s blue irises. Castiel’s fury seemed Alpha. His eyes should be swamped by red, but they weren’t. They were deep, ocean blue like always, like when he was just Cas, like the haunting echo of a memory or a dream.

“What are you asking me?” Dean’s head swam. He was knocked back to when he was barely nineteen years old and expecting to wait tables after graduation because no one in their right mind would hire an alpha Lupin teenager to teach high school, and then was magically saved by a pair of blue eyes and a couple of crazy proposals. Dean needed to get a grip and figure out what the hell was happening right now, but his brain had shut down altogether. He looked to his wolf and found the asshole alert and upright for the first time in weeks. Facing forward.

Fucking traitor.

Castiel took a step closer but didn’t try to touch Dean. “I’m asking you whether you are in love with me, as I am in love with you, Dean Michael.”

“REALLY!? Like this!?” Dean broke free and put the couch between them. No way was he gonna fold like some cheesy rom-com. No way. Not after three months of this bullshit. Who did the fucker think he was? “You wanna do a big, romantic reveal after eight FUCKING YEARS and you got your mate underneath you, and now you want to come running into my arms with a fucking, I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU!?”

The whole room spun crazily, skewed off its axis. Dean clung to the back of the couch.

“Then just tell me, if you don’t love me back, why are you so angry? Why won’t you at least keep on as my friend and my scene partner if it’s not that? Damnit, Dean, I miss you. I need you! Be pissed if you want, but I deserve an explanation.” Maybe Pamela had been way off the mark. It had all made sense in Castiel’s mind back in Lawrence, but now the idea that Dean might love him back seemed preposterous.

“OF COURSE I’M FUCKING IN LOVE WITH YOU, YOU MORON! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, CASTIEL!? You may be un-be-fuckin-lievably blind, but there’s no way you did not know that!”

“Dean, please. I didn’t know. I swear.” Cas put his hands up to show no ill will and advanced slowly. “Did you? Did you know about me before I told you? I’ve loved you since before we spoke in Zeke’s bar. I loved you before you sat in my office as a scared sixteen-year-old pup, stammering out an excuse for handing in Balthazar’s paper as you own. I loved you before you laid eyes on me, Dean. It’s always been you. You spoke to me through your eyes in class and the papers that you turned in…they were, captivating. I fell so fast and so hard. For you. I’ve loved you forever. April doesn’t change that. I get that now. She doesn’t change anything, not for me. But I have to think, if I didn’t know about your feelings, maybe mine weren’t as obvious as I assumed. I thought I was transparent. Was I? Did you know?”

Dean was struck dumb again. Cas had him there. He hadn’t known. Castiel had hidden his feelings too well. Hidden them just as Dean had done. They both did this. “Just, please, Dean. Put yourself in my place for a moment. We both made the same mistake. We were both wrong to lie for so long, but if it had happened the other way around, if you had Mated first, could you have done any differently? I didn’t choose her over you. I didn’t choose at all. Could you have done differently?”

Dean’s anger and his resolve crumbled.

No.

He would’ve grabbed hold of whoever the Universe set in front of him, and he would’ve fucked the daylights outta the guy and bitten a hole through his neck. Dean knew he would’ve. He had no idea what it felt like, but he’d witnessed it too many times to think there was any choice in the matter.

He had witnessed one or two wolves snarl into the Trigger with their teeth bared against it and dig their heels in, but only when circumstances aligned in ways that granted them rungs to cling to. Only with the full weight of the entire Facility and a damned good reason at their backs. He’d never seen anyone do that and come out unscathed on the other side. He had to admit he would never have wanted that for Cas.

To himself, Dean could admit the pain came from his inability to stand in that sixteen-year-old Ozzie’s place. Why couldn’t he have been Castiel’s mate instead? He ached to his core.

“I’m not really mad at you, Castiel. S’not your fault.” Dean scrubbed his hand across tired eyes, across his brow, “I’m not mad at her either. What’s her name? Erica? April! She’s innocent. Man, I know that. It just hurt too bad to deal with. Truth is, if she’s that right for you, I’ll probably love her. I’m just. I’m too sad and broken to think.” Dean dropped his hand and his barriers. They weren’t doing him any good anyway. “I love you.” He lifted his chin from where it’d fallen against his chest and met Cas’ eyes with a look that was world weary, hopeless. “I love you, but it doesn’t matter. It never has. It doesn’t make any fucking difference, because of our fucking biology! Really? This is what it comes to? We both pop a knot, so that means we’re, what? Screwed? What the fuck do we do now? What’re we s’posed to do now? Man, I can’t. Cas, I can’t be your substitute lay. I need more than that. I need you, all of you. I can’t get by on dribbles of your mate’s leftovers. And I can’t stand there and watch you give her what you can’t give me. It hurts too damn much. I won’t survive it. It’ll consume me.” Dean had never allowed himself honesty this raw, and it cut on its way out.

“It doesn’t have to be like that, Dean. That’s what I came to tell you.” Cas moved in and took both of Dean’s hands in his own. “Come home to Kansas with me. We’ll work it out between us. I love you, Dean, and I’m all in, completely committed. If you just say yes, you’ve got me forever.”

“What are you talking about? You aren’t going to dump April. You can’t do that. Dude, I saw you two together. Even if I wasn’t pissed, you would’ve been nauseating the way you look at her. I can’t let you do that. Man, I’m not going to…”

“No, no, Dean. It’s all April’s idea. She’s the one who sold me on it. It’s perfect. She’s thrown in. I’m all in. We get you, and then the only thing that’s not set is how your True-Mate will respond when we find him But, we’ll deal with it. Together. We’ll deal with it, Dean! It’s like how sometimes a True-Mate might already have a pup when they get Mated. You don’t throw the kid out; you just make room in the Pack. There’s room for all of us. Don’t you see? You take your mate as they are, and you accept their family as your Pack. April’s going to take me as I am, Dean, and I come to her already attached to you. You’re a part of me. We’re a set.”

Castiel bobbed with excitement, trying to make sure Dean was with him, but he couldn’t slow down. He was like a snowball crashing down the slope. “Right now, my Pack is just me, April, my brother, my estranged bitch of a mother, and a cousin I have legal custody of but have never actually met who lives as an ex-pat in Bolivia. I want a Pack, Dean, with you. I want you to Alpha a Pack with me! God, I’m doing this all wrong…FUCK!” His eyes flew wild and wide and disconcerting.

Dean leaned away from him, alarmed. “Castiel. Man, you need to breathe or I’m going to be picking you up off the floor. Just, take a breath and start over. You lost me again.”

Castiel closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Time seemed suspended for a moment. The Universe blessed him with a moment of crystal clarity that would imprint itself in his mind forever. He released one of Dean’s hands, and lowered himself to one knee, reaching into his jacket pocket for the small velvet box.

Dean’s face lost all color. He clutched at Castiel’s hand.

No, nope, no, there’s no way this was going where Dean’s imagination had dared take him only in the dark and only in the middle of the night and only in that spare few minutes between being awake and asleep. But then Castiel produced a velvet box, and it was no figment of Dean’s unwary imagination. Cas flicked it open awkwardly with his free hand. Dean wasn’t about to let go of his other one. Dean stood transfixed by the twinkling platinum ring nestled within blue velvet. Blue like Castiel’s eyes. All of the hurt and resentment and fury melted as he lifted his eyes from the ring to his love’s blue, blue eyes. He watched those blue eyes overflow, and Castiel let the tears fall. Rarely did the Alpha cry. Dean had seen his face this contorted with emotion only twice, and neither time was about Dean.

His own green eyes answered back tear for tear, unmarked.

Castiel exhaled slowly and collected his facial features back.

“Dean Michael Winchester. I have loved you forever with a love that is deep, and timeless, and pure. Will you do me the honor, the unbelievable honor, of becoming my beloved husband?” Castiel’s voice didn’t shake. It held true for him thanks to the support of the great black wolf inside of him who leaned with all its weight against Cas’ heart, holding him steady.

Dean on the other hand, as Cas gained his footing, was a mess. His hands shook, and his legs were jelly. He let himself fall to his knees, level with his love, closer to those blue eyes, and he leaned into Castiel’s strength, just as he had always done, just as he had permission now always to do. He didn’t doubt that Cas would need to carry him at times, but Cas had never hinted that doing so might be a burden. He’d simply always been there, lending strength when Dean stumbled.

He kissed Castiel hard on the mouth then shifted to breathe against him, searching for something solid.

“Is that a yes?” asked Cas, looking worried in case there was some way he could be misreading this. “Dean, we’ll figure out how to work out the pack dynamics. I’m not asking you to share my mate. I know she’s not yours. It’s not a threesome I’m proposing. I’m asking you to help me forge a brand-new kind of shared connection, one that doesn’t cross you and her. How does mate-in-law sound for the two of you? I don’t know how it’ll all come together, but we’ll work it out. Right? Please tell me we can work it out. All those years of pining, and I never once thought of a polycule. But it's the solution to everything. Say yes.”

Dean began to laugh at Castiel’s babbling, his joy, tears, and relief all overflowing. “Dean!”

“Yes, Castiel! It’s a yes. Castiel James Novak, I will marry you if you ever stop babbling and give me that ring!”

Cas couldn’t get the ring on Dean’s finger fast enough.

Dean admired it, spinning it round to see the flush-set stones from every angle, watching them catch the light, pathetic as it was in his dingy apartment. His voice sounded slurred in his ear. “I’ll have to change my business cards again. I just got them printed for Dallas.”

Cas lazed on the couch half-beneath him, leaning against the corner, lost in a blissful stupor, dropping kisses to his lips every now and then. “No, you still have a couple of boxes back home in the storeroom. Just throw away the ones from Dallas. This city is a misery.”

Dean laughed, “I agree, but I still need new cards. I’ll need them printed with my married name, Dean Novak, PhD.” He held a hand up and dragged it across their field of vision like revealing a marquee.

“No, Dean.” Cas sat upright, helping Dean find his balance as he straightened them both. “I want to ask something of you. Please don’t change your name. Winchester suits you. And I…how do I ask for this?” Cas pulled back enough that Dean could look him in the eye without going cross-eyed. “Our marriage. I know we have no framework for this. But I want you for my partner. Equal partners. I’ll still Dom for you as often as you need. We can discuss how we want to apply Pack Discipline in our home, but you and I would be equals. Co-Alphas. Right now, we’re not equals. I’m a Dom. You’re a Sub. I don’t have anything I can sacrifice to you in order to even up the power imbalance except my name. I want to give up my name for yours. I want to be Castiel Winchester. Tell me you understand. Please, Dean?” Castiel looked worried. He looked to Dean like he’d rehearsed this part of the speech many times. Pssshh, of course he had.

He was Cas.

Dean took pity on him and put him out of his misery.

“Aight,” Dean accepted with a brat-filled smirk.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“If you are not a ticket holder for the one-on-ones, you need to leave the area immediately! The Fire Marshal will begin moving everyone out in five minutes if the walkways aren’t cleared, so if you don’t have a ticket, you need to find somewhere else to be!” The convention coordinator had some lungs on her, and she put them to good use, herding the crowds away from the corridor down which The Facility contingent had gone.

Jo slipped her head back into their assigned room, their Command Central. “It’s a total zoo out there. I think we’re getting too big for hotel venues. Maybe next time book a convention center, Dean, or a stadium.”

“I don’t book the venues, Pipsqueak. Not my fault. Yo! Charles! What room am I going to, man?” He shouted over Jo’s shoulder, but close enough to her ear that she grimaced and then belted him one upside his head.

“Ow! Dude, that was uncalled for,” he complained.

“Tell that to my eardrum,” Jo shot back. “Oh wait, that’s right, you can’t because I’m fucking deaf now!”

“Pipe down, bitches,” mothered Charlie handing them each a room assignment and a client list, “Or I’ll make you two work together today.” Dean elbowed Jo hard in the ribs and shot her a wicked grin before scuttling off to compare assignments with Benny.

Jo sighed and turned to Charlie. “How is he so good at this when he’s still four years old? How fair is that?”

Charlie laughed at her and moved off to continue handing out sheets.

Once settled in the appropriate room up on the top floor, Sam and Dean began moving the furniture as far out of the way as they could. The table and extra chairs got unceremoniously dumped into the hallway. It didn’t leave as much room as they wanted, but it would do. The bed was bolted down, so unless they wanted to pay for the damage (which they didn’t ‘cause Cas would kill them), it wasn’t going anywhere.

They’d booked the top two floors of the upscale hotel. It wasn’t ideal, and it cost a fortune. Letting the hotel fees eat away at their profits hurt, but the threat of noise complaints from the Primate lodgers in the hotel meant they had to create a whole floor-thick buffer between the One-on-One sessions and the apes’ delicate sensibilities. Castiel always insisted though. It was necessary not to burn bridges between the two populations now that relations had finally been showing some signs of improvement over the last few years.

Sam’s phone lit up and chirped with a text. “Meg’s escorting our first victim up the elevator right now.” Dean rolled his eyes at his brother’s pathetic attempt to be funny and turned to studying the client’s registration form.

“‘Kay, looks like the mom registered her Omega son. He’s, oh wow, he’s only thirteen. Say’s here he’s never had a Release since he Presented over a year ago.” Dean whistled long and low. “Presented at, like eleven, I guess. That sucks. Poor pup. He’s still got three years of unaided Heats to wade through before he can get some help from an alpha.” Dean looked up from the paper and checked his brother. “You ready?”

“Yep.” Sam was always ready for this.

Meg knocked on the door but didn’t wait for them to answer. Her key card let her in, and she escorted a haggard middle-aged woman through and closed the door behind the two of them. “Alpha Oneida, this is Sam Winchester and his brother, Dr. Dean Winchester. Sam, Dean? Rachel Oneida. She’d like some help with her adolescent son. He’s in the hall, waiting.”

“Don’t call me doctor, Meg,” Dean griped in a tone that made it clear to the client that he’d made the same request many times before.

“Thanks, Meg,” Sam interjected before she could respond. Dean could be a jerk sometimes. “It’s really good to meet you, alpha Oneida.” Sam extended his hand, and she took it. “Meg, would you mind keeping the young man company? I’m sure he’s nervous and uncomfortable alone in the hallway.”

The nurse smiled warmly at him, nodded, and let herself back out. The door snapped shut as Dean was finishing his greetings with the woman. She had a good firm handshake. Dean thought she might be a Domme.

“Please, call me Rachel,” she told them. “It’s a real honor to meet you. They don’t let us choose who we get to see, but I’m so glad that Steven drew you two. I just know you’ll be able to help him. I hope so, anyway. Someone’s got to.”

“Tell us about your son, Rachel,” Dean prompted, ushering her to sit in the only chair.

“He Presented as an Omega pretty young. He wasn’t quite twelve when he had his first Heat. And it was bad. He got such a high fever that we almost took him to the hospital. It was…” She trailed off and her eyes glazed over in memory. “It was bad.”

“And then?”

“The doctor examined him after his Heat ended, and she told us everything looked normal. Said he’d weathered it just fine, told us he’d Released in full, and that all his Omega organs were perfect, hormone levels in target range, everything. My mate and I, we just took it as natural that we would be able to read his tension and body language for a few months and figure out a good Release schedule for him. That’s always worked with Carlos, my mate. He’s Omega too.”

Sam and Dean sat on the edge of the desk side-by-side and listened intently without interrupting. It was important to allow a client to tell their whole story.

“With Carlos, we never did any formal evaluations or anything, but I always know when he’s ready. I can see it in the way he holds his face and shoulders. Sometimes he brings me the paddle and just asks me to take it out of him. It’s so easy. But Steven. I couldn’t read him at all. He got bad so slowly, we probably missed the window where it’s easy to take care of. I don’t know. Now, nothing works. He is miserable. He doesn’t talk anymore. Can’t go to school. He tries to Release himself all the time, but of course, that doesn’t work. He’s covered in bruises, and I can’t make him stop. Can you help him? Please, try.”

“Relax, Rachel. We’re going to do our best to help your son feel much better.” Dean met her eye but didn’t try to touch the alpha. “Your mate is Omega?” he asked, and she nodded. “Can you tell me which of you is Steven’s mother?”

“I’m his father. Carlos is his mother. Does that make a difference?”

“Maybe,” answered Sam, standing up. “There aren’t always similarities between Omega Release patterns in families, but when there are, they usually pass from father to son and mother to daughter. So, it’s actually your birth family we want to look at. Tell me, if you don’t mind, please, alpha, do you know of any Release patterns from the Omegas in your immediate birth pack that are peculiar in any way? It might help us narrow down what Steven’s body needs.”

“No, not really.” She thought for a moment, fidgeting with her skirt uncomfortably. “I guess I had an uncle who could only Release if the paddle and his ass were wet. My other uncle always spanked him in the shower. That was pretty weird.”

“Not really,” Dean assured her. “A layer of water intensifies the sensation. It’s not uncommon at all. Have you tried that with your son?”

“No. I didn’t think of that.” She looked ashamed, but Sam was quick to jump in.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Rachel. There’s no guarantee that’s what’s going to work, but it just goes to show that sometimes you’ve got to be creative. Shall we invite Steven to join us?”

It was over an hour later that they finally struck gold with the poor pup. He’d taken quite a beating by then, nothing that would harm him longterm, but there was just no way to do this except to jump in and do it. Dean kept him calm, took notes, watched for reactions in his face and body, and ran the peliomometer. Sam worked the paddle. Water was not the answer, neither was activating a Submissive state through scolding or Domination. Different positions made no difference, but Sam wasn’t one to give up. The young boy was utterly distraught. He didn’t say a word and barely even grunted at each strike of the paddle. His eyes though. His eyes said everything. Aged beyond his few years, his eyes spoke of pit-deep torment, and Sam was determined to get him out of that pit if he had to jump in himself and drag him out bodily.

Sam was just about to switch to the strap against Dean’s objections. The kid was just a pup after all. Then he decided to try one more thing. He needed both alphas’ approval, so he left the boy trembling on the bed and gestured them to the corner, speaking softly. “I want to try something risky. Have you noticed he holds his breath at the wrong part of the stroke?” Rachel just looked at him, confused. Dean chewed the inside of his cheek and glanced at Steven. Sam went on, “Usually when a wolf takes a stroke from a paddle or whatever, they suck in a breath or blow one out when the pain hits. If they’re going to hold their breath, it’s just before the paddle falls. Steven takes a breath at that point, then holds it through the pain.” Sam turned to Steven’s father, “Rachel, will you allow me to try an experiment with Steven? I want to restrict his breathing slightly during the strikes. If this works, he’ll be only the third Omega I’ve ever seen who needs breath-restriction to affect an Omega gland Release, and certainly the youngest. And too, if it works, you will need to take him to trained professionals for his Balance adjustments. This is not something you or your mate can do at home.”

It was a testament to her trust and her desperation that she agreed. Dean grudgingly went along too. It wasn’t right that a boy so young should have to suffer so much just to stay sane. Sam hooked up a heart monitor and oxygen sensor to the restriction belt that he placed around the catatonic Omega’s neck. If Steven even began to approach danger, the belt would release its grip automatically. Dean cinched it in, checked the boy, and nodded to Sam who began methodical strokes against the back of the pup’s upper thighs. Dean increased the belt’s tension slowly while Steven’s face turned red, and his mouth opened breathlessly. Sam picked up his pace and power to match. It took only a few more strokes, and then…

The pup’s entire body convulsed suddenly and silently. Sam dropped the paddle and leaned over to hold him securely through the violent tremors while Dean snapped the quick release on the belt around his throat. The pup sucked in a long rasping breath. Then he screamed in pain and thrashed wildly for a few moments longer. His eyes rolled back in his head. And then. Just like that, it was over. Steven pulled in on himself and curled up fetal position, crying softly. Dean reached awkwardly behind himself and over his own head to reach the meter he’d left on the side table. His readings showed a normal, fully Balanced, recently Released, adolescent wolf-pup. He grinned up at Sam who was heaving deep breaths and sweating, shaking his head in relief.

Rachel swooped in. “Steven? Stevie, baby? Can you hear me?” Sam released him to his father as she cradled the weeping pup in her arms. She rocked him, looking frantically between Dean and Sam, uncertain whether it had worked or made things worse.

“It’s okay, Rachel.” Dean leaned over her and stroked the boy’s hair. “He’s going to be fine now. That worked perfectly. He needs a few minutes to get himself together, but he’s okay now.” Dean met Sam’s wide, scared eyes and mouthed, Wow, at him. “That was…whew…that was something else.”

“Thank you!” she wept against her son’s head.

The whole day went like that. Everyone agreed drinks at the bar were in order. Dean wished Castiel had come to this one. He could’ve used his friend’s support tonight. He could use a release of his own.

Castiel’s brother was there though. “I heard about the boy—the Omega kid? You know he would’ve been dead in a month, right? If you and Sam hadn’t figured out his block?” Gabriel came up behind Dean and slung an arm across his shoulder.

“I know,” Dean responded soberly. “I figured two months, but it’s all the same end anyway. Sam’s the one who cracked him. Dude, that scared the shit outta me! And why’d Sammy even have that stuff in his bags, anyway? Who travels to a Con and thinks, Gee, I wonder if I’m going to need some asphyxiation belts?”

“Scared myself pretty badly, too,” Sam added as he approached his brother and the Omega, sucking expansive draws from his longneck. “Just remember, Dean, next time you wanna give me shit over traveling to Cons with six cases of equipment, now you understand why I do it. You just never know.”

NOW:

“Embouchure, please, Sir! I need some pressure, please! Just… A little…” Dean was more than frustrated. His Dom was torturing his mouth with pathetically flimsy kisses. Had been doing it for much too long already. Dean couldn’t manage a lip-lock at all, try though he might.

“Hm-mm,” Cas didn’t even try to fix his performance. He continued to tongue at Dean’s open mouth with almost no pressure against his spit-slick lips. “You take what I give you, and you submit to my will.”

“Arghhh! Sir! Just, FUCKIN’ KISS ME!”

Dean was flipped onto his belly faster than his synapses registered the shift of light. The middle of his thigh lit with heat and pain as if sparked by a firecracker. “I knew you’d likely formed some bad habits, my bratty Sub, but I expected better than this,” the Dom scolded, his hand falling repeatedly in the same hot place on Dean’s leg.

The spanking didn’t last long. It was a precursor anyway, just an appetizer for what was to come, Dean knew. The Dom began gently stroking his Sub’s round ass thoughtfully. With one hand in constant contact with Dean’s ass, the other pulled one leg out to the edge of the bed, made a deliberation of hooking just his big toe over the edge, pressed enough weight against the back of that heel to clearly communicate, Leave it just like this, and then repeated the action on the other side of the bed.

Dean was prostrate and spread-eagled. He was still wearing the size six plug that his Dom prescribed for him hours earlier just before taking Dean out for a celebratory steak dinner with a one-beer limit. One thigh already felt sunburned. Dean took quick stock and then nestled in. He relinquished himself to his wolf and lay back to enjoy the show.

“I wonder if I could perhaps entreat you to tell me, my beautiful Submissive; to whom does this lovely perfect ass belong? Hm?” He ghosted a hand across Dean’s bare backside and watched chill bumps spread from his touch.

“It’s yours, Sir. All yours.”

“Indeed? Well then, my next question should likewise be an easy one for you to answer, obedient Submissive. In the long weeks since I last laid my straps across this delectable flesh—this flesh that we both agree belongs to me—has anyone, anyone at all, laid hand or implement to this ass?”

“Uh…” Dean started sweating. It was too early in the scene for a reaction like that, he knew well.

His hesitation earned him a pop right beside the plug in his asshole with Cas’ extremely springy lap cane, and Dean squeaked. He didn’t close his legs though. His Dom had told him to keep each big toe crooked over the side of the bed. No ties were needed to keep Dean where his Dom put him. Ever. Sometimes they tied him for fun, to let him enjoy struggling against the tension, to ramp up the intensity, but they were never needed to keep him in place.

Castiel’s face appeared in Dean’s peripheral vision, his mouth near Dean’s left ear. “I asked you a simple question, Dean Winchester.” The lap cane snapped on either side of his hole again. Goddamn! That stung! The plug didn’t cover nearly enough. “Who.” POP “Touched.” POP “This.” POP “Ass?”

“JESUS!” screamed Dean. “I was working under Alistair and Ruby. I didn’t have a fucking choice!”

“Who touched this ass, Dean Michael Winchester?”

“Now I know why you don’t want me to change my name! You get off on saying it just like th… AHHHHHH! CHRIST! FUCK!!”

“I advise you to think very carefully about how much you want to brat at me this evening, my Pet. We’ve a very long drive ahead of us to get back to Lawrence.”

“We’re driving home?” Dean asked amid shaking breath and sniffles.

“Oh, yes, unless you would prefer I hire someone to drive your car all the way back to Kansas so you and I can fly.”

“NO! Yes, please. Let’s drive. Please.”

Castiel nodded, “And while you don’t have any power to lessen the soreness of the ass I plan to make you sit upon, you may retain the ability right now to make it oh, so much worse if you continue to brat at me. Make your decision, Dean. It doesn’t matter to me either way. I’m not going to ask you again to answer my question.”

“Ruby, all right! Fucking Ruby and Bela and Alistair all took it out of my ass, but mostly goddamn-fucking RUBY! I HATE THAT BITCH!”

“I see. Thank you, Dean. So, from what I understand, the marks I left on you last time, that you promised me to hold close to your heart forever, were neatly expunged from your flanks because my slut of a Submissive bent over and let three wolves strike this ass! The one we’ve just confirmed belongs to me. Have I missed something?” His voice was carefully controlled except for the micro moments when it wasn’t.

“I’m sorry, Sir! I didn’t want them to. I tried to be good so they wouldn’t have an excuse, but… OW!”

“Dean, Ruby and Bela are both betas, yes?”

Dean sobbed just a bit and nodded into the mattress. He’d not been afforded pillows for this evening, just a flat bed and a fitted sheet over a protective layer of plastic.

“I have no intention of carrying that thought through to its conclusion, Pet. I’m sure you’ve made the logical leap. And so, what shall I do with you now?” The Dom ran his cane painlessly across his Sub’s thighs, ass, and back, letting it drag all about, leaving shivers in its wake.

Dean waited a beat to answer his Dominant. He knew what Castiel wanted him to say. He knew he would say it. He knew that pausing just long enough would pull from his Dom just that little bit more…

Dean listened to Castiel’s tension despite not being able to see him. He could hear and smell him. He could feel the need flowing through him. This was a dance, practiced and performed again and again until they’d perfected it to each wolf’s mutual satisfaction. Just before the cane would’ve been lifted in aggravation, the Sub submitted.

“I need you to punish me, Sir.” Dean pulled the words from deep within his depths.

Truer words had never been spoken.

Castiel took a moment for himself to let those words wash through him, fill him to completion, fulfill his wolf and steel his muscles.

“I can do that for you, Pet.” His voice reached its lowest depth, down where the fires burned hottest.

Something very cold was pressed against Dean’s lips. “Open and receive.” Dean allowed a medium-sized piece of ice to slide into his mouth. “Suck it. Do not chew. Do not choke. Use your tongue to work the sharp edges off, and then give it back to me. Work quickly.”

Castiel moved away toward the foot of the bed. Dean felt the plug pulled out. He felt…wrong without it. Too exposed. Too open.

Castiel’s hand appeared once again in front of his mouth, so Dean spit the rounded ice cube placidly back out. He kept his head facing the headboard, his chin resting on his crossed arms. The Dom had not said Dean couldn’t look, but this way he could just feel. That was better than watching. Castiel spread Dean’s cheeks with one hand and pressed the ice against his anus with the other. He held it there for a moment, then slipped it inside, pressing it in deeply with two fingers. Dean’s butt and thighs tightened up at the sudden cold within him. He concentrated on breathing evenly and not flinching.

The Dom pumped his fingers in and out of Dean’s hole, lubricated only with melting water and the trace of synthetic slick that remained after the plug was removed. It wasn’t enough, and he felt raw. Dean wanted so badly to shove back against the warm fingers, take them fully inside him and melt the goddamned ice cube, but he refrained. He hadn’t been given permission to participate yet. He hoped very much he would be.

Castiel broke into his thoughts with an indication he was reading Dean’s mind. “By the way, my Sub, I grant you permission to come tonight whenever you like. You needn’t hold your orgasms back whatsoever, but you mustn’t touch yourself or actively chase friction.”

Dean met this news with a sinking feeling. It was code for your dick is not getting any attention from either of us tonight.

So wrong, Cas. So very wrong.

The fingers withdrew from his ass, leaving the ice pushed far up inside. Dean resisted the impulse to push it out, but he squirmed with discomfort. Meanwhile, his Dom’s permission had reached his cock, and it was hard enough to hurt. Castiel left him just long enough for Dean to consider turning around to look for him. Then his Dom’s warm fingers were pushing something else into his hole. It was moist and firm, neither warm nor cold, and it was smaller than the plug had been. It fitted right in, just far enough to butt barely up against his prostate.

What? Oh. Warm. Quite warm. Oh, shit. Ginger. His Dom gave him ginger. Dean hadn’t had a figging in years. He whimpered and shifted his hips before he processed he needed to move. It tingled and heated him, even as the ice continued to cool him deeper inside. Dean clenched hard and gasped as his muscles juiced the ginger and left him a panting, sweating, writhing pool of Submissive.

“Now count for me, Dean. I’ll hear you speak every stroke, or we’ll start over at one.”

The cane landed across his ass before he was ready, if he was ever going to be ready.

“ONE!” he shouted on the exhale that rushed out of him. He clamped his toes against the sides of the bed like his life depended on it.

“Good boy.” He struck again just a little lower on Dean’s round ass, leaving two distinct marks.

“Two,” breathed Dean, tucking his face in his arms. The ginger was starting to really activate the nerves inside his ass. Dean sent melty thoughts to encourage the ice to release enough water through to wash out the foul root, but it just made him concentrate more on the sensations inside of him. Meanwhile, the outside needed his attention as well:

“THREE!”

“I believe we’ve discussed more than a few times in the past how I feel about you accepting correction from other wolves, my Submissive.”

“FOUR!”

“I’m not at all fond of sharing my pets. Your ass is mine and mine alone, correct?”

“FIVE! Ahhhh!”

“Correct?”

“SIX! YES, SIR! CORRECT! ANHHHH! SEVEN!”

“And yet, you’ve let those filthy. Incompetent. Lazy. Brutish. THUGS tarnish this piece of meat that I so carefully marinated.”

“Eight!”

“In case it’s not been made clear enough to you, let me explain:”

“Nine! TEN! ELEVEN!! Shit! Fucking SHIT!”

“You are the custodian of my property, Dean Winchester. You are to keep it healthy, safe, protected, and OUT OF THE GRIMY HANDS OF THOSE MONGREL DOGS! DO I MAKE MYSELF CRYSTAL CLEAR?!”

“AHHHHHHH! Tw..TWELVE! CRYSTAL, SIR!” Dean’s ass wasn’t so much on fire as it was fire. The ice and ginger warred with each other on the inside. Every stroke forced Dean to clench and release more of the evil juice to spur his nerves into higher panic. Every blow across his backside left a new angry welt. Soon they crisscrossed a pattern of agony. The Dom continued laying them out until they blended nearly together, and Dean could barely whisper out a count. Sometimes he missed a number or two, but his Dom was enjoying him too much to take him to task.

Castiel praised himself for his lenience.

“You don’t seem as eager to brat at me anymore, Pet. Perhaps the lesson is beginning to sink in.”

“Yes, Sir! I’ll be good. I promise!” Dean’s cock was still rock hard and leaking. He managed a bit of unintentional friction against the bed, but it wasn’t enough.

“On your back, Dean.” Dean complied with jelly limbs. It took him a hot second to turn himself. The Dom peered into his eyes, critically. “Color?”

“Yellow, Sir! Hurts…”

“Good boy. I’m going to give you a break from the pain in your ass.” Castiel eased the ginger from Dean’s rectum. It was mostly spent. A dribble of water following spoke for all that was left of the ice. “Pull your knees up. I want you in Number Twelve.”

Dean’s muscles were shaky, but he’d never failed to find strength for whatever his Dominant wanted. A flat tongue pulled against his rim, dragging slowly and torturously. It did it again. Again. Dean moaned like a whore and dripped pre-come onto his own belly.

“Mmm, ginger,” enthused Castiel.

“Don’t touch yourself, Dean, but come whenever you like.” Castiel lubed his cock and thrust into Dean’s hole, driving in with one long shove and holding there. He stood up proud on his knees, towering over Dean’s coiled body, his height alone a statement of dominance. Dean panted fast, keeping his eyes on his Dominant as he’d been trained. He could do this. The burn of the ginger had mostly faded, but the Alpha’s cock drove the last of it just a bit further upstream to tug and play at a new set of nerves, ones that had been lulled into complacency by the ice. Castiel lowered himself onto one hand above Dean’s shoulder and fucked him slow and deep. The red Alpha hue of his eyes overtook all but a small center of blue just around his enlarged pupils. He was breathtaking in his power, his control. Dean’s wolf rolled over in complete Submission and trust, his tongue lolling and a whine emanating from his throat.

Castiel took Dean’s left nipple into his mouth and bit down hard with no preamble, never letting up his rhythmic fucking. He sucked and bit until Dean’s breathing became rough and throaty. “Ahhhh!” the Sub screamed. The pain was intense, so intense he couldn’t distinguish pain from pleasure. It was all one. He was one with his wolf, one with his Dom.

“Good, Dean!” Castiel spoke around the tortured nipple between his teeth. He let go to look Dean in the eye. “Scream for me and only me!” He moved his head and worried the other side harshly in the same manner. Dean felt Castiel’s knot pressing against his rim, demanding entrance. Rising up over his Submissive, the Dom took hold of Dean’s hair and jerked his head back, forcing the strained Sub to fight to maintain eye contact, and the knot slammed into place in Dean’s too-tight hole. It was too much. Alphas don’t take knots. They don’t. It’s not…

Castiel pulled harder and fucked that much harder as the knot swelled them into a firm and unnatural tie. Dean’s hands flexed and grasped at nothing as his orgasm drove the last of his voice into a powerful and hoarse scream. He clenched around the knot that did not belong inside him and shot a copious stream of alpha come across his belly, up his chest, and onto his own face.

Castiel grunted low and moaned in unguarded lust. He licked a broad tongue across Dean’s chest, taking in Dean’s thick semen and pressing it against Dean’s tongue with his own. He coiled his muscles and stuttered his hips. Then he followed Dean’s orgasm with a powerful one of his own, his seed shooting warm and full inside the alpha-Sub, with his mouth firmly attached to Dean’s in a primal kiss, more bite than kiss, clutching at his Sub’s shoulders and driving his knot that much deeper.

Dean was going to ache for days, but it was so, so worth it.

Hours later they were still awake, cuddling, caressing, reconnecting in a way that showed how desperately they’d both missed this. Their voices were soft and skewed in the way that voices become in the middle of the night when inhibitions fall away.

“Tomorrow we’ll sleep late,” Castiel predicted. “Would you make omelets if I asked you nicely?”

“Mm-hm. Anything you want. Missed cooking for you, Cas.” Dean nuzzled his hair against the bottom of Castiel’s chin and reveled, purring softly.

“I missed you cooking for me too,” Cas chuckled. He was thoughtful for a minute or two. “Oh, did you bring your enema bag to Dallas, or is it still at your house back home?” Dean looked up at him quizzically. Leave it to Castiel to throw a non sequitur like that at him at three in the morning. Cas caught his puzzled look and arched an eyebrow. “Last time we knotted, you had a few days of anal incontinence before your muscles tightened back up again. I’m just trying to save you that inconvenience. I don’t want you to be embarrassed.”

Dean rolled his eyes and snuggled back in again. “Too late on the embarrassment front, Cas. Thanks for bringing it up. Really appreciate it.” Sarcasm at three in the morning tends to have bite.

“I’m sorry, Dean. You’re right. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Not going to be better later, man.” The silence lengthened again, each man wondering if the other had fallen asleep. Castiel broke the silence with an observation.

“Your apartment smells like mold. Why’d you move into such a hole, Dean? You can afford better.”

“Um.”

It hadn’t been meant as a trap, but Castiel knew every quirk and tell the Sub tried to hide, and that was not a hesitation borne of sleepiness. There was suddenly tension in Dean’s body that’d not been there moments ago. “Dean?” He moved his fiancé away from his chest so he could look him in the eye.

“I mean…it’s cheap. And it was available. Came fully furnished.” Dean stopped talking and looked away from his intended. The silence stretched uncomfortably long until he was forced to look up again, meeting Castiel’s eye. Castiel looked confused. The gears were almost visibly shifting in his head as he tried to work out what had Dean so awkward. Dean saw the moment it clicked: from confusion, to a flash of understanding, to a drawn-down brow of fury. Dean scrambled to the end of the bed and began rapid damage control.

“It’s not like that. It was cheap. It was furnished. I needed something fast. Cas, wait!”

But Cas didn’t wait. He got up from the bed and stormed into Dean’s bathroom, throwing drawers open and closed with increasing violence when he failed to locate what he wanted.

Castiel and Dean had always had a close relationship, but they’d never needed to bring pack hierarchy into their association outside of scening except under two circumstances. Dean wasn’t an Omega and only struggled to follow Pack Rules when his Submissive wolf hadn’t been stroked recently. Except for when he chose to be bratty, he didn’t require much discipline. Castiel had only two points of contention against Dean’s behavior that ever spurred him to bring Dean to heel from a hierarchical pack perspective: He hated when Dean put himself down. Cas had been known to reprimand Dean with a few well-directed swats simply for body language that Cas interpreted as stepping over that line. The other action that Castiel could not abide was when his Submissive decided for himself that he deserved punishment and brandished it upon himself.

That was a Dominant’s job.

Castiel appeared back in the bedroom door. “Where is it, Dean?”

“I threw it away. It’s gone.”

Dean answered without thought and regretted it almost before the words made it out of his mouth.

Castiel did not speak. He stood in the open door and narrowed his eyes at his Sub, his jaw a hard line of steel. After the briefest of minutes, Dean broke like two-hundred-year-old porcelain. “It’s in my underwear drawer, stuffed in a sock in the back.” He sagged onto the bed, boneless and defeated. Castiel crossed to the dresser and rifled through the top drawer, pulling out the offensive item.

Cas settled on the edge of the bed and looked at Dean. He neither spoke nor moved. He simply waited, livid. Dean hesitated. “You’re not supposed to spank me when you’re pissed. I think we should talk it over, wait until you’ve calmed down.” Dean had to try. It wasn’t going to work, but he had to try.

“I appreciate your concern. It’s a valid point. However, you may rest assured that I am in complete control of myself. If you choose, I will honor your use of your safeword should you like to employ it in this moment, and we’ll postpone. If not, then I expect you over my lap immediately. It’s your choice. Your punishment can be delayed until tomorrow if you fear for your safety.” Cas was so mad he was vibrating, but Dean would burn slowly in hell before he’d use a safeword with Castiel. Cas, for his part was genuine in his offer, but that was not an option Dean allowed himself. Castiel would never harm him.

Hurt him, yes.

Harm, never.

Dean hung his head and moved to place himself over his Dom’s lap, hoping like hell Cas wouldn’t choose to lay that evil implement across his ass, still crisscrossed with cane-marks.

“I thank you for this show of trust.” Cas cinched him close by his waist. “Although you may well come to regret your decision before I’ve finished. I am extremely angry with you right now.” Every muscle of Castiel’s contact with Dean agreed. Dean could feel it. Cas was pissed.

“Answer a question for me Dean. Whose job is it to determine that a Submissive deserves punishment?”

“His Dominant’s.” Dean wisely chose not to mouth off. This wasn’t a Dom/Sub spanking, per se. There would be no hot, kinky Alpha-on-alpha sex after this. He was in real trouble, not in some manufactured scene meant to drop him carefully into subspace and then retrieve him back again, refreshed. This was Pack Discipline.

“Very good. And once his Dom has determined punishment is warranted, who decides what form that punishment takes?” Castiel was holding Dean’s least favorite wooden-handled hairbrush in front of his Sub where he wouldn’t be able to avoid looking at it. He hated that thing. Hated it. Why hadn’t he thrown it out for real?

“His Dom does,” Dean responded miserably. He’d been careless to let Cas sneak up on him with that your apartment smells moldy crap in the middle of the night.

So careless.

“Indeed.” Castiel stroked his hand across Dean’s swollen and blistered backside. “His Dom does. Dean, did you select a miserable, moldy, roach-infested slum for your residence to punish yourself for some perceived transgression?”

“yessir.”

“And did you outright lie to me when I asked you to point me to your hairbrush?”

“yessir.”

Dean couldn’t stay still. He’d be damned if he was going to fight the punishment that his wolf felt he fully deserved, but it didn’t stop him squirming like a pup. “Very well, Dean. Do not cover yourself with your hands. Do not move your feet. I do not want you to count. I simply want you to suffer.”

Castiel rained sharp, hard, fast blows upon Dean’s upper thighs, just below the crease of his ass where the sting was the most intense and where his cane hadn’t reached earlier. Dean was howling in no time. Years of training made Sam an expert at this, but no one delivered a spanking like Castiel did, not once he was angry. He covered both thighs until the skin abraded against the wooden brush and deep purple bruises blossomed. Dean moved from howling to bawling to whatever that state is past bawling where he could neither breathe nor stop crying and the hiccups came unabated through his tears. He dug his toes into the old, thin carpet and clutched at Cas’ pants leg. Dean screamed until the pain and guilt washed through him, and he couldn’t stand his own skin anymore, wanted it flayed from his bones.

It would not have been a surprise to have the cops come pounding on the door.

Snot and tears mixed together on their trek down to his chin. He was a hiccupping, crying mess when he realized the blows had stopped. “I..I’m sor..ry! (Hiccup) …Fucked…(Hiccup)…everyth… …thing…u—u—up!” Castiel stayed still with a hand on Dean’s lower back and listened to him, let him hiccup his way through. The process wasn’t finished with just the spanking. Dean needed to break before Cas could rebuild him.

“I…wa—as…so (hiccup)… …weak! … (hiccup)…Thought… …I…lo—lost you…and I (hiccup) was...too …wea…weak. I…jus’… broke! Couldn’t (hiccup)…do anyth…anything right… …Fuc…fucked…up (hiccup)…everything. ‘M not …Alpha…like you… …like you are! (hiccup). Cas… I … couldn’t…an’ I ran! (hiccup) I’m so…sorry...I’m no…(hiccup)…good! No good…for you! I’m so…Sorry!”

“Oh, Dean! You lovely, sweet, brilliant, perfect, beloved man! You really don’t know how wonderful you are. How can you even think that? If I could just show you the man I know and love. If I could hold up a mirror for you that reflects the real you.” Castiel praised and petted his beloved. “Do you remember, Dean, why Submissives mustn’t ever punish themselves? Do you remember what I’ve told you before?” Professionally, Dean knew it well, but he wasn’t a professional anything at the moment.

Dean’s breathing was calming. “Because they get (hiccup) get it wrong. Feel...guilty over the wrong…thi...(hiccup) things. Punish…for the wrong…things. Don’t…don’t know (hiccup)…when to…stop.”

“Very good. You are so wrong about this, Dean. You aren’t weak. You were mourning, and you did the best you could. I did, too. I hurt you. So very badly. I didn’t realize what I had done until much too late, and by then the damage was done. I am terribly sorry, my love. But you! You are not weak! Dean, you are strong, and I love you so much. Baby, I didn’t bear up any better. Half of my work had to be done by Benny these last weeks because I fucked up everything I touched. Do you think I deserve to live in a dank hell hole? Do I?”

Dean shook his head vehemently.

“And neither do you. You are my beloved, cherished, sweetest love. I, alone, will decide when you deserve to be punished. Capiche?”

“Yessir. I capiche (hiccup), Alpha.” Castiel hoisted Dean up onto the bed and manhandled him to lay nearly on top of himself, Dean’s chest resting over Castiel’s heartbeat, and Dean’s hip bearing most of his weight beside his Dom’s on the bed.

“I dislike punishing you like that, Dean. But I will do it every time you make that particular error. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Sir.” Dean was coming back to himself slowly. Cas found a box of tissues on Dean’s bedside table and cleaned his face.

“So,” continued Castiel sleepily as if the previous interlude had never happened. “I think we should sleep late tomorrow then have omelets for brunch and pack up your stuff. We’ll stay at a hotel tonight. You’re not sleeping here again, baby. It’s not clean. Oh, and we will need to pay a visit to the ACRI crew here and put the fear of god into Victor Henrickson. Heads are going to roll tomorrow, Dean.”

Dean fell asleep tucked safely in his Dom’s secure hold, letting his soporific voice rock the Sub gently away.

The omelets were perfect. Dean ate his standing up, nervously expecting Cas to tell him to have a seat. He leaned one hip against the kitchen counter and regarded Castiel as he ate. The Alpha, oblivious to Dean’s apprehension, sent a text message to Victor demanding that he assemble an All Hands meeting in the cafeteria at two. Dean wasn’t thinking about the screwed-up center in Dallas though.

“You know once we announce the engagement, the whole world’s gonna be watching us to see if we fuck it up, right?”

“Well, then we’ll have to be sure we don’t fuck it up, won’t we?” Cas waited for Victor’s acknowledgement to come through, then set his phone on the table, took his last bite, and stood, carrying his plate into the kitchen and dropping it into the dishwasher. “Thanks, baby. That was delicious.”

“I’m serious, Castiel. We need to figure some shit out. How is this even going to work?”

“Dean, relax. We will work it out. We’re going to talk about everything, negotiate everything just like we’ve always done, but we need to involve April. She’s Alpha-mate. That makes her part of the leadership of the Pack. She gets a say, too.” Cas wiped down the stovetop while he spoke. “Please trust me. Trust us—all three of us. I know I’ve been a horrible coward where you’re concerned, but I swear to you…” Cas dropped the cloth in the sink, wiped his hands, and took Dean by his upper arms, looking him in the eye. “I’m not going to change my mind about this. I told you. This is a done deal for me. Whatever the world throws at us, we’ll handle. You and April and I are going to figure out what works for us and do it. All right?”

“Yeah, Okay. I’m just nervous, I guess. Can’t quite visualize it. Having trouble believing it’s real.”

I know, Dean. I’m scared too.” Cas tucked the OJ back in the fridge then leaned over and kissed his fiancé. “I set out the enema bag in the bathroom. Go take care of yourself. I’ll go out and buy some boxes.”

They packed quickly. Dean had left most of his material possessions at the house he shared with Sam in Kansas. Part of him expected to return some day, no doubt. They talked as they worked.

“What’s it like, Cas? The mate-scent?”

Cas looked up from the book he’d opened and started to peruse instead of packing into the box at his feet. “It’s indescribable. I wish I could be more specific. It was like a direct line that passed straight by my conscious brain and spoke directly to my wolf. It was…indescribable,” he finished lamely.

“Thanks, man. That really clears it up for me. But, like, what does it feel like to be Mated? Can you really feel her through the bond?”

“I can. It’s muted at this distance, but I could feel that she was angry earlier and that she’s in pain right now.”

“Dude! She’s half a continent away. You can feel her pain? You mean right now?”

“Dean,” said Castiel, setting the book into the box and reaching for another, “You already know this. I’m not the first Mated wolf you’ve ever known. Your own research…”

“I know, but it’s so much closer now, with you…” he gestured at Cas. “It feels like I should feel something, too, somehow.” Dean turned to the wall and began pulling out the nails he’d hammered in only a few weeks earlier. “So, aside from being True-Mates, do you like her?”

“Yes, I do. And I really think you will, too. At least I very much hope you do. I suppose that’s one challenge we need to consider: what to do if my mate and my spouse despise one another.”

Dean laughed. “Yeah. I wouldn’t try to put the cart before that horse yet. We probly’ll wind up ganging up on you together.” Cas didn’t think that prospect was very funny, but Dean thought it was hysterical.

“And, she’s what, twenty years younger than you?”

“Eighteen years younger.”

“You’re twice her age. What do you talk about? Have you even heard of any of her favorite groups? Doesn’t it feel like having a pup in your house? Doesn’t it feel a little…awkward?”

“For one,” Cas enumerated with his fingers, “She and I admittedly have a lot of getting to know one another yet to do. I do know that she likes to write and that she plays the piano. Two, no. I don’t know any of the musicians she prefers, but I’m interested in listening to what she likes, at least to give her music a chance. And three. She most definitely does not feel like a pup to me. She feels like a luscious, ripe, sensuous Omega whom I enjoy knotting whenever I get the chance.”

“Damn! Down boy!” Dean teased with a laugh, palming his crotch through his pants. He refocused and popped out another nail. “Ripe, huh? Thinking of breeding, Alpha?”

“Constantly.”

Castiel’s casual admission made Dean turn and look at him. Cas was blushing furiously.

Cas.

Blushing.

Furiously.

“Did I touch a nerve? Does my Alpha-Dom fiancé have a breeding kink?”

“Maybe.” Castiel moved from the bookcase to begin working on packing the entertainment center. He acknowledged Dean’s smirk with a sigh. “But it’s too soon for pups. She’s too young. We need to get through the next two projects first. That’s another two, maybe three years on before we’ll really be ready to start a family.”

“We? You mean you and April?” Cas had clearly said, WE need to get through the projects. April wasn’t working on Facility projects.

“All three of us. We. Dean, I know we haven’t talked it all through yet, but this is one thing I know I want to ask for. Please consider it. I want you to co-parent any pups April and I have. I want you to be their parent as much as their mother and me.”

Dean stared at Cas and chewed his lower lip. “Does April know that? Would she go for it? You can’t Alpha-Dom her into a decision like that, you know. She’s gotta make up her mind for herself.”

“I know. I worry that she might feel pressured, but we’ve got the Mating-bond to help us understand one another. I think…I think I can put it to her straight and get a straight answer and be okay with it either way. I’m certain I should have asked her before you, but I couldn’t wait.”

Dean watched Castiel work through the complicated issue in his head and said, “Everything we do is going to be like this, isn’t it?” Dean dropped the hammer onto the cheap, beat-up coffee table, not caring if it caused more damage. “It’s hard enough to work through a relationship with just two wolves. We have to balance the needs of three.”

“I promise you both,” swore Castiel with a somber countenance, “…that I’ll endeavor to refrain from any manipulation tactics to get what I want. I’ll talk to you about it, straight out.”

“Manipulation? You?”

Cas nodded, and Dean burst out laughing. He doubled over and held his sides, laughing until tears leaked from his eyes.

“I fail to see what’s so funny.”

“Oh, my god. Whew, that’s awesome! No, it’s…it’s just. Baby, you gotta know. I love you so much. I do. It’s nothing against you, man, but you’re not in a good position to be swearing off manipulation. You do it like breathing. And the other way ‘round too, if I have to be honest. It’s, you’re just so predictable. You always go for whatever is best for others and for the most people. Always. Makes you an easy target. I love that you’re worried it’s only you going to be tryin’ to pull the puppet strings. I bet you dollars to donuts that pretty, ripe young thing has already got your number, bigtime. I bet even though she’s known you three months, she’s already weaseled her way through every defense you’ve got. I bet you. I bet you whatever you want.”

“Very funny. I’m glad you’re getting such a kick out of my discomfort,” Cas deadpanned.

“Hey, don’t talk to me about discomfort, Cas. I’m going to walk funny for a week.”

“Good.”

At the stroke of two o’clock, the Alpha-Dominant Castiel Novak entered The Facility’s lunchroom like the apocalypse falling upon doomed humanity. He wasted no time and addressed no one, although every eye tracked him as he descended upon Alistair and Ruby who stood side-by-side.

“You two.” He shoved his index finger in their faces. “You’re fired. Get out.”

Castiel didn’t wait to see their reactions. He’d rendered his decision. It was final. He moved on. Turning his back on them told them he didn’t consider them adversaries worthy of his attention.

He advanced upon Victor who stood waiting near the top of the room, surrounded by his staff. The air was electric as the employees picked up the Alpha’s outrage, noticing the crimson of his eyes. Castiel didn’t slow, and he didn’t speak. He grabbed the front of Victor’s shirt, dragging him a few feet and dropping him to his knees. He ignored the alpha-Dom’s squawk of surprise and roared directly into his face. Victor struggled to gain purchase with his feet, attempting fruitlessly to land a punch in his own defense.

Dean snatched an apple from the end of the food line, tucked himself in at the edge of the crowd and awkwardly started up his phone’s camera with one hand, pointing it at the grappling alphas. Gabriel would kill Dean if he didn’t capture this moment. Gabe would have to put up with the sound of Dean crunching through his fruit though. He was hungry.

“NO! Alpha, listen to me, No!” Victor tried to fight him off, but Castiel wasn’t having it. He flipped the subordinate and threw him to the floor on his belly and his chin. Before he had a chance to get his hands beneath himself to regain some height, Victor felt the enraged Alpha plant one hand between his shoulder blades, pushing him down, and a foot crashing down between his legs, way too close to the merchandise. Victor scrabbled harder, desperately seeking escape. He’d never submitted to a Dominance Fuck, and he didn’t intend to allow that to change. He hadn’t counted on Castiel in the full force of his rage though. His entire staff looked on in awe at the raw brutal canine power.

Dean nudged the beta man next to him and smirked. “That’s my Alpha!” he bragged with a cocky grin.

Castiel shifted his foot back and dropped his hips and legs to cover Victor’s, bracing his weight on his knees. He snarled and growled menacingly into the alpha’s ear and wormed a hand beneath them to work at Victor’s leather belt. Victor roared defiance and redoubled his fight, throwing his head back in attempt to catch the Alpha with a blow to his chin. Cas caught the back of his head with his free hand, forcibly rotated it and slammed Victor’s cheek against the floor. His cheekbone fractured with a sickening crack, and he screamed.

“STAY DOWN!” roared the Alpha.

“LIKE HELL!” Victor shouted back at him, trying to roll.

Castiel succeeded in freeing the belt and whipped it out of Victor’s loops one-handed. He tossed it aside and scooted down Victor’s body, tearing his pants down his hips without unbuttoning or unzipping them. He ignored the scraped flesh as he divested the alpha of his pants and ripped his boxers to shreds.

Victor took that opportunity to work his hands into place and attempt to push himself up, his chin and cheek mottled with blood and bruises, his face grimacing in pain. Castiel worked at his own belt and pants fastenings rapidly, allowing Victor a moment of hope, thinking he’d perhaps fought the threat off. Then he shoved his slacks low enough to free his cock, hooked his feet underneath Victor’s shins and thrust his torso forward again, flattening the alpha back to the ground with a scream as his chin took another hard hit.

They stilled, panting hard, their eyes fully transitioned to alpha red, their chests heaving. Castiel’s nostrils flared. He could see the side of Victor’s face where he lay, beat. Castiel saw him tremble, fighting internally with his own wolf to keep trying. The Alpha moved slowly, sitting up across Victor’s thighs. Victor whined and struggled, but weakly this time. Castiel spread the alpha’s cheeks with each hand and let a long, ropey string of saliva land directly on his asshole. Then he aimed another string at his cock, rubbing it in with one hand.

“STAY DOWN!” he demanded.

“Alpha, NO!! NO!!! DON’T!!!” Castiel mounted him, shoving his cock in brutally hard, all the way in until the tight friction of unprepped alpha and too little lubricant ground him to a stop. He pulled back and pounded back in, pressing a hand to the flat of Victor’s back and creating a vicious rhythm. Victor screamed, but the Alpha’s voice drowned him out.

“LOOK AT THEM, VICTOR HENRICKSON!! LOOK AT YOUR STUDENTS! LOOK AT YOUR PEOPLE! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THEM? IS THIS WHAT I TAUGHT YOU? IS IT!?” the great black wolf demanded, thrusting painfully.

“NO, ALPHA! PLEASE!”

“I TRUSTED YOU! You tried to extort me, and then I learn you’ve done THIS!” Cas gestured at the assembled mass of onlookers. “YOU! You just lie there and you take it, alpha!” Castiel thrust into him painfully again and again. Victor screamed and then finally stopped fighting, curling tensely but submitting his body, his wolf, and his will to his Alpha-Dominant. Castiel wasn’t explaining himself to the onlookers. Most of the clients and students didn’t know what he was so pissed about, but the employees understood. Many had spoken to Dean over the weeks of their unease at the treatment of the students and lower staff.

Castiel pulled out before his knot caught and stroked himself quickly to orgasm. His come shot across Victor’s ruined ass, up his back and all over the back of his torn shirt. “Do not change your shirt until you return home tonight. What you’ve allowed to occur here is a travesty, and you will correct it! YOU will correct it. DO YOU HEAR ME?! You have two months.”

“Yes, Alpha, please.” Victor sobbed into the floor. Castiel left him there as he dismounted and clothed himself. Several betas moved in to assist him as Castiel collected Dean and departed with a single backward glance. He hated this part of his Alpha role, but sometimes it was the only thing that worked.

Once in the deserted hallway, Castiel tightened his grip on Dean’s arm. He dragged the alpha-Sub in through the first unlocked door he found, slammed it, and crowded Dean up against the wall. Castiel’s eyes were still red. He made quick work of Dean’s blue jeans, unfastening them and shoving them down with his boxers, stepping on the crotch to force them to Dean’s ankles.

“I’m totally onboard with you here, Alpha, but ‘m not sure I’m entirely open for business right now. How’re you even…? Jesus, Cas, your refractory period is crazy!” Cas had lowered his own pants and freed his cock, which was fully hard and angry red.

Cas mouthed hungrily at Dean’s mouth, still panting from exertion and adrenalin. His words were breathy and desperate. “Just let me. Please, baby. I need to touch you, now. I feel tainted.” Cas pressed his groin up against Dean’s and took both cocks in one large hand, twisting across both heads and smearing pre-come on his downstroke.

Oh, hell yeah! Dean brought a hand up to join the party and drove his hips into motion. He responded to the Alpha’s words and touch with greedy, sloppy kisses, wrapping his free arm around his love’s shoulders and pulling him in close. “You were so hot in there, my Alpha. Made me hard just watching you, knowing you can do that. So hot, knowing everyone wants you, but you’re mine, and soon everyone’s gonna know it!”

They didn’t last long at all. Frantic desperation drove first Cas, then Dean quickly over the edge, leaving a splatter of come in a thickening puddle on the floor and dripping down their hands as they moaned and huffed against each other’s mouths and ground their hips into their overlapping fists.

Dean kissed Castiel chastely as he pulled away to re-dress and find a tissue or something. He noted that Cas’ eyes were back to blue, his Alpha and his wolf sated and soothed again. Castiel accepted the kleenex Dean handed him and knelt to clean their mess off the floor.

Dean drove the Impala while Castiel navigated. He didn’t tell Dean where they were headed just yet, but Dean trusted him. He was more interested in the way the sun glinted off of the diamonds in the new ring on his finger. It kept drawing his eye. “You’re awfully thoughtful over there, Dean. Take the next right up ahead. Penny for your thoughts?”

Dean chuckled and took the turn where he’d been directed. “It’s just, we never even dated, man. I mean, sure, we know everything about each other, right? We’ve shared Ruts and stayed over at each other’s houses, and we know we work well together. I love everything about you. But that doesn’t get us used to making a relationship work. Don’t we need to date for a while before we go out and get married?”

“You want to go on a date?”

“No, Cas. I mean, yes. I’d love to go on a date with you, but that’s not what I mean. Doesn’t it feel like we’re skipping a few steps? Going straight to getting hitched? Should we maybe slow down a little?”

“Turn left, then right into the parking lot ahead. I don’t want to rush you, Dean. Like I said, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it together as equals. If we’re not both ready, then we wait until we are. It’s that simple. We can have a long engagement, or just…just date and hold off on getting engaged for the time being. For me, just to be clear, I know what I want. I don’t feel the need to practice managing a relationship with you, and I don’t want to wait. But if it’s what you want, we’ll do it your way. I’ll do anything for you, Dean. Anything. Even let you go if it’s what you want.” Castiel’s wolf paced in alarm. (Please don’t let him go. We need him. Don’t give him that choice! What’s wrong with you?)

Dean couldn’t take his eyes off the ring. It looked so right on his left hand, like it had always been there and he’d only just now noticed it. He parked in a spot facing a long flat institutional building and squinted to read the lettering above the door. “Cas, what…? The Federal building? You want to get married right now?! What the fuck?”

“No, no, Dean. Civil marriages are performed at County Courthouses, not a Federal Administration building. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I probably shouldn’t have surprised you with this either given the conversation we’re having, but I thought… If you don’t want to do this now, we don’t have to.” Cas was at a loss, but Dean couldn’t help him since he still didn’t know the plan. He just arched one eyebrow at his fiancé and waited for an explanation.

“I was going to apply to establish our Pack. We don’t have to, not today. I still need to go in because I haven’t filed April’s Change of Custody form, but we don’t have to do the other. I can wait until you’re ready, Dean. I mean it.” Castiel watched Dean’s face with concern and understanding.

Dean met his eyes, searching for anything to help ease his unrest. Was he overthinking? That was usually Castiel’s job. Dean wasn’t sure if it was just cold feet or morning-after regret. Didn’t he want this with Castiel? Wasn’t it what he’d always wanted? He looked to his wolf, beseeching. If anyone could cut through the cloudy crap in Dean’s head, it was his lean, gray, green-eyed wolf. The wolf, like Castiel, knew what it wanted, and he jumped at the chance to say so. (You don’t think you deserve him, and you’re scared. Cut the shit. Marry the guy and make yourself happy for once.) The wolf was smug as hell, but he was right.

“Let’s do it,” Dean decided abruptly. “We can talk about naming a wedding date later, but you’re right. I want this right now.” He popped open his door and stepped into the humid Texas heat.

Chapter Text

THEN:

The panel table sat upon a raised shaded dais at the front of the open-air auditorium. They were part of an International Cultures festival at the College. Bobby took it in stride, as he did everything, but Castiel was offended at being lumped in as an International Culture, especially right here in Lawrence where the population was seventy-five percent Lupin.

“Relax, Cas. All publicity is good publicity,” Bobby soothed. “It’s just another Q&A panel. Don’t really make a difference why we’re invited. Just take advantage of the opportunity.”

The timing wasn’t great, so Dean and Benny had both begged off. Their classes and Keller test schedules gave them a good excuse. Cas brought Pamela and Sam in their places. Everyone took their seats, and the moderator began on time. Gratitude for small favors, Castiel reminded himself.

“Thank you all for coming today. This panel is sponsored by the Marshall College Alumni Committee. I want to thank our panelists for donating their time…” She droned on, enjoying the sound of her own voice. Castiel shot Bobby an accusing look which Bobby pointedly ignored. At last, after an endless driveling introduction, she opened the lines for questions and the first attendee stepped forward. He was very young, probably still in high school.

“Hello, I’m not a Lupin, but we’ve studied you guys in school, and I have a lot of wolf friends. I want to know the difference between an Omega and a Submissive. Aren’t they kind of the same thing? Thanks.”

The moderator spoke needlessly as Castiel started to respond, “Doctor Singer, would you like to take this question? The difference between an Omega and a Submissive?”

Yep, she was officially on Castiel’s list. He didn’t want to be here, and he’d be damned if this useless waste of carbon and water was going to lead this parade. Luckily, Bobby didn’t care either way. He knew Cas’ body language well and sat back in his chair, ignoring the moderator’s prompt, ceding the response to the grumpy Alpha.

“They’re very different aspects of a Lupin’s psyche, actually,” Castiel, The Alpha, intoned. “Omega is a term that describes a Secondary gender designation. It’s primarily physiological in that there are anatomical structures that make someone an Omega and chemicals produced that are unique to an Omega’s hormone mix.

“The term Submissive has little to do with anatomy exactly, although concrete brain wiring plays an important role. It’s a Tertiary psychological base-setting—or set of behavioral and psychological predispositions. However, you may have noticed in your interactions with your friends and their families, that many of the behaviors and reactions to those behaviors stemming from both of these designations seem to overlap quite a bit.”

“What Doctor Novak is saying, in layman’s terms,” Pamela broke in with an eye on the Alpha to watch his response. He found he didn’t mind when Pam spoke up; he just didn’t like the moderator. When he gestured her on, she continued, “Is that although they both come from very different parts of the wolf, a lot of the behaviors look the same. You’ll notice that Subs and Omegas both get spanked a lot, generally. They both have to follow somebody else’s rules. They both have to submit to sexual dominance from those above them in authority or rank. It may seem like they are the same, but they’re not.

“The Omega’s behavior is driven by the hormones being produced by the Omega gland as well as some specific anatomy. In addition to requiring regular Balance adjustments to Release the buildup of Omesol, they also need a solid base structure of pack hierarchy in order to thrive. Omegas cannot live independently. Legally, they are required to maintain a custodial relationship with an alpha for their entire lives. Even if there was a pill they could take to Release them, they still must have a stable pack or family and know their place in it. An Omega’s place in the pack is always going to be under the care and authority of everyone else in the pack except the pups. They crave and need that oversight. Their place is well-defined and super supported through Pack Discipline and Claiming, and it needs to be reinforced regularly. The way we reinforce that place is through physical contact, regulation and rules, Claim-Fucks, Dominance games, and of course, reward and punishment. An Omega who is supported thusly in their home pack can be successful outside the home as a fully functional adult member of society. Without that support, they cannot. It’s that simple.”

Pamela looked to Sam. He was an expert on Submissives and could fill in the next portion well. “Oh, okay. Um. The Submissives, th-then,” he stuttered. “Yeah, a lot of it looks the same on the outside. There’s still some rules and rewards and punishment going on, but it’s not based on their anatomy very much, like we’ve said. For a Shallow Submissive—meaning not very strongly Sub—all of their needs can be met behind the bedroom door. You wouldn’t even be able to tell just by meeting them that they’re Submissive at all. They behave just as assertively as anyone else in public. The more Profound Submissives are going to require more attention, but once their needs are met, they’re just like everyone else. Omegas can’t really do that. Even though Omegas are fully functional, they’re still going to need to be treated like Omegas, in public and private both.

“It’s harder to explain than I realized.” Sam laughed at his own perceived ineptitude but pressed on. “Wolves just kind of get the differences instinctively, but it’s like describing the difference between the colors red and green to someone who doesn’t see colors. Maybe it’ll make more sense with some examples.

“So, my brother, Dean. He’s a Submissive, but not an Omega. He doesn’t need any Balance adjustments because he’s not producing Omesol. He doesn’t need to be constantly reminded of his proper place in the pack because his psyche isn’t constantly searching for structure and proof of the structure. He could live mostly independently without rules or anyone holding a Claim on him. What makes him a Submissive is a need to have control of some part of his life taken over by someone else at pretty regular intervals, usually his sexual behavior, but also sometimes just his behavior in general.

“My brother is a brat, meaning he deliberately misbehaves to elicit the controlling behavior that he needs from an appropriate Dominant. His inner psyche craves being taken-in-hand and made to submit to the will of someone whose canine power is greater than his. And it’s not just a craving, it’s a need. These episodes of Submission aren’t constant, but if a Sub goes longer than what’s normal for that individual without a scene of some kind, it effects their brain chemistry and makes them miserable. Eventually, it makes everyone around them miserable. We have a saying, If the Sub ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. Most un-Mated non-Omega Subs go out and find themselves a matching Dominant, and they get together regularly as scene partners. We’re in the planning phase of building a wing in the Research Institute on campus to provide matching services and contract sex workers.”

“Here’s the quickest answer I can give to illustrate,” said Bobby. “We train both Omegas and Subs to hold specific sexualized presentation positions. They all learn the same ones. The all get rewarded for holding them well and punished for messing them up.

“The Omegas might be put into those positions regularly: any time, any place, public, private, doesn’t matter, it’s all about what the person needs, but once they’ve held the position long enough and well enough that their rank in the pack is crystal clear and the hormone response we’re looking for has taken place, they get released. They don’t have to do it very long or very well. You put them in their place, fuck ‘em or spank ‘em or whatever, and then you move on. Everyone’s stable, everyone’s happy.

“The Sub uses the same positions as part of their scening. They may need to willingly hold the position well and for a much longer time as a demonstration of their complete Submission to the Dom. A Dom is not gonna try to make a Sub drop into one of those positions just anywhere unless that’s part of an agreement they’ve made together, but neither would an alpha ask an Omega to hold one of these positions with just their willpower for a long time. For an Omega, it’s anywhere, and any time. For a Sub, it’s only during a scene, often in private, and always under the watchful eye of a Dom who has been granted authority by the Sub, himself.”

“Next question!” called the moderator. Castiel enjoyed that she wasn’t going to get much time to speak. His Pack was awesome.

“Yes, hello. I was wondering, what a beta-Neutral is like? Are they even really Lupin at all?”

“Beta-Neutrals are certainly Pack, the same as the rest of us,” answered Castiel before the moderator could speak. “They make up the largest single portion of the Lupin population, at roughly twenty-eight percent. They get somewhat of a bad rap. They often get overlooked simply because they don’t have the same extreme need for specialized care that wolves at the fringes of the spectrum have. A beta Presentation at puberty displays as several days of intense sexual arousal, risk of severe dehydration, and a pheromone release that is really quite unpleasant to smell. Luckily, the odor is a singular event. This Presentation is often termed a mini-Heat or beta-Heat.

“Interestingly, it’s really only the beta-Neutrals who ever marry Primates successfully, so there is certainly something to be said for their adaptability. Maybe that’s why they have the reputation for being the most apelike of the Lupins.”

NOW:

“What’s taking so long, man? It’s not tax code. Looks like it’s only three pages long.” Dean pocketed his cellphone and stood upright from the leaning stance he had assumed against the wall, approaching Castiel where he stood working to fill out the Pack Establishment form. Starting a new Pack was a federal process, so it didn’t matter where they submitted the application from. Dallas would do just as well as Kansas. They would still need to file a Request for Pack Residence application with Douglas County when they got back, but that was straightforward enough once this step was completed.

Dean looked past Castiel’s arm and found the form still mostly blank. Cas had filled in the Pack name, application date, and planned location, but that was all. Dean turned baffled eyes on him.

“There’s no way to list both of our names as Alpha, Dean. I had been so sure I could put us both down, but the form is clear.” He pointed to the instruction above the blank space. It said, “List one name only to establish the Pack’s Lead Alpha. Only alpha candidates are eligible.” Cas was crestfallen. Dean shook his head at his oblivious fiancé. He let his head drop to Castiel’s shoulder and laughed at him softly. “This is serious, Dean. Why are you laughing? I promised you an equal partnership, and I meant it.”

“I know you did, baby. I know.” Dean raised his head and looked into Castiel’s eyes. “Cas, look. C’mere and sit down with me for a second.” He tugged Cas to the seats in the corner, and he stifled a grunt as his weight settled stiffly. Cas brought his form and his pen and let them both dangle sadly. Dean couldn’t help but chuckle and hug him. How could one person be both so frighteningly Dominant and so endearingly awkward?

“Cas, listen. You’re still letting your mother set the rules about this. She really did a number on you. You’re rebelling against everything Naomi. You still seem to think that equality for wolves is the same as equality for apes. I know you don’t really want a position above me, above everyone. It’s one of the things I love about you. You know your place, and you play the role we need you to play. And, man, you do it really, really well. I know if you could choose though, you would make us all the same so none of us would have to feel less than anyone else. But do you really want to be one of them? One of the apes? Think about everything you would have to give up in order to be an ape. It’s not worth it. We aren’t them.”

Castiel lowered his eyes in thought, and Dean dropped his head under Cas’ gaze to catch his eyes again. “It’s not like that. The hierarchies work. They really do, and you and I, we spent nearly a decade proving it to ourselves, proving it to the world. You’re such a dork sometimes. It’s like you believe everything you’re selling to the other wolves when you’re selling, but you just won’t buy it for yourself. Let it go, Castiel. I mean, yeah, I want to be your equal, you know? I want to be your husband and have a partnership where I matter as much as you do. But you know I’m not fit to be Alpha, not for more than just me and Sammy. I need you in that chair. I need you to do it for me.

“Think about it. We didn’t make it fifteen minutes after you said equal partners before we broke it. You remember? Yesterday before we left for dinner. I said I didn’t believe The Facility back home missed me, that they probably worked better without me. You remember what you did?” Castiel’s eyes grew wide in realization. He’d acted on reflex like always. “We weren’t scening, but you swatted me—whole buncha times it seemed like. You know why? Because I needed you to, so you stepped up. You always step up. It’s Pack Discipline, and we can’t pretend we don’t both need it. I don’t wanna lose that part of our relationship, and we can’t have that if we’re co-chairs.”

Dean ran a hand over Castiel’s clenched fist, enticing him to relax. “We’ve always fit together. I do something stupid and self-destructive, and you set me right. That’s what I want from you. I want a Dom, and a Pack Alpha, and a Husband. Is it too much to ask? Is it, Castiel? Baby, we can be each other’s husbands, and still do this.” Dean nodded his head toward the form in Cas’ hand. “Here, give me that.”

Dean grabbed the form and carried it back to the table. He filled in the blank for Pack’s Lead Alpha with, “Castiel James…” then he stopped. He turned and looked at Cas who’d followed him. “Are you keeping your middle and birth pack names, or one or the other?”

“Novak was my father’s name. My sire was a rich privileged drunk who got himself killed when I was twelve in a pointless duel with another alpha. That name means nothing to me.” Cas wrapped his arms around Dean’s waist from behind and rested his chin on Dean’s shoulder, appraising the papers on the desk before him. “My mother named me James for her Omega brother who died at twenty-two from Omesol poisoning.”

Dean kissed Castiel’s cheek and turned his pen back to the page. “James it is, then.” He finished writing out, “Castiel James Winchester,” then he looked at his intended. “You good with this? ‘Cause I think it’s perfect.”

“More than good, Dean. You’re right, as always. It’s perfect.” He nuzzled against Dean’s cheek. “What would I do without you?”

Dean listened through his cellphone as his brother’s phone rang several times before the beta picked up the call. He stood nervously beside the hotel room desk, fidgeting with a pencil on the flat surface, rolling it back and forth anxiously, spinning it, his eyes glazing past the pencil. One foot crossed the other and rested on a toe while he leaned his outer thigh against the wood veneer of the desk and waited impatiently. He’d put this off too long.

“Hey, Dean! I was just about to try calling you. What’s up?” Sam seemed cheerful. Dean imagined he heard a lead of expectation in his voice. Maybe it was real. No doubt Cas had informed the staff as to why he’d taken off to Dallas. That would be just like him. Not that Dean minded. Better they knew through Castiel than make Dean come out with a big announcement.

“Hey, Sammy. It’s good to hear your voice. Uh, yeah. Sorry I didn’t call on Friday, and uh, happy belated birthday, man. Things got kinda busy here.”

“Thanks, but um…” There was definitely an air of expectation this time, but Dean didn’t know how to do this. He wasn’t ashamed or afraid. He knew he’d have Sam’s full support about his engagement, but he was a little embarrassed to have fought his brother so hard over his feelings for Cas for so long only to cave to Castiel’s entreating blue eyes in just an instant. He kind of hated when Sam was proven right. “What kind of busy, Dean?”

“I, well, I guess you know that Cas is here with me. He’s…that is, I’m moving back to Lawrence and taking my training job back. We’ll be leaving tomorrow afternoon. Driving up. It’ll take us a couple of days because he wants to stop in OKC, check out Gordon’s new place.”

“Is that all the news you have for me? Did Cas say anything else besides, please come back to Kansas?”

Dean breathed in and let it out loudly, turning his glance to the ceiling. Here goes. “Yeah, he did. He did, Sammy.” Why was this so hard? Cas stepped out of the bathroom, naked, wet, and rubbing a towel over his hair. Suddenly, Dean found it was indeed hard. His cock thickened at the sight of a wet and heat-reddened Alpha just feet from him.

“Dean?” prompted Sam through the phone.

“Yeah, Sam. Cas proposed to me.” Dean met and held Castiel’s eye, and Cas smiled warmly at him. Dean felt the warmth surge through him, bolstering him “I said yes. We’re getting married, Sammy. I’m coming home, and I’m going to marry Castiel.”

Sam had obviously pulled his phone away from his ear and covered it with his hand. Dean heard his voice shout, little muffled. “He said YES!” followed by a cacophony of cheering from the other end of the line. Dean blanched, his eyes growing wide. He put the phone on speaker and set it on the desk so Cas could hear too. Castiel chuckled and stepped over, kissing Dean on the temple. He grinned like the cat who ate the canary and turned away to get dressed.

Smug bastard.

Finally, Sam’s voice returned through the line, “Sorry about that, man. Everyone was on tenterhooks waiting to find out how it went. April kind of scared us. She said the Mating-bond seemed to flare up like Cas had murdered you late last night, like y’all had had a fight or something? Anyway, I’ll go ahead and cross that off my worry list. You sound like you’re still alive. Whatever it was she felt, please keep it to yourself. I really don’t want to know.”

The noise of the crowd died suddenly, and Dean suspected Sam had entered another room and closed the door. “I’m happy for you guys. I told him before he left that I’d kill him if he screwed this up, but I don’t think he will. It feels right to me. You know, I’ve always said that.”

Dean looked over and raised an eyebrow at Cas to confirm that Sam had really threatened him. His fiancé just smiled sheepishly and pulled on a pair of boxers.

“Thanks Sammy. That means a lot. You’ve always had my back, and I appreciate it. Don’t worry though. This thing goes south, I’ll kick his ass myself.”

“Sure, you will,” Sam laughed.

“Seriously, Sam. He’s on his best behavior. We’re not going to screw this thing up.”

“I know you’re not,” said Sam in all seriousness. “I’m happy for you both, I really am. So, uh, when you say you’re coming home, are you coming back to the house, or moving straight in with Cas?”

“Funny you should ask. We dropped by the Federal Building this afternoon and applied to establish a formal Pack together. It’ll supersede the Novak Pack, take over for it…replace it. We decided to file as Winchesters. We’re gonna live at the Novak estate and change the name. Have to file a brand-new application to do it that way. Cas said April’s still living in The Facility suite. He hasn’t even shown her the house yet, the dork.” Dean smirked when the Alpha growled at his choice of moniker. “So, once we get back, we’ll move both her and me in at the same time. That’s the plan.”

The phone was silent as Sam processed the news. Dean waited for him, knowing he’d have questions. “Winchesters, huh? I didn’t see that coming. Is Gabriel going to have to change his name? Dean, are you sure about this? Seems kinda sudden.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I know it’s sudden, but like you said, it feels right. No, Gabriel and Naomi are going to stay Novaks, but they’ll be registered under the new Pack, along with Cousin Bolivia, whoever that is, some Omega related to Cas who needed a familial Alpha named on his custody papers. Cas talked to Gabe before he left, I gather. Says Gabe’s cool as long as he doesn’t have to move out of the manor. He likes the pool.”

“And what about me?” Sam seemed uncertain.

Castiel rejoined Dean near the phone. His expression told Dean that he’d step in and make the proposal to Sam if Dean wanted him to. Dean shook his head. His brother. His conversation. “Sam, Cas is Pack Alpha. We’d like you to join us, but you’d have to submit to him as Alpha. Not physically, of course, but just an oath transferring your allegiance from me to him. You don’t have to accept. I can stay your familial alpha if you want one, you know, just in title. Or, shit, I guess you’re free to cut ties completely if that’s what you want. You’d be free to do whatever. It’s just. We talked, and we really want you to join us. You don’t even have to move. Our house is close enough to the manor to meet the legal locality requirements for an established active Pack member. And of course, we wouldn’t have to even think about your name, ‘cause, Winchester.”

“Wow, Dean. I’m honored. Seriously did not see this coming. Can I think about it? What… how long can I take to think it over?”

Cas spoke to him. “Take as long as you like, Sam. The invitation will always be there whether you accept today, next year, or never. Whatever you choose, we’d be honored to have you. Either way, you’re family. Nothing’s going to change that.”

“Okay, thanks. I appreciate the offer. I need to get some, um, processing time on this. Damn, you two don’t do half measures, do you? Go big or go home, right, Dean?”

“Right, Sammy!”

“Hey, look, I gotta get back to my Ozzies. I left ‘em too long and no doubt I’ve got some paddle-work to do to bring ‘em down off the rafters. Be safe driving home, Dean. Take lots of breaks so the bruises on your ass don’t turn into bursitis. Take care of that Alpha of yours. And congrats! I’m really pleased, guys. This is a very good thing. See you soon.”

“Bye, Sam!” Dean hung up the phone and turned to Cas. “How’d he know about the bruises on my ass?”

Castiel burst out laughing.

“Come on. I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat. What would you like? Steak?”

“How long have you known me, Cas?”

After they’d eaten, it was time for Castiel to call home too. Dean wasn’t sure whether he should give them privacy or not. Cas was dialing right out in the open room, so Dean decided it was a good time for a shower. When he emerged from the bathroom, Castiel was propped against the headboard, bare-chested and wearing sweatpants. His phone lay on the bedside table facedown and plugged in to the charger. Cas was flipping through TV channels with the remote.

“You know you didn’t need to make yourself scarce just then, don’t you?”

“I just figured you might want a private moment with your mate, and I needed a shower, so… You know this is going to be all kinds of awkward right at first.” Dean flopped next to Castiel on his belly, not remotely interested in sleeping on his back yet. Cas shut the TV off and dropped the remote next to his phone. “We’re going to have to feel each other out and get to know where everybody fits. Even just day-to-day domestic stuff is likely to be difficult until we know each other better.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s true. How are you feeling about it right now? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Just, please believe me when I say I’m committed to making this Pack work, and don’t freak out if we hit some snags at first. You and April have the Mating-bond to help you understand each other. I don’t. The way I figure it, we’ll probably screw everything up on the first try. Please don’t start doubting everybody and everything just because we need some time to adjust.” Dean watched Castiel’s face, looking deeply into his expression.

“That’s fair,” Cas conceded. “I do perhaps jump to conclusions too quickly on occasion. What else? Do you worry about possessiveness or jealousy? Do you worry about apportioning time fairly?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t feel jealous of you two right now. Your relationship with April kinda seems to take a different place in my head than mine with you does, I guess. It’s just a different thing entirely, like how I’m not jealous of your bond with Gabe, or you of me and Sam. But that’s while we’re still five-hundred miles apart, and plus the sex thing makes this…more vulnerable. I took it pretty hard when I knew you were with her before. I couldn’t even stay in the same town. Now that we’re together, man, and now that we’re real, I feel solid—like nothing could come between our bond, not even a mate. But once we’re all living in the same house? I don’t really know. She got a chance to decide whether she wants me in the picture, but that’s not a choice I get to make. I’m feeling a little bruised about that, Cas, but not broken. I really just don’t know anything for sure.”

“I understand. Lupins are extremely skilled at compartmentalizing. However, I’m clearly asking much more of you in this relationship than you are of me. I need to be aware of any signs of jealousy from myself as well as you and April. We need to keep talking about everything, even the uncomfortable feelings that we both usually avoid. There will be Rules that will help us keep the boundaries where they belong, but I need you to promise to keep the lines of communication open. I need to know if your tenderness at who got choices and who didn’t turns into resentment. I need you to tell me what works for you and what doesn’t. You can’t make me guess what’s in your head, and then blame it on me as Alpha if I fuck it all up. Promise me? Dean, I don’t have any way to create a bond with you like the one that lets me read April. I can’t read your mind.”

“I promise. You know how much I hate talking about feelings, but this Pack could go sideways so fast if we don’t all talk to each other. I get it.”

“What else Dean?”

“What’s my role? Where do April and I rank against each other?”

“I would never try to place you below an Omega-Sub. Her Keller chart looks much like yours—very high scores for submissiveness and masochism, only she’s not a brat like you are.” Cas smirked and cocked an eyebrow at him, popping his ass lightly with his left hand.

“Ow! Bruises and welts and shit! Be careful!”

“Outside of pack dynamics, I think we’ll find our places organically. We just have to move around each other carefully at first and make space for the others, like any new housemates have to do. It’s my fervent hope that the two of you will bond as family without much effort. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” Castiel shifted up onto his hip to face Dean more fully. “Within the pack structure and as far as Pack Discipline goes, you outrank her, so you’ve got authority to correct her as you need to. Anything that comes up that you aren’t comfortable handling, or you think might cause friction in your relationship, you can refer to me.

“You need to be aware, April has a Release block, and it’s a doozy. She can’t Release unless she feels she’s being punished justifiably for some transgression. She’s not a brat, so I have to practically manipulate her into breaking Rules just to get her into a guilty mindset. I’ve set her about a million Rules to follow every day—everything from how far the toes of her shoes need to be from the wall when she lines them up by the door, to how long she’s allowed to stay in the bath, to when she can sit at the table for meals and when she should kneel on the floor and be fed. It’s a shame because with her level of masochism and her affinity for pleasing me, if she didn’t have the block, we might be able to just about dispense with punishments altogether and affect Releases through play. But she’s built a subconscious block against Release if it’s attempted just through impact-play.

“I did manage to Release her a few times during sex, but those have all been partial. Her Omesol output is through the roof. There’s no way to keep her Balanced through sex alone.”

Dean listened carefully. Talk of Omegas and Subs, Balance and Release unlocked his Director of Training mode. “Sounds like she takes a lot of work.”

“I know, and it’s not going to be fair to you. You need to tell me if I start neglecting you, Dean. You deserve my full attention too.”

“No, Cas. That’s not where I was going. I mean, yes, and thanks for that. I’m sure a brat like me will be able to find some way of getting your attention when I need it.” Castiel shared a smirk and complete agreement with Dean over the image of Dean acting up to spark his Dom’s attention. “No, but are you going to be able to handle her all by yourself? This one might fire up your possessiveness, but if you need help, Sam or I, either one could step up with her Releases. If we’re going for full pack dynamics, I mean.”

“Thank you, Dean. Maybe someday, once we’ve unearthed all the land mines that are sure to trip us up, I’ll be comfortable allowing you to share that responsibility, but for now, I don’t feel like it’s a fair burden for you to take on. And frankly, I selfishly prefer to keep them to myself for now. Let’s try to keep the lines from crossing so much at first.”

“Got it. Clean boundaries. So, I’m okay to discipline within the pack ranks, but not do Balance adjustments. Sam too?” Cas nodded, and Dean approved. “That sounds good. I agree.”

Dean perked up a little at a sudden epiphany. “Oh, hey, I just thought of something: do I get to discipline your mother? ‘Cause I really, really want to do that. Please, Castiel? No one needs a strap across the hips like the Congresswoman from District Three. Oh, and Gabe! What about Gabe?”

Cas laughed and reached for Dean, hugging him across his shoulders in affection. He stayed cuddled in close once the hug ended. “No, you don’t have disciplinary authority over Naomi. She’s grandfathered as a widowed Alpha-Mate and as such, doesn’t fall in a direct ranking line with the rest of us. Gabriel is a different story. He’s active Pack and Omega, so yes, spank him when he needs it.”

“One outta two ain’t bad.”

“Sam’s position relative to yours is trickier. Assuming he accepts our offer, it’s a bit of a judgment call. I’ll most likely leave things the way they are between the two of you because it seems to work so well. As Co-Pack Alpha or Vice Pack Alpha, or whatever you decide to call yourself, you have the right to ask for redress on the issue if you don’t like it. Doesn’t mean I’ll change my mind, but we can talk about it.”

“Nah, I like what Sam and I have going. I look after him, and he looks after me. Like you said, it works.”

Cas stroked Dean’s back with a featherlight touch. They both turned quiet and contemplative. It had been a long day.

“Hey, Cas.”

“Yes, Dean.”

“I don’t wanna fuck her, okay? At least not at first, not recreationally.”

“I know. Will you be all right with the CF? She’ll need it from you as an alpha in the Pack. If you want, we can use The Facility’s processing room to keep things more clinical. It’s purely Hierarchical Claiming, not recreational sex.” Cas searched Dean’s green eyes for signs of discomfort. “You know I would never ask you to sacrifice your sexual orientation for me. I would never do that.”

“Yeah, I know. Thanks for humoring me and just letting me put that out there. I’ll be fine with the Claiming. Done it hundreds of times on chicks. It’s not the same as having private fun sexy times.”

Castiel smiled, his eyes crinkling at how adorable his fiancé’s choice of words were. “No, it’s not. And I’m not humoring you. I want to know everything that concerns you. Even if you think it’s obvious, or understood, or inconsequential. Nothing you want to bring up is out of bounds. Understand?”

“Mm-hm. I hear you. And same goes for you, oh great self-sufficient Alpha.”

“Did you mean what you said at the Federal building? That you really want me to take the lead role? Dean, are you…are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure.” Dean pillowed his cheek in his crossed arms and closed his eyes, enjoying the touch on his skin. “I’m not gonna need the kind of structure that April will. But I trust you to take the lead. You go be Alpha, and I’ll back you up. You know my Submissive side, Cas. Sometimes I’m going to need to be told what to do. I’ll deny ever saying that in the morning, but we both know it’s true.”

“In that case, kiss me and go to sleep. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir, Alpha, sir,” Dean sassed, aware that he hadn’t fully convinced his fiancé of anything yet.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“Thank you so much, beta Shurley. The Caniforme Research Project will make very good use of your contribution. Your five-million dollars is going to save a lot of people. This puts us over the top to begin construction of the first wing of the project and then some. We can’t thank you enough!” Dean gushed, threw himself into an energetic handshake with the beta, and then turned it into an impromptu hug. Chuck Shurley, check still in hand, patted the alpha awkwardly on the back.

“Okay, then. Um, you’re welcome,” the bearded middle-aged alumnus responded uncomfortably. “You write another book like that last one, Dean-o, and I’ll make enough money off publishing you to write another check just like this one.”

“Dean and I need to head out real quick,” Benny broke in. “Sorry to dash outta here, but we’ve got a curriculum meeting that we can’t miss. Thanks again, Chuck. Please enjoy the refreshments and make yourself at home. You’re welcome here any time.” Benny hustled Dean through the door and exchanged a meaningful look with Bobby before he pulled it closed behind him.

“Let me add my thanks, beta Shurley,” began Bobby. “We’re planning to name a wing of the new space after you. And I know how important this research is to you and your Pack—to all of us, really. I don’t know what we would do without donors like you.” Castiel handed the beta a cup of coffee with sugar and cream and nodded his agreement. Bobby continued, “Of course, it may wind up being all for nothing if the next bill off of Nilsson’s desk gets through. You heard about that?”

Chuck nodded, sipping. It would be a disaster for Lupins if it passed. All forms of Claiming and Domination sex, including Mating, would be outlawed, listed as rape by law. A wolf could be jailed and convicted for Claiming their own mate. It was a catastrophe that was gaining support quickly and was the talk of the whole Lupin community.

“I heard that Senator Livestone was the best possible swing vote,” Cas piped in. He had been watching closely, and if the wolves could pull in one more swing and force an immediate vote, the bill would be doomed.

“That’s what I heard, too,” said Bobby. “So, I called his office yesterday.”

“You did?” Cas was surprised. Usually they talked strategy among themselves before stepping into politics directly.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry, boss.” Bobby didn’t look sorry, and Castiel suspected he’d been left out on purpose. He wondered if Dean or Benny knew. Bobby turned to Chuck. “Interesting things you hear when you call up random senators every now and then just to chat, just doin’ your civic duty and staying informed. Seems like Livestone really wants to support the Lupin cause, wants to very badly. In a completely different and unrelated side note, Senator Livestone is up for re-election this year. Also, on a third completely unrelated vein, Senator Livestone’s campaign believes he would have a very good shot of winning the election if it could raise, oh, maybe about five million by the end of the month.”

Bobby stopped talking and stood looking at Chuck expectantly. Castiel was appalled.

“No.”

He placed himself between the two men. “Robert Singer, we are not doing this. It’s corruption, and it’s wrong! I won’t have any part of buying a vote—not even for this!”

“It’s not our money, Alpha. You may have noticed that our kind beta friend here still has the check. A promise to donate is not a donation until the funds are deposited. Until then, well, folks are well within their rights to change their minds—maybe give it to someone else instead.”

“I said No!” Castiel was livid. Bobby had known Cas was going to be the sticking point, but there was no other way. He and Benny had talked it through. They needed to move strongly right now and make sure the opposition knew how deep their pockets were. They couldn’t afford to keep nickel-and-diming their way through Congress, always playing defense. It was time to go on offense. Chuck Shurley’s money was a godsend at just the right time, and while Dean would be devastated to lose what he’d schmoozed so long to get, it was the right decision.

“Castiel, listen to me. Everything we’re wanting to do here is important. And we’re gonna do it, I swear, just like we said we would. The four of us are gonna take this country by storm… shake it up. We’re gonna break every rule the apes put in front of us, and we’re not gonna stop until we get everything we need to be strong and vibrant as the people we know we can be! In twenty years, they’re going to award you the Nobel, and you’re going to learn some Swedish and fly to Stockholm to accept it, and we’re never going to have to look back again. But until then, none of our plans amount to a hill of beans if Congress rips it all away from us before we even get started.

“I know you don’t like it. I know you’re not an ends justifies the means kind of guy, but this is how it’s done, Alpha. You want to lose everything and have nothing at the end of the day but your integrity? Yeah, it’s important. I’m not saying it ain’t, but your integrity ain’t gonna matter worth a can-to-shit-in to some Omega dying on the streets, sellin’ himself for scraps.”

Castiel’s jaw couldn’t get any tighter. Chuck just stood to the side, still awkwardly holding the check in one hand.

Bobby went on. “Dean couldn’t be a part of this. He can’t make the jump, and I wouldn’t want him to. Benny and I, look, I’m sorry we went behind your back. We both owe you our hides for it, and we’ll pay, but this is worth it.”

“You’re asking me to commit an act of political corruption. Bobby, I can’t do it. I can’t!”

“No, I’m not, Alpha. I’m not. You know what it is. I know what it is. Chuck and Livestone and every asshole in Congress who thinks they can walk all over us know what it is. But the law don’t. And it’s the law that defines corruption. This ain’t illegal, Castiel. It’s politics. Look, you read Doris Kearns Goodwin, right? Abe Lincoln did this stuff. Abraham Fucking Lincoln! Come on, Alpha! If it’s good enough for the Sixteenth, who are you to…”

“NO! Bobby! Everybody else is doing it is never going to be reason enough to throw out our integrity!”

“All we’re doing,” Bobby spoke softly, gently, bringing Chuck into the conversation. “Is turning down a contribution that a good friend of ours offered. Maybe, we just don’t really have a need for it at the moment. So, then, that good friend of ours thinks to himself, Gee, this money’s kinda eating a hole in my pocket right now. I really want to do some good with it, make a difference in the world. I wonder if there’s another good cause out there that could use a check this size?”

Bobby met Chuck’s eye. Chuck nodded at him, and Bobby nodded back, shook his hand, looked longingly at the check as Chuck tucked it back into his blazer pocket, then escorted him out the conference room door with a pat on the back and a squeeze to his shoulder.

Castiel stood rooted to the floor, looking down. He could’ve stopped them, but he didn’t. He could turn them in, but he wouldn’t. There was no official wrongdoing anyway—no evidence of any laws broken. Castiel had never felt so dirty. Did it really have to be this way? Bobby and Benny sure thought so. They’d told him years ago it would eventually get ugly.

Bobby stood in front of him, and Castiel turned blazing eyes on him. He’d been manipulated, and he felt like a fool. Bobby jumped in. “I’m heading out for drinks with Sam, Benny, and Dean to celebrate the defeat of a certain Senate bill. You’d be welcome to join us, but you’ve got some soul searching to do tonight, Alpha. You need to ask yourself how important this vision of yours really is. Maybe re-read Team of Rivals, maybe spend some quality time with your Omega brother and thank the Universe that he’s still here and sane for you to talk to. Benny and I will present ourselves for reprimand in the morning. After that, we’ll talk.”

Bobby slammed the door on his way out. Castiel flinched. He felt he should’ve responded, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. He was pretty sure he’d just been grounded.

NOW:

Donna perched on her mate’s lap in the lunchroom, snuggling close, enjoying having her beloved close enough to her that they could share lunch most days. She worked a hand down the front of Jody’s pants and wiggled her fingers into the warm, wet sweet spot that never failed to turn Jody’s cheeks crimson and her eyes dark.

“Now that’s just downright unsanitary,” complained Rufus as he joined the ladies and noticed what they had going on downstairs. Jody laughed but grabbed Donna’s wrist and held her in place when her mate started to slide her hand back out. Her eyes told her Omega that she’d very much appreciate it if she’d please continue. Their entire conversation lasted only a few seconds and was concluded without words, but they both got their points across. Donna resumed her work with her fingertips, and Jody resumed feeding her mate.

“Hey, Rufus. It’s good to see you again. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. It’s hunky-dory. Damn, you work fast, girl. I’ve been trying to get in this Omega’s pants for three months. She won’t give me the time of day!”

“That so? She seemed pretty easy to me,” snarked Jody. She turned her eyes to her mate. “You turned Rufus down? He’s hot. Of course, you know I like them a little seasoned.” Donna threw her head back and laughed.

Donna’s eyes twinkled. “You callin’ me old, beta? Besides, you’d kick my ass if I even looked at another wolf, and you know it.”

“That’s true,” Jody admitted and planted a kiss on her mate’s mouth.

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” protested the Security Director. “Y’all coulda just told me you were mates. Didn’t have to play your damn games with me. Damn!”

They both broke out laughing. Jody shoulder-checked him and reminded him that if he’d bother scenting either of them it would’ve been perfectly clear. Then she leveled him with a steely eye and told him in all seriousness that she’d personally castrate him if he so much as looked in Donna’s direction again.

“Ma’am, yes ma’am,” shot Rufus digging into his lunch. “Damn.”

Dean and Cas slept late the next morning and went for a midmorning swim in the hotel pool. They decided to consider this time before they needed to leave for Kansas a mini-vacation, so they lunched on heavy Texas barbeque and traded steamy blowjobs in the shower. In no time, the Impala, packed with the few possessions Dean had bothered to bring south with him, headed north toward Oklahoma with Dean at the wheel and Castiel riding shotgun.

He pulled into a gas station in Richardson to fill the tank and stock up on snacks, taking offense at the judgmental looks he got from Cas at his selection of beef jerky and Big Red. “This is road food, and I don’t want to hear it. Road trip equals road food. Period.”

“Eat whatever you like, Dean, but don’t complain to me when it makes you uncomfortable a hundred miles up the road.” Cas had somehow located the exact brand of protein bars he kept stashed around The Facility, and he paired it with a Vitamin water.

Dean just shook his head. “This marriage is never going to work, man. It’s like I don’t even know you.”

Castiel grinned at him and slipped back into the car.

“Dork.”

They drove through the suburbs at a good clip. Early afternoon was a good time to get on the road, traffic-wise, so they made good time. Dean kept his box of old tapes handy but wouldn’t allow Cas to touch them, selecting each new selection according to some pattern only he understood.

“So, I got a question for you,” started Dean, turning Metallica down to allow conversation. Cas looked up from his phone where he’d been reading emails as the hot, dusty, barbed-wire-strung plain rolled past. “Would you allow April to marry if she found a guy that she loved and wanted to? Or is this great married-not-mated experiment for Tops and alphas only?”

“I hadn’t thought about it.” Cas turned to look through the windshield. “It wouldn’t be fair to forbid it out of hand. I suppose we’d have to keep the option open, wouldn’t we? Although it would have to be a marriage approved by her familial Alpha, and since that Alpha is also her mate…it’s not especially likely that she’d get an approval.”

“Yeah, maybe for most alphas that’d be hard, but you’re an open-minded guy. Don’t you think you could weigh the benefits and give the guy a shot?

“You’re making fun of me, Dean. I don’t appreciate it. And besides, it’s a valid question. Why should the Tops alone be allowed to define their lifelong relationships outside of the Mating-bond? If we tell April she can never marry even though we’re doing it, doesn’t that make us hypocrites?”

Dean laughed. “Sorry. I’ll stop provoking your predictable sense of justice. No, come on. You can’t make everyone equal, babe. Omegas are always going to need a simple hierarchy. If she tried to add a marriage outside of our Pack, her loyalty would be split in two. It couldn’t work.”

“Well, then we’d just have to insist that she only marry from within the Pack,” concluded Castiel.

“No good. That leaves your mother, perish the thought, or Gabriel and Sammy up for grabs. You wanna share your mate with either of those numbskulls?” Dean changed lanes to pass a heavily loaded eighteen-wheeler and accelerated to move on ahead of the building traffic. It felt good to let his Baby open up and run.

It took him a minute to realize that his fiancé was quiet and tense. Dean looked across at him. “Something I said? You know I was just teasing.”

“It’s a touchy subject,” the Alpha replied tersely. Dean looked at Cas again, eyebrows raised. Cas sighed. “I’ve already shared my mate with your brother. You weren’t there when we Mated, remember, so Sam performed the second tranche of her Keller test. His Claim should be just about worn off by now, but I didn’t like leaving her in Kansas knowing there was another wolf who had Claim to her.”

Dean didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t been aware that Cas had asked for him to do the test. Would that have changed anything? Probably not, he decided, at least, not for the better. If anything, Cas would have been even more distant and possessive, and Dean would’ve left town even sooner. Then Castiel saved him from his darkening thoughts by quirking a little smile and adding, “You know, she could always marry my cousin in Bolivia. Neither of us has any emotional baggage with him.”

“One of these days I want to get to the bottom of whatever story is behind Cousin Bolivia. There’s gotta be some family drama there that you’re not sharing.” Dean was relieved to have the conversation turned. There were powerful mines in waters like these, and he didn’t think they were ready for all of them.

“My lips are sealed. Bolivia’s story is his alone to tell.” Castiel was quiet for a few more miles although he didn’t return to his emails. He reached across the bench seat and took Dean’s hand, resting both of theirs together beside Dean’s thigh. “I’m very happy to have you back, Dean. I missed you terribly.”

Dean pulled Cas’ hand to his lips and kissed his fingers. “I love you, too,” he said, and he set their hands back where Castiel had placed them and drove on.

Castiel’s musing broke the silence sometime later. “Do you think we need to worry about Alistair and Ruby? I’ve got enough contacts in the industry that I’m sure I’ll know where they both end up.” He met Dean’s eye for a moment. “I don’t know either of them at all really. What do you think, Dean? Are they dangerous?”

“Yes. Both of them are dangerous separately, but if they stick together, they’re bad news times twenty. I wish I knew where they are right now. Tell you the truth, they’re probably heading the same way we are. They’d fit right in with Gordon’s new setup.”

“And isn’t that just what we need?” lamented Cas. “Everyone who’s ever had a grudge against me all holed up in one place. This visit’s going to be just peachy.” Castiel leaned into the window and frowned.

“Hey now, don’t go all Grumpy-Cat on me here. We’re still on vacation until we get home. Road trips are supposed to be fun. And you can’t use peachy. That’s my word.”

Dean drove and thought for a bit. “Don’t worry about them, Cas. We don’t know what they’re going to do. We don’t know where they’ll end up. We may never even see them again. Worrying’s not going to do us any good anyway. Just take it as it comes, okay? How’s that for peachy?”

When Castiel didn’t respond, Dean changed the subject tangentially. “Have you checked in on Victor? How’s he doing?”

Cas stretched in his seat and took a deep breath. “I haven’t spoken to him directly. I want to give him some space to process the DF and get his head right. I talked to Bela this morning while you were downstairs hunting for real coffee. She said that physically, he’s going to be fine. The worst damage is his broken cheekbone, which apparently looks god-awful but isn’t too bad. Although there’s also substantial anal tearing he needs to recover from.” Cas shot a sidelong at Dean and added sheepishly, “I probably shouldn’t have broken his face, huh?”

“You did what you had to do, man. You know that a DF only works if you let your wolf out. Looks like your wolf was pretty damned pissed off. I think a broken face isn’t too high a price for him to pay for the mess he’s made down here. I was kinda surprised you didn’t fire him on the spot, to be honest.”

Cas shook his head. “He’s a good man. Mostly. Maybe he isn’t right for the Directorship. Maybe he’s in over his head, but you can’t convince me that his intentions aren’t good. I think he got played by Alistair. He put his trust in the wrong wolf and didn’t keep his hands on the reins like he should’ve. I don’t expect he’ll make that same mistake again.”

“Yeah,” laughed Dean. “Probly not.”

“Of course, he might still quit. I humiliated him badly in front of his entire staff and a lot of the clients. He may not recover his equilibrium. Some wolves aren’t strong enough to make it back from that.”

Dean kissed Cas’ knuckles again. He liked having Castiel’s hand in his. It felt like direct contact with his wolf, right there easy to get to when he wanted to pet its furry head. “Whether Victor pulls himself back up or not isn’t your responsibility, babe. He’s got to make his own way. Though if he does quit, then we have to contend with Bela.” Dean shot a meaningful look across the seat. “Watch out for that one, Castiel. She’s not evil like Alistair, but she’s cold and ambitious. I think she’ll hook her wagon to anyone who’ll help her get ahead. She wants a directorship. Wants it bad. I suspect she’s working with Victor because she thinks he’s weak and won’t last long. I’d advise that you don’t feed that beast unless you know how to put it down if it turns rabid.”

“And by the way,” Dean continued after a minute, “Gabe says your DF was all kinds of hot.”

“You filmed it!?”

“Yep. It might be making the rounds back home, purely offline of course. That is, offline except for the email I attached it to.” Dean’s proud smirk was too much. Castiel just shook his head.

“I can’t believe you sent it to my brother. I can’t believe he said it’s hot. That’s…That makes me somewhat uncomfortable, Dean.”

Dean laughed. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

They made it almost two hours into the trip before Dean needed to pee and walk the stiffness out of his legs and ass. Fucking Doms and their fucking wooden-handled hairbrushes. The brush was worse than the cane, if you asked Dean. It shouldn’t be, but it was.

Just south of the Texas-Oklahoma border, he spotted a state-run rest stop and signaled for the exit, nudging Castiel to let him know he should slip his shoes back on. Dean pulled in behind a line of cars and then found a space near the end of the long line of parked cars next to an old fashioned station wagon. Dean arched his back and stretched his arms over his head when he got out. Castiel did the same.

“You smell that? Somebody’s cooking something delicious. Damn, that smells good! They got picnic tables with grills out here somewhere, I guess?”

“Um, I don’t know. I don’t smell anything,” Castiel replied in a distracted voice. “I see maps. You go on ahead. I want to get a map of Oklahoma if they have one. I’ll catch up.”

Dean went on but turned and walked backward so he could shout a taunt back. “You’ve got maps on your phone, Cas. We don’t use paper anymore, you know?” Cas waved him on and continued searching the racks.

Dean couldn’t get over that smell. It was like every delicious meal he’d ever eaten all rolled together into one. It was getting stronger as he approached the large restroom complex. (We need to crash whatever party’s going on where they’re cooking that,) supplied Dean’s wolf. Dean agreed. He wanted in on it. Bad. But first he needed to empty his bladder. Dean spotted the men’s room but scanned further to see if there was an alpha/beta room as well.

Nope. Of course not. Fucking Texas.

Men’s room it is, then.

Dean rounded the corner and stopped abruptly. The odor he’d been drooling over didn’t get weaker as he approached the men’s restroom, it got exponentially stronger. And it wasn’t a food odor at all. It was…indescribable—delicious, sensual, enticing, sumptuous, and… fucking indescribable. Dean whined and gripped the wall. His cock hardened in his jeans. He could feel the red spreading in his eyes, and his fingertips went suddenly very cold. His breathing shallowed to a quick panting, and he wanted.

He took two steps forward into the men’s room, turning right to find a single long room with metal stalls down one side of the gray cinderblock structure and urinals and wash sinks down the other. Three or four men occupied the open space, but none of them… he scanned, none of them…were… where was he? Where was that smell coming…from? He found himself a couple of yards down the walkway when he spotted the black-haired man pressed against the far wall. Dean froze and stared at him. Shocked, wide green eyes looked back into his own. The man’s chest was heaving. He looked young, twenty-two maybe. He was dressed in baggy sweatpants and a hoodie, and he’d plastered himself against the back wall like his life depended on not moving.

Dean heard a strange sound echoing through the long room, a whine that oscillated in pitch and volume. It was a sound of desperation, and he looked to the man’s throat to see if it was coming from him. It wasn’t. His green eyes were turning a bright golden color even as Dean slowly approached, but his throat wasn’t moving. That sound? Dean froze again when he realized it was coming from his own throat.

Somebody near him spoke something in urgency. There was motion all about him that he couldn’t focus on. There was suddenly shouting that he didn’t understand, and the next thing Dean knew amongst the nearly panicked scurrying, he was standing only two feet in front of the black-haired, green/gold eyed man and breathing hard. His fingers twitched, flexed. Every muscle stood rigid and ready. He was ready. The younger man opened his mouth to speak but Dean didn’t wait to hear his voice. The sight of those lips opening sparked him, and he launched himself at the man and kissed him with teeth and growls and hardened lips, grabbing at the man’s shoulders to pull him in tight, trying to lower him to the ground so they could…

…So they could Mate.

Dean’s brain caught up to him, and he pulled back and growled, slamming a hand down on the back of the Omega’s neck to force him down onto his knees. The Omega had other ideas. He slammed the heel of his hand into Dean’s jaw, splitting Dean’s lip and sending his head flying back. He was thrown off-balance and fell back, holding onto the man’s hoodie by the shoulder and catching his descent.

Dean recovered quickly, rearing up and using his grip to gain purchase on his Omega’s shirt and shoulder. He slammed the man into the wall and roared a full-throttled alpha-voiced scream into the Omega’s pale face. He was met with a glancing knee to the groin. Only the movement of Dean’s leg as he shoved himself forward, catching the knee jerk and sending it off center saved him from crumpling to the ground in agony. The glancing blow sent his erection throbbing with want. Pre-come dripped into his pants. He roared again and grabbed a handful of black hair, wrenching it back and down to bare the Omega’s throat, slamming his mate’s head into the wall. Why? Why was his mate fighting him when they should be knotting already?! Betas fought Mating sometimes, the Dominant ones did, but this boy was Omega. Everything about the tussle felt wrong. Then a voice he knew well broke through the buzzing in Dean’s head.

“DEAN! KNEES! NOW!”

Dean released his hold and dropped to his knees without a thought.

“STAY DOWN!” Dean crumpled and whined in misery.

WHY!?

Castiel took Dean’s place in front of the Omega and lifted the younger man bodily from the wall. Turning away from Dean, he slammed the man to the ground on his back, knocking the wind out of him. The Omega clenched his eyes in pain and grunted the breath out of his lungs.

Castiel put a knee on the man’s chest, and then looked to Dean. “What’s the meaning of this?! Answer me, Dean! What the hell’s going on here?”

“He’s my mate, Alpha! Don’t hurt him. HE’S MY MATE!” Dean scrabbled to the man’s head and ran his hand through that soft black hair. He shoved Castiel’s knee, and Cas, staring in shock, removed it.

“Your mate?”

“GET OFF OF HIM!” A rush of motion and another scrabbling body announced the arrival of yet another wolf to interfere, but Dean wasn’t having it. He stood over his mate’s supine form and roared at the newcomer with all his might. The Omega, for his part wasn’t taking it lying down either. He was regaining his breath and attempting to stand, using Dean’s pants leg to crawl his way up.

It was a chaotic mess. Everyone shouting, everyone reaching, punches thrown, kicks landed, hair tangled into someone’s fist. Claw-marks that bled crimson. The would-be mates fought desperately to reach each other, but they drew blood every time they got close enough.

“ENOUGH!!” announced Castiel. The wolves froze. “Dean! KNEES! and STAY THERE!” Dean dropped again. He was bleeding from several places, but then so was the Omega. There was flesh under Dean’s fingernails.

“Is this your Omega?” Castiel asked the spare wolf. “Answer me!”

“Yes, he’s my son! What the hell are you doing to him?”

Castiel had the Omega in a headlock. Dean’s wolf didn’t like it at all, and he growled menacingly at his Alpha. He was answered with a roar from his Dom that snapped his jaw shut. “Help me!” Castiel directed at the mate’s father. “They’re mates. We need to get them out of here before they kill each other. Alpha, help me! Take your son! Can you hold him?”

“What? Mates? But they’re fighting! Why would they be fighting?” The Alpha took hold of his growling son with an arm across the chest and began to drag him out of the restroom. Castiel lifted Dean off the floor and carried him bridal style, pinning his arms to his sides. Dean didn’t fight him. They were moving in the same direction as his mate, so he was good with it for now.

Dean ignored the soothing noises coming from his Alpha and kept his eyes locked on the black head of the Omega in his father’s grasp in front of them. As they exited the restroom, he barely noticed the crowd of people pressing forward and the State Troopers keeping them in check. Dean didn’t care about any wolves but one, and he didn’t care about the Simians at all.

The older Alpha called to Castiel over his shoulder as they struggled down the path toward the parking lot, “I’m parked at the end. I can get him into the car, but I can’t keep him there!”

“I’ll follow you. We’re parked this way, too,” answered Castiel. “If I can get him inside the car, it should cut enough of the scent that I can talk him down!”

“Bring them over here!” hollered one of the cops, directing the two wolves toward a short line of State Troopers’ cars. Two more cop cars pulled into the lot as the group approached. Cas noticed the officer summoning them had ears that were slightly pointed. He was Pack. It was an unexpected gift, and Castiel took it.

The father wrestled his son into the back seat of one of the cars and slammed the door, ordering him to stay put with all the Alpha authority that he possessed. Castiel did the same with Dean in the car next to it. The police had followed at a distance, and they approached when both car doors closed. Castiel waved them to keep their distance.

“It’s not safe yet. We don’t know what they’ll do, but we need to get the cars’ engines going so they can have air conditioning. It’s too hot in there without it.” A couple of the Troopers moved forward and got the air going in each car. Dean was sprawled along the back seat with his head pulled up to the window, watching the vehicle beside his closely. He tensed when the engines both roared to life, but Cas spoke firmly through the open driver’s-side door. “We’re not leaving Dean. Your mate is fine. No one’s going to take him from you. You just need to hang on for a while until we figure this out. Can you do that for me, Dean?” Dean’s wolf whuffed at Castiel in response, and he began to kick off his shoes and pull his shirt over his head. Castiel wiped the sweat from his face, checked that Dean was secure, and turned to the other Alpha.

He extended his hand to the Alpha as he rounded the police cruiser’s bumper. “Castiel Novak. I think they’ve chosen a poor place to try to pull off a Mating, but I’ve seen worse.”

“Jerry Lancet. That didn’t look like any Mating I’ve ever seen. Those two were tearing each other apart.” There was a great thump from the backseat of the cruiser behind Alpha Lancet. Both Alphas roared at the young man in unison, and he stilled again. “That’s Michael, my son. You’re Doctor Novak? We’re on our way to an appointment with you right now. This is crazy.”

“Yes, Michael Lancet. We’re doing a Keller test and a psych Eval on him. You said Michael was having some unusual issues at college, correct?” The sound of Dean’s whining was getting loud enough to work its way out of the car. Castiel stilled him with a look. “Look, we don’t have much time here, and we can’t keep them in the cars for long. Long story short, I know that Dean is an alpha-Sub, and I suspect Michael may be a Dominant. I believe that what happened in there is that Michael’s Dom was reacting to Dean’s alpha, and the two just got onto the wrong wavelengths—thus the fighting. It’s the only explanation I can come up with off the top of my head.”

“That actually makes some sense. Michael’s hot-headed, although I’ve never seen anything like that outta him before. But…a Dominant? He’s Omega. There’s no such thing. Is there?”

“Dean called Michael his mate back in the restroom. I think we have to assume that that’s what they are. Do you have any objection to allowing them to Mate, assuming we can make it safer for them both?”

Michael was up against the glass again and beating on it. “OPEN THIS DOOR! THAT’S MY MATE, GODDAMNIT!”

“I don’t know! What if you’re wrong? What if they kill each other?”

“There’s a Lupin Resource center in Oklahoma City. It’s closer than heading back to Dallas. If we keep them in separate cars, but within sight of each other, we might be able to get them there. Here’s my cell number. We’ll keep a phone line open and on speaker so we can communicate the whole way, and they can both hear what’s going on. It’s the best I’ve got unless you want to just open the doors and let them scamper off into the bushes to knot and tie.”

“We’ll never make it to OKC with them in this condition.”

Castiel sighed. He looked at Dean who was rubbing his forehead back and forth across the glass, keeping his eyes downcast. His lips were moving. If Cas had to guess, he was soothing himself with Metallica. Castiel hated to do this, but he didn’t see any other way. He needed to keep Dean and Michael safe, and he needed resources. Cas waved the cops over. He made short work of explaining his plan and requesting their help. Within ten minutes, two Texas State Troopers were speeding north, their lights and sirens running, carrying four desperate Lupins to see what Oklahoma City had in store.

Chapter Text

NOW:

“Oh, Jesus!” shouted Dean.

The sound of Dean’s orgasm, followed by the smell, turned the Trooper’s eyes wide. He kept his car centered on the highway but focused his vision into the rearview mirror and the back seat.

“Oh, Jesus!” the officer mirrored, rolling down his window to capture some fresh air. “Is that really necessary? What the hell’s wrong with him?” The Winchester Pack had drawn the short straw and ended up with a Primate cop driving them north.

“He’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with him,” Castiel replied calmly glancing back at where Dean was sweating and panting, entirely nude and covered with his own release. “He’s just occupying his Submissive wolf right now. It’s the best place for him to ride this out.” Dean began cleaning his hand with his tongue, his eyes closed.

“What about the smell?! How’m I gonna get that smell out of my car?!”

Cas considered his options. He shouldn’t antagonize the guy. The Troopers were really going out of their way to help. Of course, the argument could be made that as protecting public safety was their job, and Lupins were part of the public, it was their responsibility to assist. But they could’ve just dropped the two wolves off in the closest jail cell and made them face their Mating there. Cas was grateful for the ride to a decent facility, even if it wasn’t one of his.

“Unfortunately, I’ve found the only way to get rid of a smell like that is to cover it with one that’s stronger. Be glad you don’t have a Canid’s sense of smell.”

The officer shot Cas an alarmed look, but Cas calmed him with a gesture. “Relax, I’m joking. The Caniforme Institute will pay the cleaning bill. We can get your car back to normal, I promise.” Turning his gaze back over the backrest of the cruiser, Castiel addressed Dean loudly. “How are you doing back there, Dean? Do you need some water?”

“Need to pee.” Dean had rolled into a ball on the bench seat, his back toward Castiel, his breathing still too shallow for Cas’ liking.

“Shit, he’s not gonna pee back there, is he? That’s not a thing y’all do, right? Marking stuff?”

“Uh, no. We don’t mark territories with urine. You’re thinking of Labrador Retrievers. Look, just pull over. We’ll give him a minute and see if Michael needs one, too. I don’t want them to lose sight of each other.” Cas directed the next into the cell phone on the seat beside him, “Alpha Lancet, did you hear that? We’re going to pull over and let Dean out for a second. You can do the same for Michael, but just don’t let them out at the same time.”

“Gotcha, Alpha. I hear you loud and clear.” Cas could hear the Lupin officer discuss it with Alpha Lancet quietly through the phone. It sounded to Cas like they were all ready for the stop.

“Dean, we’re stopping. I’m going to get out too and make a phone call, so you’ll lose the connection with Michael for a few minutes. But he’s going to be right behind us. You can see him, right there. He’s not going anywhere, okay?”

The Triggered wolves had begun the trip by calling out to each other through the open line, not caring at all that their obscene promises to knot and mate in all kinds of positions were making the Troopers extremely uncomfortable. Cas left them alone. Without face-to-face interaction between them, they abandoned the antagonism, letting the horniness take over. They needed an outlet, and it was a long drive. As the trip stretched on though, they had both retreated into their own heads, frustrated with their inability to find satisfaction with just their voices.

“Kay.”

Dean going monosyllabic wasn’t a good sign. Castiel was worried. The car pulled to a stop, and Cas checked that the other cruiser had matched its pace, pulling onto the wide shoulder well back in case either of them made a break for it. Having them in separate cars helped lengthen the time they could be suspended in this state as it eliminated their access to the mate-scent, but they couldn’t keep it up forever. The Omega, especially, was vulnerable to permanent psychological scarring if forced to wait too long once Triggered before being bitten.

Cas cracked his door open and stepped out into the crunchy grass and gravel. He picked up his own phone in one hand, still live with the car behind, and carried with him Dean’s phone which he’d been using to text Bobby and Benny in the other. He pressed the call button as the officer slowly opened Dean’s door and helped him out.

“Who did that to your ass, man!?” the cop held Dean by the arm to get a good look at the bruising, but Dean broke his grip with a cranky snarl and hobbled barefooted up to the nearest tree.

“Dean! Shoes would’ve been a good idea!” Cas hollered at him just as he heard Benny answer at the other end of the line. Dean flipped him off as his stream started up loudly.

“You people are crazy!” muttered the cop. “You know public urination is a ticketable offense, right?”

Cas ran a hand down his face and took a deep breath, praying for strength and patience. Benny heard his sigh. “Going that well, is it?”

“Please tell me you’ve worked out where we’re going and what to do next. I can’t get enough of a signal out here for anything but calls and text messages. Did you get hold of Gordon?”

“Hey Cas, it’s Bobby.” The call was clearly set on speaker between the two. “Look, I don’t think you wanna go to Gordon’s. Not for this. I don’t trust the guy farther than Charlie can throw him.”

“Hey!” echoed a protest from some distance away. Cas assumed they’d assembled an emergency team to pull Dean through this with his new mate. It made him feel warm and a little less alone.

“Plus,” Bobby continued as if there’d been no interruption, “I’m looking at some of the audit reports and inspections from down there, and it’s not good. Longterm we need to take action against him; looks like he’s running more of a trafficking program than training and support. But for right now, we’re just focused on getting Dean somewhere safe.”

Dean was making his way slowly back to the car. Great, thought Cas, now he’s limping. Cas met him halfway and guided him to the open car door, helping him sit and picking up one of his feet to check it. Cas found several sticker burrs that had attached themselves brutally to the bottom of Dean’s foot. He propped the phone between his cheek and shoulder and began to pull them carefully out. Dean lay backward across the seat and passively allowed the attention.

“Where would you suggest then, guys?” he asked the group. “We need somewhere that’s staffed by Lupins so we don’t scare the daylights out of everyone. Is there a Lupin hospital?”

“Keep heading on into OKC, Cas,” said Benny. “We’ve got a couple of good contacts there who might have a dungeon we can use. All you need’s a room with a bed and a lock, really. In fact, they probably don’t really need the bed if you think about it.”

“I’m not sending Dean to Mate in somebody’s basement, Benny! This is Dean! Find something suitable!”

“C’mon Alpha,” Benny protested. “Wolves do this all the time. You think every Mating happens with electrodes and heart monitors and Pelio-readings?”

Cas growled through the phone at him, finishing with Dean’s feet, and shoving him rather unceremoniously back into the car and closing the door. “You didn’t see them, Benny! They would’ve torn each other apart if we hadn’t broken them up. We can’t do this without the right support in place. A hospital would be better than a house, but what I wouldn’t give for a fully equipped processing room right now!” He sighed heavily again. As Dean’s Dom, it was Castiel’s responsibility to provide for his needs, and his inability to do so was tearing him up.

“Hold on a second, Benny,” said Castiel. He caught the officer’s eye. “Can you get him some water? And keep an eye on him. You don’t have to stay in the car if it makes you uncomfortable, but please don’t let him out.” The Trooper nodded, sensing Castiel’s level of frustration meant he’d have no patience for any push back. Cas picked his way across the space between cars and signaled that Michael could be let out.

The Canid Trooper opened Michael’s door and the wolf shot out, making a beeline toward the car that Dean was in. Cas growled and dropped both phones. He tackled the Omega as he tried to dart past and squashed him facedown into the prickly grass and hard-packed dirt. Lucky for Michael, he hadn’t stripped yet like Dean had done.

“Don’t even think about it,” Cas breathed into his ear as the Omega snarled and bit at his attacker. “I’m going to get back up and hand you to your Alpha. You’re going to walk to that tree right there, do you see it? You’re going to take a leak or jack yourself off or whatever you need to do, and then you’re getting right back into that car.” Cas started pulling him off the ground to hand him over. “You pull another stunt like that, and your wolf is going to get up close and personal with mine. You don’t want that, I promise you, Omega.”

“Sorry, Alpha,” said Michael’s father, taking his son by the arm and leading him away, the Omega whining pathetically.

Cas dusted himself off and picked his phones back up. He’d maintained both connections somehow. “Benny,” he huffed into Dean’s phone. “Just tell me, what the fuck we’re doing. Where am I going?”

“Okay, Alpha,” Ellen’s voice broke through. “I’m texting you the address of the county hospital about thirty miles north of where you are right now. Forget Oklahoma City. There’s nothing worth driving for there. This place has what you need. There’s a Lupin wing that has an H/R room that’s free. I’ve told them to hold it for you and to have some muscle on hand in case things go sideways.”

Cas watched as Michael finished up by the tree and then watched the Alpha place him into a presentation position with his hands braced against the bark and his ass out. Michael took about fifteen stinging swats from his Alpha before being frog-marched back to the car. Jerry’s face was grim and weary. He wasn’t going to be able to do this much longer either. Cas didn’t bother telling him that spanking would have no effect on a True-Mate Triggered Omega. It’d probably made the Alpha feel a little better though. That was something at least.

“All right, Ellen. Let’s do it. And, hey, before I rejoin all those listening ears, did you find any suggestions about how to approach this Mating without either of them losing an eye or a testicle?” Cas nodded to acknowledge Alpha Lancet as he walked up, still sweating and grim. He put the phone to speaker and held it in his palm as Ellen continued.

“Omega-Doms are extremely rare. There’s not much about them in the medical journals or our own research links. From what little I’ve found it looks like your best bet is to get Dean into a Submissive state and let the Omega direct the Mating. It’ll be a CF that’s Topped from the Bottom, but it should still form a viable bond. As long as the more submissive partner submits, it doesn’t matter whose penis is where. Question is, will Dean’s alpha be able to get out of the way?”

“Thanks Ellen. I can’t believe we never thought to prepare for this eventuality. We always knew Dean’s designations. I owe both of them a debt for this mess.”

Bobby’s voice came through the line. “Just bring those boys home safe, Cas. Don’t beat yourself up. None of us saw this coming, including Dean. There’s plenty of blame to go ‘round, and none of it’s going to help right now.”

“Thanks, Bobby. Thank you, everyone. We’re heading back out now.” Cas hung up and checked that the address had come through by text. He looked up at Alpha Lancet. “You heard?” The Alpha nodded. “Any reservations? Now’s the time to say so if you have them.”

“I can’t stand in the way of this.” The Alpha looked completely out of his depth. “I had no idea he might be a Dominant. Never even crossed my mind, but it makes sense. Everything. Doctor Novak, do you think they’ll be okay? Can they do this? Not just the Mating and Claiming, but from now on, bonded for life as an Omega-Dom and Alpha-Sub, can they do it?”

“Alpha Lancet, I know Dean very well. He and I are engaged to be married. You and Michael should both know that before we get to the hospital, although at this point nothing’s going to sway either of them from finishing it up if it kills them both. I have every intention of marrying Dean as planned despite his being Mated to your son. As Dean’s Pack Alpha and husband, I will accept Michael into my Pack, and I’ll be there to look after them both. I know it’s unusual, but I’m convinced it can work. If anything, having a larger support structure may help them build a more stable Mated relationship.

“So you understand, I will not interfere in the Mating-bond between them. The relationship they build is theirs to foster and grow as they see fit. It’s none of my business, and I mean that. Sir, your son could not have been granted a better man as alpha-mate. Dean is a wonderful, caring man, whom I expect will fulfill your son in every way.” Cas looked straight into his eyes to allow him to read Cas’ wolf. “What I’m trying to say is that you should allow this Mating, despite your trepidations and allow Dean and me to take responsibility for your son from here out. I swear to you we’ll take good care of him whatever specialized care he needs as an Omega and a Dominant.”

The Alpha stared at Castiel as if he’d grown a third head. “Married?! How the fuck am I going to explain this to Michael while he’s lost in his wolf and jacking off all over a Texas State Trooper’s back seat?! How the hell am I going to explain this to my mate? What’s his mother gonna say?” He looked at Castiel for another moment or two, but Cas had no advice for him. Eventually the Alpha blew out a breath, swore vehemently under his breath and spun on his heel to return to his own car. He twirled his finger in the air over his head in a Move ‘em out signal and shouted back, “Let’s get this show on the road! It can’t get any weirder than this!”

Cas realized as he returned to his seat that that’d been the strangest version of Alpha change of custody approval he’d ever witnessed. He wondered if it would stand up in court if the matter were ever pressed. He gave the patient Trooper the new address, and they headed out again. Thirty miles was doable. Thirty miles was nothing. Cas turned around and looked over the backrest.

“Dean!” Cas called back in the Alpha-Dom voice that Dean responded to unconsciously. “Do not touch your cock! The next time you come will be when you Mate your Omega. I need you to wait, Submissive. Michael needs you to wait for him.” Dean groaned and rolled back and forth. He drew his hands up beneath his chin and clutched his fingers into a tight knot. “Very good. Do you need me to bind you? Would it help?”

“No, I can do it. I’ll be good. Just hurry, Alpha. It hurts so bad!”

Castiel turned back to the officer. “Step on it, please.”

The group arrived at the county hospital in twenty minutes. It was a very long twenty minutes. Castiel and the Trooper had listened in agonized silence as Alpha Lancet tried to get through to Michael that his new True-Mate was already engaged to the Alpha from the restroom and had no plans to call off the wedding. Surreal didn’t even touch this experience for Castiel. For the moment at least though, Michael didn’t care.

There was a cluster of white-uniformed employees at the emergency bay, so the officer pulled up there. “Thank you, sir. I will be contacting your department head to commend you for your outstanding public service, but I won’t keep you now. I know you need to get back to Texas.” Cas jumped out and shooed the orderlies out of the way. He was pleased to see mostly Lupin staff on hand. He pulled Dean out by his arm and slung an arm under his to support him on the way in.

“This way, Alpha,” said an assertive beta nurse. Cas appreciated her efficiency. He needed to get Dean out of the hallway before Michael came through. She led them to a small surgery prep room with a lockable door. Cas deposited Dean on the gurney in the middle of the room and then stooped down to look at his eyes. Dean sat slumped over, too still and too compliant. He didn’t look present at all. Cas snapped his fingers in his face, and Dean’s alpha-red eyes locked on Cas’ blue ones.

“Hang in there, Dean. We’re just about ready. We’re getting your mate all prepped for you. Then you can knot him. Are you ready, my friend?” Dean’s eyes cleared a little more as Castiel spoke to him. The nurse placed electrodes on his chest and took some quick readings.

“Wanted it t’be you, Cas,” slurred Dean, but Cas shushed him. That wasn’t a good place for his mind to go right now.

“Michael is beautiful, Dean. He’s tall and strong, with green eyes, just like yours. You’ll have the most beautiful pups together. Close your eyes, my love. Picture his face. He’s all for you, and he’s perfect for you. He’s going to make you so happy.”

“So happy,” murmured Dean in a drunken whisper. The nurse cleaned Dean’s wounds with antiseptic and bandaged them quickly. She seemed to be stalling, waiting for a signal that Michael was ready. Castiel’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Ellen, so he answered and put it to his ear, moving away from Dean.

“I’ve got the hospital tied in on another line. We’re going to do this remotely, okay, Alpha?” Cas hummed an answer. He waited for her to continue. This was Ellen’s specialty, and he knew when to follow her instructions.

“They say Michael’s already prepped. Apparently, he did it himself on the drive up. Cas, I want you to stage Dean as if he were the Bottom, just like we do when alpha-Subs Mate beta-Doms. It’s no different except I think you should give him a solid spanking first. Mating is a Secondary designation process, but we don’t know enough about Omega-Doms to be sure how to shift Michael into his Omega. He’s a wildcard, and it’s too dangerous to risk it. Dean is easier. He needs to be in his Sub mind when Michael enters the room. Once Michael takes him in hand, we don’t expect there to be any other snags, but we’ve already seen that his alpha wants to jump up and confront the challenge at the very beginning. We can’t let that happen, so we have to get him past that initial point of confrontation. Do you understand? Do you agree?”

“Yes, Ellen. Good idea. Would you suggest I set up a scene, or just take a go at him?” Cas was too nervous to think clearly.

“I have no idea, Alpha. Truth is, you know the answer to that better than anyone. We just need to get him thinking submissively. Okay, we’re into the closed circuit feed now, thanks to Charlie. Whenever you’re ready, go ahead and get him into the H/R room. We’re tied in to the instrument readings, and we’ll be able to see everything and communicate if we need to through the nursing staff there.”

“Thanks, Ellen. We’re moving through now. I’ll talk to you after it’s all done. Wish us luck!” He hung up and put the phone in his pocket. The nurse had Dean on his belly and was spreading an arnica ointment onto Dean’s backside and thighs. “Let’s go, we’re up first,” he told her.

Another nurse was guarding the door, and he fell in with them as they exited, leading the way down the hall to the Heat/Rut room, opening the door and ushering them through. Dean made a beeline for the bed, looking around for his mate and looking very disappointed and confused.

Castiel assumed an Alpha-Dom stance and made his voice very firm. “He’s not here just yet Dean. He’s coming soon, and when he does, you’re to follow his instructions, do you understand me, Submissive?”

“Cas…” Dean whined. Castiel placed his hand on the back of Dean’s neck as he would an Omega and squeezed firmly. He leaned down to hear a nurse’s whispered notification that everything was ready as soon as Dean was. She told him to take his time and then exit through the far door. He nodded and refocused on Dean. His love. His fiancé. Dean trusted him with his Submissive wolf, trusted him with his heart. Dean needed him strong. They could do this. Cas knew all hell was likely to break loose when Michael realized the kind of pack he was joining, but right now Castiel needed to focus on Dean. His eyes were drawn to the bandages which proved Michael could beat the crap out of an alpha if he felt motivated enough. Cas felt the full weight of responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen again, at least, not until Dean wanted it to. That was for later, though. Focus, Castiel; don’t fuck this up for him.

“I said, do you understand me, Submissive?” Cas used his voice to show no quarter. Dean nodded, his red eyes wet with unshed tears. “Good. Now there’s just the matter that’s yet to be settled between you and me, and then your mate will Claim you.” Cas took it as a good sign that Dean didn’t protest who was meant to Claim whom.

“You behaved atrociously at the rest stop, and I won’t have it, Dean!” Cas could hear the uncertainty in his own voice. Fighting in public wasn’t something he would normally be expected to call an alpha down for, but it’s all he could come up with on the fly. Focus, Cas! “You’re getting a spanking for this, Submissive, right now!” Cas sat on the edge of the bed and tugged Dean’s wrist, trusting his Sub’s conditioning to kick in and take him there. He didn’t seem to have far to go. His eyes were nearly overflowing, but Cas couldn’t tell whether that was just the stress of waiting or not, and he couldn’t take the chance. Dean stumbled toward his Dom’s lap and fell over it clumsily with a pitiful sob.

Dean’s backside was still too swollen and bruised to really spank. Cas wouldn’t have considered it under normal circumstances. He ran his hand over Dean’s abused flesh. “Don’t keep count, Sub. I just want you to feel this spanking and think about how sorry you are for disappointing your Dominant.”

He lifted his hand and brought it down with a smack! upon Dean’s purple ass. It wasn’t hard, no harder than he would spank an eight-year-old pup, but Dean flinched and shouted out. He repeated the action at the same strength several more times, listening to Dean’s breathing and the gruffness of his shouts. His Sub writhed on his lap and too quickly began to cry in earnest,  much sooner than he normally would’ve done. Castiel took it as confirmation that the drive up had served Dean well. So much waiting with his consciousness within the realm of his wolf had already done most of Cas’ job for him, and the light spanking took him the rest of the way. Dean cried and apologized, promising his Dom never to let it happen again. He sounded genuine to Cas.

Castiel stood him up and held him by his hips, looking deeply into Dean’s tortured eyes. (Please forgive us, beautiful Sub), sobbed Castiel’s wolf. (Get a grip on yourself!) Cas told him mercilessly. Dean couldn’t be allowed to see a chink in his armor right now. If memory served, from what Cas had experienced, Dean wouldn’t remember this part anyway, not once the Mating-bond formed.

“Dean.” He made his voice cold steel and his Sub responded by sucking in a quick breath and locking his eyes on his Dom as he’d been taught to do. “I expect you to obey your mate, Michael. If you ever attack him again like that, you’ll get far worse than a spanking, from both of us, do I make myself clear?”

“Yessir.”

It was Dean’s small voice, the one he used only after a particularly successful chastisement. Castiel pronounced him ready. He prayed he was ready.

Castiel wasted no more time. He stood and pointed to the bed. “You wait right there, and don’t you move until Michael tells you to!” Dean scurried into position, lying flat on his back and casting pathetically sad eyes at Castiel as he turned and walked out through the door.

Cas pressed his back against the door of the small control room, dropped his head into his hands and wept, shaking. That was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life, harder than calling out his own mother on national television, harder than allowing underhanded deals with Congress to lubricate the way through a corrupt system. He loved Dean so much and this, more than anything he’d ever been part of, could cause him to lose Dean forever. Mates had that power, and Michael could turn out to be ruthless in his possession of Dean. Castiel sobbed into his hands, letting his legs give way and settling against the floor. Someone laid a blanket across his shoulders and sat close in beside him, lending the support of a strong body.

“He’s ready. Let the Omega in, now,” one of the attendants said through a microphone. Cas looked up through blurry eyes and watched the closed-circuit feed. He couldn’t look away. He needed to know that Dean was safe.

An arm went around his shoulders, and a soft voice murmured in his ear. “We’ve got him, Castiel. He’s going to be fine. We’ve got alphas staged at both doors ready to pull them apart if it gets violent again.” Castiel recognized her voice. He turned and found it was Anna leaning into him, holding him close and speaking comfort.

Anna.

He hadn’t seen her since she’d graduated from the Omega-Sub training program’s very first class and entered nursing school, Cas’ recommendation paving the way despite her gender.

“Anna!” he breathed, hugging her tightly.

“Let’s watch! We haven’t had a Mating here in months. This is exciting. I’ve never seen an AS/OD Mating before. That was brilliant to prep him with punishment. Look!”

But he was already watching mesmerized.

Dean felt horrible. He’d fucked it all up. Again. Like always. All he had to do was obey his Dom, and he couldn’t even do that right. There was a pesky part of his brain that wanted to break in and say he hadn’t been issued an order, and there had been no disobedience, but Dean didn’t give it a chance to voice. There must’ve been an order. He’d just forgotten. Maybe a Rule that he’d broken. Castiel had never punished him without reason. He wouldn’t, so it had to be Dean’s fault.

Dean’s attention was drawn by movement. He saw the door open, and his mate stepped in.

Michael.

It was a strong name for an angelic visage. He was beautiful. His body was young and sculpted. Dean’s cock, hard and leaking as it had been for hours, twitched. Michael stood at the doorway, his head tucked low, but his eyes hard and cold on Dean’s face. Golden-rimmed eyes.

Omega.

Mate.

Dean was overwhelmed. He wanted to go to his Omega and Claim him. He wanted to drive him into the ground on his knees and mount him fiercely, but Castiel ordered him to stay and wait. Ordered him to obey. Why was Michael waiting? Didn’t he want Dean? He’d fought Dean off in that long concrete room. Maybe he didn’t want Dean for his mate. Maybe Dean had fucked this up too. He writhed in misery and cried out a long, agonized whine of impatience from low in his throat.

Michael’s eyes widened in surprise. At the sound from his mate, he broke away from the door as if it burned him and stepped quickly to where Dean lay moaning. Michael looked alarmed, and he shushed Dean, climbing on the bed and straddling his thighs.

“Shhh-shh. It’s okay, little alpha. I’ve got you. Shhh. Are you going to be good for me this time? I don’t want to have to strike you again. That wasn’t fun for me, either.” Michael’s voice was soft and soothing. Dean nodded rapidly and mumbled promises to behave. “Good, good alpha. My good boy. Are you ready? I’m going to talk you through this real slow. You just listen to my voice and do exactly as I say.”

Michael’s movements were so slow and measured, Castiel was transfixed. Could you actually close a Mating-bond like this? He moved to stand beside Anna behind the Head nurse’s chair. When she noticed him, she stood and directed him to the chair. He accepted it in a trance-like fog, unable to tear his eyes from the screen. Michael was a revelation.

Michael leaned down over Dean’s face and wiped the tears carefully from his face with his thumbs. “Open,” he told Dean in a whisper. Dean took Michael’s thumbs into his mouth and sucked his own sorrow from them, keeping his eyes on his mate’s. Neither man blinked. They both moved in slow-motion, as if underwater. Michael smiled at Dean as he removed his thumbs and stroked them through Dean’s hair. “Keep your incredible red alpha eyes on me, baby. Just listen to my voice. I’ve got you. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. Not ever. You can trust me. You’re so beautiful. My mate, my mate,” he whispered and ran his hands in a line down Dean’s throat and across his chest. The effort not to buck up into his touch was clear on Dean’s face, but he was conditioned well—a perfectly trained Submissive. “My good boy,” praised Michael letting his hungry eyes and hands explore his new mate.

Michael tweaked a nipple lightly and then slapped Dean hard on the thigh when he closed his eyes in pleasure. Dean’s eyes sprang open again. His cock dripped another drop of pre-come onto his belly. Dean could feel Michael’s slick gathering in the valley where his own thighs were pressed together by Michael’s. “Keep your eyes open and on me. You ready, Dean?”

“Yes, Michael, ‘M ready,” Dean whispered, but he made no move. He waited for instruction, for permission. He could be good. Oh, please let him be good enough. His mate smiled down at him.

“I’m going to ride you now, baby. I want you to match my pace with your hips. Can you do that?”

Oh, hell yes, he could do that.

“Yes, Michael.” Dean spoke louder this time. The waiting and control were killing him. Michael lifted himself and placed his hole directly over Dean’s cock. He paused in place, poised and just barely touching the tip of Dean’s wet cock with his ass, holding Dean’s eye, testing him. A small stream of slick tickled as it ran the length of Dean’s erect cock. Dean didn’t move, didn’t blink, struggled to keep breathing. He could be good. He could. A drop of sweat ran down Dean’s face from his forehead. He was trembling with the effort of waiting.

“Very good, my alpha,” breathed Michael. “You’re being so good for me.” He began lowering himself slowly onto Dean’s cock. It wasn’t a perfect alignment. A lesser Sub would’ve shifted his hips or even reached to correct the angle with his hand, but Dean kept still, kept his eyes on his Dom. His Dom. My Dom, he thought. Be good for my Dom, for my mate. Be good.

He gasped as his cock caught painfully on the edge of his mate’s rim, then righted with a twist of Michael’s hips and slipped into his channel. Dean curled his toes, the only outlet he had except for his voice. He moaned obscenely and surrendered, letting the wolf inside him hold the Omega-Dom’s eyes. It was too much for Dean. He was utterly overwhelmed, so he let go, let go of everything, let his wolf own this moment, trusted his wolf to make it right for them both.

Michael knew. Michael knew the instant Dean submitted to him completely, turning himself over to his wolf. Michael knew the wolf. They were True-Mates. Michael felt he knew Dean’s wolf like he knew his own, and he directed the lean gray beast with just his eyes and his hips, riding Dean’s cock in sensual rocking circles. Dean’s hips moved on their own as Michael moved over them—his cock the physical manifestation of the link that was forming between them.

Michael picked up the pace, bracing himself with his arms on Dean’s shoulders and never breaking the eye contact that tied one wolf to the other. Dean groaned in pleasure and torture, picking up the pace of just his hips as his Dom had instructed. Michael smiled.

“Now move, baby. I want you to move. I release you. Fuck me hard. Show me what my alpha can do!” Dean didn’t need to be told twice. The alpha wolf flipped his Omega onto his back and covered him with his body, driving into him again and again with a roar of pent-up passion. He gathered the Dom’s hands in his own and held them fast to the bed over Michael’s head, fucking into him powerfully.

Michael threw his head back and screamed in pleasure and abandon. “FUCK ME! HARDER! C’MON ALPHA! OH, FUCK YEAH! FUCK DEAN!!!” He wrapped his legs around Dean’s waist and tried to hold on as the alpha released the hours and hours of frustration through his pelvis. Michael’s head butted up against the metal bars of the institutional bed as Dean fucked him, but neither of them cared. Michael used Dean’s grip on his hands to transfer them to the bars and they held tight, a tangle of fingers all white-knuckled together.

Dean’s orgasm was building. He wasn’t going to last long after waiting for hours. He drove into his mate brutally hard and forced his knot past Michael’s tight rim again and again, pounding into him. “BITE ME, ALPHA!” screamed Michael as he came untouched between their stomachs. Dean didn’t even try to aim. His wolf was in charge for the moment, and the wolf didn’t care where the bite-scar landed. He bit down hard into the meaty flesh of Michael’s left shoulder where it flattened out, well clear of his neck. His knot popped past Michael’s rim one last time and stuck fast. Dean’s wolf continued to grind mercilessly away until he came with a moan that he ground out around his teeth. Their Mating-bond pierced through the last of the barriers between the two men as it wrapped them together in a cocoon of tight warmth and burrowed into their bodies. Dean’s hips undulated in time with his voice, using his grip on the bars to rock their two bodies up and back, letting the aftershocks roll through both of them as one.

The alpha and the Omega stilled together. Castiel watched them, wondering if Michael had somehow directed that too. Could he speak to Dean through the Mating-bond? After what he’d just witnessed, Castiel wasn’t sure Michael didn’t possess some kind of angelic power over Dean. He watched through the feed as Dean released his grip on his mate’s shoulder and pass his tongue over it three, four, five times before stilling again and laying his head on his mate’s broad chest.

Castiel sagged in the chair. He felt his perfect life slipping away, and for the first time felt more than just a little empathy for what Dean must’ve gone through when Cas met April. Watching another Dominant take his Sub, his beloved, and knowing things would never be the same had been devastating to watch. Castiel’s wolf was beside himself. Cas didn’t try to soothe him though. Now was not the time for Castiel’s comfort. It was for Dean. Cas excused himself from the room and felt his phone buzz in his pocket before he’d even made it out the door, reminding him that the closed circuit feed had been patched through to Kansas. They’d all seen it.

He let it ring and left the building. It was dark out now. Cas found a bench next to a small pond just outside the main entrance, and he sat, his elbows resting on his knees. He just sat.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“Coming up right after the break: Doctors Castiel Novak and Dean Winchester from the American Caniforme Research Institute are here to discuss the rape and assault charges against Monica Reye. We’ll be right back.” The director motioned that they’d cut the live feed, and the AD ushered Dean and Cas into the tall, straight-backed chairs.

“Hey, guys!” Kaitlyn gushed. “I’m glad you could make it. We’re grateful you flew out to speak with us today. I think this is a very important case for our times, and I know you do, too. I expect you’re eager to get your message out to the public.”

Castiel shook her hand and nodded, “Yes, we are. The decision in this case could mark a turning point for the status of Lupins in America—for good or for ill.”

“I’ll be asking you fairly straightforward questions about your views on the case, and if you’re okay with it, we’ll just go from there. I want to warn you I plan to play devil’s advocate, maybe run it a little bit confrontational. I think it would be helpful to give you a chance to address the concerns that we monkeys are apparently having with this case head-on. You know I’m an advocate for your cause, and I always will be, so don’t be thrown if get a little feisty on you here. You understand, it’s only so we can draw you out quickly.”

“Let’s do it,” chimed Dean as a technical assistant fixed his mic.

In no time, they were coming off the commercial break. “Kaitlyn in the Morning” theme music piped in and then faded. “Welcome back! And a warm welcome, as always, to my favorite guests, Doctor Castiel Novak and Doctor Dean Winchester of the American Caniforme Research Institute. Thanks for coming fellas!” She really was much too chipper for this early in the morning. It was unnatural.

Dean addressed her with a flirty wink, “We’re only your favorite because we always talk about sex when we’re on your show.”

“That’s true!” she laughed. “But today’s topic is pretty serious, and I want to get right to it. There’s a new amateur video circulating on YouTube and other sites showing California native, alpha Monica Reye of Sacramento. It’s gone viral this week, and it has led to her arrest. She’s being charged with rape and assault of her own mate, Omega Benjamin Reye. A warning to sensitive viewers, we’re about to show the video in its entirety, and it is extremely graphic, so please use your discretion.” She paused for a polite moment to allow those more sensitive viewers to call their whole families into the room to watch as well. The video feed cued up. “As the video starts, you’re seeing here, apparently, Monica Reye in a foot chase with her mate Benjamin down Beamon avenue. The eyewitness is filming with his cellphone. He follows the pair into Nigel Park where, right here, Monica tackles her mate violently, and forces him to the ground. He appears to be struggling quite strongly but isn’t able to break away. She’s going to pull—or actually tear—his pants and underwear off of him, and then proceed to have forceful intercourse with him, obviously against his will.

“Gentlemen, I know you’ve seen this video. It’s really quite disturbing to a lot of viewers. Senator Nilsson’s office has issued a statement condemning the alpha woman’s actions in the strongest terms. I understand that Mr. and Mrs. Reye are Lupins, and I just have to ask, what do you make of this?” She stopped and looked expectantly at Dean and Castiel.

“Holy **BLEEP** that was HOT!” shot Dean, fanning himself dramatically.

“You can’t be serious!” Kaitlynn was *shocked*. “Hot?! How is this not a clear-cut case of spousal rape?! Look at him struggle!”

Castiel leaned forward and spoke directly to her in his calm, clear, professor’s voice. “Kaitlynn, what Dean is trying to communicate, in his sophomoric way, is that for Lupin mates, this behavior, that Simians find so disturbing, is really a perfectly healthy display of loving Mated affection.” He pressed on, over her obvious attempt to interrupt, “I have to start by mentioning that YouTube is already rife with videos very similar to this one and there appears to be no outcry over those. The only evident difference about this one is that what we have here is an alpha woman apparently assaulting her Omega male mate. I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to suggest that it’s really more an issue of misogynistic bias at play as to why alpha Reye has garnered so much attention, and the hundreds of others where the male wolf plays the aggressor, haven’t.”

“Further,” he continued. “When I watch this video, I’m as aware as you are that it could be an act of illegal, unconscionable assault, and so I’m watching for certain tell-tale signs from both participants to indicate one way or the other. In this case, I can tell that it’s a consensual act in a couple of ways: One, the Omega’s got slick staining the crotch and back of his pants, a stain that is actively growing from the start of the video to the point where he is divested of his clothing. That doesn’t happen if the Omega isn’t aroused. Assault is not arousing to Omegas. Two, in what appears to be a violent and ruthless act of throwing the Omega to the ground, what you’ll notice if you look carefully, is that the alpha’s arm swings up at just the right moment to take the brunt of the impact for her Omega’s fall. She’s protecting him from injury, and you’ll note from the police reports released today, that while alpha Reye’s arm was quite scraped up, Benjamin has no injuries whatsoever.

“And third,” Castiel held up a finger to forestall her, and Kaitlynn snapped her mouth shut as Dean smirked. Everyone responded to Cas like that, even Primates. “Benjamin may be writhing, but he clearly places his body, voluntarily, into the classic Omega presentation position. His backside is angled outward to provide his alpha full access to his channel, and his back is bowed downward. An Omega who wasn’t receptive would never take such a pose as this. It is catnip to an alpha, clear and unequivocal invitation. And I have to say, I agree with Dean—it is pretty hot.”

Kaitlynn smiled discreetly and nodded toward Dean to prompt a chance to add his two cents. “We don’t encourage pack Dominance games—and that’s what this is, just a Dominance game between loving mates—we don’t encourage wolves to play these games in public places,” Dean clarified, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen. “For one, because the Primate population isn’t accustomed to them. Many apes find them disturbing, and we don’t want to see anyone arrested unjustly. But even more so because Primate children can be badly scarred by witnessing this kind of an act. There’s a time and place for everything, and it’s critical that we protect each other’s pups. We’re all one big human Pack, after all. I’m really not worried about the Simian adults; they can grow up and get over it. We have sex, they have sex, nearly everyone has sex. Adults have sex. Let’s stop pretending we don’t. But Primate children aren’t wired the same as Lupin pups. This is completely inappropriate and unacceptable behavior to display in a park where children who are not wired for witnessing sex between their Pack adults might be forced to see it. They could charge her with public indecency or lewdness, but not assault, and definitely not rape.”

“So, your only concern about this is that there might be children present? What about Benjamin?”

“Well, it looks to me like Benjamin’s wolf is getting a pretty thorough stroking right there,” Dean responded lustily his eyes on the screen which was playing the video in a loop. “And I’d like to point out that Benjamin is not the one pressing charges. His Omega status makes him a juvenile in the eyes of the law, giving the state the right to act on his behalf. The same state that expects him to behave like an adult, classifies him as a child so they can step in where they aren’t needed.” Dean switched effortlessly into activist mode, his disgust at the way the system’s double standard hit Omegas from two directions driving him to lean in and drive the point home.

Kaitlyn switched topics smoothly. “Okay, just humor me here, I’m changing topics a bit. I want to clarify for myself and my viewers—I have to ask—I’ve heard you say that about wolves several times in the past. Can you help me understand? Benjamin’s wolf, the one that’s getting a stroking? Is it metaphorical, or is there a substantive other personality within him that you’re referring to when you say that?”

“It’s both,” Dean explained. He slipped unconsciously from his fierce tone and into the persona he’d used in grad school when he taught undergraduate freshmen, how he spoke to his classes at The Facility. “For Canids, unlike Simians, the disparate parts of a person’s psyche are very close to the surface. We can’t just shove our emotions and less-than-conscious selves under wraps. We have to deal with them every day in a very real and present way because all three parts make active decisions for us all the time. Sometimes our higher brain function is in play, and sometimes we have to act from a deeper part of our psyche. It helps us to be conscious of the different aspects of our own selves. One way we’ve found to help us gain access to the instinctive side of ourselves, the Id, I guess, if you want to think in Freudian terms, is to imagine it as a beast inside us that we can interact with, even speak to and listen to, learn to visualize. That’s the part we call The Wolf. We now understand it as powerful enough to consider it another aspect of the self, and we call it the Tertiary Gender. Every Lupin has one.

“We teach pups from a very young age to begin to imagine themselves as some form of quadruped Canid species. We bring in hundreds of pictures of wolves, and foxes, jackals, coyotes, even domestic dogs and dingoes, and get them combing through the images to find just the right one that feels to each child like a visual representation of who that pup is inside.”

Dean paused to see if the talk show host wanted to add a clarifying question, but she signaled for him to continue. “Of course, they all want to be the Big Bad wolf!” He laughed. Castiel chuckled. “Over time though, they hone the image in their heads until it really suits them, and they practice seeing and interacting with just that image. Practice and a good likeness make us really good at it, until over the years, it becomes almost so real we forget it’s not. It’s a way of looking directly into our deepest needs and wants and can be a very powerful tool. If you’re not honest with yourself about who you are—who your wolf is—the wolf won’t be able to speak to you, so it’s important to be realistic.” Dean nudged Cas hard enough to make him correct his balance on the tall chair. “Not all of us are the Big Bad wolf like Cas here.”

Kaitlynn laughed with him.

“When we talk about getting our wolves stroked, we mean that we are accessing those deep desires and giving in to whatever the desire is. It feels very, very good to be able to partake in whatever pleasures are most instinctive for us, and it’s a necessary part of staying mentally healthy. My wolf, for instance, really loves dominant, well-hung male alphas who **bleep** the **bleep** outta me. It’s a thing with him, and I see no reason to deny him what he wants.” Dean’s flirtatious demeanor was back.

“Well, can you tell me what your wolf looks like then, Dean?” Her face had flushed a bit. The two Lupins looked at each other uneasily, then Castiel explained.

“There’s no way you could know this, but that’s an extraordinarily personal and uncomfortably presumptuous question. A Lupin wouldn’t dream of asking another wolf that.”

Dean broke in to clarify, “It would be like if I asked you what your areolas look like.” She gasped and sat back, crossing her arms over her chest protectively, and Dean grinned. “Exactly! So, we don’t talk about it like that. Casual relations would never ask, and our most intimate relations wouldn’t need to ask because they will have seen our wolves for themselves, ya know? Like your husband probably already knows what your…” Dean gestured toward her, and then stopped talking with a fierce blush, pretending not to see the stern look laced with dark promise that Castiel shot him.

Filters, Dean. Get some filters.

“Back to Benjamin Reye. What you’re saying is that being chased and taken forcefully by his mate in public is a need for him, for his wolf? That this is a normal interaction between the two Lupins?”

Castiel answered. “Absolutely. And I would go further and say that the alpha’s getting as much out of this experience as the Omega. For a Dominant alpha, the chase and capture of a mate is incredibly satisfying.” Cas eyed the footage still repeating on the screen.

“Pssshh!” Dean snorted playfully. “Down boy!”

NOW:

“What the fuck was that?!” Meg threw out. “There’s no way that worked.”

“They’re gonna have to do it again. That was no Claim-Fuck, it was just a D/S scene. All he did was Dom him. And Dean didn’t Top at all. They’re gonna have to do it again.” Sam repeated, staring into the screen with a critical eye. Dean looked very relaxed, but there was no way. Mating did not work like that. They had the Submissive side of it covered, thanks to Dean, but there’d been no real aggression or possessiveness from either of them. Mating did not work like that; it had to be a Claim. Always. If the Top didn’t take ownership, the Mating-bond would fail to spark.

Everyone had expected Dean’s alpha to flip the script as soon as an initial nonviolent connection was made, to take ownership of his Omega. The Submissive ploy had only been to open the door, allowing the two of them safe passage into one another’s orbits.

But then Dean rolled, and Michael gently, if passionately, led, and what the ever-loving-fuck were they supposed to do now but reset and start over?

“You think maybe Michael did it on purpose to rub Alpha’s nose in it, force him to have to watch it all twice?” Garth asked.

“Guys!” Charlie interrupted, her eyes on Ellen, not the screen. Ellen’s face was inches from her monitor, her hand was up and out toward them all in a shushing gesture, and her lips were still in an O like she’d finished speaking but then got distracted before re-setting her face. Her brow was pulled low in concentration.

“What is it, Ellen?” asked Bobby, moving to stand behind her.

“It’s…their eyes. It’s hard to be sure because of the black-and-white feed, but I think their eyes are retracted back to normal. And look, I believe…yes, Dean’s body-mirroring. Watch their hands.” She pointed. Bobby checked for himself. The two wolves on the screen talked softly with each other as they worked to find a comfortable post-coital position to wait out Dean’s knot. Michael gestured as he spoke, flexing his left hand expressively, and Bobby saw Dean’s fingers twitch in response. The fingers of his left hand.

“I’ll be damned,” Bobby breathed. “It can’t be.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that. You can’t Mate with a D/S scene,” Benny reaffirmed, meeting Meg’s eye and then Bobby’s. “Can you? Not one like that…” Bobby shrugged and turned back to the screen.

“Kinda looks like you can under the right conditions,” Ellen supplied. “We need readings.”

“Hello? Oklahoma?” Bobby spoke into the conference phone on the table. “Ellen, what’s her name again?”

“Cheryl. Head nurse’s name is Cheryl.”

“How ‘boutcha, Cheryl? You still there?”

“I’m here. Go ahead.”

“You guys planning on getting in there to take some Pelio-readings for us some time this century?”

“You want us to do it now? We usually wait until the couple falls asleep, so no one gets bit. I ain’t putting one of my nurses at risk.”

“No, we’ve only got about fifteen or twenty minutes—tops—before the bond stops effervescing and burrows down deep. After that, all your readings are gonna be muddy. I need you to get them now. Do you have somebody powerful?”

“No, belay that!” Charlie broke in. She looked at Bobby apologetically but didn’t back down. “We tried it your way last time,” she reminded him, then turned and spoke into the phone. “Cheryl, do you have a beta-Sub on staff?”

“We’ve got an Omega-Sub. Will she work? Will she be safe in there?”

“Even better! Yeah, she’ll be fine. An Omega-Sub is no threat at all. They’ll barely notice she’s there, plus they’re still tied. Just tell her not to make eye contact and don’t speak unless she has to. Dean’s familiar with this part. He’s done this hundreds of times during CFs”

A familiar voice came through over the speaker, and most of the wolves in the Kansas Control room perked up. “Charlie, it’s Anna. Remember me?”

“Anna!” It came from all directions in stereo, but only Charlie continued on, “Wow, Omega! Is that really you?”

“Yep. I’m a nurse now. I’m so excited Dean came here for his Mating. That was amazing!”

“I know, right? Anna, we need to get the peliomometer readings right away. Can you do that for us? If you don’t have one, just use Castiel’s. He keeps one on him all the time. You there, Cap’n?”

“Uh, no. Alpha stepped out for a minute. I think he needed a few moments to himself,” said Anna.

The Lawrence Kansas group exchanged charged looks. “He’s not answering his cell phone,” Pamela told them all softly.

“Okay, never mind. Anna, do you have a meter?” Meg asked her, taking over from Charlie.

“Hi, Meg! I thought that was you. Yes, ma’am. I have one. I’ll get the readings right now.”

“Do you need me to talk you through it?” Meg checked.

“No. I’ve got it. Just give me a few…” She trailed off as she pushed through the door. The alpha guard stepped in with her, but Anna shooed her back out again.

Anna approached the murmuring couple with her head lowered. She held the meter out and watched its face to make sure it was picking up a solid reading. The naked wolves on the bed ignored her as she made the first pass from their feet toward their groins, still locked tightly together.

“Anna?” Dean exclaimed. “Holy shit! What are you doing here? What, you work here? As a nurse?” She nodded shyly at him and blushed. Anna’s crush on Dean had never abated. She found herself just as thrown by his masculine beauty and presence nearly five years later as she’d always been in class. Sex with Dean during her training class had been the hottest she’d ever experienced, even up to now, years on, and after she’d Mated to a wonderful alpha.

Michael broke in with a growl that pulled Anna back to the present and made her step back. “Michael, shut it!” Dean commanded, all alpha. “She’s a friend and one of my ex-students. She’s not trying to steal me away. Besides, she’s Mated already. Can’t you smell?”

Michael huffed without trying to scent the Omega, but at least he stopped growling. Dean rolled his eyes but gestured kindly to the nurse to continue her work. She smiled at him and finished the readings quickly, then she prepared a tray for them with washcloths, warm water and soap, bottles of water and cereal bars. She left the tray on the small table beside the bed before exiting back the way she’d come in.

Dean winked at her as she slipped back through the door, and she blushed anew.

Castiel sat still. Occasionally his phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it. A pair of white nurse’s shoes appeared on the ground in front of him, and he looked up. Anna stood before him with two steaming mugs held together in one hand by their handles, and a manila folder in the other. Castiel accepted a mug of tea from her, taking it carefully so he didn’t spill either and helping her recapture just her own cup’s handle. He sat back on the bench, and she joined him.

“I owe you an apology, Alpha,” she told him seriously. “I just found out you and Dean are married, and now he’s Mated that Omega. That had to be difficult to watch. I was insensitive back there. I’m sorry.”

“Engaged, at this point. Not married yet. You don’t owe me an apology, Anna. You were excited. It’s understandable, and you didn’t know.” Cas sipped his tea. “Is that their Mating log?” He indicated the folder with a jut from his chin. She handed it to him, and he flipped it open.

“So, the Mating-bond took?” he asked with his eyes on the printout. Anna nodded, and he continued, perusing. “I wasn’t sure. They looked sated, but I have never seen anything like what Michael just did. It was extraordinary. It was like he could read Dean like a book and pushed every one of his buttons. I’ve known Dean for years, and I can’t read him like…” Cas looked up and caught her eye. No. This wasn’t a burden he should be putting on the young Omega. He closed the folder. “Is this my copy?”

She nodded but qualified, “I thought you were married already. If you’re not Dean’s Alpha yet, maybe I should give it to him.” She didn’t meet his eye, unsure whether her comment might be taken as a challenge by the Alpha, but he shrugged.

“We’re registered Pack, so I’m his legal Alpha even though we haven’t married yet. I’ll take it.” He bent to catch her eye. “Thank you, Anna, for helping Dean and Michael through their Mating. It was a strange affair, and I felt better knowing that there was a caring and highly competent staff present watching over them. You’re important to us. You’ll stay in contact from now on, won’t you?”

She nodded. “You know where to find me, Alpha. I really like it here. It’s small enough that I’m not overwhelmed, and my mate takes good care of me.”

“It was lovely to see you again, Omega. I’m proud of where you’ve taken your life. I know you’re an excellent nurse. You were always so gentle and caring. I’ll be in in a few minutes to help wrap things up and make arrangements to get those two transferred.” Castiel flipped the folder back open. “Have they shown any signs of Triggering a cycle?”

“Not yet, Alpha.”

“I see. Then we should probably move them as soon as we can.”

“I was going to tell you,” the Omega stood and faced him. “We’re going to send a couple of guys to pick up Dean’s car and bring it here. They found his keys in the pocket of the jeans that were with the rest of his personals when the Trooper dropped you guys off.”

“Are they heading out soon? You probably want to see if Alpha Lancet wants to ride along too. He’s around here somewhere, I believe, unless he rode back with the police. I haven’t seen him since we arrived.”

“No, he’s here. Somewhere. I saw him earlier. We’ll make the offer if we can find him.”

“Thank you, Anna.” Castiel took a gulp of his cooling tea but didn’t accompany her back inside. He left the folder on the bench next to him and went back to studying the pavement at his feet.

Sometime later, as the air was turning cooler and damp, Castiel became aware of a figure leaning against a tree a short distance away. An occasional bright orange spot and the smell of smoke spoke of a cigarette. Cas sighed and stood to make his way to the Alpha, stopping well short of the other’s position.

“I didn’t notice you inside,” Cas commented quietly. “Did you come in and watch?”

“No.”

Cas nodded. For himself, he wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he’d chosen not to witness the act and something awful had happened, but he understood why a father would struggle to watch his son take a mate.

“It went well,” Cas told him. “The Mating. It’s a strong bond. There was no further violence. The bite seems to have taken hold. It went well.” He finished lamely.

“That’s good. I guess.” The Alpha took a drag from his cigarette. In the light, Castiel caught a glimpse of his drawn face. The Alpha leaned against his tree and kept his gaze toward the hospital building where his son’s new bond was pulling him away from his father.

“Knew I’d lose him one day, just as soon as he presented Omega. I knew it was gonna be hard, but this? I don’t even know what to think about this.” Alpha Lancet looked to Castiel. “You watched it?” Cas nodded in the darkness. “You really believe in all this Dom-Sub hoo-doo? You think that’s what’s eating Michael? So tell me. Is my boy a Dom?”

“I’m sure of it,” Cas answered firmly.

The Alpha just nodded and took another drag. “Explains a hell of a lot. He probably thinks so too. Probably thought so the whole time. Probably tried to tell me, but I was too busy being a hard-ass to try to understand my own son.”

“Alpha, Michael’s not damaged. He’s not broken in any way. He’s fine, and he’s Mated now. We’re going to look after him.”

“Are you?” Alpha Lancet tossed his butt into the dirt and ground it out with the ball of his foot. “Are you going to look after him?” There was anger and challenge in his voice and a clear threat in his eye as he looked up at Castiel, a pair of small red circles pulling in around his irises.

“We are. Both of us.”

“Really?” He was aggressive and posturing. “Tell me, Alpha Novak, you already have what you wanted. Got yourself a little breeding bitch of your own just a few months ago, didn’t you? Got yourself a husband of your own choosing, the love of your life, no doubt. What do you need Michael for, huh? Gonna stick him in the basement and keep him knocked up? Bring him out for whatever rich folk parties you people get up to and pass him around as a party favor?” Jerry Lancet stood up straight from his tree and took several aggressive steps toward Castiel. Castiel didn’t tense or retreat. He just sighed sadly.

“We would never do that, Alpha. It’s not like that at all. I know you have no reason to, but I’m asking you to trust Dean and me, trust the bond your son just created with my fiancé. You were driving all the way from north Texas to Kansas to get your son’s evaluation. Why did you register with us? There are four other testing sites closer to you than Kansas. There must be something that made you believe you could put your faith in us more than the others. I’m asking you to listen to that voice now.”

“Don’t give me that salesman shit. Be straight with me Castiel Novak, am I ever gonna see my son again? ‘Cause if I don’t hear from him regular, or I get one whiff that he’s being abused or neglected by you people, I’m ripping him out of there so fast you’re gonna piss yourself and taking him straight back home. I don’t give a fuck who gets hurt in the process, long as I get to him. His mate can trail along behind, I don’t care, but I’m not leaving my son where he’s not safe.”

Castiel responded patiently. “You can see him any time you like. You’re welcome to visit us in Lawrence, or Michael can travel back to see you and your family in Texas. We would never keep him isolated from his birth pack. I know this is frightening. We’re all trying to find new footing, but I promise you, there are no evil designs to harm your son. Quite the contrary.”

“I don’t get you.” Jerry scanned Castiel’s face like it was a puzzle he could work out if he tried hard enough. “Do you just never get mad? I’m challenging you, called your mate a bitch, threatened your Pack, and you just stand there and take it. That what passes for a Dom in Kansas?”

“You’re a good Alpha to your Pack, Jerry. Raising Michael must’ve been quite a challenge, especially considering you didn’t know his tertiary designation. But it’s obvious that you love him deeply and want what’s best for him.” Cas maintained his control, refusing to be provoked. So many people misunderstood what Profound Dominance meant. Shouting at folks and muscling them around was an affectation, a show that weaker Doms put on to prove their place. Castiel didn’t need the show. He was Alpha because he was Alpha. “It’s going to take some time, but I believe this arrangement is going to be ideal for Michael once he learns to trust the pack hierarchy. We’ll help him.”

“Right. Help him. Beat him, you mean. Listen, take it from me, I already tried that, and it don’t work on Michael. Just pisses him off.” Jerry Lancet’s face showed how difficult the admission was, how hard it was to admit he’d failed his son.

“Yes, I imagine that’s true,” said Cas. “No, I think your son will need a different kind of care. One that lets his Dominance stretch out and strokes his wolf but gives his Omega enough structure to feel secure. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but Dean and I, we don’t give up easily, and there’s a whole network of people and resources to help.”

The Alpha changed tacks. “He’s not gonna be last, Castiel—in rank, I mean. You try to put him on the bottom of the pack pile, and you’re going to have to answer to him. He ain’t gonna take it.”

“I agree. He’s Omega, but he certainly ranks higher than my brother. And as much as I’d like to promote my Omega-mate to a loftier position, she really belongs at the bottom, whether I like it or not.”

Alpha Lancet’s chuckle was cynical. “You got no idea what you’re in for, do you? I gotta say, I wish you luck. That boy’s a handful-and-a-half. I think you’re full of it about this Dom shit, but I know he’s got a brat-streak a mile wide. He’s going to push you and challenge you till you wanna strangle him. I kinda expected him to be in jail by now in his life.” The Alpha’s candor helped Castiel to understand his deep worry. That’s all this was. Jerry Lancet had been handling Michael almost singlehandedly his whole life, and now he was being forced to hand over his only son to strangers. He was scared. Michael was a handful, and the Lancets weren’t equipped to help him, but he was deeply loved.

“Jerry, may I have your permission to call on you and your mate for advice about Michael? You know him better than anyone. I want what’s best for him, and I appreciate that you do too. Will you help us?” Castiel had no intention of acting upon any advice from Jerry, but he needed the Alpha to feel involved, at least a little.

Anna approached them trailing two betas. “Alphas, Tom and George are leaving now to get Dean’s car.” She addressed Alpha Lancet. “Would you like a ride back to your car as well? If we need to, I can scrounge up another driver and bring yours here too. Just give them your keys and a description of the car.”

Castiel was still holding Lancet’s eye. Jerry postured a bit longer, testing Castiel’s resolve, but ultimately conceded to the higher-ranking Alpha, “I’ll help however I can. It’s going to be a roller-coaster, Alpha. He’s a good kid underneath it all. Maybe you and Dean can bring that side out of him. Lord knows, I didn’t see it often.” He turned to Anna. “I’ll go too. I think we’re finished here.”

Dean wasn’t sleepy, and he could remember every moment. Every single one. Weren’t wolves supposed to have memory blackouts of the humiliating behaviors they displayed while under the inebriating effects of a mate-scent? Still tied chest-to-chest with his Omega, Dean wormed uncomfortably until he pulled first one, then the other of his knees out to either side and under Michael’s legs which were locked around Dean’s waist, hooked at the ankle. Dean sat upright on his sore ass with his legs bent sharply back at the knee, breaking Michael’s foot-lock, and he scowled at his mate. “You could at least try to help me maneuver. This is so not comfortable.”

“How can you be cranky right now? I’m floating on a cloud, and I don’t ever wanna come back down.” Michael stretched his arms lazily over his head and then brought them round to run them firmly down the length of Dean’s chest. “Damn, you’re beautiful,” Michael told him in a drunk whisper, and he followed it up with a touch to Dean’s mind through their new link.

Dean tried to stop the half-smile, but he couldn’t. “At least help me get my feet around. Feels like my knees are gonna break. That’s the absolute last time we knot face-to-face.”

“You could’ve just settled on my chest, alpha, or don’t you think that’s manly enough?” Dean checked Michael’s face, but he knew before he saw the glint in his mate’s eye that he was only teasing. Dean could feel it through their Mating-bond. There was a note of testing about the phrasing.

“Very funny,” grumped Dean. He finally succeeded in working his legs back out straight in front of himself and tucked each one underneath Michael’s shoulders. He leaned back on his hands, braced just behind his bottom. The knot tugged uncomfortably. Dean looked down at his dick where it disappeared inside the tight channel of his mate and felt it surge again with another small release. He couldn’t resist thrusting just a few times, pushing himself forward with his hands against the bed. Michael’s spent dick twitched slightly in response.

Michael closed his eyes and moaned. “Thought you wanted out. We’re never going to untie if you keep on doing that.”

“When did I say I wanted out?” asked Dean thrusting again slowly. “I just don’t want to limp around for a week because my knees got twisted outta socket.”

Michael sat up, reaching to run his fingers through Dean’s brown hair. Dean closed his eyes and Mmm’d. Then he opened them and looked into Michael’s clear green ones. “You’re incredible. You’re…so…” Dean ran out of words, lost in the green. He settled for trying out his new appendage in the form of a nudge through the bond, blinking owlishly.

“Nnngh!” Michael responded and wrapped his arms around his mate. They stayed that way for several breaths. Then Dean spoke, his face close to Michael’s bleeding bite. The smell of blood was cloying in his nostrils.

“I need to learn everything about you. Tell me something I should know.”

“What do you want to know, Dean? Should we play Twenty Questions?” Michael kissed Dean’s neck and trailed his lips up behind his ears, straining forward enough to pull uncomfortably on their tie to get his nose nearer to Dean’s scent gland.

“Let’s do it Quid Pro Quo, Clarisse.” Dean leaned his head enough to allow Michael better access and Michael obliged, huffing a laugh. “I’ll go first. How old are you?”

“Twenty-three,” Michael whispered. “You?” He nibbled Dean’s earlobe.

“Twenty-seven.” Dean pulled back from Michael’s embrace. “You can’t just ask me the question I asked you. You have to come up with a new one.”

“Ah. But I wanted to know your age, too. How about we both answer each question, and then ask a new one on our turn? Good?”

“Mm-Kay,” mumbled Dean, working his lips and tongue over Michael’s bite and holding onto his waist. “Your turn.”

“What’s your favorite group?”

“Nuh-unh. No. I’ll school you on everything Led Zeppelin if you don’t already know, but we are not in Junior High school. Ask me something else.” Dean pulled back and fixed a stern alpha eye on his mate. Michael narrowed his eyes slightly then clenched his channel around Dean’s cock, bringing a huff out of Dean’s lungs.

“All right let’s see. What’s your orientation, alpha?”

Dean raised his eyebrow. “I’m gay,” he told his mate. The assertion felt oddly out of place, the words feeling particularly blunt. It seemed a strange thing to have to tell someone who was already close enough to have a knot tying them together and a bond vibrating between them, but, yeah, Michael needed to know this stuff.

“Hmm. Okay. I’m Bi. Pretty equally both ways—all ways? Whatever. I’m happy with any selection. Your turn.” Michael ran massaging hands across Dean’s shoulders and down his back, kneading the muscles as he went. Dean arched his back.

“Where do you feel it when I do this?” Dean pulsed a long, oscillating wave down the bond and smirked.

“Oh shit, Ahhhh! Damn, alpha, we’re never going to come unknotted.” Michael gathered Dean up in his arms, brought him close, and leaned back to lay them both together, helping this to time get Dean’s body situated. He worked them around until he and Dean lay mostly on their sides, Michael’s right hip and thigh taking most of the weight. He looked into Dean’s face and kissed the tip of his nose. Dean smiled a simple, genuine smile with no sarcasm or snark. Michael smiled back and said, whispering again, “I feel it in my O-gland. From there it spreads everywhere, mostly my dick, but also everywhere. Feels very good. Do it again.” Dean repeated the action, and Michael let his eyes close. “Again.”

“Quid Pro Quo, Clarisse,” Dean reminded him at a whisper. Michael giggled and returned the favor. Then he did it again, and again. And one more time. Dean panted and thrust his hips into his mate’s channel. “Yeah. That does feel pretty good.”

They lost themselves in receiving and delivering pleasure. Dean’s cock thickened again, and his grinding circling thrusts picked up speed and intensity until he shoved Michael onto his back and began driving into him with a purpose. He couldn’t get much of a stroke going with the knot still locking them tight, but he ground hard against the Omega’s channel and grunted with effort. Michael wormed a hand between them to stroke himself, and Dean lifted up on his arms to give him room. With his other hand, Michael pulled Dean to him by the back of his neck and kissed the side of his mouth, the side that wasn’t split from their fight in the restroom.

The strokes between their Mating-bond-links continued unabated, growing stronger as their bodies responded to the pleasure of each other and they both came within moments of one another, a hot, sweet, tingling release that left both men oversensitive and breathless.

“You haven’t answered your own question yet, Dean,” the sweaty Omega reminded his mate, panting.

Dean pushed Michael’s damp hair off his forehead, trying to remember what the question had been. Oh, right. “Feel it in my head. Kinda deep behind my sinuses and then also way deep in my prostate. …and everywhere.”

“My turn. My middle name is Quentin. What’s yours?”

“Quentin? Really? Yeah, Okay. That’s um… a cool name.” Michael’s face had gone flat like he was a hundred percent done with taking shit over his name. “Uh, my middle name’s Michael.” Dean confessed, and then he smiled impishly.

“Good name.” Michael’s and Dean’s hands traded easy strokes as they rolled back to their sides, both wolves sticky, sweaty, and beginning to grow uncomfortable. Michael kissed Dean again, languidly avoiding putting pressure on Dean’s injured lip.

“You got any siblings?” asked Dean, deliberately avoiding any topic that might ramp their wolves back up.

“A younger sister named Rachel. She’s eighteen. Presented beta. Lives with my folks at our Pack in Grand Prairie.”

“I’ve got a younger brother. Sam. Also beta. He’s awesome. You’ll get to meet him soon. We work together at The Facility, and he lives close to where we’re going to be living...” Dean sensed Michael’s malaise and trailed off. Right. Touchy subject—where they’d be living evoked reminders that there was already a Pack established that included more members close to Dean than a new mate should be expected to be comfortable with. Did Michael remember the information his Alpha shared on the drive from Texas? Dean suspected he did.

“Yes, I know about Sam. You two do those conventions together. I’ve watched some of them on YouTube.”

“Your turn.” Dean hoped to steer the conversation away from their living arrangements until they’d come untied at least. He didn’t think it was a topic best broached while he couldn’t put some distance between them if it turned heated.

“Okay.” Michael graciously chose to table the conversation for the moment, but Dean could feel the tension in his mate, not released, just stored. The discussion was going to have to happen, but not quite yet. Neither wolf was looking forward to it. Dean could feel the dread deep inside his new mate.

“What’s your defining sexual kink?” Michael asked with his eyes closed.

“Defining…? Yeah, okay. Uh, masochism, I guess, which makes you a sadist, I suppose.”

“No, not especially,” Michael shrugged. “I mean, I’ll definitely do that for you. I enjoy pleasing my partner. Always have. But it’s not really my thing, exactly. I get off on dick size. I like ‘em big enough to really stretch me, make me feel it, make me limp a little.”

Dean hesitated for a moment, a little stunned. “That’s your defining kink? Size? Dude, I’m not sure a bisexual Omega can really claim a size kink is defining. That’s like, just how Omegas are, isn’t it? Hey,” Dean propped himself up on his elbow. “Have you had your Keller done yet? That’d tell us some of your kinks.”

“Not yet. We were on our way to Kansas just now for the test when a certain sexy-as-fuck alpha waylaid me.”

“Oh, wow. Really? Well, I’m certain there’s more to you than a size kink.” Dean sensed his knot beginning to slip free. He put a hand on Michael’s hip and eased himself out, careful not to force it. He didn’t want to hurt his mate’s rim. Dean had plans for that part of Michael’s anatomy and wanted to avoid as much soreness as possible. They separated, each sitting up and easing out of the wettest parts of the bedding. Michael made a pained face but sent reassuring strokes through the bond. He wasn’t hurt, just stretched, just like he liked to be. They wound up sitting side-by-side against the headboard. Neither spoke for a bit. Michael began wiping down his own belly and groin with the warm, but rapidly cooling water Anna had left for them.

Dean regarded him pensively. “How’d you learn to Dom like that? If you haven’t had a test yet, you probably haven’t been through a training class, right? Michael, what you did just now, that was amazing. Where did you learn to do that?”

Michael smirked a side-eye at him and cocked an eyebrow. He pulled a fresh cloth from the table, wet it, wrung it out and began cleaning his alpha before he spoke. Dean leaned back and straightened, spreading his legs to grant him access. “You probably don’t want to hear the details, but I had a few mentors in college. Girls mostly. They let me try some things, and we played pretty hard sometimes. Most of them didn’t believe I could Dom until I showed them, then all bets were off, and we got into some raunchy shit. Couple of them were masochists. Most of them were brats. I feel confident that I’ve got your number, Dean Winchester.” Michael tossed the cloth over his shoulder and moved his body over Dean’s, enticing him into a kiss. It started out slow and gentle, but when Michael nipped at Dean’s lower lip and demanded entrance to Dean’s mouth with his tongue, Dean melted, scooted his ass to lie back down, and let Michael take the kiss from him.

“You got any more in the tank, alpha?” Michael murmured in a teasing lilt. “I’m young and horny. I think I can go one more round.” Michael ground his hips down against Dean’s flaccid, oversensitive cock. “You wanna see what being dominated by an Omega is like from the other side?”

“I can’t, Michael. I’m done.”

“We don’t really need Little Dean’s participation, sweetheart.” Michael continued the circling motion of his hips, kissing Dean’s throat, ignoring Dean’s protest grunt at being called little. Michael’s cock rose easily to the occasion. “I’ve got this. You just lay back and let me.” Dean’s eyes were wide. He’d never been fucked by an Omega. Even in his exhausted state, the offer was a fantasy come true. (Yes, yes, YES!), his wolf commented helpfully. He nodded silently and spread his legs further apart.

“Be careful, Michael,” he whispered. “I’m pretty sore from…recent activities.”

Michael fixed him with an unreadable look. Possessiveness, maybe. Figures. It hadn’t been Michael who put Dean in that state. His eyes narrowed again, and his jaw set. He went to work opening Dean up with extreme care, collecting slick and spent come from his own leaking hole to lubricate Dean. One careful finger thrust deep inside Dean became two, became three. His intense green-eyed gaze betrayed his slow pace. It was a building tease, another test. Michael kept his eyes on Dean’s face as he moved his fingers in and out, taking his time, scissoring them, listening for any signs Dean was in pain, watching his face and slowly grinding his cock against Dean’s hip.

Dean panted and writhed, pulling one knee up high to help Michael reach whatever he wanted to. Dean’s cock twitched but stayed frustratingly limp. He slid a hand down to massage his own balls, but Michael nudged it back out of the way, gently. “Not this time, baby. This time is just for me, understand?”

“I…yessir.”

“Are you ready? You gotta tell me if I’m hurting you, got it? Masochist or not, I need to know what you’re feeling down here.” He pulled his fingers out and swiped a thumb across Dean’s rim.

“I’m ready,” Dean nodded. “Just go slow and be careful.”

“Turn over on your hands and knees. I want to see that ass presented to me.”

Dean maneuvered into position and looked back over his shoulder. Michael met his eye and placed a hand on his back then focused on lining himself up with Dean’s hole. “I don’t like these marks on you, mate,” Michael chastised in a whisper. “These are not my marks, but we’ll discuss it later. Breathe out now and relax.”

He pushed in agonizingly slowly, pausing frequently to assess Dean’s condition and check in. Dean settled his chest on the soiled bed and closed his eyes, taking in the sensations. His anus and rectum were still sore from Castiel’s knotting two nights ago, but not enough to cause real pain when Michael breached him, just enough to awaken every nerve and light him up inside. He felt the welcome familiar stretch of sore muscle give in to Michael’s intruding cock. It was blissful. Dean moaned and pushed back.

“That’s my boy,” Michael praised him, beginning to move rhythmically but slowly in and out of Dean’s hole. He held Dean by the hips and moved the alpha in counterpoint to the motion of his own thrusting. “Just let me…”

Afterward, Dean lay still, resting in his mate’s arms with his head pillowed on Michael’s chest and slowly fingering the bite mark on his own shoulder—way up high almost on his neck. Michael wanted his mark clearly visible and unavoidable for everyone, particularly a certain Dominant Pack Alpha. Dean had never heard of a Mating where an alpha received a bite-scar, but it seemed fitting to him, and he felt proud to carry his Omega-mate’s mark. Someday soon he needed to let Michael in on why the location he chose to leave his mark was a good one, and what he was bound to find on Dean’s opposite shoulder from time to time. They had time though. They had a lifetime, and the information would keep. A deep sense of satisfaction settled into the alpha’s wolf and they both fell asleep.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“You’re a disgrace, Castiel!” she spat. “You and your disgusting perversions. You make me sick! You make me ashamed to be your mother!” Castiel was angry enough that deep pink spots formed on his upper cheeks, and his teeth ground in his head as he took his mother’s abuse. “You’ve got them all brainwashed somehow into your repulsive, delusional freak-show of a cult. I want you out of this house! I want you out today!”

“No,” he answered stiffly. “I’m Alpha, and that means it’s my house more than it is yours. I’m not leaving Gabriel with the likes of you.” Castiel held on to calm by the barest edge of his fingertips. Another shove would push him over. He was so, so angry. He could handle what she said about him, but when she turned her venom on his grieving brother, Castiel usually lost it.

“Gabriel! Yes, Castiel, let’s talk about Gabriel. You fucked him, didn’t you? Your own brother. Are there any depths that you won’t sink to? I’m so grateful that your father is dead, so he can’t see what you’ve turned into. You’re disgusting!” Her scotch sat abandoned on the desk. A vein stood out prominent in her neck.

Castiel advanced on her dangerously, narrowing his eyes in fury. “I Claimed him, Mother! Because he needed me to. I’m not sleeping with my brother! There’s a difference, and you damn well know it! How can you be so fucking delusional? Your own brother is dead. He died in agony, screaming for you to help him. And your son?! You were just going to let Gabriel follow the same path, meet the same end and wash your hands of the whole damned thing, telling yourself that it’s such a shame?! Poor Gabriel, if only there was something that could be done? Just so you don’t have to—how did you put it? Sink into the depths of depravity? So you can sip tea with the monkeys and wear your stupid derby hats at brunch! Fuck You! Fuck your whole judgmental, kowtowing perversion of who you are! You’re a wolf, damnit! Stand up and act like one!”

“I am a human, Castiel” she hissed back. “I am a civilized, decent, Christian human being, and I am disgusted that you could even think that I would partake of this lifestyle of groveling on the floor and rutting like dogs. Do you know what we look like to the rest of the world? We look like animals, thanks to you. We look like bestial animals who crawl in the dirt and tear red meat apart with our teeth and fuck any hole that slinks by us. He’s your brother!” Her lips drew back from her teeth in a rictus of disgust.

“I can promise you one thing,” she spoke low, and her body shook. “When I win this election—and I will win—I’m going to tear down everything you put up. Everything, Castiel. You’re not going to win this one. If I can’t force you to be civilized, at least I can prevent you from spreading your pestilence to the innocents of the world.”

“We’ll see, Mother.” Castiel turned his back on his mother and left the room. He needed to check on Gabriel.

NOW:

Dean woke slowly. He was warm and so, so comfortable with his body curled around his mate’s. The scent from the neck in front of his nose was already shifting, merging with his own into something unique and new. Dean’s was taking on aspects of Michael’s scent too, no doubt, but of course, he couldn’t smell himself.

As he came awake, he realized with dawning awareness: first that he and Michael weren’t in the room where they’d Mated—morning light streamed through the windows—second, that they were both clean and fully dressed in nurse’s scrubs, and third, that the bed clothes keeping him snug were all clean and soft. The bed itself was different. They’d been cleaned up, dressed, and moved during the night without waking up at all. At least Dean hadn’t awoken.

He realized one more thing as he blinked his eyes open and focused on his mate: Michael snored. It was a soft, buzzing snore, and Dean found it immediately endearing. Dean’s right leg was pushed between Michael’s, and his right arm cinched up around Michael’s waist and tucked under his weight. Dean left a soft kiss on the back of his mate’s neck and then settled for breathing his new scent.

The door to their room cracked open and a Simian nurse slipped in, wielding breakfast trays. Dean’s back was to the door, but he turned his head and smiled at her. Everything felt so right to him in this moment, it was nearly painful. His wolf was satisfied, his arms full of contented mate. Then his stomach rumbled when the smell of bacon hit his nose, and he realized how famished he was.

Michael stirred when Dean pulled away and sat up, but he just curled more tightly into the covers and pulled his pillow over his head. Dean’s wolf melted and turned enormous puppy eyes to his mate. Dean himself rolled his eyes and reminded the wolf, (bacon!). The nurse, a young Primate woman with the cheekbones and full lips of a Choctaw, moved efficiently, readying the roll-away table and bringing it up to Dean, so he could reach it.

He whispered to her, “You don’t have to serve us; we’re not sick,” even while he accepted the breakfast and pulled off the plastic cover.

“We’ve been keeping a close eye on you two overnight. Seems like they were pretty surprised you didn’t Trip over into your Rut cycle. There’s an alpha wolf out there pacing the floor. I don’t think he slept at all even though we offered him a bed. He belong to you?”

“Yep, he’s mine,” Dean laughed softly. The back of Dean’s mind pushed at him…was Castiel still his? Would Cas ask for his ring back? Were they still engaged? Dean heard it, but he pretended not to. He remembered everything; remembered telling Cas he wished it’d been him, not Michael. There wasn’t a thing he could do in this moment but cling to Michael and assume he still had Castiel. His ring glinted in the morning light.

“Well, he’s scaring the locals, so we may need you folks to move on once we’re sure you’re in the clear.”

Dean began eating, or rather, stuffing his face would be a better phrase. He was starving, and everything tasted much better than usual. Hospital-style scrambled eggs, bacon, a heavy biscuit and gravy, plus OJ and coffee. It was maybe the world’s least interesting breakfast, but to Dean, it was ambrosia. The nurse tidied up a bit although nothing was out of place, and Michael continued to snore softly, so Dean engaged her.

“How’d you guys get us cleaned up and moved without waking us up?” She continued to move things pointlessly about, but she smiled wider. Dean had become aware of the phenomenon ever since Sam pointed it out to him at a convention once: people, especially women, seemed very often not to want to leave his presence. He couldn’t account for it, but he’d seen it often enough to know it was real.

She smirked at him. Crow’s feet were evident at the corners of her eyes. “Nurses and orderlies are ninjas when it comes to that stuff, sir. Ninjas.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Was she preening? The nurse pushed the door open but paused before stepping out into the hall, hesitant to leave.

“Hey!” Dean called as she lowered her head and stepped out. Michael startled at the noise and hit Dean in the face with a pillow. She turned back and paused again at the door. “I just wanted to say thanks. Would you let the team know? I don’t even know who to thank, but it’s just, yeah, just thanks.” Dean ended with a cheeky grin, and the nurse smiled back at him.

“It’s a good thing you’re pretty, because I don’t see you winning any eloquence awards,” she teased.

“You think I’m pretty?” Dean flirted.

“Jesus Fucking Christ, Dean! Shut the fuck up! Everyone thinks you’re pretty, and you know it! God!” Michael rolled over and kicked him in the shin.

The nurse fled, laughing, and letting the door swing shut behind her.

“Look, Mikey! Breakfast!”

Michael’s hand shot out faster than Dean could think and took a vice-grip on his testicles through the scrubs, squeezing and pulling downward. Dean squeaked and nearly knocked his roll-table over. He breathed swiftly through his nose and sat very, very still as Michael disabused him swiftly of his mistake. “My name is Michael. It’s not Mike, not Mickey, not Mikey! Understood?”

“Fine! Understood! Let go of my balls, Michael! You’re not gonna get any pups outta those if you pull them off! Geez, you’re a grouch this morning.”

“I’m just really tired,” Michael complained, letting Dean go and sitting upright next to him.

“Whatever.” Now that his boys were in the clear, Dean was pissed. “Rule One from your alpha is Keep your temper in check. That was out of bounds, Omega. I’m dead serious.” Dean fixed him with a firm alpha countenance and a no-nonsense tone of voice.

Michael looked at him. The warring factions in his head were evident on his face as his jaw clenched and twitched. His wolf didn’t like being spoken to that way. (Rules? We don’t need no stinking rules! We make the rules!), but his Omega response went deeper, pulled from a much more ancient bedrock inside of him, and it purred at the firmness in Dean’s voice. It sensed safety and protection. In Dean, his Omega detected trust, security, structure. Maybe when he was with Dean, the Omega intuited, Michael’s wolf wouldn’t need to fight so damned hard all the time.

Michael wasn’t ready to trust that deeply yet, but he kept the door open. He searched Dean’s face, looking for clues to his intent. His Omega had been wrong before where his Dominant wolf had served him well most of the time. That, and Dean had engaged himself to marry a man Michael didn’t know before he even knew whether Michael could fulfill his alpha’s needs for intimacy and affection. Who does that? But… What would his life be like if he could relax and just be, trusting his alpha to provide him a place in a pack and hold him safe and cherished forever? What if there was room for all of them? Did he want to live like that?

For his part, Dean had years of experience helping Omegas to adjust to the disappointment of an unwanted designation. No one ever wanted to Present Omega. He knew roughly what was going on in his mate’s head. He felt confirmation through the Mating-bond, and he took advantage of the extra resource, sending Michael a sense of stability and support that he could not have communicated with just his eyes and voice. Michael let his eyes drop to the bed, a long-suffering look of concentration held in his brow as he struggled to decide how to respond. It was a deep dive into the Omega’s core, and Dean gave him several minutes before prodding him back to the surface.

“Where did you go, Michael? You still with me? C’mon, just talk to me for a second.” Dean eased himself around so that he was sitting facing his mate, his breakfast abandoned. Dean lifted Michael’s chin with his fingertips to try to regain his eyes, and Michael’s eyes hardened. He jerked away and growled softly, not a threat, just stating his position. “All right, then. I get it,” Dean acquiesced. He leaned back a bit, giving his mate some space. “I’m not going anywhere, love. We’ll figure it out. It’s going to take time, but I believe we will learn to trust one another. Someday. For now, breakfast in bed. Don’t get used to it.”

Dean swooped out of bed and retrieved Michael’s tray, arranging it as the nurse had done his and rolled the tray over to his mate, who accepted it as a peace offering. Michael wanted this to work, knew it had to work, but it wasn’t going to be easy. He couldn’t account for Dean’s fiancé within the matrix in his head. “I’m sorry, Dean. I don’t like that I get like that sometimes. I don’t want to hurt you, but sometimes I can’t control myself when I get pissed.”

“Just eat. We’ll work on control later. I’ve got lots of ideas, some of them I know you’ll hate, but some are fun. And I’m sorry about the nickname. Won’t happen again.” Dean winked, and Michael stared at him, stunned. That wasn’t the reaction he’d expected at all. Where was all the You’re not sorry yet, but you will be? Where was the Don’t let it happen again, or I’ll give you something to be sorry about? “You don’t mind if I call you love, do you?” Dean asked abruptly. Michael barely responded, but Dean took it as permission and nodded to himself smugly.

Dean chugged his juice and then finished the bacon. The coffee he rejected out of hand. Maybe he could text Cas to make a run for something drinkable.

No.

Not yet.

He and Michael needed to get through something together before he let Cas in. Michael used the bed remote to raise his side and tucked in to his breakfast. This double-occupancy hospital bed was a surprising luxury. Dean planned to stay here until they kicked them both out.

“What d’you think, man? Any sign of a Heat coming on?” Dean prompted. He wanted to slide casually, non-confrontationally into the easy dialogue they’d shared last night. This could get hairy if he wasn’t careful. Probably would get hairy anyway.

“No,” Michael answered, his mouth full of eggs. “I just had one about three weeks ago.”

“My Rut’s not due till July. Maybe it’s too far to Trigger. I don’t know. Never been able to call these things. Sometimes they Trigger, and sometimes they don’t.” Dean got up and began searching through the cabinets for their clothes. Should be in here somewhere. Yep, found ‘em. “They’re going to kick us out of here if we’re not sick or in need of any care. We need to figure out what comes next. Of course, we can still take a few weeks to ourselves to get used to each other and the bond, Heat or not. It’s our due, and I plan to take it.”

Dean dumped the contents of the plastic bags onto the bed and began rummaging through them. All of his stuff was there except his car keys. An initial panic gave way to the assumption that Cas had taken them to get his car back. He’d ask before he flipped out. Dean looked up and met Michael’s eye. Michael stopped with his fork halfway into his mouth.

“What?”

“We have to talk some things through before I let Castiel in. I need you to be clear on how things stack up, and where we’re all going.” Dean watched his mate’s eyes.

“Going? You mean Bumfuck Oklahoma isn’t our new home?” the Omega spouted with a straight face after swallowing his bite.

“You know, it’s not necessary to turn every conversation into an opportunity to be an asshole, Michael, and Bumfuck Oklahoma took good care of us yesterday. A little gratitude might be in order.” So much for sliding in casually. The Omega’s eyes were flinty green.

Michael dropped his fork back onto the hospital tray and rolled the table out of the way. He sat up straight and turned his body to face Dean. “All right. Let’s do this. You belong to me. I’m not sharing with that dick. He’s gonna get over it and that’s final.”

“So, you remember about my engagement to Cas.” Dean was trying to be very careful, but he knew that his discomfort was evident through their newly shared bond if Michael figured out how to read it. Cas still wanted him, right?

“I remember everything, Dean. Doesn’t mean it’s going down that way. My Claim is stronger than his, and I’m your Dom.”

“Look, I know you don’t like it. I know it’s not fair to you, and I can’t fix that, but he’s my Pack Alpha, I’m in love with him, and I am going to marry him. That means he’s going to be your Pack Alpha too, whether you like it or not. Sometimes shit just doesn’t come out the way you want it to, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting screwed in the deal. This could be the best damn thing that ever happened to you, but you are never gonna know if you don’t give it a chance.” Dean shimmied out of his scrubs and shook out his jeans. His boxers and jeans were both pretty crusty with dried pre-come, so he opted to skip the boxers, go commando, and change as soon as he got his luggage back. Then he rethought it all and decided maybe the scrubs should just stay put.

Michael ogled him as he stood deliberating half naked and slid off the bed onto his knees. He crawled on all fours toward Dean, his eyes hooded and seductive. Dean went on alert. Michael seemed to be channeling both his Omega and his wolf at once. His eyes took on a ring of gold that glinted faintly. “We should take advantage of the room while we’ve got it, don’t you think, Submissive?” Michael placed his hands on Dean’s hips and maneuvered him back to the edge of the bed, keeping down on his knees and watching his mate’s eyes through his lashes. Dean let the clothing fall from his grip and braced himself on Michael’s well-muscled biceps.

“That’s a good idea. I like this idea,” breathed Dean carefully. Michael shoved his hips so that Dean’s weight was supported by the edge of the bed, and he licked the length of Dean’s cock from his balls to the tip, craning his neck to get underneath. Dean spread his feet apart and moaned. His cock took no time to jump on the train. Michael watched Dean’s face as he took as much of Dean into his throat as he could in one go. Size kink wasn’t going to be a problem for them as mates; Dean was equipped. And Michael loved having a challenge to overcome. He wrapped his hand around the bulge where Dean’s knot would pop and squeezed hard enough to pull another moan out of his mate.

Michael pulled his mouth away, letting a ropey string of saliva break between his lip and Dean’s cock, but he continued massaging the knot. He plunged his voice into its lowest, Dom-register and spoke straight to Dean’s Submissive wolf. “You don’t move, understand? I’m going to make you feel very, very good, but you’re to stay absolutely still for me.”

“Yes, Sir. Can I make noise?”

“I want to hear everything, Dean. Your voice is the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.” Michael licked him like an ice cream cone and then went back to work, his head bobbing smoothly, his tongue a flexible, masterful paintbrush inside his mouth. Dean gripped the edge of the blanket and closed his eyes, groaning his pleasure. Jesus, this guy and his mouth. Dean’s chest and face broke out in a sweat as Michael brought his other hand up to cradle Dean’s balls while massaging his knot and working his lips up and down and twisting off the head only to come right back to lodge Dean deep in his throat again. He hummed a tuneless note around Dean’s cock and Dean’s responding whine was several octaves above where he’d intended.

As Michael pulled back again, his teeth scraped the side of Dean’s dick in a way he couldn’t possibly have known lit Dean up with the perfect ratio of pain/pleasure that Dean had never been able to describe just right for Cas. Teeth employed during a BJ wasn’t a normal man’s thing, but Dean had never been normal. His hips bucked violently forward, and he had just a moment of heavenly face-fucking before Michael pulled off, letting him go and standing up. Michael wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and turned away from Dean.

“No, no, please! I’m sorry! Come back, I didn’t mean to! Please, Sir, you can spank me for it, but please don’t stop! Sir, please! That was so good.”

“I told you to be still.”

“So, you’re just going to leave me like this? Can I at least finish up for myself?” Dean had his hand hovering close to his erection, but he didn’t dare touch without permission.

Michael turned to meet his eye and raised one brow. “What do you think?” He disappeared into the bathroom and Dean heard him loudly pissing into the bowl.

Damnit! So close. So fucking close. Dean leaned back on his arms and rocked a bit in an attempt to control the urge to take himself in-hand. He turned around to face the bedding and ducked his head onto his crossed arms, breathing heavily. He could do this. He just needed the Submissive wolf to take a hike for a bit, get back into his own head again.

Dean was pulling the hospital scrubs over his achingly hard dick when Michael returned to the room with an overly concerned look on his face. “Are you all right, Dean?”

“Yes, Sir,” Dean shot testily. “I’m peachy.”

They still needed to talk. What was supposed to be a relaxing interlude had turned Dean all around in his head, and now the conversation was probably going to come from a completely different place.

(Oh shit!) thought Dean to his wolf in a moment of epiphany. (The rat-bastard planned it that way.) He almost laughed. He almost offered the Omega a high five for guts and ingenuity in a tight situation, but Dean needed to regain the upper hand. He couldn’t let on that he knew what Michael was up to. Letting a manipulator know you were onto them only drove them deeper underground. Dean needed Michael out in the light where he could see him. He crammed his dick and his Submissive both away to handle later. Dean was the king of manipulation tactics, and nobody messes with the king. The wolf resisted, but Dean aimed a swift kick at it and it fled. It was still day one for the mates. Precedents were being established. Dean had his work cut out.

“All right. Fine. Playtime’s over, then. I get it,” Dean snarked. Michael smirked at him. This was going to be easier when his dick wasn’t tenting his scrubs and leaving a wet smudge on the front. He couldn’t even take himself seriously like this, so he climbed back in the bed and pulled the blanket to his waist.

Outta sight, outta mind, right?

Dean shook himself back into himself, metaphorically, and started over. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Michael, we need to cut the games. Please talk to me. What do you want from this relationship? What do you want from me? No one’s asking you to stop being yourself or to give up all your power.” The conversation’s hard turn clearly threw the Omega. He stood with his back to Dean, his head bowed and his arms bracing against the countertop. Dean could see him take several deep breaths. “Baby, whatever you need, we can make it happen, but you’ve got to tell me, not throw demands or tests at me and expect we’ll cave to a temper tantrum.”

“We,” Michael breathed, picking up on Dean’s implication. “What I want is you, Dean.” Michael turned around, crossing his arms, and leaning his butt against the counter. “I don’t want to share you. I waited for you all my life. I went through hell getting to this point, and I only just got you, and already I’m not enough for you? How do you even know that yet? You haven’t given me a chance. It’s not supposed to work this way, alpha.”

Dean’s feet broke out in a sweat as his mate’s argument hit him square in the insecurities. This was going to be a tough conversation, and Dean needed to try to keep the emotion in check. Going on the defensive wouldn’t help. He licked his lips and said squarely, “I already know that you and I fit together in a way no one else ever could. You are the missing piece of me, man. You’re my home. You get me in a way no one else ever has. I feel like I could say or do anything, and you would understand what it means and where it’s coming from. That doesn’t become a lesser thing when I marry Cas. It isn’t that you’re not enough, but I can’t choose who I love, Michael, and I need him as much as I need you. Just, differently.”

Michael huffed a frustrated, disgusted breath and turned away again. Dean went on, hoping against hope that he could find the right words. “I believe that in time we’ll come to trust and love each other, you and me. There’s no part of my marriage with him that takes away from you. It’s all additive. You still get me. I get you. And we both get to have a big family to watch out for us. I get two Doms, which is probably necessary to keep a Sub as profound as I am balanced out. You get pups, if you want ‘em, and you get a Dominant mentor if you don’t just chuck him out on principle.” Dean watched his mate’s face carefully then went on.

“Baby, trust me. Please? I promise he’s not going to try to control our Mated relationship. That’s between you and me. We decide everything. And fuck anyone who tries to tell us how it’s gotta go between us. Just you and me. You see this?” Dean touched the bandage on his shoulder. “He is not going to like this, but it’s none of his damn business. This is you and me.”

“And big Daddy watching over everything we do,” spoke Michael with venom. “I don’t need a father, Dean. I have one of those. What do you even see in him? He’s a tool!” Michael spun around and advanced on Dean. “I’ll tell you another thing. I’m not doubling-up with that asshole to Dom you. That’s my job! I’m your Dominant, alpha. Not him!”

“Michael!” Dean stood up and postured over him, his eyes hard and flinty. “You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to like Castiel. But I’ll be damned if you’re not going to show him the respect he deserves as Pack Alpha! And before you go all Parent-Trap on him and leaving lizards on his canteen, let me explain one more thing. You, sir, are an Omega in my household. You belong to me, and we both belong to Castiel. You wrap your head around it quick and it’ll be so much easier. Fight it, and it’s gonna be so much harder on you. You aren’t going to win this. It’s up to you to decide whether you’re miserable with us or not, with me or not. Michael, it doesn’t have to go down like that.”

Dean backed up a step and noted that Michael’s eyes had gone wide. A circle of gold surrounded the irises in response to Dean’s alpha stepping out into the light. Good. An Omega response was what Dean was going for.

“So, with the information you now have about what is and what isn’t on the table for negotiations, do you know what you want from me?”

Michael calmed himself visibly. It was a demonstration of his level of maturity that soothed Dean’s worries a bit. The Omega swallowed as if he was trying to remove a lump in his throat, and he dropped his gaze to the floor. “I don’t know how to accept this, Dean. It feels like a kick in the gut. I can’t trust you…not yet. How do I know it’s even going to work? You know, I’m not a simple man. I’ve got issues underneath issues. I know I do. And I need you.” He looked up, and Dean’s heart broke to see the agony flooding the Mating-bond reflected in the tears streaming from his eyes. He was frightened and hurt. Not even Mated for twenty-four hours and Dean had already broken his heart. He kicked himself internally and bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood.

Dean took his mate in his arms and held on tightly. They were almost the same height. Dean stood less than an inch taller, and their frames had about the same musculature. They fit perfectly. “Shhh. Baby, we’re gonna be okay. We’ll figure it out. I’m not going to forget about you or stuff you off in a corner somewhere. I swear. You’re not second to him.” Dean felt Michael tuck his head down into his neck and scent the alpha. Dean bared his throat a bit more to give him room. “We’re going to take care of each other, okay?”

Michael clung to him, pulling comfort from him through their bond and he cried, grieving the loss of his short-lived victory, angry that his Omega Presentation had robbed him once again of the power to own or hold anything for himself, blind to the fact that the Alpha at the other corner of the triangle faced the same painful loss. A powerful designation was no protection against this, but all Michael saw was a pack of alphas wrestling his property away and stomping his face in the mud. For every impulse his Omega provided that promised home, or health, or happiness, he faced twenty more that promised grief, or loss, or pain—promised powerlessness. Michael felt shackled, and it tasted bitter in his throat even with his mate’s strong arms around him and the scent of home in his nose.

Michael and Dean wound up curled back in the bed in the same position they’d been in when Dean awoke with the sunrise. They talked about unimportant things and petty matters, favorite cars and sports teams, preferences for different brands of beer. They let the tension fade for a bit. Dean received a text from Cas asking him to check in when the two weren’t indisposed. Castiel’s word: indisposed. Dean ignored it. He considered cuddling with his mate to be a version of indisposed. Cas could wait. If Cas intended to waltz in and utter, Dean, we need to talk…, then that could wait too. Michael needed his full attention.

“You’re so beautiful, Michael,” Dean whispered into his ear. You’re going to give me the prettiest pups someday. Would you like that, baby? Do you want pups with me?”

“Yeah,” Michael whispered back. “I want a whole litter. They’ll have green eyes like their daddy.”

“Like their mother,” Dean amended.

“I don’t want to wait, alpha.” Michael rolled over and pushed himself up on an elbow. “I wanna try at my next Heat. I’m only a week or two behind your cycle. Maybe we’ll sync up, and we can really go for it. Can you imagine? Can you see her? A dark-haired, green-eyed little girl with freckles and dimples?”

Dean could imagine. She looked just like Michael in his head. The freckles he could live without, but the eyes… “We need to wait a bit,” Dean explained softly. “I’ve got a couple of research projects going that need me around at all kinds of crazy hours. Lemme work through those, and then we’ll do it. I’ve…I’ve always wanted to be a Daddy. Never really expected to get the chance. I never expected to have a mate, Michael.” Dean breathed into a sob, letting it hide in his exhale. Michael heard it anyway and pulled him close.

“Hire an assistant to pull the hours and do this with me. Please, Dean.”

Dean kept his voice very soft. “Aren’t you jumping the gun just a bit? An hour ago, you were ready to kidnap me and run from the packhouse. Now you’re settling in with a litter? I assume you mean to raise them in Alpha’s home, right? Or are we still on the lam?” Dean pulled back so he could look at his mate.

“Do I have a choice?”

“About where you live and whose Pack you belong to, no. About when we try for pups, yes. I just want to be sure you’re not asking to get pregnant while still thinking you might be anywhere but Kansas in the Winchester packhouse. You seem to have settled a bit fast there.” Dean wanted everything out in the open. If it meant picking another fight before the last had even cooled, he would do what he had to do. The sooner Michael gave in to the reality of his situation, the better.

Michael confessed, “I’m not sure how this is going to work. I don’t have a job or a degree. I got kicked out of college for being an asshole, and I don’t know what to do next. I’m too tired and wrung out to fight about it. But I know I want your pups. I want anything and everything you’ll give me, Dean.”

The phone on the bedside table rang. Dean picked it up. “I’ve got fresh hot coffee, Dean,” Castiel offered. “Are you ready for me to come in and meet Michael formally? I’ll wait if you’re still tied or in the middle of…anything.”

Dean sighed and looked to Michael. The phone receiver was loud. He knew Michael had heard. He indicated that it was Michael’s call. He’d tell Cas to head back to Kansas without them if Michael asked him to. It wouldn’t fix anything in the long run, but it’d buy them some time alone together.

Michael shrugged and nodded his head. “Let him in. Let’s get this over with,” he said darkly.

“Door’s unlocked, Cas. You know our room number?”

“I’ll be right there.” Cas hung up, and Dean did as well.

Dean sat up and checked he was dressed. Not a good idea to have both of his Doms distracted by nudity on their first meeting—their first official, formal meeting. He looked at Michael and said, “Whatever you do, I’ll back you up as long as you’re not a dick about it and it’s not to tell Cas to take a hike. Got it? You know what I mean.” Dean added the last part because Michael looked to be testing the statement for loopholes, and Dean realized there were many.

The knock on the door came as it cracked open. Castiel carried a tray of coffee cups, and Dean couldn’t really stop himself from diving for them. “This one’s yours, Dean.” Cas indicated by tapping his finger against the side of one of the cups. “I didn’t know what Michael might like, so I just got a regular brew and some cream & sugar packets.” Dean saw Cas’ eyes flick quickly away from the square gauze taped to his shoulder.

“Thank you, Sir. I drink mine black,” Michael called politely. Dean worked both cups from the tray and carried them to the bed, handing Michael’s over.

Castiel turned his back on them to set the cup-holder on the counter and pulled his own cup free. “Anna hired some local boys to fetch your car, Dean. It’s in the parking lot now. Here are the keys.” He tossed them across to Dean, who snatched them out of the air one-handed against his chest. “I expect you’ll want to look it over for damage, but I didn’t find anything amiss.” He took a couple of steps so that he stood in the exact center of the room and looked around. “The hospital told me we have an hour to remove ourselves now that they’re sure you’re both fine and no one’s in cycle.”

Dean wasn’t listening.

Strangers drove his Baby without his permission.

Cas was going to pay for that.

Castiel read Dean’s face and sighed. “It was the best way to get your car here. Now we don’t have to scramble, and we can just go home.” Turning to face Michael, “Your father rode with them. He transferred your luggage to Dean’s car and went on home, but he’ll be calling you in a couple of days to check in. He’s worried about you.” Castiel stepped up and extended his hand. “It’s wonderful to really meet you, Michael. I’m Castiel. You can call me Cas if you like, or Alpha, if you’d rather. I’m flexible.”

Michael hesitated, evidently weighing the outcome of calling the Alpha a name of his own choosing, but he opted to play it safe. “My name’s Michael.” He accepted the hand coldly with an over-firm grip which Cas had been expecting. The Alpha didn’t respond to the blood-draining squeeze. “I remember everything from before Dean and I Mated, so you don’t have to rehash it all over again.”

Michael released his grip and set his coffee down, standing to face the intruder. “My mate, Dean, tells me that you’ve already established a pack residence in Lawrence, with you at the helm, and that you’re planning to marry him and run the Pack from there. That’s what Dean, who is my mate, said.”

Castiel’s lip twitched. Dean couldn’t tell whether it was irritation or amusement. He had no real argument with Michael’s tactic so far. It was far too clumsy and obvious to be a real power move. When Michael made a move, probably no one would see it coming. More likely he was just trying to feel out Cas’ impulse control, and that seemed fair to Dean. He sat back, sipped his coffee and watched the show.

“That’s right,” agreed Castiel cheerfully. “Your mate, Dean, will be second-in-command behind his Pack Alpha. That’s me. I’ll be your mate Dean’s husband, and his Alpha, as well as his Dominant from time to time. And that means,” Castiel made sure that his blue eyes bored into Michael’s green ones, “That as Alpha, husband, and Dominant to Dean, who is your mate, I will also be playing the role of Pack Alpha for you personally. Whether or not you require a Dom is yet to be determined, and of course, you will not be asked to participate directly in our marriage, nor I in your Mating with Dean, as he is your mate.” Dean turned his face to the floor briefly to hide the relief in his eyes. The wedding was still on, apparently. Castiel paced slowly, like a lecturer before a classroom and continued. “As an Omega, and a mate to my husband, Dean, you will be expected to comport yourself according to the Rules of my household and to any Rules that your mate, Dean, as your alpha, sees fit to hold you to.”

“I understand, Alpha,” Michael answered stiffly. “And may I ask what these House Rules are?” Castiel turned in his slow pacing, shot a quick look at his fiancé, whose head was down, and counted them out on his fingers, checking every now and then that he still had Michael’s full attention. Michael stared at him as if he were an alien. Dean snorted his coffee, his eyes closed to take in the aroma and the steam. His sense of relief that Cas still seemed to be on the marriage train was swiftly being replaced by uneasiness as the tension in the small room elevated between the two rivals. He and Cas had discussed and agreed upon Rules over dinner on their very first evening as a couple. It was a fluid and easy conversation, as the two of them had a remarkably similar idea of how domestic pack life should be established and maintained. The five Rules that Cas agreed to came straight out of Dean’s dissertation on the subject, but the details were particular to the Winchester Pack, and Dean was very proud of what they both wanted to build. He bit his lip. Right here was where the rubber met the road.

“Rule Number One: Like every member of the Winchester Pack, you are required to make a vow of allegiance to the Alpha. That’s me,” he reminded Michael. “…To submit to my authority. In the case of all Omegas, to submit to my Claim physically, and to obey me in all subsequent matters unless commanded to break public law, ethical standards, your personal code of morality, or in protection of the health and safety of yourself or another person.” Cas kept his voice even, nonconfrontational.

“Rule Number Two: To the extent that you can, keep yourself in healthy, hygienic, Balanced, and groomed condition. Care for yourself, both your body and your spirit, is your own responsibility. Negligence or deliberately causing harm to yourself will not be tolerated. Any time you need help in this regard, you need only ask. Omegas are not expected to fulfill their Balance or regulatory requirements on their own.

“Rule Number Three: Show respect and obeisance for every wolf who stands above you in rank in the Pack and show consideration and give assistance and protection to every wolf who stands below you in rank. A little respect and a little kindness toward one another go a long way. We are a family, and we put family before all others. Always. Disrespect, bullying, and bratty behavior will lead to a swift punishment every time.” Michael’s face flattened as the Alpha spoke, but he stood statue-still and listened carefully.

“Rule Number Four: Show care for the property of the Pack. Do not behave destructively. Do not cause undue damage where it can be avoided. Keep our home clean, tidy, and well-appointed so that it may be a home to us all.

“Rule Number Five: Do not lie. Do not withhold information. Do not prevaricate or deliberately cause deception of any kind in any way. Do not manipulate. Ask for what you want directly and your requests will be given full consideration. Your needs are important because you, Michael, are important to this Pack.”

Cas turned back and faced Michael whose face had grown dark. Dean wanted to warn him off, but he knew better. If Michael was going to throw a tantrum, maybe better to go ahead and draw it out of him.

“Oh, is that all?” the Omega snapped.

“No, Michael. Those are the Pack Winchester standing House Rules that every member must adhere to. Dean and I talked them out and enumerated them together. Each Omega and each Submissive can expect to have others set by their Top. You will be expected to follow all of the Rules that apply to you, and I trust Dean to communicate the remaining appropriate Rules to you at the appropriate time.”

Dean cut in. He felt Cas should know where they stood in reference to his Rules. “I’ve given him his first already, Castiel. He’s got a temper on him, and it’s something we’ll have to work on together.”

Cas nodded and addressed Michael again. “The House Rules can be simplified to: Be obedient, be safe, be respectful, be neat, and be truthful. They are easy to remember in that light. Have you any questions?”

“Just one. Do you want me to cram them up your ass all at once or one at a time?”

“Damnit, Michael!” Dean placed himself in front of the Omega and held the back of his neck with a firm hand. Michael ignored the stirrings of his Omega deep within him, and he snarled at Dean.

Castiel didn’t look perturbed, but Dean was embarrassed and angry. Cas ignored the Omega and spoke softly to Dean instead. “I’m going to get the luggage from the car so that you can both change before we leave. I’ll wait in the hall until you’ve finished with him. Just poke your head out when you’re ready.” Cas kissed Dean on the cheek and stepped out, letting the door close. Dean turned to face Michael and found him in tears again.

“I thought you were going to back me up?” He sounded utterly betrayed.

“I said I’d back you up if you didn’t act like a dick! That was a dick move, Michael.” Dean let go of Michael’s neck and stormed away from him, too pissed to touch him just now. “He’s bending over backward to bring you into the Pack, and you tell him to… What the fuck?! Seriously?!”

“Bending over backward?! Fuck it, I’m not an afterthought! Am I? I thought you were different, but you’re just like the rest of them! I mean it, Dean, he can take his vow of obedience and shove it up his ass! I’m not joining this fucking Pack!”

Dean watched him storm about, kicking things and swiping items off the counters. It was quite a tantrum. When Michael took a breath, Dean broke in. “What works on you Michael? I can just keep taking swings until I get your Omega where you need it to be, but you can save us both a lot of time and pain if you just tell me now. Hairbrush, slipper, leather belt? What do I need to use?”

“Fuck you!”

“Okay, have it your way.” Dean kicked at the pile of clothes that had wound up on the floor until he unearthed Michael’s jeans with a wide brown leather belt through the loops. He removed it and stood to speak to his mate. “What you have to understand is that he’s Alpha. No matter who he meets or comes up against, or what their training is, or what they’ve been through, he always wins because he’s Alpha. You can’t beat him. He’s more stubborn than you are, and he genuinely wants you happy and secure. You can fight him as long as you need to, but in the end, he’s still Alpha.”

“And what about you? Did he defeat you too because he’s Alpha?” Michael was crying in earnest. He couldn’t stop, and he didn’t know what he was feeling, just that he hated it.

“He didn’t defeat me. He cares for me. He listens to me, just like he’ll listen to you as soon as you start acting like an adult and not a four-year-old. Tantrums are not a good look on you and they never work on Castiel.” Most of the words were drivel, Dean knew, but he needed Michael’s Omega homed in on his alpha’s voice. Michael was in a full Omega freefall, and he needed an alpha to hoist him out again.

“So then, you’re gonna strap me into submission? It won’t work. It never works. Call my Pop and ask.”

“No, this isn’t to get you to comply, not directly at least. That’s your decision. This is just standard consequences. You break a Rule, there’s a price. And we’re really consistent, Michael. There’s always going to be a price. What you said to my fiancé just now? That was rude and disrespectful. It embarrassed me, and it should embarrass you, too. You’re better than that. You broke my only Rule to you so far by losing your temper and being a jerk in a tense situation where all you had to do was listen. He’s not expecting miracles, man. He knows it’s gonna take time.”

Dean gestured to the side of the bed with the belt. “Bend over. Let’s get this done.”

Michael didn’t move for a moment, so Dean followed up, his eyes red-rimmed and earnest. “You want some trust between us? This will help. I swear. You can trust that I’ll never take a punishment too far. I’ll never harm you, and I will deliver what’s proportional to the misbehavior. You can trust me not to let you get out of control, not to let you get away with bad behavior that will tear you down inside. I’m gonna take good care of you Michael. Right now, you don’t even recognize your own Omega, but you need to. You’ve shut it out, and that’s why you’re miserable. Now, get yourself into position or I’ll put you there.”

“Why you and not him? I didn’t say it to you.”

Dean side-eyed him for a moment. “Did you want a response from him, Michael?”

“I didn’t say it to you!” Michael insisted petulantly.

“He knows you were trying to provoke him, and I’ll bet that confrontation is coming—soon, no doubt. But for now, your behavior is my responsibility, and because he’s only your Alpha indirectly until you’ve pledged to him, he’s giving me the chance to help you before he has to step in.” Dean took hold of Michael’s upper arm and guided him into position bent over the bed. Michael didn’t resist. Maybe he was in shock. Dean wanted to believe that a part of Michael knew he needed this. “That’s not to say that he won’t ever be the one to punish you, but now’s maybe not the time.” Dean’s mind was aswirl with assessments, skimming rapidly over Michael’s body and through his emotions.

“Drop ‘em, Omega. In this Pack, we don’t ever spank over clothing.”

Michael’s hands slowly took hold of either side of his scrubs and pushed them down his hips. He put his head into his crossed arms and stood still. “Very good. I need you to count them out for me. I’d like to try for a Release, but if it doesn’t happen, we’ll stop when you’re done anyway. I’ll know when it’s enough. Trust me, babe. I’m good at this.”

Dean touched Michael’s lower back to ground him and then brought down the first stroke.

“One,” Michael responded on cue. Dean kept the strikes at a medium strength level. As an Omega, Michael could be expected to take quite a bit, but Dean didn’t know his tolerance yet. They worked their way up to ten without a Release. Michael sobbed out his counts, and his legs trembled with his crying. Dean kept watch over him through their bond. He found Michael’s emotions a whirlwind of confusion. He was remorseful and scared, angry and penitent. Mostly, he was ashamed, but a wave of pride kept sweeping over and swamping the more vulnerable emotions. Dean kept it up until the waves of shame and pride faded and the remorse and penitence took over. Michael was sobbing an apology over and over, still dutifully counting the strokes. “Nineteen!” he cried. “Twenty!” His body Released right at the stroke of twenty, and Dean dropped the belt.

“Shhh, baby. We’re all done. You’re all right now. You did great. C’mere.” Dean worked himself and Michael up onto the bed and let Michael lie on top of him and cry. “It’s okay. I’ve got you now. I’m not ever going to let you go, sweet Omega.”

“Why do I feel this way, Dean?” Michael sobbed, clinging to the alpha. “I hate being Omega! It’s not right for me. I can’t…” He couldn’t continue speaking, so he shoved the knot of tangled emotions through the Mating-bond and into Dean’s lap in a twisted pile. The demand was clear, Help me know what this is. Help me, alpha.

“You’re all right, really.” Dean sifted through the messy pile and found nothing alarming. He pulled at one particular strand and fed it back to Michael. “This is anger. You’re mad about how little control you’ve had over this whole situation, right? Baby, we’re not taking your power away. We’re just giving you the structure you need to thrive. You get a say in this Pack. I swear. Check through the bond if you want. I’m not lying.”

He moved on. “This one is relief. I don’t know. You tell me, maybe relief that your Omega got a steady hand for a change? When’s the last time someone did that for you? Outside of sex, I mean.” Michael just held Dean tighter. “Baby, everything you’re feeling is perfectly normal. You’re scared and ashamed of yourself, and your ass hurts, but all of that will get better with time. I’ve got you now. If you can’t trust Alpha, then at least don’t be a jerk to him, and we’ll work on it. Trust me. Focus on me.”

Dean hugged him tightly and nuzzled the top of his head. “I gotta say, switching between being your alpha and being your Submissive might just give me whiplash, but it’s a trip, you know? I think I’m going to love the unpredictability of you, my friend.” He lifted Michael’s face and kissed his tears away, looking into his clear green eyes. The gold rim was gone. Michael looked very young and sad. “You ready? It’s not really a long drive from here, not compared with starting from Dallas. We’ll take breaks. You and I both need them to keep our butts from hating us. One rule you haven’t heard yet,” Dean worked them both to sitting and kept his arm around his mate. “More a policy than a rule. When it comes to spanked backsides, the rule is, if you earn it, you gotta sit on it. That means it’s gonna be a long drive for both of us. No lying down.”

Michael chuckled sadly, snuggling his face into Dean’s chest and scenting him. The alpha scent—the mate-scent— helped. “Come on, Michael. Let’s get dressed.”

They hadn’t even made it out of the parking lot when Castiel, in the shotgun position, commented without looking up from his phone. “That bite isn’t going to scar, you know. Alphas don’t take to scarring the way betas and Omegas do.”

“Well then, I’ll just have to keep putting it back every time it heals, won’t I?” Michael snarked from the back seat, fitting his headphones over his ears and squirming in his seat. Dean rolled his eyes and stepped on it. It was going to be a long drive home.

Chapter Text

THEN:

Castiel climbed the stairs to his brother’s old childhood room. He knew Gabriel would be there. His brother hadn’t entered the room he’d shared with his mate since the accident. Cas slipped in quietly and then worked himself gently behind the curled figure that sat rocking back and forth on the mattress. Castiel leaned against the massive headboard and wrapped his legs around his brother’s grief-stricken body, pulling him in to rest against Castiel’s chest, embracing him with as much of himself as he could, including the Claim-bond that still chimed strong and true between the two brothers.

Gabriel allowed himself to be moved however the Alpha liked, nestling his face into his brother’s chest and weeping shamelessly. Castiel let his anger with their mother fade to a slow simmer and focused on holding Gabriel. He needed to get Gabriel through this. The Omega wasn’t going to be able to do it alone. Castiel ran gentle fingers through his blond hair and whispered meaningless nothings at him: “I know, sweet one. I know. I’m here. I’m not going to leave you.” They didn’t mean a goddamned thing. Nothing could fix Gabriel. He was too broken.

Two years. They’d only had two years together, Gabe and Marina. True-Mates had never been so perfect for each other. She was witty and brash, too clever with her tongue even for Gabriel to keep up. She could snap out an insult that left the receiver flummoxed for days trying to work it out. And she was beautiful and sleek. She made Gabriel look like a troll, he’d often lamented with pride in his eyes. Gabriel had worshiped her like she’d built the earth with her bare hands, just for him.

Maybe she had.

And they’d waited to start a family—had only recently decided it was time to try for a pup. Gabriel glowed. Marina glowed. Castiel had shamefully burned with envy to see their happiness. That kind of bond, it seemed, wasn’t for the likes of Cas Novak. Now there was nothing. No pup. No mate. No chance ever to mate again, although Gabriel wouldn’t have been one to take a second chance if it was offered. He was done. He’d had his perfect, and now it was gone. All that was left for him was the grieving.

NOW:

“You wanted to see me, alpha?”

“Come on in, Sam. Have a seat,” Bobby stood and gestured Sam into one of the visitor’s chairs in his office. “I want to get your take on the shit-fest in Dallas. You get a chance to read over it all yet?”

“Yes, I did.” Sam sat forward in his chair, attentive, sweeping his hair back from his eyes. “I don’t like how this all went so bad over the last year, and nobody noticed. I have a couple of conclusions where we can go from here.”

Bobby nodded, listening. Sam’s ability to jump straight to the problem, weed through the details, and come up with practical solutions made him just about Bobby’s favorite go-to fix-it guy. “What bothers me most is not that it went screwy, but that no one raised any alarms.” Sam rifled through the pages on his lap. “That shouldn’t be possible.”

“Henrickson had to know,” he continued. “He had to be lying to us on the conference calls and all that. Even if he didn’t know why or who was behind the mess, there’s no way he wasn’t aware of it. And he deliberately hid the problems from making it into his reports. Look, see, here’s the status report from last quarter; there are no customer complaints reported at all. That’s just ridiculous. Even the best public service facility gets complaints. But they’re not entering them into their system. That’s on Victor. We had to go digging into the website’s database ourselves to find them. And you know what we found? Hundreds. Hundreds of complaints that were never logged into Dallas’ local system, so they don’t show up on the reports.”

Sam flopped the report onto Bobby’s desk in disgust. “I don’t know whether he was worried about his job, or of looking bad, or somebody was holding something over him. Maybe he’s just that incompetent. Whatever it was, we need to redesign the system so that online complaints come straight to headquarters, not through the local facilities first. And we need better oversight of the Directorships at all three locations. Anybody checking up on Vegas and Boston yet?” Bobby just grunted. He was working on it.

“Also, you know Charlie’s pretty much our whole IT staff? What with that and running her coordinator position, it’s too much for one person. We have a robust network, but even a good one requires maintenance. Maybe when we were just one site she could swing it, but not now. She can’t do it all. She’s got all the systems integrated and automated, and they all run through here for control, but it’s too much. Not even Charlie can handle that much.”

“Sam, I want you to go to Dallas. I want you to lead the cleanup crew and organize an audit. We’ve got to fix this mess now. Alpha’s orders. You saw the medical pics of Henrickson after Cas got through with him, right? We can’t let that happen to anyone else. This stops. Right now.”

“Um, I’ll go, alpha, if you need me to, but I was thinking. I’d like to send Cole instead. I think he’s up to it, and I believe it would be really good for him to see that place, work out how to fix it.”

“You wanna send a probational newbie who’s already on your boss’s shitlist to fix this clusterfuck?”

“He’s not a newbie, and he’s not on probation anymore. Bobby, I just think, nothing can demonstrate to him how to perform his job right better than witnessing firsthand how things go when you do it wrong. And I want to give him the opportunity to redeem himself fully. He’ll never get that while he’s here under my wing.”

“I don’t know, Sam. It’s a big risk. You’re putting yourself on the line just going to bat for him.”

“Forget about me.” Sam leaned in, earnest. “Look, send Pamela Barnes and Rufus Turner with him. Between the three of them, they’ve got the whole gamut of screwed up issues covered, and they’ll watch out for each other. It’s not that I don’t want to go…I mean, I don’t, but that’s just because I like it here. If you tell me I’m going, I’ll pack my bags today. You and Benny know you can count on me, but I think…” Sam paused and frowned, thinking.

“Spit it out, beta.”

“I’ve been invited to join the new Pack, Castiel’s Pack. I think I’m going to accept, and I’d like to be there when they form it, while it’s finding its feet. I kind of want to be in on the ground floor, if you know what I mean.”

Bobby took it in for a minute, then he smiled warmly at Sam. “Of course. I understand. I’ll talk it over with Lafitte, and we’ll figure something out. You mentioned anything to him about Cole yet?” Sam shook his head.

“Not yet. I wanted to run it by you first. The way I see it, if you say no, it’s no. I didn’t want to waste his time.”

Bobby looked up at Sam from where he’d been scanning through the reports. “You know Benny outranks me, right?” There was a canny, amused light in his eye.

“On paper he does, but I’ve got eyes, alpha. You run this place. Anyone who doesn’t know that is blind.”

Dean checked through the rearview mirror that Michael was distracted inside his headphones. He appeared to be asleep with his headed tilted back along the seat. He glanced across the bench at his fiancé and nudged his thigh, getting his attention.

“Have you thought about how to issue an engagement announcement? Or when?” he asked Castiel tentatively.

Castiel took a moment to make the jump in focus from the status report on his cell phone to Dean’s question. When he did, he shut off his phone and set it on the seat beside himself. “What do you think, Dean? You’re the one with all the social media and public relations expertise.”

Dean scoffed. “Expertise? No, no, I’m just naturally charming and charismatic. Don’t confuse being adored by the public with skills at PR” Dean expected to be called on his deliberate stifling of everything weighing on him, but Alpha said nothing about it.

The only reaction was a leveled look that clearly said his Bullshit detector had been activated, but his eyes swam with pleasure. He leaned far across the bench seat and kissed Dean’s cheek before returning to his own seat. “All right Mr. Adored, what do you suggest in your limited expertise, then?” Cas played in.

Dean grinned. He was beautiful when he smiled, and Castiel realized sadly how much time they’d lost—time that they could have been sharing moments of gentle happiness just like this one. “I say let the real expert do it. Give it to Billie to manage.”

“Done. I’ll send her an email right now, tell her to propose a timeline for release and recommendations for how best to break the story.” He began pecking out a message on his phone. “Will we be a breaking story, Dean? I’m never sure how much anyone cares about our private goings-on, or why.”

“Yes, it’s going to be a big story, my love.” Dean glanced at him, reached for his hand, and pulled it to his lips for a kiss.

“BLECH!! Get a room!”

Cas’ face hardened as he pulled his hand back, but Dean laughed and reached over the back of the seat for a fist bump from his mate.

“It’s probably already out by now anyway.” Dean picked up the thread from before they’d been rudely interrupted. “Everyone at home knows, and we’re not exactly leak-proof. Timing this may be moot, but we need to decide how to respond to the rumors. You ready for the media attention? We could deny and dodge for a while if you want.” Dean kept his eyes on the road, giving Cas space to think.

“I’m ready when you are. I can’t think of any reason to deny it. I’m proud to be your fiancé, Dean.”

“Kill me now. Please, god,” from the backseat at a peevish mumble.

“That’s enough, Michael. You’ve made your point.” Dean met his eye through the mirror, sternly. A little snark could be awesome, but a whole road trip of it would kill them all.

“Yes, Mother,” grumbled Michael. Cas shifted as if he was about to turn and lambaste the Omega in the back, but Dean stilled him with a hand to his thigh and a slight shake of his head. They’d get there.

Patience, Grasshopper.

“Holy shit! Have you two seen what’s on YouTube?!” Michael thrust his phone up to the front seat and sat forward to reach. Dean listened but didn’t try to watch the video. Castiel focused on the screen as Michael hit the play button. It was the rest stop in Texas. The two Alphas could be seen manhandling their charges across the sidewalk and sweating up a storm, shouting to each other. Michael’s and Dean’s injuries made obvious bloodstains on their torn clothing.

“Aww, you carried him out like a sweet little cub…” Michael watched from an angle he hadn’t been privy to before.

“Are there more of these?” asked Castiel.

“Yep,” Michael responded, pulling his phone back and scrolling through the related prompts to the right of the screen. “This one’s got over two million views already. And it looks like someone got a little bit from inside the bathroom. Ooh, nice hit, dude! Wow, I look hot! Damn, look at my eyes! They glow!”

“Yes, Michael, you’re very beautiful.” Cas deadpanned, then he turned to Dean. “Do you think this should change our plan to announce the engagement? We might just confuse people what with two Matings and a marriage all at once.”

“Nah. They’ll figure it out. Kind of crazy though, isn’t it? I’m nearly thirty and you’re…old.” Cas spluttered in indignation. “What are the chances we all hit dead center at the same time? Have you turned up the prayer circles or something?”

“You know I’m not religious, Dean, and I’ll show you old.” Cas’ Dom voice ended on a throw down at Dean’s Sub and was rewarded with a shiver from the driver.

Michael growled, looking up from his phone. There wasn’t any brat-natured snark in his tone this time. His wolf was responding to Castiel in a very real way. He meant business. No one was allowed to speak to his Sub in that tone, no one, but Michael.

Castiel and Dean both looked around. Michael’s lip was fixed in a snarl, and he was centered on the long bench seat, his eyes golden and staring down the threat before him. Dean shot a glance at Cas to see if he should pull over. If it was going to go down right now, they couldn’t do it in a moving vehicle. But Cas presented his flat palms in a calming gesture. He didn’t defer by dropping his eyes, but neither did he challenge Michael’s Claim, and his eyes stayed blue. “My apologies, Omega,” he soothed. “We haven’t established boundaries yet, and that was premature. You have a Claim on your Submissive. I will respect and honor that Claim until we’ve built a foundational structure of boundaries. Please forgive my trespassing.”

A tense few seconds passed. Dean scanned the shoulder for a clear, grassy space. Then Michael released a long breath and ducked his head into his hands. “Yes. Boundaries would be good. How about we start,” he lifted his head and focused back on Cas but without the golden tone to his irises, “…With you don’t get to talk to him like that, and you don’t touch his ass. Ever.”

Cas huffed gently. “I’m afraid that’s an unacceptable restriction. Have you seen his ass?

“Guys! Really? Right now? I’m driving. You’re gonna make us crash!”

“We’re just having a calm, adult conversation, Dean. Mind your own business,” Cas shot at him with authority.

“My own…?” Dean stared at him in disbelief long enough that Cas jumped to grab the wheel.

“I’ve got it!” Dean shoved him back to his side.

“I have seen his ass,” Michael picked up boldly. “It’s a beautiful shape, firm and round—so spankable, fuckable. Thing is, I haven’t seen it any color but purple yet.” Michael continued, utterly affronted while Dean blushed and scrunched down just a little in his seat, “Because of you, Alpha, I had to Claim my mate while he was covered in someone else’s fucking marks. My mate. My Submissive. Not yours.” Michael’s voice was controlled, but very firm, assertive, nearly aggressive.

He went on. “What gives you the right to claim anything but his place in the Pack beneath you and the ring on his finger? He steps out of line, you just let me know, and I’ll take care of it. You two can have your stupid domestic marriage: do laundry, make grocery lists, crochet effing curtains together for all I care, but keep your fucking hands off my mate.”

Cas responded in-kind, calm but firm, “The word marriage connotes a conjugal relationship, Michael. I will be willing to offer you some allowances as his mate, but I will not cede all sexual and Dominant contact with Dean to you. That is off the table. Period.”

“Oh well, gee, thanks for the scraps.” Then Michael addressed Dean. “You see? I told you it’d be like this. He gets whatever the fuck he wants, and I get whatever dribbles off of you two. This is bullshit!”

“It’s not scraps!” Dean insisted. “And I’m not a rump roast for the dogs to fight over! Jesus!” Castiel was about to speak up in his own defense, but Dean put a finger in his face and forestalled him. “I want a month with him, just us, just Michael and me—before his eval, before his training. We need it to establish our footing and get ourselves solid. I can’t believe you would try to start divvying me up like Thanksgiving leftovers on the day after we Mated. What’s wrong with you, man?”

Cas looked down and pulled both lips in between his teeth. He glanced up at Dean without lifting his head. “I’m sorry, Dean. You’re right.” Dean kicked his head back slightly to nudge Cas into offering Michael an apology too. Castiel’s eyes flicked back at his fellow Dominant, and he sighed.

“Michael, I’m sorry. Dean’s right. You two deserve some time alone.” He sat subdued in the tension surrounding him. Michael didn’t respond other than to scoot back over behind Dean and resume watching the landscape fly by with his headphones fixed back in place, shifting occasionally on his sore backside.

Cas offered, “You may use my suite if you like. I’m moving April to the manor when we get back, so the suite will be empty. It’s much bigger and more comfortable than your own rooms there, Dean. You would also be welcome at home. There’s an H/R suite as well as the guard house, or the guest house… or the pool house.”

“Fuck me,” whispered Michael in a perfect Gordan Ramsay.

Gabriel was a sneaky bastard when he wanted to be. Dressed innocuously with his ballcap pulled down low, he worked his way down the damp, dark concrete-walled hallway. He kept his flashlight off and darted past the infrequent lightbulbs spaced out along the long corridor, checking every door that he passed and scanning the ceiling for cameras. Most of the doors were locked and still. A few opened to empty, barren, medieval concrete cells with grated drains in the floor and dripping walls. Some had moldy flat mattresses on the floor. Others had nothing.

What a fucking hellhole.

He couldn’t hear anything but dripping water and a buzz from the open bulbs, but he knew there were people here. He’d been following this lead long enough to be sure. Above him, several floors up was a state-of-the-art Lupin Facility, shiny, glossy, and pristine, boasting all the amenities a wolf might need to get their fix and get their head screwed on right. But underneath…

This is where the unclaimed wound up: those who had no pack, who were brought in shivering, starving, lost to their Heat and the buildup of Omesol and cortisol, those who were vulnerable and alone, those who wouldn’t be missed. Gabriel had watched Gordon’s men bring them in with promises of food and comfort, support, Balance, and Release only to have them disappear without a trace a few days later.

There was money to be made in the sex-slave trade—lots of money, significantly more than anyone could make by offering training classes and scening. Trembling, frightened, drugged-up Omegas made the perfect slaves. Keep them on the right regimen of drugs and they stayed compliant and wet, ready for anything, in a permanent Heat state. Add in the high tolerance for pain and the fast healing, and it was a gold mine.

Gabriel used his tiny camera to grab an image of an empty cell as he passed it. Empty wouldn’t bring a conviction, though. He needed to find the people. The prisoners. And it wasn’t a conviction by a jury of their peers that Gabriel chased anyway. He pulled up sharply at the sound of approaching feet, tucking himself back into a doorway. The latch didn’t budge, and he had nowhere to go without catching their attention. He prayed his scent-blockers were still strong enough to cover the smell of his adrenalin and cortisol. The door jamb was deep and shaded from light, and Gabriel used every trick he knew to keep himself utterly still and silent.

Three figures, two walking and one being dragged, approached and passed him, looking neither left nor right. They had no reason to believe anyone else was down here with them. “She’ll sleep it off in an hour. Get Gordon. He wanted to take a look at this one.”

They unlocked one of the cell doors and tossed the limp figure inside then closed and re-locked it before beating a hasty retreat. It seemed as if even the dregs of the earth wanted to spend as little time down here as possible.

Gabriel waited for them to leave and then crept silently to the cell where the small figure had been cast. He ran his hands over it, checking the lock and latch. He risked using his flashlight long enough to work the lock open with his pick, the light held tight in his teeth. The door swung loudly on its hinges, and Gabriel moved fast. He put his flashlight back into his pocket, slipped his arms underneath her tiny frame and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. She practically weighed nothing, but her dead weight made her awkward to carry. Gabriel chose the fireman’s carry so he’d have a hand free and began picking his way back the way he’d come, toward the back of the building, not the front. He and Gordon shouldn’t be running into each other this way. He moved quickly but took a moment to check the girl’s pulse as he went. She had a strong heartbeat. That was good but not unexpected. Sex-slaves didn’t sell for much if they were dead.

Gabriel worked his way methodically back up three floors in the dark. This side was unguarded. Apparently, the security team didn’t think anyone would be hunting for a way into the dungeon and hadn’t thought to secure it—either that or there were hidden cameras that Gabriel’s scoping had missed, in which case he was a dead man. He made it to the garbage chute and moved as fast as he could. He eased the limp form in past the lip and let her go, letting gravity slide her body to his partners waiting at the bottom. He listened for the gentle thump and was just about to step onto the seat himself when a heavy hand came down upon his shoulder and arrested his motion.

“This area is off-limits to clients, Omega. That was explained to you at orientation. Come with me.” Gabriel forced himself to breathe normally, or at least, in no more of a panic than an Omega on his way to an ass-beating might be under normal conditions. How much did this guy know? Had he seen Gabriel with the girl? Had he seen Gabriel drop her to his compadres? He tried to figure a way to warn them, but there was no way to get his phone out this close to the alpha guard. He’d have to trust them to figure it out and get her to safety without him. He wished he’d stashed his camera in her pocket before letting her fall. If that was found on him, if they checked the picture files…

“In here,” gestured the guard.

Gabriel was ushered into one of the punishment rooms. This facility had several—more than were warranted by its size. The idea made Gabriel physically ill. At the far end, Gordon stood leaning against a heavy steel spanking bench, inspecting his fingernails. Gabriel adopted his best defense, an obstreperous swagger and smirk. He greeted the alpha as if nothing could possibly be amiss. “Hey, alpha! Nice digs you got here. I haven’t been in this one yet. Damn! Is that a St. Andrew’s with spikes?”

Gabriel affected loud and obnoxious like a cloak and prayed hard to the Universe.

Gordon looked up at him with distaste and scowled. “On your knees, Omega.” The command came from a place that knew its own power and expected to be obeyed. Gabriel dropped where he stood, spreading his knees wide and leaning his head to one side to bare his throat. His gaze dropped to the floor. “You were not in class today. Explain yourself, Maurice.”

“I have no excuse, alpha. I played hooky. My ass was sore from yesterday, and I just couldn’t make myself go through it today.”

“Your ass was sore?” Gordon stood and walked slowly toward the Omega. Gabriel kept his eyes trained on the alpha’s feet without moving his head and listened for the sound of the guard by the door. Was he still there? Probably. It would be unlike Gordon to leave himself unguarded. “And you thought racking up more misconduct would help it to recover? I thought you were smarter than that. Hmm, guess not. Peter, I think our Omega miscreant needs a stronger lesson. Take care of that for me, will you please?”

“Of course, alpha,” the guard at the door replied.

Gabriel’s jackal leveled an unimpressed look at the Omega. He’d about had enough of taking punishments that didn’t take him where he needed to go—punishments he hadn’t even had the fun of earning. (Just go along with me here, please buddy, just one more), Gabriel entreated. He needed to cave fast so he could get through the punishment and get locked back in his room before Gordon and his goons discovered the missing prisoner. Gabe was under no illusions that they’d figure out it was him once they put their heads together.

Gordon strode out and the alpha guard picked Gabriel up by the scruff of his neck and began shackling him face-first to the St. Andrew’s cross that Gabe had spotted when he entered.

Crap.

This was gonna hurt.

The spikes weren’t long, but they were everywhere. There was nowhere to rest his body without a sharp tang of metal digging in and sending a trickle of blood down his skin.

Anyone who thought a device like this belonged anywhere but a dark ages torture chamber was certifiable. Even Castiel would never own something like this. It was evil.

“This is my favorite one, Maurice. I’m glad to know you have such good taste in furniture. You comfy?”

“Let’s do it,” mumbled Gabriel.

He’d not had to fake his submission at all against the onslaught of the whip and that godforsaken cross. Tossed carelessly back into his own well-appointed room, Gabriel cursed the damned thing and pushed himself off his cot with shaking and bleeding arms. They’d eventually get around to sending medical to check him over, but he needed to be gone by then. He needed to disappear, but he was bleeding enough to leave a trail, and that would complicate matters. Gabe began ripping his bedsheet into wide strips.

He didn’t have anything in his room that he couldn’t abandon, having planned not to return to it when he left this morning, so he worked the lock open with his pick and checked carefully for guards. There were none. Gordon needed to keep up appearances with the real clients that he was running an above-board training institution, and goons stalking the halls gave off a bad vibe. Bad for business. The cameras were another matter, but Gabe had them wired into his own feed. He hoped he’d jacked all of them. It would only take one. The empty hallway worked for Gabriel who slipped out of his room, straight into the bathroom next door and through his emergency escape route like a black cat at midnight. Or like a jackal.

A really fucking stealthy jackal.

Castiel’s phone pinged with a text message and then another and another in short succession. He opened the first and sat straight up in his seat in alarm, skimming through the rest of them as fast as he could read. “How close are we to Oklahoma City, Dean!”

“We’re close, Cas. ‘Bout twenty miles south of Norman. OKC is just past there. What’s up?”

“It’s Gabriel. He’s in some kind of trouble. The team says they lost contact with him, and they need to take off to make the rescue.” Cas turned wide eyes on Dean. “Did you know he was on a job in Gordon’s place? What rescue? What the hell’s going on?”

“Dunno, man. Are you sure it’s Gordon’s? OKC prolly has more than one hellhole in it. He could be anywhere.”

“No, it’s Gordon’s training school. They’re clear about that. How long until we can get to him?”

Dean called back over his shoulder, “Michael, use your phone to navigate me to the…shit what’d he name it? Fuck, just do a google search on Lupin training facilities in Oklahoma City. I’ll know it when I hear it and take me there. You got it?”

“I got it, hold on, bad signal. Give me a minute.” Michael held his phone aloft to try to increase its reception. “What’s going on?”

The front seat ignored him as Castiel typed frantically into the phone, then gave up and hit dial.

“Ash!” he shouted. “What’s going on? Have you got him? Is he safe?!”

…

“No, no, we’re on our way, but we can’t get there that fast. It’s what…how much longer Dean?”

“I don’t know! Maybe forty-five minutes? Michael, you got anything?”

Castiel returned to his conversation. “We’re maybe forty-five minutes south of you right now, Ash. What do you need?” Cas listened intently, his hand to the opposite ear to block out the road noise and help him concentrate. “Yes, get her out of there. Take her straight to Lawrence and call for Bobby and Pam. Can you leave someone to rendezvous with us?”

“Dean,” Michael spoke urgently, but softly to keep from drowning out Castiel’s conversation, leaning forward into Dean’s space. “Is it the OLS? What, the… Oklahoma Lupin Society?” he said hesitantly, searching the website for the full name.

“Yeah, that’s it. Navigate me to their main campus. How long?”

“Showing almost sixty miles traveling northwest. It’s outside the city on the other side from where we are now.”

“Find me the fastest route and don’t let me miss any turns.”

“You got it.” Michael hunkered back in the seat to work out the route. He was dying with curiosity, but he knew an emergency when he saw one, and this was his Pack, his Pack in trouble. He didn’t even notice the irony.

“C’mon Gabe, damnit! Check in, you stupid son of a bitch.” Cas was beside himself with worry. He checked and rechecked his phone messages, checked and rechecked that Dean and Michael knew where they were going. “I’m going to kill him when I get hold of him. He did this without telling anyone. Even Bobby didn’t know.” Cas was muttering for Dean’s benefit ostensibly, but he wasn’t really speaking loud enough to be heard. He just needed to keep talking himself through this. He couldn’t lose Gabriel. He couldn’t. Not after everything they’d been through.

Then his phone chirped, and he was on it like a duck on a June bug. “It’s Gabe! He’s out! Dean, he’s sending an address. We need to get there fast, though. He says he’s not secure.”

“Here, give it to me, I’ll put it in my Nav.” Michael reached up and took the phone from Cas, who relinquished it so Michael could grab the address.

It didn’t take long from where they’d worked their way around the main freeways and high traffic. Michael’s directions cut more than ten minutes off the map’s estimate and in no time, Dean slid to a stop in a spray of gravel outside a crusty dive-bar. Gabriel appeared from the bushes nearby and dove into the back seat on top of Michael who couldn’t get out of the way. He pulled the door closed, and Dean floored it.

Untangling themselves, the two Omegas ended up side-by-side, both bloody and filthy, Gabriel panting and sweaty, and Michael wide-eyed with shock.

“You do this often?” he asked the blond Omega.

“All the time,” Gabriel huffed. “Who the fuck are you?”

Chapter Text

THEN:

“Dad,” called Dean coming into the kitchen. John Winchester looked up from his newspaper. “I need my own room. I can’t do the alpha exercises with him in there. It’s embarrassing.”

“I’m not a rich man, Dean. I don’t have another room to give you.” John folded the paper and set it down. “Why is this such a big deal? Explain it to me. You’ve shared a room with Sam his whole life. You’ve been naked together plenty of times, bathed together, had both your bare asses spanked together. I know you both jack off in there. Please explain why this is so different.”

“Come on, Dad. It’s just different. It’s the knot. It’s weird-looking and having him there creeps me out. It’s like he’s watching me or something. Can you at least tell him to give me some private time to go through all the exercises alone?”

“I’m not going to do that, son. I want you and Sam to figure this out on your own. You need to understand why it bothers you so much, and then talk to your brother. He may very well present as an alpha too, and then it’s going to be even more important that you know how to work your concerns out with him. It might even be important to him, if he is alpha, to have had a role model to look up to. You know someone had to show you the ropes too, Dean. It’s important to learn control. Those exercises are about more than your knot, alphas learn best by watching older alphas maintaining their own control. He’s your brother. He loves and cares about you. Give him a chance, Dean. I know he’s got your back, just like you do his, and I’d bet he doesn’t think your knot is weird-looking. He probably just sees it as part of you. It’s you he cares about, not your dick.”

“I’m only asking for a little privacy, Dad. That’s not too much to ask,” Dean wheedled.

“You don’t need privacy from your own pack, Dean. You’re not a monkey. Whatever’s got you feeling uncomfortable in your own skin isn’t about Sam. It’s about you. Now, you know I’m always here to talk things out with you. I know growing into yourself as an alpha is no easy task. God knows, Dean. I know. I’ve been there. But you’ve got to stop looking outside yourself for an answer that you’re only going to find inside. Wolves don’t get embarrassed by their own power. If having Sam around embarrasses you, son, you need to figure out why, and doing the exercises I taught you, with or without your brother in the room, is the best way to explore it all.”

NOW:

Michael couldn’t enter through the employee’s turnstile, so they headed for the main entrance when they got back to The Facility. April was vibrating next to Charlie in the foyer, and when she spotted Castiel, she launched herself toward him with a full-on springboard leap, grabbing on with both arms and both legs and an obnoxiously high-pitched squeal. He caught her under her thighs with a grunt and a chuckle, bending his legs for the extra support. “Easy, Kitten,” he admonished playfully. “I’m getting too old for that kind of thing.” Dean just Mm-hmed loudly enough to be heard and guided Michael around the couple and toward the small assembly of well-wishers for the first of the introductions. Gabriel limped along behind unobtrusively, no longer bleeding, but looking somewhat like a slash-horror victim. Cas had lent him a change of clothes that he wasn’t going to ask Gabe to return.

April wasted no time. She kissed her mate’s face and throat, letting go with her arms, leaning back a bit, and beginning to work at his belt buckle, trusting that he’d hold her up like always. He did. He also leaned in and sucked a bruise into her throat, backing her against the wall under the grand foyer sign and pushing the skirt of her tunic up her thighs with both hands.

“Nope!” interrupted Charlie bravely. There was a reason she was staged out here with April. “Alpha, it’s great to have you home, but you gotta go through that door right there, then walk about forty-five more feet and through the door on the left before you do that. “Alpha! CASTIEL!” she shouted at him to no avail. Gabriel caught Dean’s eye as he was giving Meg a hug in greeting and gestured. Dean rolled his eyes and walked back to collect the horny couple. He and Gabriel each crooked an arm through one of Cas’ elbows and steered him toward the door that Charlie held open for them. They were lucky it was late enough in the day that the entryway was clear of clientele. The Facility didn’t need Castiel’s antics to end up on the internet no matter how many hours he’d spent away from his mate.

Cas gripped his mate’s ass and continued kissing, sucking, and biting wherever he could latch onto. “Jesus, Castiel,” griped Dean grabbing at his fiancé’s belt loop to keep his pants from hitting the floor while he walked, “Act like you’ve been in public before! This is embarrassing.”

“It’s good to have you back, Dean!” shouted Becky from behind the desk as they rounded the door and headed straight for Cas’ suite.

“Hi, Becky! Bye, Becky.” They made a strange entourage stumbling down the hall. Dean with one arm guiding his future husband, the other holding up his trousers, Gabriel limping and still bleeding a bit, Castiel oblivious to everything but his mate and his hormones. Michael trailing behind them all, shaking his head in wonder and mild disgust.

They got Cas and April squared away in the bedroom of Castiel’s suite with little trouble and left them there. Then they relinquished custody of Gabriel to a very angry-looking Bobby Singer before heading on to the cafeteria to resume introductions. Dean kept an arm around Michael’s waist through all the fanfare, and nuzzled into him every few minutes, checking his scent and their bond for signs that Dean’s enormous Facility family might be overwhelming him.

“Jody! I heard you made the big switch! Welcome, my dear,” gushed Dean releasing his mate long enough to give her a massive Winchester hug. He was delighted that one of his best advisors from his undergrad days had joined the staff. He’d been pushing to bring her onboard since she and their head accountant, Donna, Mated a couple of years ago.

God, it felt good to be home.

Sam turned up after Dean and Michael had made a full circuit around the room, and he hugged his brother hard, wrapping him up in his vast embrace. Michael stood awkwardly to the side, waiting and feeling unbalanced while they laughed easily with each other until Dean turned back to him and bathed him in his alpha’s glorious smile.

“Sam, this is Michael Lancet, my mate. Well, Michael Winchester now.”

Sam stuck a hand out and shook Michael’s hand firmly, his grip solid and not remotely confrontational or posturing. “Welcome to the Pack, Michael. It’s great to have you both home.” Sam’s grin was warm and open. He exuded genuine welcome, and Michael felt, for the first time, a sense of home from this new place that Dean loved. It almost made him falter, but he caught his voice in time as he thanked Sam, side-eyeing his mate to see if he’d noticed. The smirk of victory on Dean’s face said he had. Michael wasn’t normally given to emotional lapses but finding a genuine welcome, a truly friendly face in the middle of an onslaught like this one, well, it might strike anyone misty. Dean squeezed his wrist.

“Where’s Cas?” Sam looked around.

“Fucking,” responded Michael flatly.

“Ah, right,” Sam didn’t seem surprised or put off.

“That normal for him?” Michael asked Sam.

Sam laughed heartily, “Pretty much. Come on, you two, let’s go talk.”

Gabriel sat naked on Bobby’s exam table, swinging his bloodied legs. Castiel had cleaned him up somewhat in the car, switching places with Michael so that he could work on the wounds while Dean drove, but there were so many, and Gabriel insisted they couldn’t afford to stop long enough to really dress the minor ones.

“You get a chance to check over the Omega girl yet? I assume she made it here already. She’s safe, right?” Gabe chirped.

“Shut up,” Bobby said tersely, stitching up the deep lash marks in Gabriel’s back with a hand gentler than the tones coming out of his mouth. “Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

Gabriel sighed and looked around, wincing when Bobby applied more antiseptic. Several tense minutes went by. “Could you at least tell me how she is?” he tried.

Bobby looked at him fiercely out of the corner of his eye. “She’s alive,” he told the Omega.

For all intents and purposes, Gabriel Novak had no occupation. He was a ward of his brother and had no income, produced no product, answered to no employer, but right now, his not-boss was more pissed than Gabriel had ever seen him, pissed enough that even Gabe was cowed.

A little.

Once he was stitched up, cleaned off, bandaged within an inch of his life to resemble a Hollywood mummy, started on the good painkillers and some huge antibiotic horse pills, Gabriel was tucked securely into a clinic bed and told in no uncertain terms that if he left that bed for any reason other than urination or defecation, he’d have what remained of the skin on his back flayed off in inch-wide strips.

“Don’t make me handcuff you. I’ll do it in a heartbeat if I even think you’re going anywhere.”

“Yes, Bobby,” Gabriel answered out loud. To his jackal he said, (As if handcuffs could hold us if we wanted to bolt). The jackal giggled maniacally.

Bobby joined the team in the smaller conference room on the first floor. “Where’s Cas?” he asked, taking his seat.

“Probably still tied,” answered Benny. “He’ll be here when he gets here. I don’t doubt he heard the whole story on the way anyhow.”

Bobby turned his attention to Ash, a small beta-Sub who shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He didn’t like coming out of his hole and making any kind of official appearance where cameras might catch an image of him, but he hadn’t been quick enough to slip back out the door after delivering the girl.

“What happened? I need to know everything.” Bobby’s voice was alpha enough to make Ash even more nervous if that was possible.

Ash recounted awkwardly: how Gabriel approached him with an assignment four days ago, asking him to keep it on the DL, how he’d only brought in two other conspirators and made sure no one contacted the team leaders or The Facility connections—at that, Ash glanced at Bobby before ducking his head back down—how Gabe said he’d been secretly scoping Gordon’s place for a long time now, making silent midnight outings to stake it out on his own, only bringing in help when he was ready to move.

Gabriel had entered the OLS claiming to be a lone wolf Omega in need of several days of refresher classes and a Release, telling them his custodial alpha lived too far away to see to his needs. At night, he went searching the place, looking for secret doors and backways, hunting for a way to sneak harvested Omegas back out again. He’d contacted Ash this morning and texted him the instructions to gain access to the trash chute—told him to be ready for a rescue.

“That’s pretty much it, alpha. Only, we expected Gabe would be with the girl when she came tumbling down the slide, but he wasn’t. We waited as long as we could, but then we had to scoot. He’s okay, right? They didn’t tar and feather him?”

“He’s fine right now, but he might not be after Castiel or I get through with him. Depends on which of us gets to him first. Thanks for the tar and feather idea.”

“Can I go now, Bobby? You know I don’t like being out in the lights like this.”

Bobby nailed him to his chair with his eyes. “He ever pulls a stunt like this again, Ash, and you don’t call me, you’re going to share equal parts in whatever punishment he earns himself. Am I understood, beta?”

“Yes, alpha. Loud and clear, Sir.”

“Go on, get out of here.”

Ash scuttled past Castiel making his way through the door. Cas barely got a “Hey!” out before the beta was gone. He turned his bewildered gaze to the others.

Pam stepped in. “He didn’t know enough to keep him here, Castiel. We’ll get the details from Gabriel, who’s fine, by the way.” She answered the question before Cas could ask it.

“Not after I get finished with him,” Cas responded darkly.

“Yeah, apparently, there’s a line for that,” said Benny, barely raising his gaze from where his cheek rested against his palm.

Cas raised his eyebrows at Benny. “The line starts and ends with me. I’m his Alpha and his brother. Nobody else touches him. And I’ll remind everyone in this room that Gabriel’s presence here and the reasons behind his presence here are confidential as always. I’ve already asked Charlie to erase video evidence of his arrival onsite—all the usual protocols. He is visiting this Facility because his Alpha brother works here and brought him here for medical care, and that is the only reason.” Cas swept his gaze across every pair of eyes to be sure his message sank in sufficiently, pausing with an intimidating presence.

“Have a seat, Alpha.” Bobby gestured Cas to his place at the head of the table opposite Benny. “It’s good to have you back. It’s been a crazy few days, and we need to catch each other up. Congratulations, by the way. We’re—all of us,” Bobby looked around and included the rest of them, “—very happy for you and Dean. And that’s sincere, my friend. You both deserve to be happy.”

“Thank you, Bobby. It’s been a long time coming. Too long, no doubt. But I want to assure you all that Dean and I will do our level best to keep our private lives out of the board room and out of all Facility business affairs. I should tell you that, as Dean is also newly Mated, he’ll be taking a month-long leave of absence. He is, however, officially transferred back to Kansas for good. So, there’s that. I guess, uh, mission accomplished, so to speak.” Castiel blushed as he wound his little speech up, but he couldn’t stop smiling.

“You big sap!” teased Meg happily.

Castiel didn’t stay long in the conference room. They debriefed, briefly, then tabled the rest until tomorrow. It was late, and everyone was a bit overwhelmed. Cas stopped by the clinic to check on Gabriel. He didn’t stay long there either. Gabriel wouldn’t look at him, and Cas wasn’t ready for the discussion they needed to have. He kept his voice low and nonconfrontational, but there remained a pall over the air between them. He let Gabe know that the issue wasn’t closed, but that he was beyond relieved to have his big brother safely home. He kept a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder, touching his flesh where his clinic gown had pulled down. They both needed the touch.

“Just one thing, though. Everyone in this business knows me, which means most of them know you. What if you’d been recognized? What would we have done if they’d really hurt you? God, Gabe. I couldn’t live through that.”

“I’m sorry, little brother. I didn’t mean to scare you. Thanks for coming for me. But can we please do this later? Please, Castiel.”

“Sure, Gabriel. Get some sleep.” Castiel squeezed his shoulder gently then turned the light out as he left, making sure there would be a guard on the door. He wouldn’t put it past Gabe to sneak out before dawn. He was a sneaky bastard when he wanted to be.

Castiel made a beeline back to his suite. As he’d guessed, they were all there, sitting around the kitchenette table, each with a shot glass in front of them and the bottle already half-empty. They raised a drunken toast to him as he entered, proving right off that they weren’t aiming for moderation, a rousing chorus of, “To the Alpha!” to which he bowed gallantly. Even Michael had raised his glass.

He was already inebriated, no doubt, thought Castiel.

April slid off her chair and onto the small pillow that he kept beside his chair to protect her knees, offering the space to her Dom. He walked up behind her and picked her up under her arms and sat in the chair, snugging her onto his lap, smiling and reaching for a glass.

“Welcome home, Winchesters!” said Sam, a bit too loudly, and someone refilled his glass.

“No, not yet, Sammy. Gonna go back home tomorrow, start grabbing our stuff and moving it into the big house. Then we’ll be home.” Dean was already slurring. Cas found it adorable and kissed his pretty mouth.

Then he checked in with Sam. “You’re moving in with us? I take it that’s a yes from you.” Cas drained his shot glass in one go. He had a bit of catching up to do. Fuck moderation.

“Actually, I plan to stay put. I like my house. It’s been in our family for a long time, and it’s my home. But yeah, if you’ll have me, I want to join you. I want to join your Pack. I accept your offer!” he said enthusiastically, raising his glass in another impromptu toast. “To be a Winchester!”

Everyone cheered and upped their glasses to clink loudly against his. A new bottle appeared on the table as if by magic.

“Oh, oh, formal introductions, all around,” Dean insisted. “Castiel, you never introduced me to your mate. That’s not right, man.”

“I’ll do the honors,” said Michael, standing. “Don’t look at me like that, Dean. I’m not always an asshole.” Dean gestured him forward magnanimously.

“Ok, let’s see. Uh, I’m still learning all this shit, so let me know if I fuck it up.”

“Oh, we will!” laughed Sam.

Tipsy Sam is really fucking loud, thought Michael.

“Uh-huh. Um, okay, as our illustrious leader,” Michael assumed a haughty announcer’s tone, and if he had to hide a bit of sarcasm inside the tone, that was his own business. “Winchester Pack Alpha, and all-around badass Dominant motherfucker, we have Alpha Doctor Castiel Novak, er Winchester, or whatever the fuck his name is today, PhD, etcetera, etcetera, whatever, whatever.” Everyone cheered. Cas ducked his head in humble acknowledgement of the high praise, and wondered if Michael was up to something, what with his dramatic about-face in attitude. More likely, he was drunk and feeling no pain.

“Next in line, and hot as all kinds of fuck, my mate—(and not Castiel’s)—the only alpha I know sporting a genuine mating-bite, the one who looks so much better naked and sweating than wearing hospital scrubs but who can give me a hard-on even in scrubs, my very own Submissive, Dean Michael Winchester!” This time there was more laughter than cheering. Dean took a half-hearted swing at his mate but didn’t connect and decided just to go with it and drink.

Sam refilled the glasses while Michael worked out who was next, nodding his head at each in turn. “So then, let’s see, uh Alpha, alpha, beta, O. Yep, next in line is this monstrous dude who I don’t know very well yet, but who is also not Castiel’s mate and certainly not mine, but who keeps giving me more whiskey, so how bad can he be? My mate-in-law, Samuel Something Winchester!” Sam slugged his shot, then stood and grabbed Michael in a drunken bear hug, rocking him for a moment just to irritate his brother.

“Dude, paws off the Omega!” shouted Dean. “Stick to doling out the goods.” Sam released Michael with a laugh and sat back down to pour them all fresh drinks.

“Then there’s, fuck I don’t know, I think there’s three of us in the O-pool. Wanna arm-wrestle for the top spot, kid? You look pretty strong to me.” He rested his elbow on the table near where April sat, and she laughed.

“You’re on,” she said and took hold of his hand. Castiel moved out from under her to let her get a solid base beneath her. Dean cleared away the extra glasses to make room for them, and Sam squatted down beside the table, his hand around the two of theirs.

“Don’t embarrass me, baby,” Dean advised.

“No chance,” sassed April. “He’s got no chance. What I didn’t tell any of you before today is that I hold the weight-lifting record for Lawton High School and went to Nationals last year. Bring it!”

Sam released their hands and shouted, “Go!” simultaneously. Michael was caught off guard, but April was on her game and had his arm nearly at the touchpoint before he even engaged. Then he stiffened his arm and pulled. It was over in a heartbeat. April, laughing, took defeat well and admitted that she’d never lifted weights in her life.

“Had you going for just a second there though, didn’t I?” she flirted. Michael winked at her and Castiel somehow magically appeared between the two of them, lifting her back up and pulling her back down onto his lap.

“So, to continue with the intros,” Dean picked up where Michael had left off. “Because the dude shouldn’t have to introduce himself: newly established at the top of the O-pile—that’s what you called it, right? Oh yeah, pool, the O-pool. What kinda fucked up title is that? Seriously, what does that even mean?—Is my mate, and not Castiel’s," He winked at his fiancé, who grinned back at him happily. "The dude who out-surlies little old blue-haired librarians—don’t fight it baby, you know it’s true—the one Omega who singlehandedly defeated the grand champion weight-lift title holder of Lawton, Oklahoma in man-to-man combat, or whatever. My Sexy-as-fuck whether he’s naked or not—preferably naked—Dominant, Michael Quentin Lancet Winchester!”

“Quentin?” giggled April. “Seriously? Quentin?”

“I totally take back any and all flirting I may have done or thought about aiming your way. Fuck you! Quentin is a perfectly honorable name.” Michael drained his glass with a snap of his head and slammed it back down on the table.

“Flirt with her again, and I’ll rip your balls off and stuff them up your channel,” mentioned Castiel casually in passing as he refilled the glasses and emptied the bottle.

“We can’t forget Gabe,” said Dean. “…who is at this moment suffering grave bodily trauma and who currently has a dark cloud named Castiel’s belt hanging over his head. Um, all hail Gabriel Allen Novak!”

“All hail Gabriel!” they shouted.

“Oh, but soft! What fair young maiden comst hither?” Dean crooned, taking April’s hand.

“Not a maiden, Dean,” Sam put in. “Sorry to break it to you, but she’s fucked.” Sam giggled. “Like, literally fucked. You know maiden means virgin, right? So, yeah well, Garth took care of that little imperfection. And even if Garth had missed the mark, I picked up where he left off. We popped both cherries in one day. So now she’s definitely not a maiden anymore.” Everybody but Castiel laughed. April laughed loudest and brought Cas’ hands up to her breasts, leaning back to plant a kiss on his cheek. He took it like a good sport but reminding him that Garth took her maidenhood and Sam held her first Claim was not Sam’s best decision of the night. He was drunk though, so his reflexes toward self-preservation were a bit slow.

“Okay, okay, I got it!” Dean broke through the laughter and good-natured ribbing. “Introducing, in the anchor position, our lovely, beautiful and talented, and most definitely not a maiden, the only one who actually is Castiel’s mate! And somehow the only girl in the whole fucking mix—seriously guys, how did that happen?—April um, Anderson? Anderson Novak Winchester!”

Dean stooped to give her a hug. He liked her. They’d been sitting around drinking and just goofing off for a couple of hours when Castiel showed up, and Dean had been watching the young Omega. She was funny and vivacious. She didn’t take a lot of crap from Michael, and she seemed completely at home in her skin. He held her tight for a moment, and he whispered in her ear before he released her. “If I have to share him, I’m glad it’s with you.” Then he released her and looked meaningfully into her eyes. Hers were wide blue pools of liquid emotion as she looked up at him and nodded. It was a bit unfair since she was clearly soused, but he chucked her on the chin anyway. She slapped at his hand good-naturedly, and Castiel shooed Dean away.

They ordered out for Chinese food and made the mistake of letting Dean choose the movie. Before Apocalypse Now ended, Sam disappeared into Dean’s suite across the hall to crash, Cas and April went to bed in the Novak suite’s only bedroom, and Dean and Michael were both fast asleep, tangled together on the couch. They never got around to pulling out the fold-away bed.

Dean and Michael were awakened early in the morning to the sounds of a severe spanking coming from Castiel’s bedroom. It went on long enough to break into their dreams and shepherd them to groggy wakefulness. Michael groaned and pressed his face into Dean’s neck. April’s cries echoed across the living room, through the small kitchen and back again. It didn’t help that Dean’s body responded to the familiar sound of a certain Dominant Alpha’s hand landing like iron upon a firm pair of buttocks with a tell-tale tightening in his groin. He moaned and reached for his mate’s morning wood to make sure he wasn’t the only one. Michael batted his hand away and sat up.

He rubbed at his sore neck and turned around to assess his Submissive, quirking an eyebrow at how erect Dean was already. “Because of that?” he queried, gesturing to the bedroom with his head.

“Mm-hm,” Dean murmured. “Please, Michael.”

“Damn, you are a masochist.” Michael dropped his voice to a whisper and reached for Dean’s hips, clad in just boxers. “You like picturing yourself over his legs? His hand coming down hard on your ass again and again until you’re crying out like that? That getting you hot, Dean? Is it?”

“Yeah,” Dean responded again, rolling his hips in Michael’s grip. “Please, Michael.”

Michael sighed, rubbed his aching forehead. He released Dean’s hips and disappeared around the kitchenette wall to look for aspirin. Dean adding a dose of the complicated reality of their pack dynamics to his hangover was not how he’d hoped to spend the morning. Rules of the game: don’t ask the question if you don’t want to hear the answer. Michael reminded himself to remember that one.

He was just finishing off his pills with a tall glass of water, the bottle of Ibuprofen still in his hand when another hand appeared by his, held in space as if requesting a dose for itself. He looked up. It was April. She was nude, her eyes puffy and red, tears and nose still running freely. He dumped a couple of tablets into her hand and handed her the bottle then left her to it.

Castiel was kneeling, fully dressed in front of Dean on the couch, kissing him soundly when Michael returned. He suppressed a growl. He knew that kissing was going to have to stay on the allowable list, but he didn’t like it. He considered turning away but couldn’t make himself leave, so he stood awkwardly next to the kitchen table and waited until Castiel finished murmuring something to his mate and stood back up.

Castiel turned and met Michael’s eye. There was a brief frisson of something confrontational between the two Doms, but they both kept their mouths shut. The Alpha passed Michael and began pulling breakfast ingredients out of the refrigerator. Dean headed to the bathroom, and April started brewing coffee. Everything was so fucking perfectly domestic it creeped Michael out. He didn’t know where to go or what to do. This wasn’t his home, and he didn’t know how to get back to the easy camaraderie of last night.

Maybe he should just stay drunk all the time.

“Michael, are you hungover this morning? Would you like anything in particular for breakfast? I’m just toasting bagels, but there are eggs we could scramble if you’d rather. You need to get something in your stomach if you’re queasy.”

“I’m okay, Castiel. Just a headache and a little bit of an upset stomach. It’ll pass. Um, yes. Eggs would be good. I can cook them.” He moved to press in beside the other two, but Cas directed him to the table.

“There’s really not room in this tiny kitchen for more than one cook. And despite Dean’s opinion about me, I really can put a meal together when I have to.” Cas gestured for April to take her place on her pillow and began to crack the eggs. Michael wasn’t disturbed by the Omega-Sub’s position as she knelt easily and rested her hands on her thighs. Overtly Submissive behaviors were extremely common in Lupin households, where the Pack was safe to meet the needs and desires of its members without being judged by the standards of normal people like Naomi Novak. Michael’s home was not like this, but he knew how things worked in Traditional packs. He’d stayed with friends who lived this way, and he was used to it. Castiel placed four glasses of OJ on the table, and then brought over the coffee pot, followed by three mugs. He offered his mate a sip of juice and then resumed cooking. Michael filled a coffee mug for himself and one for his mate.

Dean joined them, collecting the bagels that had been toasted and halved and a couple of different condiments from the fridge before sitting down to Michael’s right. He leaned in for a kiss. Michael planted one firmly on his lips then took hold of his face and moved to scent him, noting the obvious smell of sexual release on the alpha. A glance to Dean’s blue-jeaned crotch showed that his erection was gone. Michael’s wolf bristled. He maintained his grip on Dean’s chin and reached the other to press against his mate’s crotch. “You’ve made a grave error, Submissive. This belongs to me, and you don’t touch it without my permission,” Michael hissed quietly into Dean’s ear.

Dean was torn. His wolf wanted to roll over, plead mea culpa and ask to be punished, but they’d not established roles or Rules yet. He was under no one’s thumb, not even his own mate’s, until negotiations were completed—not officially anyway. Any play they engaged in up to that point was purely voluntary on both their parts. Michael seemed not to understand that. Dean let his forehead fall to Michael’s shoulder, and he sighed. “Let’s talk it through today, all right? I want this with you, Michael. You know I do, but we’re not there yet. Soon, baby, but not yet.”

Dean shifted to kiss Michael’s throat and offer him a physical apology in case he needed the reassurance. He could sense Michael’s growing discomfort along with his pounding headache and sensed another tantrum might result if he didn’t move to head it off quickly. Cas set a platter of scrambled eggs on the table and sat down to feed himself and his mate. He watched Dean’s and Michael’s tense interaction but stayed out of their business as he’d promised to do. Eventually, Dean sat back up, leaned down to his right to kiss April on the top of her head, and then started in on breakfast. Michael visibly struggled with having been rebuffed but regrouped and kept his control, eating slowly and without enthusiasm. His eyes never left his plate, but as he ate, his face began to lose its green tinge.

It was Dean who broke the funereal silence. “So, Cas, what was all of that about this morning, with April? I gotta say, that’s a hell of a way to wake up.”

Cas delivered another forkful of eggs to his Omega calmly. “She’s got a few more of those coming to make up for our time apart. It seems that my Omega-Submissive didn’t believe that my Rules for her stay in effect whether we’re together or not. It’s been explained to her now in a way that she understands. Right, Kitten?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Good girl.”

The long, awkward breakfast eventually ended, and Cas and April left the suite for the day, leaving Michael and Dean alone with the dishes. “You want a tour of the grounds?” asked Dean, drying his hands.

“I want to know why you keep telling me we’ll get there, and soon, baby, but not yet.” Michael tossed his drying cloth to the side and confronted his mate. “Dean, talk to me. We’re mates, and I can feel your Sub respond to my wolf. We’re naturals together. What are you waiting for? Are you worried I’m going to get our roles fucked up? I mean, yeah, we did when we first met, but it’s been copacetic since the Claim took hold. I don’t get it. Why are you holding back? I need you.”

“I know. But this is a big change for both of us, and there are a lot of dangers that’ll mess with our heads if we’re not careful. I’m feeling all right this morning after last night’s party, but you are still miserable and hungover. Are you certain you want to have this talk right now?” Dean moved into Michael’s space and batted his eyes at his Dom. “If you want, I could blow you and put you back to bed until the hangover wears off.”

“I have a better idea,” Michael offered mysteriously then worked his thumbs quickly over the screen of his phone. “You want to wait to talk until my headache is gone, fine. I can do that. Going back to sleep sounds like a fucking great idea, but we are going to hammer this shit out today, Dean.” Michael walked Dean back to the sofa and smirked at him. A ping on his phone sent him glancing at it briefly then casting it on the side table. “I know one sure cure for a hangover headache that works on me every time, and that’s to have a massive cock jammed down my throat. You game? We had some unfinished business from back in Bumfuck.”

“Won’t that make your headache worse?” Dean asked, feeling his cock start to respond to the pictures his wolf supplied him.

“You just let me worry about that.” Michael stripped off the boxers and t-shirt which was all he had on and sat naked on the edge of the sofa, waiting on Dean’s decision.

Dean’s decision was a no-brainer. He dropped trou and pulled his Henley over his head. His Submissive had a rule: if the Dom was naked, the Sub should be naked. Anything else felt wrong to him. Michael arranged Dean’s hips and started by running his flattened tongue around and all over Dean’s cock and his balls. Dean gripped Michael’s shoulders. He tested through their bond to make sure Michael was really okay and then gave in to the sensations as Michael took Dean’s engorged cock into his mouth, bracing himself with one hand on Dean’s ass, and the other holding the side of his thigh.

He started slowly. He worked Dean’s cock with gentle pressure from his tongue against his hard palette and sucked his cheeks in. Dean moaned and put a hand against the back of his head, gripping the black hair but not guiding or forcing him, just holding on. Michael worked him methodically. He varied the pressure and speed and depth. He sucked and hummed, licked into the slit on the head of his cock, and then plunged back down deep enough to cut off his air supply and make his eyes water. Michael could feel Dean through their Mating-bond. He worked him for a while in studious silence. He could feel every time Dean was close to coming and every time, he backed off, releasing his hold on Dean’s cock and sucking a bruise into his inner thigh or nuzzling his face into the stiff hair at Dean’s pubis.

Dean whined piteously, trying like hell to hold still and not drill his mate’s face like he wanted to. Finally, Michael looked up at him, spit moistening his lips and cheeks, spit and pre-come running down his chin. “Fuck my face, Dean,” he said sliding off. His lust-filled eyes matched the words from his mouth and the firm certainty Dean felt through the bond. “Come on, baby, do it. I want an alpha cock shoved down my throat.” Dean saw that Michael had a firm hand wrapped around himself, stroking his own cock. When had he let go of Dean’s ass?

The alpha didn’t need to be told twice, he speared Michael’s face and bore into him. Michael relaxed his throat and found Dean’s hands, placing them in his hair, encouraging him to go for it. Dean did go for it. He held back at first just enough to find the point where Michael’s capacity to receive him limited his stroke, and then he fucked hard in between those spit-slick lips.

“Michael, Sir?” Dean worked out his words between thrusts. “Can…can you do that thing you did with your teeth? Ah, fuck! Please, sir?” Michael’s grip on Dean’s thigh tightened and he adjusted his lips to let his teeth drag just right. “Oh, fucking hell! Yeah, baby, just like that!”

Dean didn’t hear the suite door open, but he heard it close, and he heard his brother’s voice call out, “Oh, hey guys. So, I hear you’re making omelets. That’s great, I’m starved.”

Dean snapped his head around, eyes wide, just about to lay into his brother, one, for not knocking, and two, for coming on in and striking up a conversation when neither suite occupant was free for discussion at the moment. It’s not like they weren’t bare-assed naked in full view of the door and clearly indisposed, but he froze at a simultaneous hard swat to his ass and a death-grip on his testicles. He stopped pre-berate and looked back at his mate. Michael still had Dean’s cock in his mouth. His eyes were doing the talking, his eyes and their bond-link. Dean saw lust and certainty. Michael breathed hard through his nose, kept a hard lock on Dean’s eyes and slowly but deliberately began to work Dean’s hips back into motion.

Behind them, Dean could hear Sam rifling through the refrigerator, could feel the awful juxtaposition of relationships crashing together. He sent confusion and alarm to Michael, unable to speak in words. It’s not that Sam had never seen Dean in the throes of sweaty passion before—he had. Sam had seen Dean moan like a whore while being ruthlessly fucked by alphas during their Keller tests, had seen him shamelessly rim a beta-Dom who had a playful streak and bet Dean he couldn’t make the beta come without penile stimulation in a Dominants class. (Dean won that bet.) But this was different. This was private, not work, not pack hierarchy or Domination games in a training class. Dean’s mind spun furiously, while his Dom kept his unflagging erection moving steadily in and out of his mouth. A couple of things were clear: Michael wanted to keep going and Michael wasn’t surprised or alarmed at Sam’s presence. His Dom wanted this. Wanted Sam there. Sam had to know what was going on, had to know more than Dean did. Dean questioned with his eyes and through the bond.

Michael’s gaze was sure. His eyes were fierce with command. Dean had no problem understanding the Dom’s instruction, and Dean’s sub always complied with that particular tone of…eye. Dean wound his fingers hesitantly back into Michael’s hair and made a few strokes with his hips on his own, listening to the sound of Sam chopping omelet ingredients behind him, feeling Sam’s eyes on his ass, never straying from Michael’s eyes which had sprung crow’s feet in the corners. He pulled at the bond, looking for what was driving his mate. He found lust and command, satisfaction and pride—so much pride. Pride in Dean? Pride in himself? Dean couldn’t tell.

Sam began to hum quietly to himself, and Dean closed his eyes. It was too much. He couldn’t do this. His hips stuttered, and he whimpered. What was Michael doing? It was crossing the streams of his designations and the different levels of his psyche. It was overwhelming. If he’d been in his wolf, Dean would have no issue with the command, but he wasn’t in his wolf. He was front-brain, and that made all the difference.

Was Michael trying to find Dean’s limits? Trying to make him fail? And what the fuck was Sam’s role in this? Michael growled in his throat, bringing Dean’s focus back to him, but a part of it never left his brother. Michael’s eyes hardened, and he reinforced Dean’s hands in his hair, pulling himself in for a few strokes.

The order was crystal-clear: Fuck my face, Submissive, as I told you to do! Dean clawed his way out of his own mind and practically threw his wolf into the forefront. He was close after being edged for so long before. If the two were conspirators in Dean’s torture, then their timing was impeccable. Any sooner and Dean wouldn’t have been capable. Any sooner and Dean would have called Red and stormed out, pissed and fuming. Giving over to a Dom had never been this hard, but by god, if it’s what his mate wanted, he was going to fucking give it to him if it killed him. Sam, he would deal with later. His grip in Michael’s hair went white-knuckle tight and he drove in ruthlessly, pumping his hips with no thought to how deep was safe for his mate. He felt it coming, and he tensed, throwing his head back and roaring his release to the ceiling.

Dean narrowed his eyes and poked again at the bond. Michael was panting, obviously spent. He felt so much smugness and pride from his mate…

Size kink, my ass, thought Dean—his first coherent thought since Sam walked through the door. The asshole is an exhibitionist.

“I think Cas is out of butter,” said Sam.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“Come on, Sam! Like you mean it! They’re just going to laugh at you if you do it like that.”

“I know, Benny. I’m trying, but you’re not Omega or Sub, and I can’t get my mind there. This is just so weird!”

“I can’t judge your practical skills without feeling it for myself, and I’m not putting any EO’s on the floor who haven’t convinced me they’re ready. So far, you’re not convincing me of crap. You get one more chance, beta. Talk to me. What’ve I done to earn this punishment, and how are you gonna get me through it?”

“Right. Okay.” Sam cleared his throat and closed his eyes, working through the scenario from the practice sheet. Benny was a beta-Sub who’d been caught sucking off his boyfriend in the washroom. It was a level B-five rule infraction calling for thirty to fifty hard pops with a paddle. Anywhere along the curve of the buttocks or backs of the thighs was the target zone, but not the anus. The inside of the thighs and sit-spots shouldn’t be targeted either, not for this one. Bruising was acceptable. Abrasions were virtually unavoidable if he maxed out the count. The beta was going to feel it for several days but wouldn’t necessarily have trouble sitting as long as his posture was good.

Sam just had to forget that it was his trainer’s backside bent over the bench. It’s a beta-Sub, he told himself. His wolf knew better and paced uncomfortably. Just have to jump in and do it.

Sam pulled himself together.

“Do you know why you’re in this position, beta?” Sam ground out.

Benny played along.

“There’s a no unauthorized sex rule, and I broke it, Sir.”

“That’s right. I’m going to punish you for it, right now, and then afterward, I’ll expect you to apologize to me and to your alpha. As long as it never happens again, once we’re through here, the matter’s closed. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir. I understand.”

“Very good. All right, take a breath and try to keep your muscles relaxed. I’m going to warm your backside up with my hand, and then I’ll switch to the paddle. Don’t move from this position until I release you.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Fuck! This is Benny. It’s alpha. Fuck! Sam’s wolf was balking again. Beta-Doms in a natural setting did not paddle alpha-Doms, especially not when said alpha-Dominant was the beta’s boss and trainer, all-around nice guy, and hadn’t broken any rules. Sam clenched his jaw and hoped muscle memory would get him through his practical exam since his wolf wasn’t there for him. He stepped up and struck Benny’s ass with his hard palm. Then he did it again. He overcompensated for the fact that his wolf wasn’t guiding his strokes. They were maybe harder than they should’ve been, but Benny had just chastised him for being too soft.

Once Benny’s, uh, the beta’s, ass was a solid shade of pink, Sam pulled the paddle from the pocket of his cargo pants. He didn’t want to jinx it by talking right now. He’d already explained the process, and if he said the wrong thing because he was nervous, it would only make things worse, so he stayed silent. Sam laid down methodical swats with the paddle, letting the muscles in his arm find the right calibration point, counting them out in his head. He’d decided on thirty-five licks. He was thinking hard, making sure he hadn’t missed anything while he monitored the man’s condition and kept up his routine. This was a punishment on a Sub, and the culprit could be a masochist. Sam realized after reaching seventeen that he should have made the beta-Sub count out loud. Vocalization kept the spankee from slipping off into subspace and riding it out in the comfort of an altered state of mind.

Damnit, he was going to fail.

Sam rested at twenty and went for damage control, regrouping and re-setting his target total to account for his mistake. “Very good, beta. I’m proud of you. You’re doing well.” He rubbed the sting out just a bit and pretended that he had meant to pause here all along. He swiftly adjusted his plan in his head and barreled bravely on. “You’ve got twenty more swats coming to you. I need you to count them out for me. Out loud. If you miss a number, we’re starting over, so keep up.”

Benny was still doing his part. He was in pain, and he was staunchly suppressing a wave of rage that was nearly visible in its intensity, but he grunted out a “Yes, Sir.”

Sam picked back up from One.

“One!” shouted Benny as the paddle fell. “Two!” Sam listened to the tone of his voice. It would sound different in a real-world situation. As tough as alphas were, they weren’t built for this, and Benny was struggling. Sam kept at it though. Benny had prepared him beforehand to make sure he would ignore the alpha-whining as Benny put it. “I’m not gonna break, Sam. I may sound like I will, but I won’t. You just do what you gotta do.”

“Nineteen! Fuck!” One more. Jesus, just one more. Sam brought down the paddle squarely in the middle of his boss’ backside. “TWENTY!”

After it was over, after the apology and the aftercare, after all the paperwork, they convened in Benny’s office. The adrenalin was slow to drain from Sam’s muscles, and his eyes were wide.

“You did fine, Sam. You passed the practical and the written. I’ll go over my assessment with you, but I wanted to calm your nerves and get that out of the way. Welcome aboard, beta. We’re lucky to have you.”

“Thank you, alpha. Whew, that was harder than I thought it was going to be. I’ve done that hundreds of times in training, but never on you. Please don’t ever make me do it again.”

Benny laughed. “We’ll see. I have no intention of giving any BJs in the bathroom, but what would you do if Castiel called me down for something and assigned you to administer the consequences? Could you do it?”

Sam thought about it seriously. “I’m sure I could. It would be real that way, not made up. Benny, my wolf just wasn’t having any part of this, and I need him if I’m going to do it right. I funnel everything through him. He directs my arm, and it’s his guidance that helps me keep the spankees safe. Honestly, I didn’t feel like this was a fair assessment of what I would really do because I had to wing it.”

“I know you did, Sam. That’s part of the test. I already know what your wolf can do. I’ve seen it literally hundreds of times. I needed to know what the real Sam would do in that situation. I need to know who your beta really is under stress. I could feel how difficult it was for you. If it makes you feel any better, it was no picnic for me either.” Benny shifted in his padded office chair.

“I’ve never told you this, beta, but when you applied for the training program, I was against letting you in. As Dean’s brother, I was afraid of how you might be around him and all of his colleagues. Thought you might try to take advantage, and he might let you. Nepotism can turn into something real ugly, real fast. But Bobby and Cas both vouched for you, so I was willing to give you a shot. You may have noticed I was a bit harder on you than the others.”

“Yeah, I wondered about that.”

“But you never brought it up. You never complained where I caught wind of it, not once.” Benny nodded at Sam. “That shows real grit. Sam, you have a core of steel underneath a layer of compassion. You’re perfect for this line of work. Don’t let that go to your head, and if you tell anyone I said it, I’ll deny it and put you on that goddamned bench.”

Sam blushed and laughed. “Thanks, alpha. Thanks for giving me a shot. I won’t let you down.”

Benny nodded and pulled his notes in so he could go over his assessment with Sam in detail. An Enforcement Officer was never finished learning, whether he had his certification or not. Continuous growth and improvement would be an ever-present expectation.

NOW:

“Wait. Hold up a second.” Dean stared hard at his brother who was holding a bowl of unbroken eggs he’d pulled from the fridge and appeared much less disturbed about the scene he’d just witnessed than Dean thought he should be. “What do you mean, you guys’ idea? This was not my idea. I didn’t know anything about it.” Dean was safe again and back in his comfort zone with his Henley and Levi’s where he belonged.

Sam frowned. “Michael told me last night, well, texted during dinner, that you were wanting to try out a little bit of public scening. I told him maybe you two should ease into it, you know? Maybe start with semi-public, or just trusted friends, see how you both react. I volunteered because you know I’ve got your back and Michael seems to trust me a little. I’m safe. We decided on making the first run-through pretty nonconfrontational in case it got weird. He just texted me this morning he was gonna pull the trigger, and then you’d be cooking breakfast. It all seemed legit.”

“In case it got weird?! Damnit, Sam! Did it never occur to you to include me in your text conversation? So, lemme get this straight. All evening, while my mate was tucked up with me on the couch all snuggly-like, and I thought he was just distracted by some stupid app on his phone, he was really conspiring with my brother? That sound about right?”

Sam’s face paled. He set down the bowl he was holding. His eyes darted, unfocused, as he worked backward to determine how and when he came to believe that Dean was aware and onboard for the plan. Dean saw the moment he got to the beginning and realized Michael had lied to him about Dean’s involvement. His jaw set and twitched. “He told me you wanted him to work out the details and surprise you. Dean, man, I’m so sorry. That must’ve been awful for you. I had no idea. Fuck.” Sam was livid and pacing in the tiny kitchen. For Sam, pacing only bought him about a step-and-a-half, so he stopped and faced Dean rather than just spin awkwardly in place. “Alpha, may I have permission to discipline your mate, please? He lied to me.”

“He lied to both of us. He’s blowing through Pack Rules one by one at a pretty good clip.” Dean said tiredly. “I thought I was a brat, but Jesus. He busted Number Three back in Oklahoma and now it’s Number Five. Look, I’m not really mad at you. You were stupid to assume you had my consent without asking me directly. Don’t ever fucking do that again, you got me?” Sam nodded regretfully. “But you were played. This is on Michael. He’s barreling on through as if we already had all of our negotiations and roles set when we haven’t even talked about it once. He doesn’t know my limits. He doesn’t know me at all, Sam.” Dean scrubbed a hand down his face and met his brother’s eye again. “We have to have that talk today or everything’s gonna go sideways. Yeah, Sammy, go ahead and take the reins. I’m too pissed at him right now anyway. You have no idea what that did to me. I’m…I need a minute.” Dean sighed heavily, and Sam put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, his eyes full of compassion.

“I’m so sorry, Dean. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine. Look, you go do what you do, and I’ll make you an omelet. We’ve already eaten. You okay with eating by yourself?”

“No problem. Thanks, man. After what I did, you don’t have to cook me breakfast.”

“Stop beating yourself up. Cooking is my comfort zone. It’ll help bring me back to myself. Just…go explain Pack Justice to my brat of a mate.”

“Will do.” Sam’s eyes hardened again. He could hear the shower running, but Michael had had enough time to get himself clean, so Sam didn’t wait for him to exit on his own. He went on in through Cas’ bedroom door and into the en suite bathroom. Dean began humming to himself as he reviewed the prepped ingredients Sam had selected for his omelet. Ham, tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese, green onions—Dean’s wolf perked right up, thinking second breakfast sounded like a pretty good idea. (That’s because you’re a glutton,) Dean pointed out. He decided to add bell peppers, but mindfully prepped enough for only one omelet.

Sam stormed straight into the bathroom and pulled the shower door open. Michael had his head back in the stream of heated water and was allowing it to run down his whole body, rinsing away the last of the soap. His eyes were closed, but he startled and squawked at the sound of the stall door being pulled open. He squawked again when Sam’s enormous hand wrapped around his bicep and hauled him out of the shower.

“What the fuck?” Michael protested.

Sam leaned in and turned off the water without releasing the Omega, then he straightened. He fixed his Dominant eyes on Michael and narrowed them menacingly. “Michael Quentin, did you set up a new scene with your mate without his knowledge or consent and then involve me in it without telling me he didn’t know a damn thing about it? Did you lie to Dean and me?”

“What? No! I mean, fuck, I didn’t ask him about it first, but he’s my Sub, Sam. I don’t need his permission to add spice to our scenes. Besides, I knew he was gonna love it. I’ve seen enough of you two on the internet to know he’s a showoff.”

Sam’s eyes were cold steel. “You don’t know anything about him. What you saw, what he shows in public, is just a small part of himself. Dean’s actually a very private man where his sub is concerned, and his trust is very hard to earn once it’s broken. You fucked this up bad, Michael. And what’s even worse is you brought me into it thinking I was helping my brother take a new step. You fucking lied to me! You broke his trust, and you did the worst thing a Dom can do to a Sub, you put him into an unsafe situation and left him unprotected to fend for himself. And you dragged me into doing it with you.

“Officially, I’m going to spank you for breaking our Pack Rule Number Five—Don’t Lie, but what you’ve got to work through with your mate goes way deeper than that. You hurt him, Michael. I hurt him too, just by going along with you. That was stupid of me. I know better. You, you need to learn to communicate with him or you’re not ever going to be able to trust each other, True-Mates or not.”

Michael’s wet body dripped all over the floor. He looked taken aback, like he’d never considered the idea that his plan was flawed. Hadn’t Dean performed magnificently? Sure, he’d taken a minute to find his footing, but that was just because it was a surprise, wasn’t it? In the end, when it came right down to it, he’d loved it. Hadn’t he? Michael had felt so proud to watch his mate, his mate, perform.

Michael probed for Dean with his side of the Mating-bond but found that he couldn’t quite get to his mate. He was blocked. Dean had shut him out. He went cold. Michael hadn’t known it was possible to do that. How do you close it off? Why would you ever want to? In a flash, the magnitude of what he’d done—his hubris—crashed down on him, and he clutched at Sam’s arm to keep himself upright. Dean was so pissed he didn’t even want Michael’s bond-link.

Fuck.

Sam watched him dispassionately, waiting for his mind to process and catch up. He kept his grip on Michael’s arm grounding. When Michael’s eyes suddenly went frightened and wide, Sam simply raised his eyebrows without saying anything. For Sam, this moment was a test of Michael’s mettle.

Was this boy just a young, untrained, cocky-but-well-meaning Dom with a good heart who ran his life on gut instinct and brash self-confidence? —A boy who made fixable mistakes left and right out of ignorance? Or was there a dark, ugly, manipulative side to Michael that hurt and wanted to make those closest to him hurt too? The former, Sam could work with. We’re all human. Nobody’s perfect. Untrained Doms were notorious for brash overstepping. But the latter meant war. Nobody harmed Dean on purpose and got away with it. Nobody. Sam waited for the verdict with a blank face. Michael had to make the next move.

“Fuck, Sam! I didn’t…look, you have to know…I didn’t mean to scare him or hurt him. I would never! Dean means everything to me!” Michael unleashed a torrent of regret as his eyes filled with tears. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I just wanted to surprise him and challenge his Sub with something exciting, not break him. Now he won’t even let me through the Bond-link. Fuck! What have I done? Sam, did I ruin everything? Did I lose him? Did I hurt him?! Fuck!”

Sam growled at him and tightened his grip. Michael snapped his mouth closed. On paper, in their respective charts, Sam and Michael were doubtless both Dominants, and they were close enough in age that it made no difference, but Sam outranked Michael outright in Secondary gender and also in pack hierarchy, training, and experience. Michael’s Dominant wolf lowered his ears and head, averted his eyes, and tucked his tail between his legs. The Omega standing in Sam’s grip, naked, wet, and cold was no match for a pissed-off Sam Winchester.

Sam walked Michael into the bedroom and sat on the edge of Castiel’s bed, pulling Michael over his lap in one movement. Michael whimpered and then tensed when he heard the unintentional sound escape his throat. “You’re not going to be happy with Dean or even in yourself until you learn where you fit in the Pack, Michael, and you learn to embrace it. You’re an Omega before you’re a Dom, and I’m going to start emphasizing that for you right now. When we’re through here, you’re not to make another move as his Dominant until the two of you have talked through your roles and agreed on Rules. I’ll expect you to apologize to me and to Dean. Do you understand, Omega?”

“Yes, Sam. I understand. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I know you are.” Sam didn’t need to say more. He was satisfied that Michael was genuinely remorseful now that he was on the same page as Dean and Sam. Without further pause, Sam cinched Michael in by his waist and spanked him hard on his upturned ass. The layer of moisture on his skin would intensify the pain, helping Sam get his message across. Sam rained his swats down evenly and mercilessly, covering Michael’s backside and the tops of his thighs thoroughly. Sam was a strong man, and his right arm got plenty of practice in his chosen occupation. He didn’t worry about finding Michael’s pain tolerance as Dean had. Sam knew Omegas; knew what they could take and how to listen to their breathing.

The beta-Dom ignored the growing heat and sting in his own hard palm and continued methodically, hard, painful, stinging blows that built on one another until Michael began to kick and squirm. Michael tried to take it with a stiff upper lip, but it hurt, and his body moved without his permission. Soon, Michael was in tears. Ugly, snotty tears ran unchecked down his face as he cried out. Castiel’s lovely white bedspread took on dark spots where Michael’s wet body and his tears marred its perfect sheen.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Fuck! Please, Sam, I won’t do it again! Please stop! It hurts! Ow! OW!”

Sam paused with his hand resting on Michael’s hot flesh. “Tell me what you’re sorry for, Omega.”

“I’m sorry I lied to you and Dean! I’m so sorry I took him through a scene he didn’t know about. I should have told him what I wanted and talked to him about it. I should have given him a chance to say yes or no. I didn’t know it was new for him. Please, Sam, please don’t spank me anymore. I get it! Please! I’m sorry!”

Sam landed another solid round on the Omega’s ass and then paused again.

“I know you’re sorry, Michael. We’re almost finished, but I’m giving you a few more for calling my name during a spanking. You call me Sir, or beta-Dom, whichever you prefer, but you don’t have the standing while you’re over my knee to use my name. Do you understand this Rule? Learn it now because it’s a hard limit everywhere in our Pack and this Facility.”

“Yes, Sir.” Michael was meek. Sam took a moment to take in the difference between meek Omega Michael and his usual Dominant presentation. It was a jarring contradiction. How must it feel to be Michael and have to navigate the waters of his psyche with top currents pulling one way while the undertow dragged him somewhere else? Sam resolved to try to be an anchor for Michael. They were Pack now, and that meant Michael was his to watch out for.

Sam finished his spanking with a flurry of ten or twelve more stinging blows. He didn’t allow any mercy based on the red glow Michael’s ass was already giving off. Sam knew the quickest way to affect a behavior change in an Omega was to strike hard on the first lesson and then be consistent in reminders when they were needed. Omegas, especially brats, only altered their behavior when the consequences for not doing so outweighed the pull to misbehave.

Sam stopped and smoothed his hand over Michael’s bare, red bottom, easing the sting just a little. He wouldn’t bruise, and the pain wasn’t going to last long enough to make him uncomfortable for more than a few hours. This type of spanking hurt fiercely, but mostly just in the moment and then faded quickly. Sam knew Dean planned to have The Talk with his mate today and didn’t want to sabotage Michael’s ability to negotiate fairly for himself by forcing him to remain in his Omega mindset during Tertiary negotiations.

“All right, Omega. Take a minute to get yourself back together. I’m in no rush.” Michael’s breathing was erratic as he continued to cry harshly into Castiel’s now less-than-pristine bedspread. Sam wrapped his left hand around Michael’s ribs and held him tight. “When you go back out there, just talk to Dean. Apologize for your mistake. Let him know you care about him. You know what to do. He loves you, and he’ll forgive you, but you need to listen to him and include him in your plans.”

“He loves me?” Michael sounded about thirteen years old, his voice small and unsure.

“Of course he does. Dean doesn’t do anything halfway. And Michael, once you two get to know each other better, you can throw some challenges at him. You’re right that as his Dom, you have some freedom and you don’t always have to ask his permission. But that’s later when you know each other enough to have built up trust. You’ll know what not to do. You’ll be able to hold him safe. You’ve got the idea right, and I’ve seen how he responds to you. Your Mating-scene was fucking amazing. I want to talk to you about that later. Not now. Just, for the love of god and my brother, slow the fuck down. You’re not ready for this kind of thing yet. I don’t even know if he can do it—wants to do it. You have to know that first.” Sam listened to the Omega’s sobs as they slowly dwindled, and he stroked over his lower back and down his legs. “You ready?”

Michael nodded. Sam helped him stand. Standing together shifted their dynamic back to a more equal footing. Sam held Michael’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “You’re going to be great for my brother. I’m really very happy for you both.” Ignoring Michael’s nudity, Sam pulled him into a tight hug, then released him to get dressed and went looking for his breakfast.

Dean plunked a plate of eggs in front of his brother. “Well?” he prompted.

“He did good,” Sam said succinctly, digging into his food.

Dean had scrounged up real butter somewhere. It was delicious, and Sam realized how much he’d missed having Dean close. “He’s just getting dressed now. I’m going to scoot in a second and let you two talk. You gonna be okay with your half of that? You need me to stay?”

“Nah. We’re going to clear out of here and head over to pick up some of my stuff. Hey Sam, I was thinking. Would you mind letting me and Michael have the house for the month? You could stay in my suite here or at Cas’ place. I’m sorry to ask, I’m not trying to kick you out of your own home, but I don’t think Michael’s ready for the whole Winchester Pack experience, and I get the feeling he’s overwhelmed by the number of people here. I’d take him to a hotel, but I dunno, I feel like he needs my scent all round. I want to go somewhere quiet where we can be alone for our honeymoon, really alone, you know?” Dean grimaced and began to walk his request back. “We could stay at a hotel…”

“No, no, that’s a great idea, Dean. I don’t mind clearing out. I’ll come by tonight after work, pack up some stuff and bring it here. I’ve stayed here so often, it’s practically both of ours anyway. This is big for you, man. I’ll do whatever you need. You just gotta ask; you know that, right?”

“Thanks, Sammy. Yeah, I know.”

Sam finished his omelet, rinsed his plate, and disappeared to get to work before Michael surfaced. Dean went looking for him. Michael stood, dressed and groomed, next to Castiel’s huge picture window looking pensively out at the expansive grounds, one hand rubbing his ass. Dean stopped in the doorway, admiring the lines of his mate’s body. He was breathtaking. He was so perfect. Dean realized he couldn’t feel his mate through the bond and remembered slamming it closed in a fit of pique. He cracked it back open and sent Michael a tentative tendril. Hesitant. Careful. Questioning.

Michael sobbed and hung his head without turning around. Dean crossed the room and took his mate in his arms, holding him tightly. “It’s okay, baby. I know. I’ve got you, now. Shhh, shhh. You’re okay.”

“I’m so fucking sorry, alpha. I’m so sorry. You don’t even know. I would never hurt you like that, not on purpose. Can you ever forgive me?”

“Shhh, Michael. Of course I can. It was just a mistake, right? Look at me. Right?” Michael struggled to meet his alpha’s eyes, but he nodded. “Hey, I’m okay. I’m not really hurt, just a little freaked out. You didn’t break me. I could’ve stopped you with a red light if I needed to. Michael, look at me!” Michael’s green eyes finally made it all the way up, but it was agonizing. Dean held him at arm’s length by his shoulders as Sam had done, so that they could look at each other. “If I’d called out Red, would you have stopped the scene?”

“Of course I would. I’m not a monster, Dean.”

“Of course you would. That’s what I’m saying, Michael. I’m okay. I didn’t safeword. I’m not hurt. You fucked up. You went somewhere with me before we were ready, and you lied to me and to Sam—to Sam directly, and to me by omission. Michael, lying by omission is just as punishable as any other kind of lying. I hope you understand that. But you took your punishment, and now it’s over. Now we move on. Are you good?”

Michael let his eyes drop again. It didn’t feel over.

“I still feel so guilty.” He tucked back into Dean’s embrace, and Dean accepted him.

“Well, there’s a couple of ways we can go with that. I think your Omega is just not accustomed to the process. You’ve been taking punishments through your wolf, and that’s why they just piss you off and don’t work. Am I right? Michael?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. What Sam did, it felt different than when my Pop does it.”

Dean nodded. “That’s good. Sam’s really good at putting people in the right mindset. Believe me, I know. My ass has been at the wrong end of that paddle plenty of times. It sucks, but it works. For me, it works. I think it’ll work for you too once you get used to it. So, if you don’t feel ready to move on, maybe your Omega still feels like it owes something to me, too. If you ask me to, I’ll spank you as well. I wasn’t going to, but if that’s what you need, I’m here for you.”

“No! Please, no. I don’t need another spanking. I promise.”

Dean laughed. “That’s what I thought you’d say. Okay, the other approach, since we have this Mating-bond between us, is, I can let you in on what I’m feeling. You go digging around in there until you see for yourself that I’m really not damaged. You’re going to see that I was scared and disturbed, confused, pissed-off, hurt…really fucking surprised. You’re going to see it all, but you’re not going to see me broken, because I’m not. You want to try that? It might make you feel worse at first, but I think it’ll be good in the long run. It’s your call. I’m willing to let you try.”

Michael hesitated but then nodded. He hated being shut out of Dean’s mind. Hated it. Normally their mutual probing into each other’s minds only skimmed the surface—hit just the top-level immediate emotions. Dean wanted Michael to dig deeper. He frowned in concentration and reached up toward Dean’s head with his bond connection. It was hard to find his way at first. He didn’t know what he was doing, but he closed his eyes and felt around for it like a blind man in a strange house.

Dean’s emotions swirled about him. Everything Dean said was true. It was all here, and Michael sobbed again when he found the bundle of pain that he’d put Dean through. But he really was all right. Dean was not harmed, not really. What made Michael cry out though, was that over all of it, surrounding and embracing everything that Michael saw and touched was a rich expansive ocean of warmth that actively reached out to him. It touched him, held him, rocked him, stroked the part of Michael that explored Dean’s psyche. It was everywhere, and it was beautiful. Like a magnet, wherever he went, the ocean rose to greet him, welcoming—rich and warm like comfort food. It knew Michael, accepted and wanted him—treasured him. Here was evidence that was undeniable: Dean loved him. After all the crap Michael’d pulled, all the bratty demands, breaking Dean’s trust as a Sub, failing him so disastrously in just their first few days Mated, Dean loved him. Already, Dean loved him.

Dean loved him.

Michael broke. He cried into Dean’s chest. Dean picked him up and carried him to the bed, whispering to him as he lay beside his mate. “I promised you a nap, remember? Shhh, just go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Michael cried himself to sleep.

Dean stayed with Michael until he was sleeping deeply then went across the hall to organize the crap in his own small suite and adjoining office. He logged onto his work computer and spent a little while scanning through correspondence for the most pressing issues. He set his Out of Office email alert to indicate he would be out of touch for the next month and redirected people to Benny, Jo, Jody, and Charlie depending on their issues. He kept a feeler out for Michael. Dean couldn’t see Michael’s dream, but he could tell that his mate was dreaming. There was a vague impression of swirling colors that never coalesced or came into any kind of focus. Once he’d boxed up the few personal possessions that he had any expectation of needing in the next month, he leaned over his laptop for one more thing…

Dean checked Castiel’s work calendar. He found that Cas should be alone in his office right now. The alpha scuttled over unannounced to check, his box of books and stuff weighing him down. Castiel looked up when the door opened and stood, smiling warmly at his fiancé. Dean put the box on his desk and let himself accept Castiel’s embrace, hugging him back. Cas kissed him. It was chaste at first, just a greeting, but Cas soon pressed for more, and Dean opened for him. Dean would always open for him. With his hand on the back of Dean’s head, Castiel took to kissing Dean like a man on a mission, like a man dying of thirst. Dean melted into his body, fitting himself in exactly where he belonged and kissed back.

Actively kissing Castiel back without asking for permission or receiving instruction was such a new thing for Dean. He checked himself. It was true that he was allowing Cas to control the kiss, but he wasn’t fully submitting to him as he’d always done during their years of scening. It seemed he didn’t need any practice to make the switch from exclusively scening to full fiancé mode. His wolf was happy. His alpha was happy. Dean didn’t need anything Lupin-related in this moment.

He just really wanted to kiss his Alpha fiancé.

Dean’s throat made a growling noise, and he pressed harder against Cas, forcing him to step back into his own desk. He shifted one hand over Castiel’s ass and clung to it, the other holding him across his shoulders. Dean’s tongue plundered Cas’ mouth as he strove to take the kiss from his Alpha. Castiel laughed through their kiss—a laugh of pleasure and delight, then he accepted the challenge and fought Dean for control. Their brief war ended when Cas reversed their positions and flattened Dean’s back against his desktop. Dean’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he gave way, willingly giving everything his Dom demanded. They stole several minutes from Cas’ busy schedule just making out like teenagers. Cas rutted his boner against Dean’s inner thigh but made no move to do more. He’d promised Michael he wouldn’t, and Castiel kept his promises.

Eventually, they were simply holding each other and breathing the same air. “It feels like it’s been forever since we’ve done that, Dean. I’ve missed you.” Cas nuzzled Dean’s temple.

“I love you, too, Alpha,” murmured Dean, petting Cas’ dark head. “Let me up. My back’s killing me. I think I’m on your stapler.” Cas hauled him to his feet and pecked his lips for good measure.

“Is everything all right with you and Michael this morning?” Cas straightened his white coat and adjusted himself in his slacks.

“It is now.”

Cas raised his eyebrows as he retook his seat, urging Dean to continue.

Dean leaned his ass against the desk. “We had a bit of a mess this morning right after you left. Michael got his wires crossed and pulled Sam into it with us. It was kind of fucked up, but we’re okay now I think.”

“What happened?”

Dean related the whole sordid mess to his Alpha. He didn’t cover for Michael or try to spin it. It was one thing to know that Cas wouldn’t actively interfere in Dean’s relationship with Michael, and it was a good thing. But as Alpha, he still deserved and needed to know what went on in his Pack, and he wasn’t going to be above stepping in if he felt it was warranted. Dean agreed wholeheartedly. He gave himself over to Cas’ leadership. If Michael didn’t like that, it would just be too bad.

Castiel was thoughtful when Dean finished relating the events of the morning. “If he’s an exhibitionist and you’re not, it could mean trouble. I may have a chat with Sam. He knows better. Do you need anything else from me?” he asked Dean.

“Well, we’re going to need to have you and Michael negotiate custody of me eventually.” Dean rolled his eyes to show how much he was looking forward to that experience. “But I don’t need you to speak to him about this morning. I’m not opposed to the idea of putting together something more…public. It’s not something I do without my wolf…as you know. This morning I played through my Primary, not my Tertiary. We just got our wires crossed again. If I’d known where he was taking it, I would have tapped in the furry dude in my head. But I didn’t know. If this is Michael’s thing, I can swing it. He just took me by surprise, that’s all.”

Dean paused, reading Cas’ worried furrow before smiling and moving on. “We’re going to sneak out of here as soon as he wakes up, head over to my house and start packing up some of my crap. I figure we’ll live there for the month, get out of your hair, keep the distractions to a minimum, and hammer our issues out. That cool with you?”

“Whatever you want, Dean. I’m going to miss you. I just got you back, and you’ll be gone for another month.” Cas watched him with a sharp blue gaze. The Alpha was thinking through something, that much was obvious, but Dean wasn’t ready to discuss it.

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll be around. I’m not moving to Zimbabwe. Don’t forget, we’re on for New York in two weeks. I got a note this morning. Billie accepted that Broadway premiere invite from what’s-his-face that you’re such great friends with. Be sure to remind her we need four tickets now, not two, and to figure out clothes for April and Michael. I’m not doing the shopping.”

“Right! Nicholas’ new show! I forgot he’d invited us. Are you sure you still want to go? I don’t mind if you skip out. I know musicals are not really your thing, Dean.”

“I’m in, baby. Are you kidding? Trip to New York?” Dean adopted a cunning, coy look that put Castiel on edge. “You know Billie only accepted to give me a chance to flash my new bling at the TV cameras and start a buzz, right? She hasn’t released anything to the press. I think she’s going the sneaky route, letting the rumors build before we confirm our engagement officially. I bet you two-hundred bucks she’s scheduled us both for GMA on the morning after the premiere. You just wait and see. She loves to make you squirm, Alpha.”

Dean leaned down and kissed Castiel sweetly, more than a peck, but not meant to start anything. Then he whispered, “I’ll see you soon.” He stood and moved away. “Text me all you want. Take care of my mate-in-law, Cas. That’s my girl too, now.” He collected his box and headed toward the door at the back of the office that led directly into Castiel’s suite.

“And Cas?” Castiel looked up, his eyes warm. “We’ve got this. I’m still yours. I don’t remember telling you that after Michael, but I should’ve. I love you, Alpha. I’m going to fucking marry you. You got that?”

“I hear you, Dean. I love you, too. Ditto and all that.”

“Big sap,” Dean teased unfairly. Cas scoffed, an offended sound that said, Hey, you started it; why am I the sap?

Dean grinned remorselessly, winked, and pulled the door closed.

It was lunchtime by the time they pulled into the driveway not far from campus where Dean and Sam had grown up. “We’re home, Baby! You miss it?”

“I’ve never been here before, Dean. How could I miss it?”

“Not you, Michael, the car. She’s my first love, and she’ll always be my number one Baby.” Dean winked.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Michael rolled his eyes as he pulled the handle and grumbled under his breath, “…have to share you with a fuckin’ Pack Alpha, and now I have to share you with a goddamned car? What’s next, a goldfish?” He lifted his head and called to Dean who’d opened the trunk, “Hey Dean, you got any pets?”

“No pets,” stated Dean, slamming the trunk closed and handing Michael his bags. “Unless you count Sammy.”

“And you’re not sleeping with the car, right?”

Dean laughed. “Don’t listen to him, Baby. He doesn’t understand us.” To Michael, he said, “It’s really not that kind of a relationship, Michael. Baby is a lady, and I’ll thank you to treat her with the respect she deserves. Your spot is safe. I promise not to throw you over for a Chevy. Good enough?”

“I suppose.”

“C’mon. Lunch! Let’s see what Sammy’s got in the fridge.”

Michael trailed his mate with a growing sense of wrongfootedness.

“Yikes!” said Dean as he found nothing but greens, soy, and other non-food items in Sam’s refrigerator. “New plan. We’re going back out. You want a beer? How about a greasy burger joint and a cold brew?”

“Yes, please.”

“Kay, drop your stuff through there, that’s my room—I mean our room—and give me a minute in the can.” Dean kissed Michael’s lips and left him. Michael transferred all the bags into Master bedroom as indicated. He looked around. There were a few knick-knacks and bits of stuff showing that Dean lived here, but Michael was most interested in the family photos on the walls. In the largest one, clearly a professional portrait, four wolves sat posed together. It could’ve been any family from anywhere, but for the pointed-tipped ears. There was a man and a woman leaning into each other. The man, bearded with salt-and-pepper hair held a blond boy of about seven on his lap. Michael recognized Sam’s dimples and his hazel eyes. The woman’s eyes sparkled just like her son’s. She was blond and pretty, her arm around a ten- or eleven-year-old Dean. Dean’s hair was cropped very short, and his green eyes were entrancing, even as a child.

“What do you think?” Dean’s voice startled Michael.

“You have a beautiful family, Dean.”

“Yes, I do.” Dean snuggled into Michael’s back, wrapping his arms around his mate and placing his chin on Michael’s shoulder. “My mate, in particular, is stunning.”

Michael chuckled. “Flatterer. No but, really. Will I get to meet your folks?”

“Mom died shortly after I turned fourteen. Sam had just presented as beta. She died in a fire at work. It was on the news. There was supposed to be an emergency exit on the second floor, but there wasn’t, and they couldn’t get out. Six other wolves died that day. It was…awful.”

Michael turned alarmed eyes on his mate. “My god, Dean. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Thanks, man. I still miss her a lot. My old man is still around, but he’s so lost in the bottle, he may as well have died when she did. He gave the house to me when I turned seventeen and walked away. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, but we drop a line every now and then. He’s a good man, and I miss him, but I can’t help him. Sam and I both tried. He doesn’t want any help. He just wants to wallow and wait to join Mom, you know?” Dean paused with his eyes on the portrait. “So anyway, enough about that. Let’s get lunch and talk. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Okay. Take me somewhere good. I need a cheeseburger, and I need it now.” Michael read Dean’s need to separate himself from the sadness the family portrait evoked and opted to ride his enthusiasm for red meat out of the hole they’d dug with each other. He followed Dean back out the door and hopped into the shiny black muscle car pretending to be a family sedan.

Chapter Text

NOW:

They shared a booth in the back of Dean’s favorite local joint. Every surface was covered in a thin sheen of grease, but the beers were cold and the burgers cheesy. Dean relaxed. He was back in a place where everyone knew him. These were his people, and they understood one another. Dean felt the last of the tension he’d carried for six weeks drain out of his back, only realizing once it faded that it had been there at all. Big cities and Dean Winchester, it seemed, were not a match. He didn’t mind visiting. There were two decently sized burgs within driving distance when he wanted them, but Dean found respite in the small and the everyday, in the familiar. He liked his little hometown, even if it was only little by comparison. He liked that he knew that everywhere he went in this town, he and his kind would be welcome.

They sat on opposite sides of the booth. Dean had hesitated, weighing the virtues of sitting side-by-side for canoodling purposes versus across from one another, which allowed for better face-to-face interaction. It was a business lunch though, really, so the canoodling would have to wait. Dean even restrained himself from slipping out of his shoe and molesting his mate with his toes as he was sorely tempted to do.

Michael took a long pull from his bottle, and then set it on the table and regarded Dean. “This where you tell me to knock off all the posturing and stop trying to stake my claim on you? You know, stop trying to get rid of him?”

“Do you need me to?”

Michael looked down at the table and fidgeted with the label on his beer. “Maybe.”

“Hey,” Dean’s voice was gentle. He reached across the table for Michael’s hand. “You know by now that this is how things are. I don’t want you to just roll over and not defend what’s yours, not ask for your place at the table. I expect you to stand up for yourself, man. And I wouldn’t let you get sidelined. But we have a lot of years together on the horizon—if we’re lucky, we do. It’s going to take all of us working together to make it work for everyone.”

Michael snarled. “Well, that’s terrific for you and him, but making it work for everyone isn’t exactly my highest priority. Bottom line, Dean, is that if push comes to shove and it doesn’t work like you and Castiel want it to, it’s the marriage that breaks, not our Mating-bond. He needs to know that pushing me around and making demands is not…he’s not really working from a place of strength. That’s all I’m saying. I’ll only be pushed so far. I’m not going to take any crap from that man. I don’t give a shit who he is.”

The Lupin waitress set their burgers down in front of them along with a large basket of hot fries. “Need anything else?” she asked. Dean shook his head impatiently at her, worried the distraction would knock the conversation off the rails.

He sighed. “Michael, I…I hear you. You know what? You’re right. You and me, we’re a lock. We’re Mated, my friend. I’m yours, you’re mine till the end of time, okay? So, why are you so fucking defensive? He couldn’t take me away from you if he tried—and he isn’t trying.”

“Right.”

“Look, forget about Castiel’s side of things and look at me. Sweetheart, I’m as committed to being with Cas as he is with me. Quit thinking this is all him shouldering in on you. I’m not giving him up, and I know you don’t understand that. Hell, I don’t really understand it myself. I’m in love with him. I spent nearly a decade in a miserable half-existence. I knew I’d meet you one day, Mate you, love you, pups, white pickets, whole nine, and I knew that when that happened, I’d lose him. How do you build a relationship with someone you know is going to get ripped out of your grasp? No, don’t do that. Don’t tune me out, man, you need to hear this.”

Michael was leaning back in his booth with his eyes closed and his arms crossed. He looked to be moments from bolting. He opened his eyes and refocused on Dean, but there was defiance and hurt in his glare. “So that’s who I am to you? The prick who came along and ripped the love of your life out of your grasp?”

Dean didn’t back down. “You Mated me, Michael. You Mated me, and this is me. You get nothing more or less than exactly who I am.” Dean’s eyes reddened with his fervency.

“I am a fucking flawed individual with a passion for fixing people and a ramped-up sex drive. I drink too much beer. I don’t go to the gym. I get off on having my ass whipped. I look nerdy in reading glasses. Nothing I do is ever going to be good enough. And I’m in love with Castiel. You got a problem with him and me, you need to bring it to me, and we’ll work on it together. You got it? I’m not giving him up. I paid my dues for years thinking I could never have him, and now I have a second chance. Baby, I love you so much, but I love him, too. I know that hurts you. I don’t see any way that it wouldn’t.

“I’m not gonna leave you in the cold, man. Like I said, you get a place at the table, and you get a place in the bed. You get a say. What I’m asking for is for you to take a huge leap of faith with me that what we have between the two of us is strong enough to make it work with all four of us. That starts with you giving up on the fantasy that you’re going to get me all to yourself. I’m sorry, Michael. You have a right to be angry about that, but it’s just how things are. Take me or leave me; this is me.”

Michael picked up a fry and ate it, his eyes focused past Dean’s shoulder. Dean dug into his burger. He wanted to keep the tension level as low as possible, and eating was a good way to bring a sense of normalcy into the mix. His eyes never left his mate though. In the end, Michael was right, it was the marriage that was vulnerable, and Michael’s buy-in was key.

After a moment, Michael brought his focus back to Dean. “What’s it going to look like? You’re asking me to agree to something, and I can’t picture it. The way it looks is you two are setting up as Mom and Pop, and the chick and me, we’re the pups. That’s not sitting well with me. I’m not a pup, Dean. She wants to go along with it, fine. She can do whatever floats her boat—I don’t care—but it’s not for me, and I don’t care if I am an Omega or not. I’m not a pup.”

“Agreed. You’re not a pup. So, let’s not do that Mom and Dad and pups thing. That’s pretty freaking creepy. Let’s start with just you and me, okay? We’ve got a month to work it all into something we’re comfortable with and can build on. Then we add in Cas and April. One step at a time. Can you do that? For now, just focus on us.”

Michael leaned in. “You don’t feel it, do you? The possessiveness. The jealousy. You’re sharing your husband just the same way I’m sharing my mate, but you and April are BFFs for some reason. What the fuck is that?”

“I just don’t feel possessive,” Dean said. “I don’t know why. I don’t see her as an adversary, more like a little sister. I can’t explain it to you. Just be thankful I don’t get possessive, and she seems not to. We don’t need that much more complexity.”

“Got it,” Michael quipped. “I’m the problem.”

Dean stretched across and took his hand. “No. No, you’re my True-Mate, Michael Quentin. You and I are setting off on the adventure of a lifetime together. But it’s not going to be simple, and it’s not without its perils. Adventures are like that. It’s gonna come with some sacrifice, man, I can’t save you from that.”

“Sacrifice?” Michael challenged. “What exactly are you sacrificing? Looks to me like it’s only me giving anything up. Everyone else gets extra helpings.”

Dean rubbed his eyes in frustration. Michael wasn’t entirely wrong. He sighed and leaned back in. “Okay, look. None of this is as simple as it seems on the surface. It’s probably going to take all of us years to figure out how we fit. I’m not expecting miracles.”

“Good, because I’m all out of miracles,” Michael grumbled before shoving his burger into his mouth.

Dean watched him chew, thinking hard. “Just, please, Michael? One thing at a time?”

Michael took another bite from his burger and chewed it slowly, holding Dean’s eye and thinking. “All right. One thing at a time.”

“Thank you.”

“You need me to go along with this though,” Michael inserted after a few bites, with his mouth full. “Let’s just all be real clear. You can say over and over again that it’s a done deal and I just have to bend over and take it like a good Omega. But truth is, I don’t. If I don’t jump on the bandwagon with you, that wagon’s going nowhere. I hold all the power, and if you two don’t acknowledge that, you might find me a lot less willing to comply. I don’t care how many times you spank me for it.”

“Are you threatening me, Omega?”

“Aren’t you doing the same?”

It was a tense standoff. What Michael said was only partially true. He held a lot of weight in whether this thing went sideways or not, but all the power? No way. Not all of it. Dean was acutely aware that as an Omega, Michael’s balance was precarious under a rebellious flag such as he was waving in Dean’s face. Dean hardened his expression. “Look, I’m not going to take a mouthy Omega and not respond. Once we get past today, I’m going to take a bratty attitude as a request for some disciplinary attention. You’re going to learn your place, but we need to finish our negotiations first. We’re still just at step one of that. Finish your lunch, and then let’s pick it back up at home.”

Michael smirked at him. Clearly, he thought he’d won a victory. Dean just wanted him to quit seeing their relationship as adversarial. They should be a team, damnit.

“How’s the bruising on your ass healing, Dean?” Michael changed the subject, again with his mouth full. Dean excused him. He didn’t have the greatest table manners himself, and it wasn’t a high priority for him.

“It’s only been about four days. I think they’ve gone mostly yellow and brown, but they’re still there.”

“Let me see.”

Dean only hesitated long enough to work out in his head if his mate should reasonably have the authority to inspect another Dom’s handiwork. He concluded quickly that yes, Michael should have that right. Dean stood up next to the table and turned outward. He unbuckled his belt and shoved everything down to mid-thigh, holding the back of his shirttail up out of the way and craning his head around to see for himself.

He wouldn’t have done this in Dallas. There were too few wolves and too many misconceptions. Here, no one cared. Michael reached a hand to him and grasped one cheek firmly, working the muscle in a strong massage. “Still sore?”

“Only a little.”

“The marks don’t jibe with each other. These look like switch-marks, and this was something flat.” Michael ran his hand over Dean’s ass and thighs respectively. Dean shivered as chill bumps spread out from Michael’s fingertips.

“Yeah. It was a cane and then a hairbrush. Two separate events.” Dean pulled his boxers and jeans back into place and took his seat again, resuming his meal.

“What for?”

Dean hesitated. “I don’t know where the boundaries are going to be when they all shake out. It’s probably not my place to say, except I’ll admit that the caning was for fun, and the hairbrush wasn’t.”

“Ah. Bit of a brat yourself, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.” Dean winked at Michael, who couldn’t help blushing and couldn’t stop the small smile that twitched into place briefly before he suppressed it. How did Dean do that? Michael wanted to be pissy and resentful, but Dean was disarmingly adorable.

“You ready?” asked Michael, upending his beer. “I’d like to get home and get busy Negotiating you.”

“Very funny. I think we should stick to talking though. I’m tired of having to say, not yet. I want to get our cards on the table and then have some fun. You with me?”

Michael leered. “Will that get your knot in my ass sooner?”

Dean nodded confidently and dropped some cash on the table.

“Then let’s do it. I hope you’re ready for me. I drive a hard bargain.”

“Good.” Dean let Michael guide him out with a hand on his lower back.

Some things wouldn’t need to be negotiated. Some things between them just came naturally.

Dean started his car and put it into drive. “Do you own a car, Michael?”

“No, but I have a license. We need to go back down to Grand Prairie for my stuff soon. It’s not a big hurry. I was scheduled to be up here for the testing and the twelve-week Omega training class, so I packed for several weeks.”

“Would it be all right with you if we do that after our month in solitary? I kind of want to stay quarantined with you as much as possible,” said Dean with his eyes on the road.

“That would be fine, Dean.”

“And we need to buy you a car. The bus service here doesn’t go everywhere, and there will be times that you’ll need to move around on your own.”

Michael stared at Dean. “You want to buy me a car?”

“Well, yeah. You need one. You said you’ve got a license. We can get that transferred to Kansas any time. I think we have ninety days to switch your custody and your residency. I don’t know. I’ll look it up.” Dean noticed Michael still looked shocked. “What?”

“You plan to just go out and buy me a car. Just like that? Exactly how rich are you, Dean? I mean, I saw your house. It’s nice, but it’s not fancy like the rich folks.”

Dean laughed. “No, the house was my dad’s, remember? Sam and I live there. I’ll sell it to him outright now and move in with Cas. I mean, I guess it’s not a secret really. I’ve uh, done pretty well for myself. The gig at The Facility doesn’t pay all that much in salary, but I’m part owner, so it brings in a steady stream from distributions. We reinvest most of the profits back into research and services. The purpose of that place is to make it affordable for most everyone and give scholarships and waivers to the rest. That leaves not a lot of income distribution for the investors and owners, but it’s all in the manifesto so investors know what they’re getting into.

“Actually, most of my money came from the book deals. I’ve done three of them now. Thinking of starting to work on a fourth, but that’ll probably get tabled for a while now that I’ve got you.”

“Book deals? You wrote books?” Michael frowned across the bench seat. He looked to be reevaluating what he knew of his mate.

“And you call yourself a YouTube fan,” Dean scoffed. “Dude, I plug the books at every convention, like over and over. Go back and watch one.”

“I guess I didn’t realize they were books you’d written yourself.”

“Hey, I’m a fucking scholar, all right? I’ve got a PhD and shit. Maybe I should make you call me doctor!”

“Maybe you should,” Michael responded seductively, and Dean laughed. He pulled back into the driveway and parked the car.

“Let’s go. And keep your hands to yourself or we won’t be able to get through this today.”

They took up places at the kitchen table opposite one another. Dean brought a couple of pens and some paper so they could take notes. Michael smirked at him. “Laugh it up, fuzzball,” Dean objected. “You’re gonna appreciate my forethought when you have something important to record and hold me to later. You ever done a negotiation like this before? At college? Anywhere?” Dean asked, switching to serious.

“Not really. We always went with our gut and told each other to piss off when things weren’t working.”

Dean nodded. “That’s fine for one-night stands and college hookups, I guess, but it doesn’t work well for longterm or if you want to go deep. So, here’s how this works: we start by defining the environment and structure. That’s why I wanted to get my upcoming marriage on the table right away. That informs everything we do from here on. It also includes both of our ranks in the Pack and what our responsibilities are there. Next, we define our roles between one another, and when to make each one applicable. I think that will be straightforward. I feel like we work together fairly seamlessly. The Mating-bond helps there. You with me so far?”

Michael nodded and drew spirals on his paper.

“Finally, we’ll get down into the details of our likes and dislikes, our hard and soft limits, our kinks, preferences, and all that jazz. I want to hear what you want from me and how you see us getting there. That part of the discussion is probably going to work better if you take the lead. You good with that?”

“With telling my Sub what his Dom wants from him? Yes, Dean. I’m good with that.”

“Smart-ass,” Dean rebuked. “Don’t forget that the Sub gets to put two cents in as well. I get to set my limits, man.”

“I know Dean. I’m only joking. Go ahead, lay it on me. Give me all the bad news. What’s my curfew?”

“Keep the sass going and I’ll actually give you one.” Dean leveled a look at Michael that reminded him there was a power disparity between them. Michael breathed, worked his jaw, cracked his neck, and nodded at his mate. He could do this. He didn’t have to like it, but he could do it. For Dean.

Dean let Michael find his balance point and then continued. “All right. As a Mated Omega in the Winchester Pack, you’ll be granted full rights and obligations of an active adult Pack member. You will take up residence in the Novak manor—soon-to-be-renamed—and will become a ward of the Pack Alpha, Castiel Novak—also soon-to-be-renamed.”

“Can I stop you to ask questions, or do you want me to just write them down?”

“It’s just us Michael. Ask anything you want. If we feel like it’s slowing us down and breaking our train of thought, we might start jotting them down, but let’s try just talking to each other. Did you have a question?”

“Why am I his ward and not yours?”

“Because he’s Alpha. He is nominal custodian of all the Omegas in the Pack. It’s just how it works.” Dean waited until Michael nodded for him to continue.

“You will be required to complete a Keller test, Omega training, and probably Dominant training as well. I think we’ll most likely put you in with a private tutor for the Omega stuff. I may do it myself, but there may be a benefit to having someone else work with you on that. I don’t see you fitting in well with the Omega-Neutrals. You’re more likely to lead a mutiny in that class and get them all in trouble.”

Michael suppressed a smug smile then asked, “Why do I still have to do the test? Don’t we all know I’m a Dom? Is there really any doubt about that now?”

“No, not in my mind. But the test gives us more than just a definition of your gender, and you’re already enough of a puzzle that we need all the help we can get. Just go with it. It’s not optional, so fighting it is pointless.”

“Resistance is futile?”

“Yes, it is, you nerd.” Dean smirked. “We’re pushing legislation through that will require it of every wolf as they come of age. That’s gonna be years more in the implementation, but for us in the lead Pack, it’s not optional. We’re setting cultural precedents, Michael.” Dean got up and pulled a couple of beers from the fridge. He handed one to Michael after popping the cap. “Just this one more,” he clarified. Negotiating while buzzed would be a bad idea, but he figured they could handle two beers apiece without hitting any danger spots.

“Where were we? Yeah, you get your test and your training. You already know about the House Rules. I have a few to add to that in a minute. If you break a House Rule, any Pack wolf who stands above you in rank has the right to discipline you for it. Usually, they’ll check in with me first, but it’s not really required. You are to obey Cas and Sam like you would me where domestic or public behavior is concerned. If you break one of my Rules, that’s just between us.”

Dean took a drink and paused to see if Michael would protest, but he didn’t.

“You’ll get a lot more information about how it all fits together in your Omega training class. Also, just real quick: Michael, you don’t ever have to obey a wolf who isn’t your authority figure. You answer to me, to Cas and Sam, to your instructors in class, and to the leadership of The Facility whenever you’re on campus. Cas is going to expect you to defer to Benny and Bobby both. But if some asshole at the grocery store tries to make you kneel, you can tell him to cram it up his ass, and you don’t have to be polite. Don’t get yourself arrested for assault, but you know what I mean.”

“So, what Sam did this morning? He can do that whenever he wants, even if you don’t know about it?”

“If you break a Rule like you did this morning, yes. He’s good about communicating, so he’ll probably let me know, or, like this morning, he asked permission, but yeah. That’s how Pack Discipline works. Have you never had something like that?”

“Not formally. We have a big Pack back home, and the moms all take no prisoners with whatever kids are in their houses. But officially? Pop was in charge. There isn’t a Pack Discipline structure there. Like, membership in the Pack is a loose association. Not like this.”

“I think you’ll get used to it pretty quickly,” Dean told him. “It’s really not as complicated as it sounds. It’s built to follow our instincts, so we’ll tend to fall into these roles even if we don’t remember how the policies are stated. You still with me?”

“Mm-hm. Go on.”

“We have to figure out a Release schedule for you. The Keller test will help with that, too. Do you know your Omesol production rate? How often do you feel you need a Release?”

“Oh, uh. I’m not sure. Pop did it with a paddle every month or so when I lived at home. While I was in college, I had a couple of alpha friends who made sure I got Released. Never went to campus services for that. Most of the time, really good sex works well enough that I don’t need the paddle. We had to check in with the clinic once a month to get the level checked, and I never tripped the meter, so I think it’s probably about that often, monthly. Maybe less.”

“Did your father ever Claim you? You know what a CF is, right?”

“Yes, Dean. I know what a CF is. No. He never felt like it would help, and I think he knew I’d fight it. I’m not good at submission, especially where my pop is concerned.”

“I’ve noticed.” Dean stood again and stretched. “Michael, I don’t know how to make it work yet, but we’re going to need to find a way to put alpha Claims on you before you go through training. Your Omega needs one from your instructors and one from Cas. I’m not altogether sure we can get it to stick from your teacher. Cas thinks you’re a Central Omega and Profound Dominant. That’s going to be a bitch to navigate in terms of getting the CF done, but it’s really important for the stability factor that the Omega’s looking for. We just gotta find a way to get you out of your Dominant long enough to let your Omega take the Claim. I’m dizzy just thinking about it.”

Dean sighed and sat back down. “You want to take a break?”

“Will you knot me?”

“Very tempting, but no. Business first.”

“It’s your loss. Missed opportunity. Sam forbid me from any Dominant behavior with you until we hashed out our agreement, so this is a small window that’s closing fast, alpha. You sure you don’t want in?”

“I’m in charge?”

Michael pulled his shirt over his head and licked his lips lasciviously. “Whatever you want, Dean.”

“Yeah, I’m not turning that down. Bedroom. Let’s go.”

They were both naked by the time they got there and met in the middle of the room in a tangle of limbs and lips. Dean squeezed Michael’s firm ass, and Michael ripped the bandage off Dean’s mating-scar and mouthed over it, sucking painfully. “What do you want, Dean?”

Dean let his head fall to the side to bare his throat and his bite to his mate. “Want you to hit me, baby. I’ll fuck you so good, I promise, but please, just a little. Want to feel what your hand is like. Please, Sir?”

Michael chuckled. Even when he didn’t have to, Dean submitted. It’s just who he was. Michael kissed up his neck and stroked over his ribs possessively. “Not until the bruises are completely gone, my love,” he whispered into Dean’s ear, nibbling. “I don’t want to have to wonder if his are still there under my marks. I want to know they’re mine and only mine. You’re just going to have to wait for it.”

“Nnngh, Michael, you said whatever I want. Please.”

“Anything but that. C’mon alpha. Is that all you think about? Give me an order. You want me to stick my tongue in your ass? You like a good, solid rimming?” Michael walked Dean to the bed and pushed him gently onto his back, pulling his legs up and pressing his knees toward his belly to reveal his hole.

“Mm-hmm.” Dean was already lost to subspace. If he were in his front-brain, he might marvel at how quickly his wolf rolled for Michael’s voice and touch. Whatever Michael did, Dean was on board. Michael knelt on the carpet and stroked himself slowly while he licked over Dean’s anus. He held Dean’s legs with an arm across the backs near the knees and began to work his tongue in circles around Dean’s rim, sometimes flattening it and sometimes pointing it and delving right in.

Dean rocked his hips minutely then remembered he was under no instruction to keep still. He flipped himself onto his knees and rudely shoved his ass into his mate’s face.

“Fuck yeah!” said Michael, diving back in and getting to work. His tongue was everywhere. He worked it around and around the tight muscles and pressed it deep inside of Dean’s most intimate place, fucking Dean with its stiffened pointed tip. Dean moaned and rocked against him, impaling himself. Michael kept one hand on Dean’s thigh to stabilize him and kept the other busy with his own erection.

“Are your nipples sensitive, alpha? Would you pinch them for me?”

Dean whined and lowered his face and chest to the bed to free his arms. He had to bow his back just a little, but he managed to work his fingers in and pinch both nipples hard. It was better when a Dom did it, but it still felt pretty fucking awesome, and he groaned again, pushing back into Michael’s face.

“Can you come like this?” Michael asked him, resting his cheek against Dean’s bruised thigh and giving his tongue a break. He rubbed over Dean’s hole with his thumb and then shoved it in as far as it would go.

“Fuck! Michael! Fuck, yeah! Just like that!”

“Is that a yes, Dean?”

“Uh-huh. If you keep doing that. Fingers, Michael. Use your fingers.” Dean was still working away at his nipples, pinching, rolling, pressing. He panted hard. Michael spit on his fingers and pressed two carefully inside his mate. He pumped them in and out for a minute or two and took it all in. His mate, the need, the raw shameless desire. He felt around for Dean’s prostate and rubbed against it on the upthrust, curling his fingers down toward Dean’s belly.

“Don’t let me hurt you, baby. If you need me to get the lube out, I will. Do you like it like this?”

“Yeah. Like it to burn a little,” panted Dean. “Just like that. Oh, fuck!”

“Holy fuck, look at you! Get up. I need you to knot me, and I can’t wait any longer.” Michael slapped Dean’s rump lightly as he pulled out his fingers. Dean whined for the loss of Michael’s fingers and the tease of a spanking that wasn’t, but he rolled over and let Michael pull him to standing.

Michael took Dean’s place, bent over the bed with one knee up on the mattress and the other braced on the floor. Slick rolled from his channel and smeared on both thighs. He reached back wordlessly and spread his cheeks with both hands, a clear invitation and instruction that spoke to Dean’s alpha and his Sub alike. Dean didn’t need to hear any words. He lined himself up and pressed in. He let himself sink in as he covered Michael’s body with his own, wrapping the Omega in skin-to-skin contact from their thighs to their shoulders and kissing the healing mating-bite on Michael’s shoulder as he folded over.

Dean wrapped his arms around his mate’s chest and pressed his forehead to the back of Michael’s neck as he thrust into the tight, warm, slick channel. Michael propped himself on one hand, reaching the other to stroke his own cock. He rocked back to meet Dean’s hips and deepen the reach of his cock inside Michael’s channel. They both moaned when Dean’s cock struck Michael’s prostate, and the Mating-bond rang like the striking of a gong.

Dean picked up the pace, teething along Michael’s neck and kissing his shoulder. He sucked tiny bruises as he went and groaned into the bites and kisses. Then he quickened again, standing upright, and taking hold of Michael’s hips, pulling him backward against the motion of his driving hips. Dean’s knot was starting to swell. It caught as it was forced in and pulled back out again and again. Michael whined. He grunted at the delicious catch, feeling full and complete. Almost complete.

“Come on, alpha! Knot me, damn you!”

“Fuck! Michael! Oh, fucking god, yes!” Dean sped up again, fucking ruthlessly, growling deep in his throat. He let his head fall to his chest as he grunted into his work and felt his thighs burn. The Mating-bond warned Dean that Michael was close. Michael’s fist flew over his cock, stripping it with blinding speed. He threw his head back and screamed as he came. His channel clenched around the alpha’s knot and secured it in place. The knot held and Dean too, came with a shout. He pumped against Michael’s ass and ground his knot in his mate’s channel as far as it would go, sending come shooting warm and filling deep into Michael. Dean continued to grind against Michael’s ass through his release. Then he stood panting, massaging Michael’s hips with his hands, eyes closed, head thrown back to catch his breath. Dean moved through a couple of aftershocks before folding himself back down over his mate.

“Jesus, Dean.”

“Yeah.” Dean chuckled and mopped sweat from his forehead.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, breathing and swirling emotions to each other through their bond. “Start working your way up the bed, and I’ll follow you,” Dean instructed.

“I don’t think you have a choice there, buddy,” Michael teased back. “If I’m moving, you’re moving. You’re the one hanging by his dick.”

“Nice. Just, move slowly and be careful.” They eased forward, careful to keep the knot from pulling and worked themselves into a spoon position at the head of the bed. Dean wrapped his arms around his mate and snuggled into him. Michael’s mating-bite was on the wrong shoulder for Dean to reach with his mouth, so he settled for rubbing a thumb over the scar. It was healing rapidly, and he liked the way it felt under his thumb. Sensitive nerves were growing up into it, too. Dean could feel Michael react to his touch, and they shared a smile that neither could see but both knew was there.

The reverb Dean felt from his side of the bite, with its increasingly sensitive bundle of nerves, felt odd, not how he had expected. Backward, perhaps, like it zinged the wrong way through. Dean massaged it and wondered idly at the intricacies of Mating-bonds.

He dozed for a bit while Michael stroked his arm with a light touch.

When the knot slipped free, they reluctantly got up, rinsed off, dressed, and got back to work. Michael found grapes and cheese in the fridge and crackers in the pantry. He put together an impromptu snack plate and filled a couple of glasses with water.

Dean thanked him. “We can’t resist our roles, can we?” He felt very relaxed.

Michael scrubbed a hand through his Sub’s hair, and then sat back down across from him. “Where were we when you distracted me?” Michael asked.

Dean ignored the dig. They really did have a lot of ground to cover.

“All we have left of section one is ranks and responsibilities. We already know our ranks. Any questions there?”

“Yes. You said Sam’s paddled you before, but you rank higher than him. Does that mean he’s not going to be doing that anymore? Just Castiel and me, now?”

Dean squirmed slightly. “Um, Sam and I are a bit of a special case. We’ve always been close. He knows me really well; knows how to work me through when I’m on a bratty streak; knows how to bust me out of it. If I were any way but how I am, I would outrank him free and clear and there wouldn’t be any overlap. But he’s profoundly Dominant, plus trained as a paddle-man, and I’m such a freaking Submissive brat, that we just about level out when you add it all together. It’s always worked for us for me to be his big brother in every realm of our lives except inside our wolves where behavior is concerned. In there, he Tops me. I’ve taken ass-beatings from him since before he Presented. He’s a natural and it works for us. Frankly, Michael, if you told us both today we had to stop, I don’t think we’d be capable. It’s how we work. It’s just how we roll together. Is that going to be a problem?”

“I, uh, I don’t think so. It’s not the same as Castiel. Sam’s not fucking you too.”

“God no! And he’s not Domming for me either. It’s only punishment when I need to have my head screwed back on through my backside. I can get kind of out of control sometimes. Maybe it won’t be an issue anymore what with having two fulltime Doms watching over me, but I suspect he and I will always need to connect that way.”

“I understand. I’d like to request that Sam run it by me first when he wants to punish you. Would that be reasonable?” Michael asked.

Dean didn’t have to think about that one. “Yes, since the arrangement I have with Sam falls counter to the rankings of the Pack, that’s reasonable.” He wrote it down as a stipulation of Michael’s on his paper.

Then he continued. “As far as responsibilities go, that’s also pretty straightforward. Everyone does housework. Everyone cleans up after themselves. You meet any professional and institutional obligations you make. You don’t break any laws. Communicate everything to whoever is assigned to Top you; that’s me. Don’t hide anything. By the way, I already filled Cas in on what happened this morning. He’s going to follow up with Sam, but he’s not planning to talk to you about it. I told him you’ve already had your discussion, and he’s good with it. He trusts me. And Michael, I’m not going to give him any reason to stop trusting me. We’re not playing games in this Pack, none of the two-sides-against-the-middle crap that would divide us and breed disharmony just for the sake of stirring the pot.

“So, yeah, communicate everything. At first, I want you to overcommunicate. I want to hear everything that bugs you, everything you like, every time you get a hangnail.”

Michael nodded solemnly. Dean felt nothing disturbing through the bond. Michael was either learning to guard his emotions or he was genuinely invested in the conversation.

“Follow all the Pack Rules to the letter. I already said that. Be good to Gabe and April. Don’t be an ass to Sam. That just leaves my Rules, and those are few and simple so far. Number One, you’ve heard. Keep hold of your temper. That includes sarcasm and tantrums. I don’t want to see you roll your eyes or sigh dramatically at anyone in this Pack. It’s disrespectful, and I will spank you for it. When you’re upset, you need to talk to me.”

Michael scoffed and tossed his pen onto his paper. “Right, because I’m always so rational when I’m pissed off. Like you are.” Disdain dripped messily off Michael’s tongue.

Dean crossed his arms. “There. Like that. Find another way to say that without the attitude. Try again. I’m giving you a second chance for practice.”

Michael heaved a heavy sigh and lowered his eyes. He gave it a go in halting words. “Dean, I am fairly certain that when I’m angry or exceptionally irritated, I will lose the ability to control my behavior in a rational way.” Michael popped a grape into his mouth.

“Better. And I’ll work on that with you. You can control yourself even when you’re angry. You just need practice and motivation. Fair warning, I’ll motivate through your butt, and not in the happy way.”

“Yes, alpha.”

“Next Rule: I expect to know your schedule on a weekly basis. I’m not setting a curfew, and I’m not going to make you check in everywhere you go, but you will report to me once a week where you plan to be and when anything changes.”

Michael nodded and finally began to write on his paper.

“Third Rule:” Dean continued, watching Michael’s pen strokes. “You will work with me to keep yourself Balanced. No one but me or Cas will be permitted to Release you unless it happens during class incidentally. If you need one, you let me know. Don’t wait for me to come to you.

“Fourth Rule: You are expected to take an active part in your own wellbeing. This one overlaps with house Rule Number Two, but it goes deeper. Only you know what you need and what it’s going to take to get you there. Don’t neglect yourself, don’t harm yourself, be gentle and easy with yourself, and communicate your needs. That includes figuring out what you want to do with your life from here. If you want to go back to school or find a job, then let’s figure out how to make that happen.” Dean’s eyes took on an intense light, red-ringed and powerful.

“Fifth Rule: This is the last of them for now. We’ll add more as needed later. Fifth Rule is, buy-in to the wellbeing of this Pack. You are expected to put the needs of the Pack as a high priority. You will work sincerely with your fellow Doms, and you will negotiate with Castiel in good faith. I expect you to consider that you and he both have needs we have to fulfill and strive to make a space for him while taking care to protect your own needs. You are also expected to keep watch over all of the Neutrals and Submissives. Our Pack will grow over the years if the Universe grants us that blessing, and as a Dominant, you bear responsibility to hold a protective wing over those beneath you. Questions?”

“Where do I sleep?”

Dean paused a beat, taken by surprise. “Oh. Um. I don’t know. That one hasn’t come up yet. Let’s see, Cas has the Master suite. I know he wants to share that with me. How about this; you and I stake claim to whichever room you want, just for the two of us, and when I’m with Cas, I’ll sleep in the Master with him. You and he stay put, and I travel.”

“What about nights when he’s with his mate? Could you and I take the Master on those nights?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. Let’s bring it up when we work out the details all together at the end of the month. That’s an important part of this. It defines space and boundaries. It tells us where home is.”

“Let’s move on to our roles and how that all works,” prompted Michael.

Dean nodded and tapped the table in front of him. “All right. You and me. The way I see it, everything sexual or scene-related is your domain to manage. Everything domestic or public is mine. We’ll need to do plenty of alpha-Omega stuff too, but I think that’ll come naturally without a lot of planning. For the Tertiary stuff, we can talk about scenes beforehand and set some guidelines. Once we know each other better, I’m good with following your lead. Most of the sex we’re gonna have will be D/S stuff. That means it’s your domain.” Dean paused and rubbed a hand across his mouth, searching for the right words to proceed.

“I’ll be honest with you Michael. I don’t safeword. It’s wrong. It’s unsafe. I train Subs all the time to use those safewords, but when I’m deep under, I can’t do it. I’m going to need you to know that and watch out for me. If you take me deep enough, sometimes I go completely nonverbal and won’t even be able to answer you. I’m trusting that you won’t hurt me. Can you help me with that? It’s really fucking scary to think about it when I’m out here in my front-brain, knowing that once I’m under, I’m completely at your mercy.”

“Jesus, Dean. I’m…I’ll need to be way more careful. Holy shit. Really?”

Dean nodded. “It’s one of Castiel’s biggest worries. He knows me. He worries that you might get carried away and not notice if I get into trouble. That almost happened this morning. To be totally frank, Michael, it did happen this morning. We’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

“Okay. I get it. I wasn’t listening to you through the bond at all this morning. That can’t happen again. Ever.”

“Don’t stress out about it. This morning was a learning moment. Let’s take it slow and work our way up. I really need to go deep sometimes. I’m not giving that up. We just have to get there slowly. You’re going to hate this but working with Cas as a mentor would help you.”

Michael nodded somberly. He was beginning to get an idea of how things were going to be in Pack Winchester. He just didn’t know yet if he could live with it. “You hated what I did this morning with Sam. I’m sorry about that Dean. I really am. But it felt so good to show you off. I want so badly to have people watch you be good for me. What do we do about that? What if our kinks don’t align?”

Dean frowned then said, “I didn’t hate having an audience exactly. I hated not knowing why. It was like two totally different parts of myself were trying to be in front at the same time, and it was overwhelming. Michael, I can do public. I fuck people in front of seminar and workshop audiences, in class and in the processing room. I do that all the time. I can do that for you any time you want, you just gotta give me some idea it’s coming.”

“No, Dean. You don’t understand what I want. I want the private Dean, the one you only show to me and Castiel; I want that Dean on display. I want people—select people under controlled circumstances—to watch you at your most vulnerable give yourself to me. Fuck, now I’ve got a boner.” Michael pressed the heel of his hand to his crotch.

Dean stared at him with eyes wide and jaw slack. “I don’t know how to do that,” he admitted.

Michael took his hand. “If we go slowly, would you be willing to try? If I guided you through it and kept you safe and cherished, would you try?” Michael watched Dean’s reaction for signs he was slipping under. He looked to be on the edge. “Alpha!” he snapped. “Stay with me. I need you out front right now.”

Dean shook his head to clear it. “Promise me to take it slow, and don’t hit me with any surprises, and I’ll try. Sam had the right idea to start off with close friends or Pack. I’m not letting strangers in yet, man. Shit, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but whatever. Let’s try.”

“God, you’re incredible,” breathed Michael.

“That’s all I have right now. I’m done. The rest is all you, Sir.” Dean leaned back in his chair and blew the tension of the moment out. Letting Michael take the reins was easy—too easy. Dean had skipped nearly everything to do with their Secondaries. He hadn’t forgotten. He ruthlessly stuffed that irritating nudge back under the rug at his feet and nodded assertively for Michael to take the lead over.

“Well, then, let’s see. I like most of what I’ve seen from you so far as a Sub. Someone trained you very well.” Michael quirked a brow at Dean, and Dean smiled back sheepishly. “Of course, I will be applying some training of my own. The simple Rules of scene conduct are: You stay naked unless instructed otherwise. Your starting position when asked to assume it is kneeling back on your heels, knees apart, hands on your thighs, and head comfortably down. Eyes on the floor in front of you. I want you relaxed.”

Dean got up and walked into the living room, stripping as he went. “We’re not in a scene right now, Michael, but do you mind if I work through it as you talk?”

“Go ahead.” Michael followed him and sat on the aging couch to remind himself not to hover and instruct, but just to inform. Dean took the position described and adjusted his shoulders, settling comfortably into a modified Position Number One.

“Toes flat, or up on my toes?” Dean asked. “I don’t have any joint problems yet, so I can do either.”

“Toes flat. I want you at rest.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“You’re not to meet my eyes unless I tell you to. You’re to keep a bend of deference in your neck unless positioned in such a way that you can’t.” Dean nodded in understanding.

“When given an instruction, you have four options immediately available to you: One. Comply in full at once. Two. Ask a clarifying question if you don’t understand the instruction. You will not be punished for asking questions as long as you do so respectfully and you don’t use this option to stall or negotiate. Three. Safeword—either Yellow to pause, Red to stop, or give me your unique word that halts everything. I assume you don’t have one of your own, or you would have told me already?” Michael paused for Dean’s subtle head shake before nodding and continuing on. “Again, you will never be punished for calling out a safeword. I know what you told me, but just know, whether you ever choose to exercise that safety net or not, it’s always there. And four. Fail to comply with the instruction and accept whatever punishment you’re due. Any questions?”

“No, Sir.”

“What are your limits, Dean?” Michael went back for his paper and pen and returned to the couch. I assume you have them written down somewhere.

Dean relaxed back onto his butt but made no move to get dressed. “I don’t like scat or urine. I don’t want to be pierced, tattooed, or scarred; except I really like this one.” He touched the bite-mark that was still raw and broken. Michael smiled without looking up from the notes he was taking. “Please don’t do anything permanent to my face. That’s not just vanity, it would be detrimental to my career. I don’t like to be slapped. That’s really about it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah. Well, I like to hurt, you know that. It mixes with my pleasure receptors and makes everything better, but I’m not all that crazy about humiliation. That’s a soft limit, though. If you want to go there, I’m game.”

“What do I need to watch out for with you, Dean? What are your insecurities? You know what I mean?”

“I uh,” Dean took a deep breath and let it out. “Full communication, right? I owe you honesty. Okay. Shit. I have really low self-esteem sometimes. I’m in trouble a lot for talking bad about myself. I don’t know, I just never can quite feel like it’s enough, or whatever. Sam and Cas both whip my ass for that all the time. And I, uh…I punish myself when I feel like I did something bad. Usually it’s something simple like biting the inside of my cheek or making myself sit on a sore bum even if I’m not required to. That kind of stuff.” Dean let his gaze rest on the floor at his feet.

“All right. Thanks for telling me. Is that all?”

“Well, I can be a smart-ass and a brat, but you knew that already.”

“Dean, your Rules as a Sub are simple. No one touches you sexually except me or Castiel, and I’ll get some clarification on what he’s allowed later. When it comes to your classes, I want you to pull back and let someone else do the fucking. Again, let’s work that out together over the next few weeks. Clear so far?”

“What about Keller testing? I’m a rare designation, and that makes me valuable as a testing resource. Could you make an exception for testing if I stop fucking and touching in class and stuff?”

“I can accept that Keller testing is a special case. I’ll allow it on a limited basis. Is that acceptable to you?”

Dean nodded. He wasn’t too surprised. He’d been thinking that cutting back at work was coming soon anyway, and he thought he could manage it. “What about reiterating hierarchies in my department?” Dean asked carefully. “I’m head of the department. It doesn’t happen often, but there have been a few confrontations I had to respond to.”

Michael thought about it. It took him a couple of minutes to work through his objection. “Is a DF your only recourse in a challenge?” he asked at last.

Dean looked up at him, taking in his discomfort. It didn’t take a genius to see how far Michael’s forbearance was stretching. “It’s not the only option, no. It works fastest, most clearly, most definitively. It’s hard to keep the throwdown going with your ass Claimed by your superior in front of the whole team. Babe, the truth is, I’ve only had to turn to that a handful of times in my career, maybe not even that. It’s not really my go-to, what with my weird mix and all. Folks who work for me generally do their jobs without needing constant reminders.”

Dean left it there. The air between them grew heavy. Without the option to claim his status as nature intended, Dean’s alpha was facing a veritable castration socially. It was a troubling question, but his instinct wanted him to give something sacrificial as a show of good faith, and his wolf wanted him to show his belly. Dean felt the beginnings of the tingle that always came with being good for his Dominants.

Michael took several more minutes to think. He played with his thumbnail with a frown on his face. He knew what the limitation would mean. “I…I don’t want you touching anyone you don’t have to touch. You’re mine, and I want you to act like it.” His hesitance bespoke uncertainty in how far his bar could be pushed, not how badly he wanted this concession. He wanted this concession very badly.

Dean’s gaze remained steadfast, direct. “Is that a Rule, Sir?”

“Can you do this?”

“I can do it,” Dean said with no hint at what he thought of the idea. “Is it a Rule…Sir?”

They regarded each other for moments stretching into uncomfortable tension. “Dean,” said Michael firmly, going way out on a limb for an Omega no matter what type of pack he might be joining, “I forbid you from touching anyone but Castiel or me in any sexual manner whatsoever except for scheduled vetted Keller tests as part of a three-person panel and necessary Pack Claiming sex. Is that completely clear to you?”

“Very clear, Sir. I understand.” It was as if Michael’s possessive hand had taken hold of the back of Dean’s neck and tightened. Dean’s head dropped as if pushed into a deferential position. It was everything Dean looked for from Submission, and he felt valued, wanted, cherished. What good were alpha Claiming rights anyway? Giving himself to a worthwhile Dom was better than any power rush from a Claim Fuck.

“You agree to accept the limitations of this Rule?”

Dean held his eye. “I accept the Rule. I’m cut off except for the Kellers… And I’ll have to Claim Castiel’s mate at some point.” He watched the green eyes shift from cautious disbelief to awe-filled victory, and he could sense the Good boy on Michael’s lips. The air pressure dissipated, and Dean grinned cheekily at him. “I guess I have to get creative next time one of those bastards pushes me. I can probably think of something. Worse comes to worst, I can sic my fiancé on their ass. Or my mate. Nobody wants that.”

“All right,” Michael breathed. He let the moment go with a soft smile that didn’t last long. It was enough for Dean though. Whether Michael had really won what he thought he’d won would become clear soon enough. “Also, no one has permission to discipline you except me, Castiel, and Sam. If you earn yourself a punishment by anyone else, you’ll answer to me, and it’s not going to be pretty.”

Michael tacked that one like an arbitrary afterthought. Dean rankled.

“Wait. Hold up. Cas already said he was going to double-up on spankings I get outside the Pack.”

“Well then, I suggest you behave yourself when you’re in public or at work so your ass doesn’t get blistered clean off.”

“Shit. Yes, Sir.”

Smugly, Michael continued. “Third Rule: You do not punish you. Doms punish you. I imagine you’re familiar with that one already?”

“Yes, Sir. I am.” Dean crossed his legs Omega-style in front of him and leaned back on his hands.

“Next. Please me, and you’ll be rewarded. Displease me, and you’ll be punished. I don’t tolerate brats any more than you do, and the outcome will be the same. I expect the time is close at hand when we’ll both be sitting tender due to each other’s displeasure, but I’m okay with that. You?”

“Yeah. I’m good.”

Michael’s head cocked in thought. He paused, considering how to word what he was thinking. “Dean, I want more than just a Dom/Sub relationship with you. I want everything. If you just want to take a walk and hold hands, let’s do that. If you want to fuck me into the mattress just for fun, we’ll do it. It doesn’t have to follow strict Rules all the time. I didn’t hear you say anything earlier that made it sound like I’m only here to keep you sane and make your babies. I love you. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. I want to have your pups and grow old with you, and by god, if I have to do it with a dangler following us everywhere we go, I’ll do that. I’ll do anything for you.”

Dean laughed. “He’s gonna love being called a dangler.”

Michael chuckled too and then sat next to Dean on the carpet and pulled him close. His face sobered. He kissed Dean’s nose. “I want pups with you Dean. I want to start a family as soon as possible. I wasn’t kidding about that. I see no reason to wait.”

Dean embraced his mate. “We should run that by the Alpha. It’s a big change that affects everyone in the Pack, and he gets a say, but I’m okay with it, Michael. If you’re sure, and he says yes, I’ll go off my birth-control, let it work its way out of my system, and then wait for your next Heat. You need to be through with your training I guess, so we might have to hold off for just a bit…maybe your second Heat.” Dean was trying to think it through. What if Cas said no? How would Michael take that? Where should Dean’s loyalty lie?

With Michael, he decided. Where pups were concerned, Michael deserved his support.

“Michael,” Dean whispered. “I want pups with you. I want that so bad. You need to know, Cas and I, we talked about it. We want to have a co-parental structure. We haven’t spoken to April yet, and this is obviously the first time you’re hearing about it. No, just listen. I know you don’t trust in the Pack yet, but by the time any pups come along, you might. Just keep an open mind about it. All of our pups could have four parents, not just two. Just think about it.”

“I’m not giving my pups away, and that’s final.”

“I know. I’m not asking you to. Just consider sharing the workload with all of us. I know what you’re thinking. You think Cas wants to be Dad, set me up as Mom and just raise whatever babies come along as if they’re ours, as if they weren’t yours. That right?”

“That’s exactly right, and it’s a hard no, Dean. Our pups are our pups.”

“All right. I hear you. No one’s going to force you into this one, baby.” Dean got up and stretched again. He was wearing out. This shit was exhausting. He leaned over his seated mate and kissed the top of his head. “You got any hard limits, Michael, sexually, I mean, not about giving up your babies. That one I got.”

“If I’m running the show, do you need to know them? When would they ever come up? If you get permission from me to do something, you can assume it’s not a hard limit, right? I guess the only thing I really don’t like is submitting. As long as I’m calling the shots, I’m golden.”

“Can I bite you?” Dean teased.

“On occasion, if I tell you to.”

“Oh.” Dean deflated. Michael was offended by the suggestion that he offer his pups up to be co-parented and the idea that he might not be granted agency by the Pack Alpha to decide when to start a family. Dean wasn’t going to be able to just cajole him out of that. “Let’s watch a movie. I need a good long break.”

“Fine. But I pick it this time. You have a service or a DVD stash?”

“Both. The DVDs are in that cabinet, and I’ve got Netflix, HULU, and Amazon Prime.” Michael dug and selected The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Dean settled in with his Omega, massaging his shoulders to help release the tension. That had been long and difficult, and Michael had weathered it like a trooper. Dean sent pride and satisfaction to him through the bond. Michael hummed and let his head drop backward onto Dean’s shoulder as the movie cued up. Dean was still naked, so he worked Michael’s shirt off too and let their skin connect, chest to back, and they relaxed in each other’s space like they’d done it a thousand times.

Everything they hadn’t discussed wasn’t going to go away, but Dean was uncomfortable trying to slam it all in one go. Michael wasn’t ready to face the stark realities of being an Omega, and Dean felt comfortable waiting. He pretended calmly that he felt comfortable waiting. How much damage could they do by holding off until Michael felt more stable in his skin? How bad could it really be to wait?

Dean wasn’t going to stop being alpha.

It would keep.

Right?

Chapter Text

NOW:

April felt pissy. Her butt hurt, and all of her arguing had been for naught. Alpha wasn’t giving in on the question of a daily enema. She didn’t like it. It was uncomfortable, pointless, and she hated having to wake up that much earlier every morning just to make sure she had time to get through the intricate morning routine he’d designed for her. She had very carefully crafted her excuse for skipping the routine during his absence and felt sure he’d go along with just a good-natured shake of his head, only he hadn’t. Now she was looking at morning and evening spankings for a week, plus the additional indignity of having him administer the enema for her every morning too, and in her least favorite position to boot.

April stormed through the open classroom door and flung her bag into her wall slot. Jo didn’t look up from where she was clacking away at her laptop near the front of the room, but she spoke sternly.

“Pick it up, go back outside, and try entering the room again correctly. You know better than that, Omega.” April closed her eyes and took a deep breath before following the alpha-Neutral’s instruction, reminding herself to act like an adult even though the class was designed to make her feel like a pup. She stopped just outside the door, turned and paused, took a breath, and then walked back in with deliberate steps at a measured pace. Her mood wasn’t alpha Jo’s fault and dragging her irritation into the classroom would only result in an even more painful backside.

Once in place at her assigned desk, leaning forward on her thighs, keeping her head down, she tried to regain her composure. The room wasn’t yet half full since the class wasn’t scheduled to begin for another ten minutes. Jo closed her laptop and looked up. She obviously read April’s tension and decided to jump right in.

“Okay, spill April. What’s got you in such a twist this morning?”

April looked up at her and debated how much to say. She liked and trusted Jo. They had grown close over the few days that Castiel was gone wooing Dean. She decided to be straight with her instructor. Maybe Jo could help her convince Castiel to change his mind.

“I’m in trouble at home for breaking a Rule that I shouldn’t have to follow. It’s a stupid Rule, but he won’t listen. He always says he wants to hear from me, but when I tell him how much I hate it, he just…he won’t change his mind. It’s not fair.”

“Not fair. I see.” Jo stood up and approached April slowly, her brow knit in thought. “April, are you clear on the concept of alphas and Omegas? Have I somehow misled you in this class about who makes the Rules, and who follows them?”

“I know he makes the Rules, but there’s no point to this one!” April wailed. “It doesn’t make me safer or better behaved. It doesn’t help me stay Balanced or anything. Shouldn’t the Rules make sense somehow? Shouldn’t there be a point? He just makes me do it because…because he says so. Doesn’t that go against what you teach us in here? About how we’re full adults, just like alphas and betas and all the therapy should only go as far as it has to?”

Jo looked around at the Omegas who were already present. Everyone was listening in. “Does anyone have any advice for April? What do you all think about this?”

A smallish, dark-haired young man at the back spoke quietly in answer, disdain heavy in his response. “Americans are spoiled brats. I’ve only been in this country for a few years, but I see it all the time.” April growled at him, and Jo put a firm hand on the back of her neck in warning. He continued undeterred. “Back home, Omegas wouldn’t dream of whining about a Rule they didn’t like. Omegas know their place, especially the Ozzies. If I acted like that to my Alpha she would blister my ass for a month. And I’d probably be sleeping on the floor, too.”

“Go on, Saleem,” Jo encouraged. More students were taking their places and trying to catch up on the discussion. “What do you think an Ozzie should do about a Rule they don’t agree with?”

“You don’t have to agree with it. That’s the whole point. It’s about trust, isn’t it?” he went on rhetorically. “You have to trust that your Alpha is looking out for you even if you don’t understand how. Not wanting to do something doesn’t make it okay to argue about it—that’s what Submission is all about. Maybe your Alpha knows you hate it, and he makes you do it to train you to comply even when you don’t want to. Maybe you not liking to do it is all there is to it. Stop being such a baby and do what you’re told.”

“Fuck you! You don’t know anything about it! I’m not a baby!” It was out of her mouth before she realized it was coming. Jo’s hand tightened painfully on her neck and pushed her over to lay across her own desk. She pulled the skirt of April’s orange tunic up to bare her ass and swiftly delivered ten swats with her hand to the already reddened flesh. Releasing the Omega, Jo stepped into her field of vision.

“I don’t care how upset or cranky you are. When you walk into my classroom, you’re to behave according to my rules. Apologize to Saleem.”

“He called me a baby. Why doesn’t he get swats, too?”

“I’ll decide when a student’s comments step over the line, not you. I believe he was trying to help you. Now apologize, Omega.”

“I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sorry.

“And go hang your uniform on your hook. As I warned you all last week, and I’m reminding you right now…” Jo strolled toward the front of the class and addressed all of them. “We’ve reached the second half of your training, and that means that many of the comforts you’ve taken for granted—such as clothing—are now privileges that can be lost for the day if you don’t behave. April, you will spend today in the buff. Perhaps that will help you remember to guard your tongue. There’s good advice available to you in this class if you’re willing to hear it.” Jo perched before her own desk to begin the class.

This day just wasn’t getting any better. April let a few tears run down her cheeks as she stripped and got up to hang the tunic next to her bag. She knew her ass was a fiery, blazing red, and now everyone who saw it would know just how much trouble she was in at home. She added embarrassment to the list of emotions trying to pull her under this morning, and she sniffled miserably. There was a grimness to the Mating-bond too. April could tell that Castiel was reading her well enough to know she’d just been spanked and that she was in a defiant mood.

He wasn’t impressed.

Fuck.

Jo started the class with her usual demos and exercises. April was distracted with trying to understand why her Omega and her wolf hadn’t been soothed by the strict treatment over the course of the morning. She normally felt much calmer after a spanking than she did before it, more in control. But after her mate corrected her this morning, she felt dreadful. She shifted in her chair and had to be reminded to sit straight on her pained ass more than once. She complied as well as she was able but couldn’t completely stop the squirming.

It didn’t hit her until she was running the timer for Alice and Simone—Alpha spanked her this morning and then shooed her out the door with no aftercare. He didn’t pet her or wash her face. He didn’t bring her a glass of water. He didn’t kiss her forehead. He didn’t remind her that he loved her, and he didn’t walk her to class. He hadn’t softened at all.

April lost her internal battle to stifle her emotion. It overflowed on her. She wept silently while the exercise continued, tears running unheeded down her cheeks. It was evident that her mate was exceedingly angry and disappointed in her, and she started craving absolution in a way that just his hard hand hadn’t pulled from her yet.

April was by no means stupid. She was aware that the vast majority of Rules in her home were manufactured to create opportunities for fictional crimes just to give her a way through her Release block.

Today was different. Alpha wasn’t scening, she realized. He could roleplay with the best of them, but this was different. She’d hurt him by choosing to ignore his instruction while he was gone, and he was truly angry with her. He’d left her to face the day without the closure of his aftercare to make absolutely sure she knew this one was for real. She was in Trouble, not just trouble. He was disappointed, and it was her first experience digesting that from him. It made her feel supremely guilty. She found the sensation intolerable.

Fuck.

The other realization hit her as she switched places with Simone, taking up a presentation position on the mat and handing the timer over. April wouldn’t be getting out of the enemas. She’d be lucky if they remained at just one per day. One thing she was sure of now, Alpha would always win when his mind was made up.

Double-fuck.

She settled as the day wore on and the pain faded to a dull ache. She was still naked. Lunch in the cafeteria meant that staff, clients, and students alike got a good look at Castiel’s handiwork. She found she didn’t mind the eyes on her as much as she wanted to get a chance to see her mate, to speak with him. He wasn’t in the lunchroom today. Sometimes they had a chance to eat together, and sometimes their schedules just didn’t jibe. She wished she knew if it was intentional on his part today in particular. He was present in her mind, but she hesitated to poke at him. His mood remained severe and focused. Distracting him from his work wasn’t going to earn her any points. He’d had his business face on all morning, and she felt very young by comparison.

The afternoon lecture took her out of her worries for several hours. Jo was presenting a talk on Keller charting and April was riveted. She loved numbers and statistics. She’d been looking forward to this lecture for weeks.

“Does everyone know their Keller test results?” Jo asked the class as she drew a large cross, an X/Y graph, on the whiteboard. “Let me ask that another way. Is there anyone who doesn’t know their test results?”

Three tentative hands went up. “Alpha said it wasn’t for me to know or worry about,” said Joseph.

Jo scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. Of course, I don’t have the authority to release that information to you directly, but I have the numbers here in my file, and we’re going to be plotting all of your actual data on this graph. If I just happen to drop a few guiding hints to assist you in figuring out where your data point lies, then that’s not breaking any rules outright. No one should be denied their own test results. I’m just sayin’.”

Jo turned back to the whiteboard and labeled the horizontal line, “A, β, Ω” and marked the range from negative thirty through the Y axis at zero, and all the way to positive thirty on the other side. “About fifteen years ago,” she continued. “This chart only went to twenty-five. Who can tell me why it now goes to thirty? Anyone? April, do you know?”

“Um, is it because of Alpha Novak?” April knew the answer but was uncomfortable with how closely this topic touched upon her private life. There were parts of being Mated to the great Alpha that she liked, but the public aspect was disquieting.

“That’s correct. Castiel Novak’s Keller test broke the chart fifteen years ago. He remains, to this day, the only wolf worldwide ever to test higher than twenty-five, whether as an alpha or an Omega, although we have an extremely rare negative twenty-three here in class with us.”

April blushed and lowered her eyes. Extremely rare wasn’t an aspect of herself she wanted advertised.

Jo let her be without pointing her out. “Castiel Novak’s Keller rating is twenty-eight, by the way, if any of you didn’t know. The chart has been permanently expanded on both sides under the assumption that if it can happen once, it could happen again. And if it can strike an alpha, the same can happen to an Omega.

“So, it’s pretty straightforward. Omegas are on the negative side, betas on this vertical zero line in the middle, and alphas on the right. Notice guys, all betas register at zero. There is no range to the beta designation. Leonard Keller and Alfonse Pelios didn’t know that when they designed the chart back in 1914, so they gave betas a range from negative ten to positive ten. Today, we skip over those twenty numbers in the middle. Keller decided it’s easier than redrawing the whole chart and trying to explain to Omegas and alphas why their chart numbers have to change. Any questions yet?”

Not everyone in the class really cared, but the numbers that their tests revealed had such a personal impact on their daily lives that most of the class was paying close attention. “Okay, we’re going to focus on the Omega side. Remember that in terms of the numbers and titles, everything that I teach you about Omegas also goes for alphas, but in reverse. Understand?” They nodded, and she returned to the board.

“Right here on the left side and moving toward the right, from the end, from negative thirty to negative twenty are the Deep Omegas. These guys are the high Omesol-producers and the exceptionally fertile Omegas. These Omegas crave and demand a massive amount of structure, discipline, and support. There’s also a correlation between Deep Omegas and Submissives. Not all Ozzies are Deep O’s, but they tend that way. In this class, for instance, sixty-eight percent of you are Deep Omegas.

“From negative nineteen-point-nine to negative fifteen (remember we’re counting backward because we’re moving toward zero), are the Standard Omegas. These guys don’t actually get a descriptive prefix. They’re just Omegas. They show all of the stereotypical, iconic Omega behaviors and usually don’t develop Release blocks or require more than general, reliable pack structure. Not hard to figure out, right? You know who you are if you’re a standard O.

“Finally, from negative fourteen-point-nine to negative ten are the Central Omegas—Central, meaning closer to the midline at zero. Some of these guys behave almost like betas. Anatomically, you’re all Omega, but behaviorally and psychologically, the Centrals don’t act very Omega-like. Here in our class, we’ve only got one Central. Usually, they don’t need Balance adjustments but once a month or sometimes even longer. I know, I know. It’s totally unfair.” The Deep Omegas in the class protested loudly at hearing that some Omegas didn’t need to be spanked into Release every few days. April tried to imagine what that would be like and wondered if Dean’s new mate would turn out to be a Central. He certainly didn’t seem very Omega-like to her.

Jo continued. “Your place on the chart is determined by your physical reactions, measurable behaviors, and chemical responses during the Keller evaluation. Everything on the X-axis comes from empirical numbers—measurable data, not subjective observation. However, when you do the Keller test, we’re also looking for another set of responses. The results of those responses are plotted along the Y-axis.” Jo labeled the vertical axis “Dom/Sub,” and numbered it from twenty at the top, back through zero across the X-axis, and ending at the bottom with negative twenty.

“You guys are all Ozzies, Omega-Subs. That means every last one of you takes a position somewhere in this quadrant.” She circled the lower left section. “For Subs, like Doms, we break the chart down further. The Profound, between negative fifteen and negative twenty are the truly submissive wolves. We have a few in here with us who fall into that category. In the middle are the Classic Subs, ranging from negative ten to negative fifteen. Again, all of this applies to Doms as well, but in reverse. And the Shallow Subs test between negative five and negative ten. Anyone testing within five points from zero is a Neutral.

“We determine your Y-scale placement from a combination of measurable readings and subjective observation, so it’s less concrete than the X-axis results are. However, a Keller test that’s performed correctly will yield reproducible results despite there being a subjective portion to it. If you don’t like your rating, retaking the test isn’t going to change it much unless your test was run by an incompetent. You might gain a number or two, but you’re not going to stop being an Ozzie just because you re-do your test seven times.

“I’ve got stickers here with your names on them, and when I call your name, I want you to place your sticker on the whiteboard where you think your test scores put you. For those of you who weren’t given that information, I can possibly provide a little guidance without revealing what I’m legally not allowed to reveal. For you three, I’m curious to find out what you think your ratings are. Let’s see what our class range is. I’ll go first.” Jo picked up a little blue circle from the desk and hovered over the board. “I’m a standard alpha with a Keller score of fifteen, so I’m to the right of the midline. I’m also a Neutral with a score of two. That puts me right here.” Jo stuck her dot just above the midline and halfway between zero and thirty to the right.

“Simone, your turn.” Jo held out an orange sticker and Simone took it from her, studying the graph. She placed it, and Jo nodded, smiling. She proceeded to the next student, and soon brightly colored stickers dotted the lower left quadrant. April blushed when she saw just how far to the left of the rest of her classmates her red sticker was. At least hers wasn’t the farthest toward the bottom. That was Joseph. And two other stickers were about even with hers for Submissiveness. Three stickers had to be placed one on top of the other because three students shared the same numbers. Jo assured them that was perfectly normal.

She played Hot and Cold with the three students who hadn’t been given their results by their Pack Alphas. She followed up with a quick discussion of the confusing Z-axis that added a wolf’s Kink Index, but she didn’t try to draw it, and she didn’t reveal any of the class members’ Z-Ratings. Those were private. Soon, the afternoon wore to an end.

April gathered her belongings from her spot on the wall, only remembering that she was nude when she saw her tunic hanging there. She’d been so engaged in the lesson, she forgot. “Alpha Jo?” she called. “Should I dress or go home like this?”

“You may get dressed now, April.” Jo was handing out punishment report slips to the Omegas who had taken any kind of correction that day. There were always several spankings meted out, sometimes many. Sometimes Sam joined the class to lend a hand when he wasn’t busy with his own class. Jo handed April hers last. “Do you understand now why you were punished this morning?”

“Yes, alpha. I brought my bad attitude to class and made everyone else deal with it. And I was rude to Saleem. But I still think he deserved to be spanked too.”

“Go on, Omega. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jo kissed April on the forehead and nudged her out the door. April slipped the tunic back on in the hallway and stared glumly at the report slip in her hand. She knew it would add to her total tonight, and she was dreading it already.

Fuck.

“That’s enough!” shouted the Alpha testily. “If we’re going to do this, we’re doing it right, not half-assing our way through like we don’t give a damn! Is that the best you’ve come up with? This is bullshit!”

“Let’s call it a day here folks…pick it back up tomorrow when we’ve all had a chance to sleep on it.” Benny interrupted his Alpha, sitting upright and stretching his arms over his head. The beta at the front of the room stood frozen and shell-shocked. His mouth stood open in a motionless gape. Benny doubted he was breathing.

Great. Thanks, Cas.

Castiel struggled visibly to get hold of himself. He clenched a fist that rested on the table and bit his lip, looking unfocused into space and breathing through his nose.

“Benedict, he’s my brother. If you think…”

“I’m under no illusions that you’re gonna let Gordon or any of his cronies outta the line of fire, but we aren’t going to solve this today, and you, my Alpha, are currently too distraught to continue.” Benny met his boss’ eye levelly without blinking or flinching. It took a brave man to do that, and it’s what finally got through to Castiel. Cas blew out a shaky breath.

“You’re right. I apologize everyone. Marcus, I’m sorry. You’re doing the best you can. We’ll…we’ll go at it again tomorrow.” Cas rubbed a hand over his face and around to the back of his neck like Dean sometimes did when he felt in the wrong. “You’re all excused.”

Bobby put a hand on his shoulder as they filed out of the room. “Come with me, Cas. We’re going for a walk.”

“Why does it feel like I’m being led to my execution?” asked Cas flatly.

“Because you feel guilty. C’mon, you just need some air. And a drink.”

“Bobby, it’s two-thirty in the afternoon on a weekday.”

“Yeah, well…it’s five o’clock somewhere. Come on.” Bobby led Cas out through the turnstile and onto the campus sidewalk, heading toward Zeke’s. They talked as they walked, about nothing pressing at first, just idle conversation between friends and some random workplace gossip. “And how’s the new boy fitting in? I haven’t seen or heard much about him, but that Mating video is the talk of the whole community. What’s an Omega who fucks like that like in real life?”

“He’s a challenge, Bobby. Dean seems suited to understand him. They communicate remarkably well.”

Bobby held the door to Zeke’s open for the Alpha, and they took stools at the bar. “Well, they are True-Mates.”

Cas grunted. “I may kill him before we manage to settle though. He’s got a smartass reply to everything.”

“No offense, Alpha, but it’s not like you to let an Omega run the show. Why haven’t you just explained the facts of life to the boy and ripped him a new one? Sounds like it’d do him a world of good.”

Cas held up two fingers to Zeke. The gesture wasn’t necessary. The bartender had two beers already in hand and was on his way over to deliver them. He nodded solemnly at the alphas and then left them to talk. Castiel took a good long drink from his pint before he answered Bobby.

“It’s complicated, Singer. I can’t screw this up. He’s not mine yet, he’s Dean’s. And I promised Dean he’d have a free hand. I promised Dean we’d be as close to equals in this marriage as I could make it. If I go in there like a locomotive and blast Michael out of his shoes, he’s going to resent me forever, and we’re going to have to contend with that from the very start of our marriage. This balance is…I can’t screw it up, and I only get one shot.”

“What’s the kid like?”

“He’s full of piss and vinegar. Probably got a raw deal his whole life, trapped in a body that wants to roll over and hand the wheel to someone else, while his wolf is trying to abscond with the whole truck and drive everyone over a cliff. And he’s been stuck with a family who can’t give him what he needs.”

“Sounds a little like someone else I know…except for the rolling part.” Bobby met Castiel’s eye through the backplate mirror behind the bar and took a drink of his beer.

“Yes, it does,” Cas conceded. “And he’s trying, Bobby. He’s not a bad kid when he’s not posturing and trying to stake a claim on his mate.” Cas chuckled. “That Omega has no idea what he’s in for once he gets to know Dean. He’s taking a huge bite outta something he’s not even a little bit ready to handle. Talk about grabbing a tiger by its tail…”

“I don’t know. I watched the two of them on that video over and over trying to figure out how the fuck Michael pulled that off. It looks to me like he’s got Dean dead to rights. If you ask me, they’re peas in a pod, and the rest of us oughtta be taking notes.”

Cas sighed heavily. “I can’t let it go too long. Michael needs the stability of the Pack. He’s scratching at the walls and begging for a firm hand. He needs to be Claimed. I don’t think he’s really a brat at all. I think it’s just the desperate cry of a terrified Omega who thinks no one sees him. And I think his wolf has run the show for so long, his Omega’s just gotten lost really deep in there somewhere. Being a brat is a last-ditch effort, not an inborn preset. I suspect he’ll be a completely different man once he gets introduced to his Omega again.”

“There’s the Alpha I know,” nodded Bobby. “I don’t know if he’s a brat or not, but I know he needs you to step up and take him by the scruff. Waiting until he’s decided to jump on board the Cas-and-Dean train is only going to make it harder to adjust later, my friend. You wait much longer, and you may lose his respect altogether. Sounds to me like he’s begging you to just do it.”

“Like I said, I only get one shot at this.”

“What does your wolf want to do?”

Cas laughed humorlessly. “He’s wanted to rip Michael’s balls out through his throat since we met, but he doesn’t get to run this show any more than the Omega does. You know that’s not an option.”

“Well, maybe meet him halfway, Alpha.”

“I promised Dean a month.” Cas took another drink.

“Did you, now? What exactly did you promise him?”

Cas raised an eyebrow at his friend. “Dean wants a month before Michael does any testing or training, a month just to themselves to get settled after the Mating. Considering I took six weeks with April, I think I owe him that.”

“Did he say he wanted no contact with you or The Facility? Or the rest of the Pack?”

“No. He said I could text him all I wanted, and that he and Michael would be around. It didn’t sound like he was taking them to ground, exactly.”

“Hmm. So, is there any reason to put off the loyalty oaths and the formal establishment of your Pack? Could you do that without breaking faith with Dean and Michael? That way, the two of them get the rest of their month already Claimed and established. They have a chance to get settled in the full framework of their Pack ranks. Right now, Cas, that boy’s in no man’s land. He’s not his father’s anymore, but he’s not yours yet. He’s gonna drown if you wait a month to give him that lifeline. Dean can’t hold him afloat by his onesie.”

“It’s just so hard to know, Bobby. Am I trying to force a bunch of square pegs into round holes? I’ve got a fiancé who’s Deep alpha, like me. We aren’t meant to fit. I’ve got an Omega mate whose body will break if I let my wolf fully off-leash on her, and I’ve got a Dominant rival that I’m willingly bringing into my home who has the power to destroy everything if he wants to. What are we doing? How can this possibly work out? It’s just a dream that’s doomed from the start, isn’t it? Maybe the Universe just doesn’t want me happy.”

“Begging you pardon, Alpha.” Zeke was in front of him. “The thing about tending bar in a place this size is I’m kinda forced to eavesdrop whether I mean to or not. You mind if I offer my two cents? It doesn’t mean anything, and I could be way off base here. You’re under no obligation to hear me out, but I’ve known you and Dean a long time.”

Castiel nodded for him to continue. Zeke was a trusted friend and longtime confidant. He’d proven on numerous occasions that he had a knack for breaking down the complicated issues of life into simple, actionable steps, and Cas valued his insight. Also, Dean trusted him. Dean’s ability to read people at their core and judge the character beneath the surface was unrivaled. If Dean trusted Zeke, then Zeke was good people.

“If I hear you right, and from what I already know about you all, you’ve got the perfect Omega mate for your Alpha. She’s compliant and soothing for the Alpha who feels like it has to fight for consensus everywhere else. The Alpha can spend the day battling it out in a world that just won’t give it what it wants, and then come home to a perfect, willing mate to soothe off the edges and make everything better.

“Then, you’ve got that alpha brat that you’re engaged to marry who challenges your Dominant wolf. The big guy wants someone who won’t break every time he snaps his jaws. Wants someone who gives him something to snap against, someone who makes his hackles rise in anticipation of a good ass beating.

“And finally, as if that wasn’t perfect enough, the Universe grants you a raw diamond-in-the-rough Dominant right there in your own household to mold and train and guide—someone for your front-brain to take under its wing and turn into something glorious. You’re a teacher, Alpha, and the Universe has given you someone who desperately needs to be taught.

“You, Alpha, have three distinct personalities you’ve been trying to balance your whole adult life: you’re a professor and mentor, a powerful Dominant wolf who needs a challenge, and a confident, assertive Alpha who demands order and compliance. Now, correct me if I’m way off base here, but it looks to me like everything you’ve ever wanted has just landed in your lap.”

Castiel stared at him slack jawed.

“And too, before you go worrying about being selfish and taking everything just for you, look at it from Dean’s perspective. He’s got three defining characteristics too, doesn’t he? He’s a brat Sub, an alpha teacher, and a big, protective brother. Might not be such a raw deal for him either once you line folks up and put them where they fit. I don’t know much about the two Omegas yet, but I have some suspicions that they might be getting something out of this arrangement too…this arrangement that you say means the Universe has it out for you. Think about it, Castiel. Do you boys want another?”

“Thanks Meg. Yeah, I sure will.” Dean hung up the phone and returned to the kitchen where his mate was digging through the pantry again looking for something to turn into dinner.

“I texted Sam to stop off for some chicken cutlets on his way over. He’s going to pack up tonight and give us the space to ourselves for the whole month. Least I can do is cook him dinner before we kick him out. But I told him we’re not eating tofu.” Dean pulled fresh vegetables from the fridge and began to put a salad together.

Michael washed a head of broccoli in the sink. “Would you play with me tonight, Dean? I’d like to do some experimenting on your stamina, find out where your limits are and what you respond to.”

“Hell, yes.”

“Do you need any assurances from me? I promise to keep it simple for now. I want to push you right up to the edge of coming, and then back off again. I wanna see how many times you can do that before you crack, but I’m not planning on any pain play this time, and I’m not tying it to a punishment if you fail. Unless you turn into a complete brat on me, I promise to let you come at the end. One thing at a time, like we said. And I’ll check in with you more than I would normally do, so I can get used to how you respond and what it feels like through our bond.”

“That sounds perfect, man. I’m a little…here, see for yourself.” Dean shoved the sense of his arousal through his bond-link and took hold of Michael’s damp hand, placing it over his crotch, so he could feel the physical effect his words had on his mate. Michael kissed him sweetly and then rested their foreheads together.

“I fucked up so bad, Dean, and I’m really very sorry. I see now how stupid I was. Please say you still have some faith in me. I won’t ever make that mistake again.”

Dean took hold of Michael’s shoulders and pressed his body against his mate’s. He didn’t answer in words. He let his bond-connection speak for him as they stood together in the kitchen holding tightly to each other.

Dean broke away and went back to the salad, making the switch back into his alpha appear effortless, although it wasn’t. “I just checked up on Gabriel. They took him home today to finish recovering in his own space. It’ll be easier for him there. I’m sure they know he won’t stay long, but maybe it’ll do him some good to spend some time with his brother.”

“What’s his story, Dean? I never got an explanation as to why we picked him up bleeding and broken on the side of the road. Something about a rescue?”

“It’s all confidential, so what I’m about to tell you is not something you can share with anyone else. Seriously.”

“Who am I going to tell?”

“No, but I mean it. It could mean his life. Your sister can’t hear any of this. No one can.” Dean held Michael’s eye until the Omega nodded, intrigued.

Dean continued with dinner prep while he spoke. Michael leaned against the counter.

“Okay. Gabriel works as an inside man in trafficking recovery. He poses as an Omega student, or whore, or whatever, and he gets inside the real hellholes to scope them out and rescue the slaves inside. He’s got a whole team working with him, and they all report to Bobby. Only the top staff of The Facility even know we’re involved in a rescue program. That’s to keep the agents safe as long as we can. It won’t work like this forever. One day, he’s going to get recognized, or the info will leak out because one of us in the know was stupid and talked to the wrong person in the wrong place.” Dean shrugged and said, “Or waltzed right in the front door of The Facility with a bloodied-up Gabriel or whatever, and then all hell’s gonna break loose. But he and Cas work very hard to keep Gabe’s face out of the limelight and the tabloids. I don’t know how he gets Gabe in and out up at the ACRI without getting spotted, but I’m certain he has his ways of hiding it. Castiel hates what Gabe does, but he can’t stop his brother from doing it. All he can do is try to help control how he does it.”

Michael was speechless, but Dean pressed on. “I don’t know what the hell he thought he was doing going it alone like that in Oklahoma. Bobby didn’t authorize a strike against Gordon. Gabe did that on his own, and now he’s got Bobby and his little brother to face with an explanation.”

“Little brother? I thought Castiel was older.”

“No, Gabe’s older, but Cas is…well, he’s Alpha.” Dean put the salad in the refrigerator and turned to chopping broccoli. The front door opened, and Sam walked in carrying a couple of grocery bags and a six pack of brown longnecks. “Hey, Sam! Oh, good, you brought beer.”

“Here, Michael. Grab this one.” Sam handed Michael the bag with chicken in it, and Michael took it from him and set it in the sink. He moved to the side as Dean took over the prep. Dean was so at home in this kitchen, he seemed to just flow—like a liquid.

“Go on about Gabriel, Dean,” prompted Michael. “If you can, I mean. Is Sam…?”

“Yeah, Sam knows. He’s top-level staff. Sam’s Benny’s number one. Plus, he was right there at ground zero when…well, I’m getting ahead of myself.” Dean started the oven pre-heating and seasoned the chicken. “Grab me a beer, please, somebody.” A beer bottle appeared next to the sink; its cap already removed.

“Thanks.”

Dean took a deep gulp. “So, yeah. Gabe did that whole thing on his own and nearly got busted doing it, but he pulled a girl out. I guess Gordon’s got a respectable front going on through the front door and a pile of sleaze leaking out the back. We didn’t know that.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Sam put in. “Gordon’s always given me the heebie-jeebs. He’s just a creepy, disturbing asshole. There’s not much I wouldn’t put past him to do.”

Michael asked, “Why would an Omega like Gabriel put himself at such a risk for strangers? I mean, I get wanting to help, but Jesus, to actually go in there like that and risk getting caught? Is he insane?”

“Yeah, he is a little,” said Sam with gravity.

Dean explained, “Michael, Gabe’s had a shit-ton of crap dumped on him in his life. Not only a delusional controlling bitch of a mother who nearly let him die because she doesn’t want to believe in Omesol poisoning, but, well… He could respond by curling up and going fetal position forever, or he could fight like an Omega. He’s not the giving up kind of guy.”

“What kind of other crap?”

“Just a year or two before I met Cas, Gabriel’s True-Mate died in a car crash. He was devastated, naturally. He was really fucked up over it for years. Deep depression, suicidal thoughts, the whole nine yards. Cas didn’t even let me meet him for over a year. Finally, maybe four years after she died, Cas convinced Gabe to start trying to get healthy again, try to see if he could feel human, at least. Cas helped him find an alpha to help him through his Heats. He’d just been suffering through them alone since he lost Marina, and Cas didn’t think he’d live much longer if he didn’t get some help.

“The thing is, back then, and we’re not talking a long time ago, but back then, the regulations on sex workers were crap. The chick he contracted with was a professional, and she was sweet to him and all, but she’d let her birth-control lapse. There was no law then that sex workers keep a meds log or pass any physical tests before they fuck their seed into unsuspecting clients. Gabe got knocked up on the first Heat after he went mainstream again. It was bad. He was so fucking broken...”

Sam picked up where Dean went silent. “To make things even worse, he miscarried the pup after two months. He’d just about reconciled himself to being a mom and getting some psychiatric care so he could be a good parent, and then he lost the baby, and he just… I can’t even imagine. He got a coat hanger out of his closet and dug around up inside himself until he destroyed everything. Castiel found him passed out and hemorrhaging. They saved his life, but they couldn’t repair the damage to his uterus.”

“He’s come a long way since then,” said Dean. “This is all private, of course, but you’re Pack now, and you need to know. Sometimes, he still has moments where he just needs to be alone. Cas keeps a close eye on him; keeps a Claim on him so he can feel Gabe’s state of mind for himself. Sometimes the rat-bastard hides it when he starts to sink back under. He’s not ever going to completely heal emotionally, but he tries. Like I said, he fights like an Omega.”

Sam picked it up again. “The work he does helps him as much as it does the Omegas he pulls out. His mate-scent is so faint now, most wolves can’t detect it. Plus, he’s not in any danger of blowing his cover by coming across a True-Mate unexpectedly,” Sam followed his words with a long drink from his bottle. “He told me once that he couldn’t protect his own pup or mate, but maybe he can make up for it by saving someone else’s.”

“Jesus,” was all Michael could say to that. Dean agreed.

They settled the tension left from the horrible conversation by turning on a mindless sit-com and letting dinner cook. No one had much to say, so Michael brought around more beer bottles and snuggled into his mate on the couch, letting the alpha-scent speak to him and bring him solace. What must that have been like for Gabriel? He couldn’t imagine the depth of Gabriel’s pain. He didn’t want to.

Dean’s phone pinged with a text message. Michael could tell by Dean’s emotional response that it was from Cas. He found, for the first time, that he really didn’t mind. Dean chuckled softly to himself as he traded texts with his fiancé a few times, keeping one hand petting easily through Michael’s hair and leaving an occasional kiss against the side of his neck. Could it really be this simple? Was there enough of Dean to go around without having to fight for it?

Finally, Dean put his phone on the side table. “Cas wants us up at The Facility at ten tomorrow morning to discuss making formal Pack oaths and planning when and where to do the CFs. I told him I’d have to ask my Dom. What say you, Michael? Got a problem with it? It’s just discussions tomorrow, no actual oaths or fucking yet.”

“It’s fine with me, Dean. Ten o’clock.” He nuzzled Dean’s throat, scenting his mate.

“Okey-dokey. I’ll let him know. Thanks, man.” Dean wanted Michael to know that he realized how hard this was for the Omega, but his wolf told him to shut it for now. Dean listened to the wolf and stopped at a simple thank you.

“We were supposed to do some packing today, but I’m really not feeling it. Maybe next week,” Dean told no one in particular. The timer buzzed on the oven, and they all heaved one another to their feet for dinner, carrying their drinks to the table.

Dinner was delicious. Michael chalked up Dean’s cooking skills in his growing column titled, How fucking lucky I am and dug in. The complaint column wasn’t short, but the pros outnumbered the cons, and Michael wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t giving Dean up no matter what.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you, Michael,” started Sam after washing down a mouthful of chicken with a pull from his beer. “Did you know what you were doing when you Mated my brother? I mean, with what you actually did to get the Mate-Claim to stick? Do you remember any of it?”

“I sure do. I remember everything. What do you mean, did I know what I was doing? I just did it, I guess. I didn’t do it by myself, you know. Dean was there too.”

“No, I know, but what you did was way off the charts. From everything we’ve learned in the last ten years about Claim-fucks, I mean, there has to be a Claim, you know? It only works when there’s an act of sexually aggressive Domination. Just stroking your partner’s wolf doesn’t produce a Claim. At least, no one I know has ever seen that happen before. But that’s what you did. We all saw it, and we’ve got it on video for posterity to study. You did a little bit of shouting when you were close, but you never showed any possessiveness or aggression. Michael, you did something no one’s ever seen before, and we can’t figure out how you did it.” Sam turned to his brother. Dean had stopped eating and was staring at his brother with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Do you know Dean?”

“Shit, Sammy. I hadn’t even thought about it. I have no idea.”

“Dean, he Topped you from the bottom, that much is clear. And it was a really sweet D/S scene. I’m glad to know you two work so well together right off the bat, but it shouldn’t have created a Mating-bond, not even with you biting him. For one, the Topping was backward. Mating-bonds only form when the Secondary Top leads the action. And second, a Claim needs more than lust to spark it. We’ve seen couples try that so many times, and it always fails. Then we have to re-set and have them try it again. Can you ever remember anything like that in your research? Anything that worked?” Sam raised his eyebrows at his brother.

Dean took a bite and thought about it while he chewed. He looked at his mate. Michael seemed interested for the sake of being part of something unusual, but he didn’t look rattled. Dean was rattled. He knew Sam was right. He shouldn’t, by all rights, be Mated to Michael right now. Claims just didn’t work that way. He ran back over what he remembered from that day. He’d faced the entire event from his Submissive, and yet, somehow, he and Michael were Mated. Even if that hadn’t mattered, Dean couldn’t find enough aggression anywhere in the act to account for the bond. The most aggressive part was when Michael spanked Dean’s thigh. He shook his head at his brother. “No. Never.”

“Well, there’s going to be a full inquiry, of course. If you two are onto something new, we need to know what it is, especially if it means there’s a more civilized way to put a Claim down. The good thing is that the Mating-Claim did take. It’s strong, and clean, and permanent. There’s nothing unstable about it. It’s just a normal, healthy bond. I can’t make heads or tails outta how it worked.”

“Probably because I’m just that awesome,” said Michael with his mouth full.

Chapter Text

NOW:

The bacon was almost ready. Sunlight coming through the kitchen window made the OJ glasses sparkle like a Mr. Clean commercial, and Dean was in a frikken’ awesome mood. Conventional wisdom said that a Lupin couldn’t expect to maintain an erection and functional arousal for more than three hours outside of H/R cycles or mate-response, but Michael had stretched him through more than four. Four hours of agonizing just-almost-close-enough-to…but then, no, followed by an orgasm so epic at the end, Dean’s dick was still feeling aftershocks this morning.

And also, nothing but his cock hurt right now. Usually after a night that intense, his nipples, or his ass-cheeks, or the muscles deep inside him, would be sore and delicate. Not today, buddy. While he appreciated a little afterburn as much as the next guy, its absence this morning felt like the arrival of spring. He was a little sore where too many hours of stimulation wore at his dick, left it tender and tingly, but Dean owed Michael a massive thank you breakfast. He’d done everything he said he would and nothing he said he wouldn’t. He talked to Dean the whole time, watching him from inside and outside, checking in constantly. He even let Dean get up and pace miserably around the house for a few minutes when he couldn’t come down from the precipice on his own and feared he might fall before they were ready.

The bruising on Dean’s ass was fading quickly now. In the past, he always hated how quickly his body erased Castiel’s marks, but right now he couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. He wanted a Michael-spanking, and he was fucking tired of waiting for it. Dean hummed as he cooked. He mixed up a perfect ratio of milk and egg batter to use for French toast and put a pan of real maple syrup on a back burner to warm, not turning the fire on yet—just getting it ready for whenever Michael emerged.

Michael was evidently not a morning person, and Dean let him sleep in. His imagination took a flight while he cooked. He could see himself standing over Castiel’s kitchen range just like this, with deeper lines in his face, shouting at the pups to stop running and set the table. He pictured kissing each of his Pack as they made their way in for breakfast: April would be clean and chipper, letting him peck her on the cheek, Cas would be all motion and efficient energy, his ever-present tan trench folded over his arm as he accepted a plate of sausages and a real good morning kiss from his husband then turned calmly to shepherd two or three rowdy pups to their places at the table. And Michael. Michael would trudge in with his hair askew and a bathrobe thrown loosely over a t-shirt and boxers, grunt at Dean and take the platter of eggs without speaking. Dean would have to drag him back in by his wrist to get a kiss from his mate, but he would do it. He might also press Michael up against the counter for a minute and grind their hips together while sucking on his throat.

Dean’s fantasy was having a real-life effect. He removed the last of the bacon and turned the burner under the empty pan off to let it cool then leaned on one arm over the kitchen counter, sliding his right hand down his sweatpants and taking a firm grasp of himself. He stroked slowly while the image in his mind turned into a vision of his mate flipping around, leaning his belly over the countertop and ordering his Sub to get to work waking him up properly. Dean imagined the family at the table rolling their eyes collectively and Cas sending a couple of the pups to gather the remaining food platters since their dads were obviously not planning to feed anyone but their own wolves. The image was utterly domestic and happy while also being hot as fuck, and Dean was lost in his own mind.

“Just what do you think you’re doing? Get your hand off my property, Submissive. Right now!”

Dean jumped and pulled his hand out, turning to face Michael, whose appearance matched the image from his imagination almost line-for-line. “What? You never said I couldn’t…”

“Oh, yes, I did. I said no one touches you sexually but me and Castiel. Are you Castiel? Are you me? Also, why are you dressed? I told you I expect you naked.” Michael waited impatiently for a response, tapping his foot like a blue-haired librarian.

“I’m sorry, Michael. I mistook your meaning on the first Rule. I thought you meant no one else. Wait. Do you mean I don’t get to touch myself, ever? What about when I’m with Cas? Not even in the shower? Dude, that’s an Omega rule! You can’t…what about if I ask for permission? What about when I have to travel for a week or more alone? You don’t expect me to…”

“Stop looking for loopholes, Dean. It’s a Rule. You said you were fine with it yesterday, and nothing’s changed. You will be informed about how your Rules while you’re with him might be different once we have a chance to talk about it and reach an agreement. For now, just assume that my Rules apply at all times. And why are you still dressed?” Michael advanced right up into Dean’s space so that his scent filled Dean’s wolf’s nose.

It was difficult, but Dean battled to stay present. “Nah, Michael. That’s not right. I didn’t agree to staying naked and in-scene all the time. That’s not going to work for me at all. I need it when I need it, but outside of our playtime, I’m just me, and I’m wearing clothes. Trust me, man. It wouldn’t work.” Dean took a step away from his mate to start heating a pan for the French toast and to clear his head of Michael’s overwhelming scent. “I’m sorry about the touching. I misunderstood, and I owe you one for that, but I’m not doing the other outside of our scenes. Besides, I can’t cook naked.”

Michael regarded him, and then he noticed the food. Dean heard his stomach rumble. Michael bit his lower lip, clearly trying to decide if he would look weak for walking a Rule back on the second day. “All right. I can be reasonable. When you’re in-scene, you’re naked, and otherwise you have leave to dress as you like. But you are not to touch yourself for any reason except hygiene or health concerns. Your cock and your ass belong to your Doms. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Michael.” Dean left off the Sir with great effort. Negotiating was tricky, and sometimes points were made through little tricks and subtle power interplay. Michael had not confirmed whether Dean had a punishment coming, and Dean wasn’t going to bring it up again. He loved a good spanking, but not when he’d broken a Rule for real. It was just different, and he didn’t want his first real experience with Michael’s Dominant hand to be over a fuck-up.

Dean finished cooking and served Michael a steaming plate. He kissed the side of Michael’s head as he brought coffee for him, then he seated himself. They both mulled things while they ate. Both felt unsettled. One important reason that couples like Dean and Michael used spanking in their relationships was that it allowed for closure when something was off between them. But they’d promised to go slowly, and they hadn’t communicated well enough to make the next steps clear. If the Rule wasn’t clear, had a Rule been broken? Or not?

“Thanks for last night, Michael. That was incredible. And I feel really good this morning. The big breakfast is your thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Dean. And, uh, thanks to you for being so willing to try for as long as you did. That was all you, not me. Breakfast is delicious.”

They were back. One quick meeting of their eyes broke the tension. Easy and light and effortless. Just like that. They giggled through breakfast and traded forkfuls of food. No relationship Dean had ever had before felt this easy—not even with his brother, and he told Michael that. Michael nodded and leaned across to kiss Dean’s sticky lips. “I’m glad, Dean, me too. But you’re still getting punished for touching without permission.” He stood and cleared both their plates.

Dean felt a spark of energy run down his body and into his dick at the tone of Michael’s voice, and he pulled a long breath in through his nose. Even if his Sub hadn’t been craving a correction, Dean wanted to give this one to Michael. “Yes, Sir.” He took another breath and tried to convince his cock not to harden. He didn’t want to face his first punishment like that, like an out-of-control teenager, but Michael’s stern voice took him there anyway.

“I’m still not going to spank you until your bruises are gone, so instead, you’ve earned yourself three days of chastity. Today’s Tuesday. You can expect to have no direct physical sexual stimulation until this time on Friday, assuming you don’t earn an extension by breaking more of my Rules.”

“Oh, come on! Three days? We only get a month without the rest of the Pack. Seriously? Just fucking spank me already.”

“No. And arguing has bought you another two days. Care to keep going? I know our time is limited, but don’t forget, one thing this month is for is to solidify our roles and how we interact. It’s not just about fucking each other’s brains out.” Michael was clearly wearing his big-boy pants. He was full Dominant, take-no-prisoners, accept no back-talk Big Dog, and while Dean’s wolf whined and groveled, Dean himself couldn’t control his mouth. This wasn’t what he thought he’d been agreeing to.

“I didn’t understand the Rule, Michael! It’s not fair to hold me to something I didn’t understand. I’m not gonna do it again, but you gotta give me a pass on the first one. Come on, man!”

“One week, then. I can keep going, Dean. I’m not the one in chastity.”

“Shit!” Dean slammed his mouth closed right on top of all the things he wanted to say to his Dom. He appeared to have just negotiated his way out of a week of sex. He placed a palm over his mouth to keep it lidded.

“I’ll potentially make one exception this week, Dean. You know what we talked about trying? Seeing if you could bring your private self into a space where others can see you? I’d be willing to allow one episode this week, let you come and everything, if you’ll agree to try it with a small audience for me.”

Dean was torn. He thought he could get there eventually. Hell, his own fantasy not forty-five minutes ago was in front of people. They were all Pack, yeah, but he was in his private self in the vision, not doing a public show. Why would he fantasize about it if it wasn’t a thing he wanted at all?

“You’ve already done it for me once, you know—when we Mated. There were a buttload of people watching us. They even filmed it, and from what Sam said last night, who knows how many people are watching it over and over as we speak. You can do this, Dean. I think you’ll like it once you learn to let go. And hey, if you don’t, we’ll stop. No pressure. I’m just asking.”

“It’s extortion to take everything away and leave that as my only option all week. I’m onto you, Michael Winchester. I see what you did there,” Dean stated. “But I want to try anyway. You keep it small and just with someone I already trust, and I’ll try. Don’t expect it to be like our Mating though. I wasn’t myself that day.”

“Good enough. Thank you for trying. That’s all I ask.”

April was an early riser, so she used the quiet moments just before the sun rose to explore the massive house. It was still dark out, but strategically placed lamps and runners lit enough of the hallways that she didn’t trip over anything. Everything felt surreal. She’d been Mated to Castiel for almost three months now, and she had had no idea he lived like this. To be truthful, he confessed that he only used a small portion of the enormous space available with any regularity, but even that was massive in scale.

It felt homey though. It was big and tasteful, but not pretentious. The lines were clean. The woodwork was exceptional. April ran a hand over a cabinet door that fit snug and flush into a perfect alignment with the support. Master carpenters, artisans, put this home together, and it was warm. It was also empty. It was a house craving a family of youngsters to ride down the banister and shoot nerf-guns around corners. It was a house waiting to be a home. April could feel the anticipation. It had been waiting a long time.

They drove over yesterday evening and encountered a delivery truck leaving the driveway, rumbling out from the big house and passing Castiel’s car by the two-story guard house which Cas said the security team used as a base office, but where no one had lived for years. The delivery truck was painted with a bigger-than-life image of a grand piano. April turned and watched it leave and then met Castiel’s eye. He looked very smug.

Cas parked in the gravel before the huge front door instead of pulling into the garage. He wanted April to enter her house for the first time through the main entrance. She might never do so again. God knows, Cas hadn’t come in this way for years. It was too grandiose for every day.

Sam met them at the door, handing a set of papers to Cas and rapping him firmly on the back. “Everything’s just how you wanted it, Alpha. The, uh, the tuner comes tomorrow at three.” Sam looked unsure whether he was supposed to say that in April’s hearing. He didn’t know whether it was still a surprise or not.

“Thanks Sam. Will you stay for dinner with us?”

“No, thank you, Alpha. I’m having dinner with Dean and Michael. I told them I’d pack up tonight and clear out to give them space, but apparently, my food doesn’t meet with their approval. Dean’s sending me to the store for edible food. I need to get going so he’ll have time to turn it into a meal before it gets late.” Cas thanked Sam and nodded, and April grinned at him. Sam kissed her cheek and left the two in the grand foyer.

“Alpha?”

“Yes, my dear?” Cas was smirking.

“Why is a tuner coming tomorrow at three?”

He held his hand out to her, and she took it. “Let’s go and find out. And welcome home.”

The new piano was beautiful. Enormous, shining black mahogany, it looked like it had always been the centerpiece of the conservatory at the back of the house. April hovered a hand over the sleek wood and tried not to breathe too close, not daring to touch it. “Welcome home, April. I hope you like your homecoming gift. This is all for you. In fact, the whole room is yours. No one else in the house plays, so if you want it, it’s all yours. There’s also a desk over by the window where you can do some writing in peace.”

She turned overwhelmed, tear-filled eyes on him. “I don’t know what to say, Alpha. I can’t accept this. It’s too much. I didn’t get you anything. I…Sir, please don’t laugh at me.”

He continued chuckling happily. “You can accept it, and you will, because I’m your Alpha, and I’m giving it to you.” Cas took her in his arms, hunching his shoulders protectively and folding her into his embrace. He let his laughter die away and spoke to her seriously. “Don’t you know what you’ve given me, April? You gave me so much more than a piano. Love, you gave me everything. You made it possible for us to build a life I’d never believed I could have. Because of you, we can fill this house with laughter and love and life that it’s never known. You mean everything to me, and I love you with all my heart.”

“I love you, too, Alpha.” She breathed him in and stood nestled in his protective arms. Then she tried meekly, “Does this mean we can skip the evening spanking? It would be a shame to break such a lovely mood tonight.”

“Nice try,” he deadpanned. “In fact, it’s time to get started cooking dinner, so let’s get that out of the way.” Castiel took a seat on the piano bench. “Then we can go check on Gabriel.”

“Right here?! I haven’t even played it yet.”

“It seems an appropriate way to break it in to me. Come on, over you go.”

Once she was bare and over his lap, April couldn’t stop herself from asking. “Are you still angry with me, Sir? Today was hard because it really hit me just how disappointed you were. I’m sorry I disobeyed you and argued about your Rules. I’m very sorry, Alpha.”

“I was angry, Kitten, but I’m not anymore.” Cas made sure his emotions shone true through their link. He wanted her to learn to read him without feeling the need to ask, but she’d been shy and resisted prodding him without his permission. Cas wanted her to feel as safe and welcome in his mind as she was in her own. That would take time though. “I forgive you. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re not still going to go through with the consequences for the week, but no, April, I’m not mad. Are you ready?”

“Yes, Sir.”

The high ceiling of the conservatory, built to reverberate music acoustically, magnified other sounds as well. Both the smack of Cas’ hand on his mate’s flesh and her responding yelps and groans echoed loudly through the space and down the hall outside. And he didn’t forget the extras for her misbehavior in class.

April rubbed her backside in memory as she crept into her conservatory just as the sun peeked over the horizon and bathed her piano in soft morning light. The dark wood glowed. Her piano. She’d never imagined owning something so beautiful. There was also an upright upstairs in the game room by the poker table, but this... This was concert grade. Professional musicians performed on pianos like this one. She seated herself and adjusted her spacing. The height was good already. That had to be coincidence. Castiel couldn’t possibly have known the precise height to set the bench to. Her fingers trembled over the keys.

She hesitated only a moment before bringing them down onto the keys and running a couple of scales and an arpeggio. The tuning wasn’t bad. April hadn’t played in months, and she was rusty. She told Castiel that she played piano, but she’d neglected to detail just how important the instrument was to her. Running her fingers up and down the board felt like coming home from an extended vacation. She looked around the room while she played, slipping easily into her warmup exercises. The acoustics were wonderful, the view unbelievable. From her seat, she looked out the massive panel windows, across the back lawn and down to the pond where ducks paddled with their ducklings amongst tangled cattails. She felt Victorian although the architecture was all Craftsman Americana.

April shifted into Sonata No. 14, the Moonlight Sonata. Its slow pace allowed the echo to chorus back to her and fill the room without creating a cacophony of notes bouncing back and forth. She dug into it and forced the pace to a deliberate metronome. April sensed Gabriel slip in. She didn’t look up, but she was aware when he settled onto a long sofa beneath one of the windows, watching glimmering sunlight reflect over the pond. The peace of the moment touched her deeply, and she broke out in chill bumps as she played.

April knew this piece well. She concentrated enough to keep it whole and alive but let her mind whirl wherever it wanted as the meditative throb worked into the deepest part of her psyche. One tear broke over her lid and cascaded to her chin. This was what she’d wanted, what she’d always wanted—not the space or the piano or the wealth, but to be cherished in a home full of life, full of love—a home where everyone mattered. Somewhere safe.

Somewhere safe.

Her fingers picked up to a slightly quicker pace and danced a bit as she shifted movements. It was still deliberate and measured, but much more lighthearted.

What she wanted.

April had always known she was different, more extreme even than her mother who was also an Ozzie. Now there was proof. She thought back to the chart from yesterday’s class. Such cold, arbitrary numbers on a graph meant the difference between safety, personal agency, and self-sufficiency versus a vulnerable need and lifelong dependence. Omegas were so very vulnerable to the whims of circumstance. Only pure, dumb luck had placed her here, and it scared her enough that she wrapped her whole being into keeping it close and whole.

She would do anything to make this Pack a success.

She played in the gathering dawn.

Alone but for Gabriel.

Her fingers changed rhythm again for the third movement, this time flying over the board in a panicky whirl of anxiety. Couldn’t she have survived with just her mate for a pack? Probably. Especially if that mate was Castiel, but that wasn’t what she wanted. When she saw her chance to gather more alphas, more Doms, more Pack close around her, she’d jumped at it. She wanted a puppy-pile of protectors bolstered all around. She wanted to be safe forever, no matter what. She wanted a cushion on all sides.

On all sides.

She wanted a huge family and enough eyes watching over her that she could never get lost or forgotten, could never be taken. All the long nights she’d lain awake as a child worrying about how to protect herself. Omegas went missing all the time. She’d Presented so young, and the idea that she might need to fend for herself someday had terrified her in the dark of her bedroom.

She let Beethoven be the voice of her anxiety, and she let him wash it through her. Alpha couldn’t be allowed to see this. Not this. Here, she would be safe. He would see to that. So would Dean, and Sam. Even Gabriel. She didn’t know Michael yet, but surely even Michael would come around eventually. Cas thought Michael was a Dom. She could have three Dominants in her house above her in rank. Three Dominants and two alphas, plus a Sub big brother…and Gabriel was just Gabriel. Something about Gabe spoke of protection she couldn’t even put a name to. It was more than she’d ever imagined, and it was real. The last two chords punched out, and she let her hands hover for just a second before placing them back in her lap.

“Does Alpha know you play like that?” Gabriel asked.

“Not yet. I’ll show him soon.”

“You’ve got real chops, kid. Got any plans to do anything with it?”

“I want to go to college and study music. My father told me no. Said there’d be no point, but Alpha told me he wanted me to do whatever would make me happy. Do you think he would be willing to send me to school? I’m probably not good enough yet to earn a scholarship. College is expensive.”

“Sounded pretty damned good to me.” Gabriel stood up and meandered toward her. “You tell Cas you want to go to school, and next thing you know you’ll be enrolled at Julliard.”

“No, I don’t want to leave. If I have to choose, I’m staying here, but KU has a music school, and there’s a conservatory only about twenty miles north of Topeka, too.”

Gabriel sat next to her on the bench, and she scooted to make room, wincing at what it did to the flesh on her butt. Gabriel noticed. “What’d you do to earn that one?”

“I stopped doing my enema when Alpha went out of town. I thought he wouldn’t really care, but he was pissed.”

“Ouch. You’ll learn he doesn’t do well with direct disobedience. How long are you on the strap?”

“A week. Morning and evening both. In fact, I need to get back. He gets up soon. Will you be at breakfast?”

“Not if I don’t have to be. I’m playing at being injured to buy as much time as I can get.”

“Gabriel, you are injured, and he’s not going to punish you until you’re healed. You’ve got a little time.”

“Well, the thing is, and you’ll learn this too: If you break a Rule, you want him to go ahead and lay you out right then and there. If he does it while his wolf is worked up, he spends a lot of his attention holding back the wolf, and it’s not quite as bad for your ass. If you give him time to calm down and think about it, you’re just letting him make plans and weigh the consequences and go over it all again and again—way worse in the end…on your end. That’s where I am right now. He wasn’t going to strike while I was bloody, and now I’m just figuring out how to stall as long as I can.”

April laughed at him. “Thanks for the advice. Do you have any more for me?”

“Oh, we’ll talk plenty. I’ve got your back, kid, as long as you’ve got mine. We O’s have to stick together. There’s wolves out there who can eat us, you know. Uh, right now, I think you’d better go.” He gestured with his chin toward the door where a dark figure stood. Gabriel picked Chopsticks out clumsily on the professional-level piano as April got up to meet her mate and start her day.

“Hey!” he called to her. She turned. “It’s really good to have a musician back in this room. Marina used to play, but her piano didn’t survive when I was … you know.”

“Thanks Gabriel.”

Castiel cinched an arm around her waist and smiled warmly as he led her down the long hall.

Dean and Michael slipped into The Facility’s front door without much ceremony. There were several clusters of wolves waiting to be called through to start their processing. Some would be here for tests, and some just for initial interviews and evaluations. It was a lengthy process. Once scheduled for a test, the wait was six to eight weeks to allow for STD screenings and to allow the mandatory birth-control a chance to stabilize. Then, follow-ups before the big day kept everyone on the up and up. Dean was recognized as he strolled in with his mate. Eyes and cell phones followed him as he made his way to the front desk, but no one approached.

“Morning, Becky,” he said cheerfully, leaning against the desk. “Cas wanted us here at ten. Do you know where I can find him?”

“He left instructions to send you two to his suite. He’ll meet you there.”

“Kay. This way, Michael.”

Castiel was already in the suite when they arrived at five ‘till ten. So were Sam, April, and Gabe. Dean jumped right in. “Ah. Gang’s all here, I see. Good. Let’s get this party started.”

“Yes, let’s,” said Castiel while Dean rummaged through his fridge for some juice. Cas waited until they all found seats in the small living room. April took a spot on the floor with her back against Sam’s long legs. Michael sat across Dean’s lap in Castiel’s favorite spanking chair.

“I’ve asked everyone here today because I want to set a date to finalize the formation of our Pack. Four of us are flying to New York for a Broadway premiere in a couple of weeks, and we need to have it all done by then.” Michael caught Dean’s eye with a question. What was that about New York? Which four? He didn’t like not knowing. Dean answered back with a grimace and a sheepish shrug. He forgot to tell his mate about the upcoming trip that fell right square in the middle of their month of relative isolation. But Cas was right. They couldn’t take the two Omegas if their CFs weren’t in place yet. It was too dangerous.

“Also, April, your midseason Heat is due in a couple of days. That reduces the timeline even more because you and I will be out of reach for three or four days.” April hunkered down and blushed. Going into Heat was always embarrassing, but Castiel had a way of throwing it out there like he was talking about being hungry or tired or any other bodily need.

Heats were different.

“Therefore, I propose that if everyone is free, we meet at the house tomorrow evening for the formal oath ceremony and to validate the rankings. Dean, you have three CFs to place, and I have two. If we each do one tomorrow evening, then…”

“Wait,” Gabe interrupted. “Why does Dean still have three? There’s just April and me. Who am I missing?”

Sam answered for them. “My brother’s Mating was a bit unconventional. Even though he placed the bite, according to the readings, the Mating sparked from Michael. Michael Claimed Dean, not the other way ‘round. Which means Dean hasn’t actually Claimed his Omega yet, unless…” Sam looked at Dean. Dean stared back in shock.

“Come…what now?” Dean said, struggling to verbalize his confusion.

Sam frowned and cocked his head. “You didn’t know?”

Michael chuckled then caught Dean’s eye and made a valiant effort to stifle his laughter. He couldn’t stifle the smugness though.

“It’s Michael’s Claim?” Dean asked as everything began to make sense…sort of. Omegas couldn’t Mate alphas; that side of it didn’t make sense. But it did explain why everything felt to be flowing backward. He looked at Michael.

“You Mated me,” he explained in a daze.

Michael met him with a soft expression. He dropped his eyes briefly to Dean’s lips and then raised them again to his eyes. “Can you blame me?” he asked softly.

“Come ‘ere,” Dean whispered, drawing Michael forward by his chin to kiss him, soft and sweet.

Castiel cleared his throat. “There will be time to explore the unexpected outcome of your Mating. Right now, we need to deal with the fact that your Omega is currently un-Claimed. That is, unless you’ve already seen to it outside of your Mating.”

Dean didn’t hear him. He was distracted by the tiny hairs on the back of Michael’s neck and the way he shivered when Dean’s breath tickled the side of his throat.

“Dean! Pay attention!” commanded Castiel. “Have you Claimed Michael yet?”

“Um, no. Guess not. Guess I’m gonna need some help with that. We kinda have this thing where even when we try to stay outta scene, my wolf rolls. Can we talk to Ellen and get a game plan? When do you want to do it?”

“It would help if you paid attention the first time. We want to get all the CFs done ASAP. We can save yours with Michael until last and talk it through with Ellen, Bobby, and Benny. Michael, you can help too by working to occupy your Omega when Dean’s…there.”

Dean and Michael grinned at each other. It had come as a surprise, but they found the weirdness delicious and delightful. They really weren’t worried or feeling especially rushed. When it happened, it happened. Surely, it would take care of itself within the two-week limit. Then Michael spoke up without taking his eyes off his mate. “Actually, there’s a problem with your schedule, Alpha. Dean’s in chastity for the week.”

Dean’s grin disappeared.

Castiel raised his brows. “That so? Well, not for this. I’m overriding that commandment just where CFs are concerned.” Dean crowed in victory, and Michael scowled. So much for the Alpha not getting involved. “Dean, I want you to Claim Gabriel tomorrow after the oaths, and then April just as her Heat starts up before we lock ourselves in a day or two after that. All right?”

“Uh, sure Alpha. Is Gabe up to it?”

“Keep him up on his knees and off his back, and he should be fine.”

“And Michael?” A spontaneous Claim was looking less likely if Dean only had a week to make it happen.

“We can schedule time in the processing room for Michael’s Claim. It may take some careful staging and a professional manager.”

Dean nodded. Alpha had spoken. CFs weren’t a new thing. Despite the fact that the culture was being actively rebuilt from the ground up over no more than the last twenty years, Claim-Fucks were such an instinctive hardwired drive that they’d never disappeared entirely from pack life. Only wolves who had completely forsaken the pack identity, usually beta-Neutrals like Naomi who were unable to feel the instinctive pull, had abandoned Claim-Fucking. It was part of being Pack, and they all accepted it as a matter of course. Although many alpha parents balked at Claiming their Omega offspring even when grown children remained linked to the Pack. Biologically, it was best for the Omega and the Pack, but culturally, enough disquiet about incest had leaked through from the ape lifestyle, that some Lupin parents found it distasteful.

Cas continued. “Michael, I will speak with you alone when we’ve finished with our discussion here today, and you need to be prepared for me to place my Claim on you tomorrow evening.”

“Yes, Sir.” Michael looked a little alarmed. What did Alpha want to talk with him alone about? Were they having that discussion today?

“Now. We have the whole Pack gathered, so I’ll open the floor to any concerns or questions that anyone would like to have addressed. Anyone?”

“We, um, wanted to know how the sleeping arrangements are going to work at the house,” started Dean.

“You and I take joint ownership of the Master suite, and everyone else may select whichever room they like best. That includes you Sam. You will no doubt be staying over from time to time per pack business and your responsibilities, so you need a room of your own. Gabriel and I will give you and Michael tours. Selections are to be made according to Pack rank, so, Sam, you choose first.”

Michael sat up, and Dean resumed nibbling on his earlobes and the back of his neck. “So, if Dean gets joint ownership of the Master suite, does that mean that I can sleep with him in there if you’re elsewhere? On a trip or off with your mate or something?”

“Yes, I suppose so. You’re expected to clean up after yourselves, but it’s Dean’s room, too. And Dean, as Second rank, I would appreciate you paying attention and giving this meeting, informal though it is, your full attention.”

“Sorry, Cas.” He patted Michael’s thigh and whispered, “Lemme up,” to him. Michael slid to the side. Dean joined Castiel in front of the four others and put an arm around his waist. “I’m here, boss. What’s next?”

“Questions, Dean. We’re taking questions.” Cas was irritated, but April giggled.

“I have another one,” piped Michael, sitting forward again. “So, yesterday at lunch, I asked Dean to tell me what he did to get those bruises on his rear end. He said he wasn’t at liberty to say. Would you explain to me how you have any standing to make my mate and my Sub withhold information about the wellbeing of his body or his wolf from me? And, hold on, before you swat me down for being a prick, I’m not being a prick. I want to understand. I feel like I deserve to know what’s what with Dean. I’m responsible for him, for his Submissive anyway. We’re supposed to be all about communication and shit; don’t hide anything, and all that. So, what gives?”

Cas turned to Dean, perplexed. “I never asked you to keep that information confidential. Why would you not answer your Dom’s question?”

“I didn’t know how things were gonna settle between you two. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume y’all would wind up with a Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas rule.

Cas shook his head and paced. “Dean, you’re not responsible for following Rules that might be enacted at some point in the future. You are responsible for following the ones you’ve been given at the time. Now I see how postponing this conversation as long as I have has created instability for all of you. That stops today.” He stopped in front of Dean and faced him. “What’s Rule One in this Pack?”

“I owe you my allegiance and my obedience.”

“Good. Dean, you disobeyed my direction to you to follow your Dominant’s instructions by withholding information from him. And Rule Number Three?”

“Um, be obedient to the wolves above me in rank and protective of the ones below me.”

“Dean, in terms of your Tertiary genders, Michael outranks you, does he not?”

Dean shook his head. “No, where we sit in regard to our wolves—that’s a private matter between mates. It’s not part of the Pack rankings except between Secondaries that align.”

“All right, I’ll concede that there is need for clarification of that Rule. I’ll not hold you to disobedience with Michael at this time because Rule Three doesn’t make that pack business. Yet. But you should know that if Michael chooses to hold you to account for keeping information from him, he is perfectly free to do so. That leads us into the issue of Rule Five…” Cas let his sentence lead Dean into responding.

“Don’t lie.”

“You and I discussed this one at length. We were both concerned that we not allow for any variations or versions of prevarication, and we both agreed that withholding information from someone who has the right to know be classified as a form of lying.”

“Yes, we did. But we also allowed that we wouldn’t consider it lying if someone didn’t understand something and needed to get clarification or misunderstood something and acted on that misconception. I didn’t lie to him, Cas! I told him straight-up that I didn’t know if I had the authority to share that information! You can’t punish me for this. I know you want to. It’s holding me to Rules you’re changing after the fact. You just told me we don’t do that! I acted in good faith, Castiel—good faith to protect you, I might add.”

The rest of the Pack was riveted. If popcorn had been available, April and Gabriel would be munching away while they took in the show. April had never witnessed an alpha called to account in front of her, and she loved it. She especially loved that Dean was defending himself.

Castiel changed tacks. “Michael, thank you for bringing this matter forward. That is precisely the kind of communication I want to see from all of you in these meetings. We’ll hold them frequently at first because it looks as if a number of our Rules need to be adjusted. Talking through what happens is the only way we’re all going to understand where those weaknesses are.”

He began pacing again, crossing in front of Dean where his fiancé stood with his arms crossed defensively. “Going forward, let it be perfectly clear, whether you have given me your formal oath or not, each of you belongs to me in terms of the Winchester Pack. I make the final call in this Pack. Input from everyone is encouraged, and special allowance for mutual participation is granted to my spouse-to-be, but at the end of the day, I make the Rules, and I will hold each of you to follow them. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Dean?”

“You have to be fair about it, Alpha. None of us deserve to be held accountable for what you meant to put into a Rule but never did. Not everyone here is going to feel empowered to stand up for themselves, so that’s got to come from us, from you and me.”

“You’re right, but I’m not going to be stymied by technicalities either. If I feel that someone reasonably understood the spirit of a Rule, but managed to squeak through on the letter, then I reserve the right to take their intentions into account.”

“You think that’s what I did? Do you think I refused to answer Michael’s question because I didn’t want to, and I used the fact that our Pack Rules don’t make me obey him as an easy out?” Dean was obviously angry. “Why would I care if he knows why you blistered my ass? I did that for you!”

Cas remained calm under Dean’s fire. He shook his head in concession. “I think you were being cautious while caught between two posturing Doms.”

“Damn straight! This isn’t easy for me, you know. I feel like any minute you’re both gonna start peeing on me. You try to navigate all the growling and snarling when two Doms have claim on you without getting your ass whooped all the time. Jesus!”

“Dean, relax. I’ve conceded your point already. There’s no need for a tirade.”

“Alpha, at what point do I have the right to step in and have a say?” Michael looked genuinely intrigued. “I mean, it’s a matter that relates to me personally and to my bond with Dean, so can I get involved here, or do I just have to watch you two go at it and see where the dust settles?”

“Of course you may step into the discussion. As you say, it relates to you as well. What do you want to add, Michael?” Castiel pulled his eyes away from Dean’s with reluctance. Dean was beautiful when he was righteously incensed.

“Well, it looks to me like nobody should be trying to enforce any Rules yet, not until we’ve all pledged and you’ve fucked all us O’s into submission or whatever, not until everyone gets a chance to talk about it and understand it all. Otherwise there’s just gonna be a big fucking mess.”

Cas nodded in agreement, agreement with Michael, and Dean rolled his eyes. “This is an unstable situation, and that’s evident in the number of issues that are already popping up. Today’s meeting hasn’t gone exactly the way I pictured it, but I still feel it’s been a success because we’re talking to each other. Tomorrow’s dinner will mark the point at which all Rules and all of our roles become incontrovertible. Until then, I’m afraid we must continue to wing it a bit. Sam, do you have anything to bring up?”

“Well, yeah. I wanted to make real clear, while we’re on the subject of getting Rules and roles settled, that I didn’t join the Pack to be y’all’s official Pack EO I do that enough at work. I mean, I’ll take whatever action that I need to as third-ranking wolf, but I want to make it clear that I don’t expect everyone to just send their problems through me.”

Dean smirked at his brother. “You mean like, Wait ‘till Sam gets home; you’re really gonna get it?”

“Yes, exactly. Please don’t do that.”

“Agreed,” said Cas. “Each Top is responsible for the behavior he witnesses and has authority to reprimand for. That said, you may each refer punishment of another wolf’s mate directly to that wolf if you prefer. Other than that, if you see it, you own it.”

Sam nodded firmly. “That’s all I wanted to clear up. I’m good.” He leaned back and looked around.

“All right. Michael? Do you have anything else?”

“Um, yeah. Yes, Dean and I have something else, but if it would be okay, we’d rather talk about it in private with just you.”

“Okay. Gabriel?”

“What? Oh. Yeah. Can you tell me how long I’ve gotta live with this cloud over my head?”

“Until your stitches come out. And you are grounded until further notice as well. Do not leave pack grounds without me or Dean as an escort.”

“Well, shit. ‘Cause I had this…”

“Save it Gabriel,” Cas interrupted him. “You and I will speak later. I’m not going to spank you until you’re healed, but if you goad me into it, I’ll be happy to talk your ear off about respect and safety and not sneaking off where you’re not supposed to be and risking getting yourself killed.”

Gabriel deflated, sinking into his chair, all of his normal lighthearted humor well and truly absent.

“April? Do you have anything you’d like to ask or bring up?”

“No, Alpha.”

“All right, then. Everyone please be at the house tomorrow by six-thirty. We’ll start with the oaths then have dinner. Michael and Gabriel, your Claims will take place after we eat. Meeting adjourned.”

“Don’t we have to wait half-an-hour after we eat before we Claim-Fuck?” Michael snarked.

Dean hauled him to his feet and wrapped an arm around his neck. “No, that’s swimming. You’re thinking of the half-hour rule for swimming.” Dean kissed his mate’s lips.

“You two, please join me in my office,” Castiel called.

“It’s all very businesslike, isn’t it?” asked Michael.

“Just wait. He’s restraining the shit out of himself right now. This isn’t how he always is.” Dean confided into Michael’s ear. “Don’t provoke him on purpose just to see him lose it. It’s not pretty.”

Dean closed the office door behind him and addressed his mate. “Are you sure about this?”

“I’m sure. Are you?”

“I’m going wherever you go. If you want to jump off this cliff, I’m jumping with you. Let’s do it.”

They faced Castiel standing imperiously behind his desk chair, and Dean took the lead. “Alpha, we want to start a family. Michael and I, we’d like your blessing to try for a pup at Michael’s next Heat.”

Castiel blinked. “Already? Did you tell him about the co-parenting plan and the research projects on the docket? What about his Omega training?”

Dean looked at Michael, but his answer was for Cas. “Yeah, we talked about all that. If we have to we can wait until he’s nearly through with the training.” He turned to face Castiel who stood behind his desk while Dean and Michael had taken places in front of it. “Also, I’m going to be cutting back at work. My department can afford to hire a research assistant to fill in the gaps. The projects mostly only need me for design and planning and coordination anyway. The actual implementation can be assigned to someone else. We have lots of good people on staff. I only do it myself because I like the work. I enjoy it.” Dean moved to stand halfway between the two Doms where he could see them both. “It’ll be good for everyone in the end—give the rookie researchers a chance to grow and shine. I’m thinking of moving Kevin into my spot to run the projects. He can do it. That little dude’s brilliant.”

“And the co-parenting?” Cas was staring at his hands clenching the leather of his office chair.

“I’m not surrendering my pups to you, Alpha.”

Dean laid a restraining hand on Michael’s arm and shook his head slightly. “We’re not ready to decide about that yet, Castiel. Michael’s against it because he thinks it’s a surrender of his maternal rights. I think once we explain how we see it working, he may change his mind.”

Cas continued with the Omega. “And Michael, are you not planning to return to school and finish your degree? It’s much harder to do that once you’ve got a little one.”

“I have no plans to return to school, Alpha. It won’t be an issue.”

Castiel drummed his fingers against the chairback, thinking. “From the standpoint of a Mated couple, I have no authority to forbid you to have a baby whenever you decide it’s the right time for you, but I am extremely concerned that this Pack and your union are both too young and unstable. Bringing a pup into the mix right now would undoubtedly cause more confusion. I ask that you agree to hold off for at least a year to allow us to get comfortable in our roles. Please, understand. I have to keep the health and wellbeing of the whole Pack in mind, and I don’t think we’re ready for pups.”

Michael’s abrupt intake of breath and stiffening spine was all the tell Dean needed to know his mate was about to lose it. He didn’t need the rush of outrage pouring through the Mating-bond. Dean stepped in front of his mate, took firm hold of his shoulders and looked right into his eyes. “Don’t say something that’s going to get you knocked into your Omega right now. Michael, listen to me. You and Cas need to talk about how you’re going to share me. If you earn yourself a spanking right now by saying something stupid, then you go into that conversation with a glowing ass and an Omega’s perspective. Just wait. Michael, please?” Michael blinked at him then nodded reluctantly.

Dean turned and faced Castiel. “I get it, Alpha. I see where you’re coming from with this, but we’re going to want to talk about it again before we concede anything. Please don’t say the matter’s closed just yet. Let’s table it, sleep on it, and bring it up again in a few days—maybe after you come out of lockdown with April. Okay, Cas?”

Castiel sighed. They all understood that it was an Alpha’s prerogative to close an item of discussion for good. If Cas called the issue closed, then the discussion was over. Period. “All right. We’ll look at it again after we return from New York. I’m unlikely to change my answer though.” Closing the discussion wouldn’t be a no. He didn’t have the right to forbid them from trying, but the ramifications of going against their Alpha’s explicit wishes were murky. And Dean was trying like hell to marry the guy. What would it tell Cas if Dean…?

“Thanks, Cas,” said Dean. He guided Michael out of the office. Sam was gone, but Gabe and April sat chatting on the sofa with their heads together.

Dean wrapped himself around his mate, calming him and whispering. “Hang in there, man. It’s not a no. Not yet. Don’t go running your canoe off the waterfall just yet.”

“What does that even mean?” asked Michael, matching Dean’s whisper. Dean snickered, but Michael wasn’t joking. “No, Dean. He doesn’t get to decide this for us. He said so himself. He has to ask us to agree to wait, not just tell us we can’t go for it. What would he do if I suddenly popped up pregnant? He’s not going to throw the pup out of the Pack.”

“I know, baby. We’ll talk about it later. Right now, you need to focus or he’s going to clean the floor with you in there, and you’re going to walk away lucky to get conjugal visiting rights with me. I don’t get a say in how you two divvy me up. I was hoping to postpone that, but it looks like we’re doing it now. You ready?”

“Absolutely,” affirmed the Dom.

But it didn’t happen right away. April mentioned being hungry, so Cas herded them all to an early lunch in the cafeteria. He filled Gabriel in on how the young Omega he’d pulled from Gordon’s place was doing. She was recovering well physically but had a great deal of emotional trauma to overcome, and that was going to take some time. Bobby planned to keep her as a ward of the Medical Department until she was fully healed and in complete physical health before relinquishing custody to Benny and the Behavioral Department for evaluation of her mental and emotional state. After that, they didn’t have a plan yet, but Cas assured Gabe that she would be protected. April reacted to that with surprising vehemence, looking for surety that the girl would be cared for.

After lunch, Cas asked Dean and Michael to wait for him for a few minutes. They settled in to watch TV. Michael wondered if Cas was playing power games with him by making him wait. It’s what Michael would’ve done, but in truth, Cas was just trying to fit it all in. He returned to his office and called Sam back in. Sam was just finishing his workout at the gym. Today was mostly free for him except for meetings, so he appeared quickly but still sweaty at the Alpha’s summons. His class had special seminars all day with older Omega mentors. It was a Q&A session for Ozzies-only, so they could speak freely.

“Come in, Samuel. Have a seat.” Cas had a habit of using Sam’s full name when he was displeased. It put Sam on alert.

“What’s up, Alpha? Have I done something wrong?”

“I spoke to Dean yesterday about an incident that happened with his mate with which you were involved. Do you know anything about that?”

“Oh. I…um. Yes, Sir. I made a mistake concerning Dean’s consent to a scene, and I, uh, I participated in a way he didn’t agree to. We’ve talked about it, and I think it’s all settled now.” Sam squirmed in his chair as he realized he should have brought his error to the Alpha. Or to Benny. Even with the new Pack still in limbo, he’d fucked up on Facility grounds. The case could be made that it had standing within his professional capacity as a Dom-employee.

“Tell me what happened.”

Sam went through it all, from the texting and planning the previous evening, to the implementation yesterday morning, to Sam’s shock when he found out Dean hadn’t been on board, and the punishment he gave to Michael.

“It was completely my fault that it happened. I mean, Michael pulled me in, but I know better than to step into a scene without getting explicit consent from all parties involved. What’s even worse is that Dean’s my brother. He should be able to trust me, and I let him down. Cas, I’m so sorry.”

“I believe you, Sam, but I can’t let this go. I’m not going to spank you for it. Instead, you’re going to stand in the corner during today’s Top-staff meeting. Give whatever reports you have to someone else and be sure to select someone who can speak well on your behalf. You will listen but not participate. Any decisions that are made will be decided without your input today. I will not announce the reason for your punishment to the staff as it touches on Dean and Michael’s private affairs, but you will remain on display for the entire meeting. Do you have any questions?”

“No, Alpha.”

“Thank you, Sam. You’re dismissed.”

Cas called home quickly as Sam left to make sure the staff knew about the piano tuner coming at three and to have him check both pianos while he was there. Then he took a deep breath and went to collect Michael.

“Come with me please, Michael.” Cas held the main suite door into the hallway open for the Omega. “Dean, please wait here with April for our return. Also, you’re invited to attend today’s staff meeting at two. We’ll be discussing Keller tests for the next two months, and Michael’s been scheduled, so you will probably want to attend.” He didn’t wait for Dean’s response before following Michael into the hall and leading the way to the H/R room he’d reserved in the west wing. H/R rooms were soundproof and monitored. Whatever was about to happen could get heated, and Cas wanted some discretion and safety for Michael.

“Wow, really?” said Michael as Castiel showed him in. The bed in the middle of the far wall was huge. Classic bondage and discipline equipment lined the walls. There was a full-sized refrigerator and a hotplate. There was ample clear floor space between the bed and the door, and rings dotted the ceiling at regular intervals.

“We’re not here for that, obviously,” Cas responded. “But I wanted to speak with you somewhere safe, and I don’t want to hobble you with my home-field advantage by making you do this at my house. It will soon be your house as well, but that’s not happened yet.”

“What happened to giving us a month to gel first?”

“All indications seem to be pointing out that the longer we wait to get ourselves ranked and stable, the more trouble we’ll all be in. Do you have any real problem with doing this here and now?”

“Absolutely none. Let’s do it, Alpha.”

“Good. That’s my feeling as well. There should be very little need for this to take much time. The pack hierarchies are already established. All we need to settle is how you and I share our mutual Submissive. Would you like to begin? I expect we both have some items of particular importance to bring up.”

“All right.” Michael used every last inch of his height and breadth. He was taller by just a bit and carried a bit more weight than Castiel as well. For an Omega, he was enormous. If his pheromones weren’t always giving him away, Michael could easily pass for a beta, and sometimes even an alpha under the right circumstances. His Dominant gave him the swagger. All he lacked was the ineffable certainty that all alphas unconsciously carried—the certainty that their place in the world was secure. No Omega could swing that.

“Here’s what I want. I want Dean to defer primarily to me in private, even in domestic concerns, not to you. I’m asking you to take a half-step back on Submissive and sexual matters with him. I know he’s yours, too. I get that. I’m not asking for full custody, just that half-step.”

“I see. What would that look like in daily life?” Cas sat on the end of the bed allowing Michael to claim the advantage of height completely.

“I get free rein to scene with him at will, and you need to schedule your sessions through me. I promise to work with you in good faith, Castiel, but if I’ve got something planned, you need to wait.” Castiel didn’t answer. He could tell that Michael had more. “Also, if he misbehaves outside of his Submissive wolf, then you can punish him as you see fit, but if his misbehavior occurs through the Submissive, then I take first crack at him, assuming I’m available. I wouldn’t ask the whole Pack to put up with a brat for hours if I can’t be there. If you or Sam need to do it, I expect to get a call or text and a polite request for permission. But his Submissive primarily belongs to me. I’m his mate.”

Castiel laughed calmly. “Michael, Dean only ever misbehaves through his Submissive. Seriously. He’s the most careful man I know, and he literally wrote the book on balancing modern Domestic Discipline with instinctive Pack Discipline. You’re never going to see him break a Rule from his front-brain or his alpha. You saw him today. He defended himself with logic and certainty. He knows when he’s right.”

Michael frowned in thought. Was that true? Cas continued, “He’s a true brat, though. He’ll push every button you have to get a Dom response from you when he wants one. You’ll see it soon if you haven’t already. Have you spanked him yet?”

“No.” Michael didn’t elaborate, but Cas sensed something under the surface. He didn’t pursue it, instead he shifted direction just a bit.

“But you put him into a week of chastity?”

“He earned it. He broke one of my Rules less than a day after I put it to him.”

Cas laughed outright at that. “I’ll bet he did. If you remember, you did the same to him, and to me. What’d you say to me? How do you want me to shove all those rules…? That was pretty ballsy, Michael, even for a Profound Dominant—which your Keller test will reveal that you are. I have to give you credit, though. Choosing chastity instead of paddling his ass is going to make him crazy. Whatever he did was probably meant to provoke your hand, not tie him up in a cock-cage for a week. I applaud you for a masterful first stroke.”

Cas got up and started a cup of coffee brewing through the in-room Keurig. He sighed as it brewed. “What else?”

“Are you agreeing to everything so far?”

“No, not yet. I want to hear it all first.”

“He defaults to sleeping in my bed. If you want him in yours, I get to say yes or no. After that I just have one more stipulation.”

Cas turned with his cup and leaned against the counter, sipping. “And what’s that?”

“Everyone but me, and that includes both you and Dean, is forbidden from touching his cock or scrotum. They’re mine. I’m making an exception to allow him to continue to participate in Keller testing because it’s his job, but that’s all. He doesn’t fuck in class or demonstrations. He doesn’t fuck in the one-on-ones at conventions. He doesn’t masturbate in the shower. I have no idea if you ever do the catching in bed, but if so, then that stops, too. His penis is mine. He can come without penile stimulation, I’ve seen him do it, so that’s what you can have. Feel free to do whatever you want to his ass, but don’t touch his dick.”

Castiel looked surprised at that request, but not unhappy. He looked almost pleased and shocked at the same time, like the idea hadn’t occurred to him or that he was surprised to hear it from Michael. He schooled his face and addressed Michael who hadn’t moved from his position in the center of the room.

“Let me enumerate your demands. You just have those four?” Michael nodded. In the short time he had known that he would need to state his case to the Alpha, he’d thought hard about this.

“All scening requires your permission and scheduling. You want to take care of his punishments as long as the misbehaviors originate from his bratty wolf. He sleeps with you most of the time, and we need permission to alter that, and his penis and scrotum are off-limits to everyone but you. Is that it?”

“That’s all I ask. Plus, the right to decide for ourselves when to knock me up.”

Cas nodded upward. He knew he’d hear that one again. “Before I answer or counteroffer, let me put my cards on the table as well. I believe you’ll find me a benevolent tyrant. As long as my Pack runs smoothly and the wolves under my care are in Balance, I will have very little argument with anything you do with your mate. Where you and I will cross purposes is if you decide to push me about the Rules or challenge my wolf for leadership of the Pack. Also, don’t think you can use Dean to manipulate me. He’s not a ramming device you’re going to use to get special privileges above your station.

“As long as you behave yourself, Michael, you and I should have no problems getting along and sharing joint custody. I’m proud of the progress you’ve made in accepting that your mate will be shared with another Dom. I know that’s hard for you. It’s hard for me, too. Believe me. But everything we agree to here today becomes moot if you’re not behaving yourself within the guidelines of the Pack. Whatever Rules Dean sets for you as your alpha are between you and him, but I’m not about to ask you for permission to do anything with him if you don’t behave yourself and work with me. Is that clear?”

“No, it’s not. Does that mean that as soon as I forget myself and break one of your fucking Rules, that I lose all claim to my own mate? Fuck that, Castiel. You just try to take him away from me and see where that lands you. I’ll rip your goddamned throat out, I swear!”

“Michael! Calm yourself. We’re just having a conversation. I’m not suggesting anything of the kind. Please stop assuming that everyone’s working to take something away from you. What I mean is, your special privileges and negotiated demands with Dean are contingent upon your good behavior. No—one broken Rule doesn’t get him taken away from you. I couldn’t do that if I tried. But if you’re always in trouble and causing mayhem in my Pack, we’re going to renegotiate everything, and you’re going to find the tables flipped. You want to call the shots with Dean? I’m game to let you, but you only get to keep that privilege as long as you behave yourself. As a Dominant, you need to be a role model and a part of the pack support structure. If I have to step in, you’re not going to like the outcome.”

“Right. There it is again. The Big-Bad-Wolf, Castiel. You know, you and Dean keep bringing that up, but I’m not seeing it. All you do is talk. It seems to me that I could take you down in a man-to-man. If it wouldn’t crush Dean, I probably would’ve gone for your jugular already. So, explain it to me, Big Bad, why is everyone so fucking afraid of you?”

“What does your Omega think?” asked Castiel, cryptically.

Michael took his question at face value, and he was man enough to admit the truth. “My Omega basically shits himself every time you walk into the room.”

“Does that not tell you something?”

“No. I don’t listen much to him. He’s a fucking coward. He’s the weak link I was saddled with.”

Castiel chuckled. “Therein lies the key to all your problems, Michael. Your Omega is not the weakest part of you. He’s strong, and he’s perceptive.”

“Oh, really? So, you really are some kind of master Ninja beat-down king? I don’t believe it. Come on, Castiel, let’s finish this. You gonna accept my demands, or do we fight for Dean here and now?” Michael’s posture showed he didn’t expect to be leaving the room before someone’s blood had been spilled.

“Those aren’t the only two options, Michael. But, for the most part, yes. I accept. I’ll need you to prove that you can act in good faith concerning the scheduling. Dean will be my husband. I expect to be granted full conjugal rights to him and not just D/S scening. Sometimes I’m just going to want to make love to my husband. I can live with scheduling the time through you, provided you don’t turn it into a manipulation tactic. His sleeping schedule, though: I want at least two nights per week guaranteed. I prefer three, but I can ease into it considering I have an Omega mate to balance as well.”

Michael nodded. “All right. Two nights guaranteed, but I confirm which two.”

Cas nodded in return. “I’m very pleasantly surprised at your suggestion that you claim exclusive rights to his penis. It’s simple and elegant. It’s a perfect solution to the need to keep something sacred within the realm of the Mating-bond. I accept that demand wholeheartedly, and I promise to help you enforce it. I will miss it though. He makes the prettiest faces when his knot takes just the right amount of pressure. Thank you for allowing me continued access to his ass. And do be aware that he has responsibilities within the Pack. He’s going to need to employ his penis and his knot to fulfill the upcoming Omega Claims.”

“He can ask me for permission,” Michael said stiffly.

Cas nodded. “And as I said, I know this is hard for you, Michael, but please refrain from snarling at me when I touch him. I’ll do the same for you.” Castiel took up pacing again. “No, the only thing I can’t concede is giving all of his punishments to you. I’m not going to do that. I need it just as much as he does—just as much as you do—and it’s a very important way that we connect with each other. If I always have to call you in when he challenges my authority, his wolf is going to lose all respect for me. It’s not sustainable. You and I need to work out a system where we each know what the other has done to or for him regarding his punishments. The chastity punishment, for example, I needed to know about that or I might just break it without realizing it. He’s brat enough, too, to play us against each other if we let him. Work with me, please. I’ll back you up, and you back me up.”

“Like you backed me up this morning? When you overrode my chastity verdict in front of everyone?”

“That was necessary. It’s a one-time pack establishment issue. I should’ve run it by you in private, but I didn’t know about it beforehand.”

“No, Castiel. Not acceptable. I want everything I asked for. I want his punishments. I think I’ve made a reasonable allowance in saying you and Sam can take care of him if I’m not there, but I’m not gonna watch you spank my mate in front of me.”

“I’m not giving you that. Take what you’ve got and walk away, Michael.”

“No fucking way, Alpha. He’s my mate. I don’t give a shit if you saw him first. You didn’t Mate him. You’re lucky I don’t take you to court for Mating-bond infringement.” Michael’s eyes were going golden, and his blood pressure rose noticeably. He knew where this was going, but it had been heading that way from the moment he first saw Dean’s face in a filthy bathroom in Texas.

“Walk away, Michael,” the Alpha warned.

“Or what? You gonna talk to me some more? You gonna spank my ass? I’m not afraid of you. You know what I think? I think you put your bluff in on these people years ago, and they all like you too much to call you on your bullshit. Well, I’m calling you out, Alpha. You got nothing, and you can’t make me do shit.” Michael’s Dominant wolf was literally cowering on its side in the dirt, whining and writhing, flashing its belly, pawing out at Michael to shut the fuck up. Castiel’s eyes turned red, his jaw tightened, and the breathing through his nose deepened.

“Is this the only way to get to the other side of this conversation with you, Michael? Do you need to see him?”

“See who? Your wolf? Yeah, Cas, trot the little fucker on out here. Let’s see what’s got everyone so fucking terrified they piss themselves to make you happy.”

Castiel leapt forward and had Michael prostrate on the ground before he could blink. Michael caught up in time to struggle at least a little bit, but it wasn’t Michael’s doing that had him flipped onto his back. Castiel’s eyes were solid red, and he only held Michael down with a hand splayed across the Omega’s chest. Michael flailed to gain purchase with his feet and hands, and he began to push up. One hand wasn’t going to hold him, but then his eyes locked onto the wolf’s. The Alpha knelt on one knee and leaned over the Omega.

One look into the depths of the beast inside Castiel Novak though, and Michael’s Dominant wolf fled, outmatched and wanting nothing to do with this fight. His Omega whined, whimpered, and caved to the drooling beast above him. It wasn’t the Alpha’s actions that toppled Michael so quickly, it was his eyes. With nothing more than a hand across Michael’s chest, Castiel held him motionless. Those eyes spoke promise and threat backed up by millions of years of evolution. Every potential that canine power could perceive or promise coalesced in the wolf above Michael, and Michael couldn’t look away. He was sucked into the red depths, and he pulled in the first of the few ragged breaths he had left before his throat was inevitably ripped out.

The beast was raw, uncontrollable rage and lust, and Michael was its enemy. He’d never imagined a power like this. It spoke to him through the beginnings of time and space and into a world they only reached through dreaming anymore—a world where wolves once ran free and unfettered. And the beast was real, and angry, and drooling onto Michael’s face. Castiel wasn’t a wolf. He was a Hellhound, and he was going to kill Michael. It took only a few seconds for Michael to come to terms with the fact that he was never going to see Dean again. He hadn’t had enough time. His bladder and his anal sphincter both spasmed, and he soiled himself, but he still couldn’t look away or fight back. All he could do was submit to death. The Hellhound had the inexorable right to destroy the pathetically outclassed likes of Michael Lancet, and he raised his chin and bared his throat in acknowledgement and submission without ever looking away, hoping it would be quick.

Slowly, so very slowly, the red in those bestial eyes faded. Michael could feel a great struggle taking place within the Alpha above him. The hand on his chest trembled, and he grasped at it, lent it all of his strength. Moment by moment, the blue of Castiel’s eyes began to return and his breathing grew deeper until he was panting with the effort. Michael began to shake uncontrollably, the adrenalin kicking in, and he took a great gasp, not realizing until then that he’d been holding his breath.

Castiel gave out all at once. He slumped to the ground and sat heavily on his ass, freeing Michael from the hand splayed across his chest. “Do you understand now, Michael?” Castiel’s voice was glass scraped over gravel like he’d traveled eight years in the desert with no water.

Michael sat up slowly, keeping his eyes on Castiel. “You control him?” he asked in a very small voice.

Castiel nodded. “Most of the time. Sometimes he breaks through and I have to work him back down. If I feed him enough and keep him satisfied, I can control him, but he’s always going to be dangerous.”

“Has Dean seen him?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what to say, Alpha.” Michael’s face was still bloodless. Castiel worked himself to standing and began to pull the Omega to his feet.

“I know I come across as awfully deliberate, Michael, but I don’t have the luxury of working through my wolf. He’s uncontrollable if I let him out. Please understand and allow me my own methods. They work, and I can keep all of you safe. You don’t have to be afraid. He would never hurt Dean or April. Or Gabriel. I just need some time, and he’ll come to accept you and Sam as Pack, but please don’t push me.”

Castiel walked Michael into the bathroom and stripped him. He cleaned up where the Omega had soiled himself and ran him a bath.

“Alpha, I swear. I don’t ever want to see that again. Whatever you want from me. We don’t need to wait until tomorrow night. Claim me now. I want it. What you did…He was going to kill me, wasn’t he?”

Castiel nodded. “But I’m not going to let that happen, Michael. You’re my Pack. You’re my Omega, and I’ll protect you with my life.”

“But, Alpha.” The adrenalin hit Michael upside the head, and he began to shiver. “He’s…he’s massive. I’ve never seen power like that, but you…you’re even stronger. You beat him. I don’t understand. Why do you hide all of that?”

Castiel helped Michael step into the bath and began to wash him tenderly. “Because I am first and foremost, a civilized man. Everything else is secondary. Do we have an agreement, Michael? About Dean?”

“Whatever you say, Sir.” Michael wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to call Castiel by his name again. Castiel stripped off and stepped into the large tub behind the Omega and settled, pulling Michael into his chest and holding him there until his shivering abated, letting the skin-to-skin contact soften away the fear. Maybe there was hope.

Chapter Text

THEN:

Dean knew he was inside his wolf. He could always tell, but he couldn’t find his way out. They’d thrown an Omega-Submissive at him in the first round of testing, and he had mounted the woman uncertainly. He wasn’t attracted to her, and he wondered if that would throw the readings off for his test. The technicians assured him beforehand that his sexual orientation had no bearing on the outcome of the Keller test. He knew it was going to be a girl, but his reticence to Claim her had nothing to do with his failure to find her sexually appealing. They told him to take each round as it came at him. Be flexible. Listen to his wolf. They told him it didn’t make any difference what he did, what the tester did, who fucked into whom, or whether a Claim-bond formed or not. The only thing that mattered is that someone was mounted, and someone submitted. They told him not to fight against anything his wolf or his alpha or his body wanted him to do. They told him some wolves found it easier to close their eyes and just let go.

They’d prepped him thoroughly for more than an hour before the first round, saying he needed to be ready for anything, even as an alpha, even when matched with an Omega-Sub. His backdoor had been washed out and then fucked relentlessly with about a gallon of synthetic slick and the biggest dildo Dean had ever seen. His ass was ready to take anything. He’d also had a series of several beautiful beta boys fluff and suck his cock, driving his alpha into a frenzy of lust. Every time he approached orgasm, they stopped all of it, leaving him a heaving, panting, wanting, slobbering mess. Then they opened the door to where an Omega-Submissive girl lay naked on the bed.

Dean’s alpha responded. He could mount her as an alpha, take her fast and be done with her. If he was careful, he could avoid letting his knot lock, and then it would be over faster. Dean approached her slowly—too slowly for his own pride. Why was he hesitating? She was an Omega, and his pack assignment was to put her in her place. He could do that. “Turn over,” he suggested gently. Gently? What the fuck? This was supposed to be a Claim-Fuck. He tried again, more firmly. “Go on, Omega, turn over on your belly. Stick your ass up for me.” Better. Still too weak, but better.

Dean got through the first round with no issues after that. He was so well-prepped that his body jumped into action once he sank his cock into her tight, wet channel. He pumped into her forcefully, and she responded as only an Omega could. It was…much more satisfying than he’d expected it to be, and he knotted her before he realized it was happening. He didn’t mind, and she didn’t seem to either. He’d felt his Claim fall over her shoulders and sink into her head and her heart. The Claim made all the difference in the world. His alpha could really see her now. It didn’t matter that she was a girl. To his alpha, she was a Claimed Omega, and he snuggled into her and scented her neck.

The Bridging round threw him though. He lay face down and breathless at the end of it, the beta-Dom’s large cock still rocking into him. Dean’s semen growing cold beneath his belly mocked the fact that the man hadn’t even touched his cock. He’d rolled like a month-old puppy when the beta told him to. Dean couldn’t remember much. It happened so fast. Or not. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he’d entered the room at the same time as the beta from opposite sides, and he hadn’t managed a single word or action of his own choosing except walking across the threshold. Now he was stuck fast inside his wolf, breathing hard, the side of his face still pressed into the pillow where the Dom’s hand put it. He whined, but it wasn’t a sound of distress.

Dean was confused. He knew he was alpha, and a strong one. Other alphas deferred to him all the time. Why was he trapped in his wolf. Why rolling over for a beta? What did it mean for his test score? Also, how long would he be allowed the luxury of wallowing in the bed in his own come with a strange beta’s body covering his, forcing him to breathe pillow dust? He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want the beta’s cock to soften and slip out of his ass. He whined again, louder, longer.

“I know, little alpha. I’ve got you.” Little alpha? What the fuck?! Dean wanted out of his wolf. He scratched at the walls of his prison, but the wolf just flopped on its side and pushed its nose into the beta’s throat. Dean wasn’t sure whether he’d been Claimed or not. He couldn’t feel anything other than the desire to stay here with this man until the end of time. Fuck. That meant he was Claimed, didn’t it?

He opted to doze off. Sleep would satisfy both his wolf’s need to nest with the beta and his alpha’s desire to escape this embarrassing situation. When he awoke, the man was gone, and he was getting a sponge bath from a pretty, dark-haired beta girl. “Welcome back, alpha,” she said.

That had been two hours ago. Dean paced in the prep room. He’d eaten and bathed thoroughly. They told him he didn’t need prepping for the Anchor round except to refresh the synthetic slick in his ass. He couldn’t hold in the deep moan as the same pretty beta shot slick up high into his ass with a blunt syringe. She dealt his prostate a glancing blow by accident. His ass would still be open, and reading between the lines, Dean assumed they didn’t expect his cock would play much of an active, penetrative role in this one. Dean thought about what he knew of Doctor Novak. He reminded himself he’d asked for this.

What had he been thinking?

Castiel Novak was a nerd and a boring, bookish professor who hadn’t spoken to Dean directly since their strange meeting at Zeke’s pub other than to confirm that he had signed on as Dean’s Anchor tester in his upcoming test when they ran across each other at the grocery store. That had been weeks ago. Dean’s semester was long over, and summer waned. He’d skipped the graduation ceremonies, to his brother’s annoyance. Dean couldn’t face graduating again without his mother or father. That had been hard enough when high school ended. The bottom line was, Dean had barely seen or heard from Doctor Novak since accepting his proposal to work together and to scene together.

Castiel had kept his distance, waiting until Dean’s Keller test was completed. He’d sent Dean a job offer letter by mail with instructions on how to apply and register as a grad student, assuring him the application process was a formality. He’d already been accepted by the Sociology Department, and his stipend had already been approved. All that was left was to accept and take residence in his tiny office on the edge of campus.

Another envelope arrived a few days later. It contained an application to register for Keller testing with a small private community services outreach program that was run jointly by the college medical school, Castiel’s Lupin studies department, and county social services. There was a handwritten note in Dr. Novak’s scratchy penmanship requesting that Dean email Cas when he had his date scheduled so Castiel could follow up and sign on as his Anchor.

Dean followed the instructions immediately, afraid he’d change his mind if he waited too long. As soon as his hand released the envelope into the mailbox, he started having second thoughts. Lots of Lupins never bothered with the test. It wasn’t new, and the feedback Dean had heard was all positive. He hadn’t ever heard of anyone who took the test regretting their decision to do so, but what would happen when Dean was naked in a room with doctors and technicians watching, and Doctor Novak came in? Alpha. Alpha Novak. Dean’s palms began to sweat back then, the first time it crossed his mind, and they were sweating now too, while he paced in the prep room.

“They’re ready for you, sweet cheeks,” the beta girl chirped. Meg, she’d called herself. “Follow me. We’re going to a different room this time. We like to keep the scents separate so we can be sure what you’re reacting to.” She led him down a hall, chatting happily. He wore the thin, scratchy bathrobe they’d provided, and he could feel the lube slipping out of him and running down his legs as he walked.

“Don’t be nervous, alpha. Lots of folks get nervous on the last round. You’ll do fine. Alpha Novak doesn’t do this very often, but it always goes extra smooth when he’s here. Everybody loves Castiel. You’re gonna be just fine. Just go with whatever your body wants you to do, okay? There’s no wrong response. Even if you get off into your front-brain for some reason, your body chemistry will still tell us everything we need to know. You can’t mess this up. Just be yourself and don’t worry. Here we are.”

She ushered him into a stark, brightly lit room. It looked more like a hospital room than the one before. That one had resembled a dilapidated motel room with a long mirror down one side. This one appeared to be all business. Two walls were mirrored here, not just one, and there was some kind of high-tech equipment along the other two walls.

The room was quite warm, but not stuffy. “Here, I’ll take your robe.” She held her hand out, and he relinquished it to her, acutely aware that there were people on the other side of those mirrors. Maybe Cas was there now. “You can go ahead and head to the bed if you want, but it doesn’t really matter. He’ll be in in just a sec, soon as I leave, and you two just figure it out between you, just like we talked about. Do you have any questions before I go, Dean?”

“Uh, no. No questions.” Dean felt his heart rate increase. He knew the sensors spaced here and there on his bare skin were picking it all up, but he couldn’t control his body. He was still trapped inside his wolf, and it wasn’t letting him control anything.

“Okay, then. Good luck. I’ll see you after.” She slipped gracefully through one of several doors into the room, leaving Dean standing awkwardly where she’d left him. He was seconds away from a full panic attack when the door opened with a powerful force. His knees nearly buckled.

“Get on the bed, Dean. Put your face into the pillow. If you can breathe, you’re not deep enough.”

Castiel’s voice.

Holy fucking shit.

How did he do that?

Dean was breathing feathers before he consciously considered the option of moving, and Castiel’s very naked, very aroused, very Alpha body was shamelessly covering his. Castiel flattened his entire body to the bed. Dean couldn’t see anything. He could barely breathe at all. He was completely restrained from the tight grip around each wrist where the Alpha pulled his arms above his head and pinned them, to the backs of his ankles where Castiel’s shins crossed over, holding his feet in place.

There was an immediacy to the Alpha’s presence, to the pressure along the entire line of Dean’s body, a gritty realness that pulled all of his senses into paying it the utmost attention. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t speak. The panic that was seconds from overflowing before Castiel entered the room should be sparking into fireworks right now. Dean’s alpha should be struggling for all he was worth. Dean hated to be restrained. He’d played before, but he never allowed himself to be tied or held.

Instead of panicking though, Dean relaxed. Immediately. His body let go of every trace of tension and stress, every misgiving, every second thought, every doubt. He closed his eyes into the darkness and let go. He’d never known trust could feel like this. He trusted his very life to the man above him, and he did it instantly, without thought or reservation. If the Alpha decided to let him suffocate, Dean would let him. Dean would allow him anything.

“Good boy,” the Alpha crooned at him in his deep, gravel-strewn voice. “Turn your head now and take a deep breath for me, Dean.”

Dean didn’t open his eyes; he liked the darkness, but he moved his head enough to get a lungful of air. “That’s it.”

A thumb stroked Dean’s wrist, directly over his pulse point.

“What would you let me do to you, alpha?” Castiel growled seductively at him. Dean mumbled something incoherent and then screamed when the Alpha bit him hard on the bicep. “Answer me so that I can hear you when I ask you a question.”

“I said, you can do anything you want to me, Alpha!” Dean almost shouted.

“Very good. That’s what I thought. Get up, Dean. Present yourself over the side of the bed.” Dean scrambled off the bed when Castiel released him, letting the Alpha bend him over the side of the bed with his feet flat on the floor. Castiel inspected him thoroughly, letting the clock tick by. He appeared to be in no hurry at all. Dean, had he bothered to think, would’ve been surprised. Usually Keller tests were straightforward: two wolves interact, one submits, the other dominates, sex happens, sometimes there’s a tussle, sometimes there’s a Claim, sometimes there’s a knot. Then readings are collected, and they go on their respective ways.

Castiel had shifted down from running his hands over Dean’s shoulders and back and was working two thumbs into Dean’s ass, pulling his rim open, inspecting deep inside him and humming at the fluid leaking out. He ran his hands up and down both of Dean’s legs, one at a time, slapping his rump firmly when he’d finished, like Dean was a prized racehorse.

Dean’s breathing slowed to a relaxed calm and even pace. His eyes stayed closed, and every muscle relaxed.

“Very good, Dean. You’re going to be perfect for me. I just need to do one more thing.”

Castiel spanked Dean’s ass hard—very, very hard—and the alpha’s eyes flew open. He reached out instinctively and grasped the other side of the bed, howling in pain. His cock hardened instantly, and his hips thrust against the side of the mattress. Castiel was suddenly force and momentum. He grabbed Dean’s hips, stilling their forward motion, dragging them backward and impaling him on the Alpha’s cock in one hard press. Once seated, Doctor Novak drove so hard into him that he forced Dean’s feet off the floor and launched him bodily onto the bed on his belly. Dean had no hand hold. They were crosswise on the narrowish bed. Dean’s head hung precariously off the far side, but the Alpha held him firmly by the hips. He perched upright on his knees, with Dean’s thighs splayed gracelessly to either side, thrusting powerfully into him.

“You belong to me, don’t you, Dean Winchester?”

Castiel’s voice. How? Where was that even coming from?

“Yes, Alpha!”

“I can do anything I like to you, can’t I?” Castiel’s thrusts intensified, and he let his body fall forward, onto one hand, moving the other across Dean’s chest under his arm, holding him firmly.

“Yes, Sir!” Dean’s voice shook and pulsed with the power of Castiel’s punches.

“Do you want me to hurt you, Submissive?”

No one had ever called Dean that before, but it sounded so natural coming from the Alpha’s mouth, that Dean barely noticed it. And that question, no one had ever asked him that either.

“Please, Sir! Hit me! Need to feel it. Please!” Dean fantasized about being spanked all the time. He wanted it so badly, but he’d never been brave enough to ask anyone for it. He was alpha. Alphas did the spanking. They only received it when they’d fucked up egregiously and needed a real and lasting punishment. Dean hadn’t really been spanked since he was a pup.

Sam took him over a knee every now and then, but that was different. It was.

Castiel wrenched him around on the bed, forcing his face into the pillow again but arranging him so that he could breathe. He never stopped fucking brutally into the alpha, and he growled at Dean with menace when Dean tried to look at him. The Alpha reared back up onto his knees, dragging Dean’s hips with him and continuing his relentless pumping. He struck Dean’s prostate about every third thrust, and Dean began moaning with pleasure and rocking his hips minutely.

Then, without losing rhythm, Castiel brought his hand down on Dean’s ass again just as he pulled his cock out for the next inward thrust. The heat and sting sang along every nerve fiber in Dean’s body, and somehow, every nerve ended at his dick.

He screamed, throwing his head back. Castiel gripped him harder across the hips, regaining lost purchase, and struck him again, harder. Dean couldn’t see it, but Castiel’s handprints stood out stark and red on his pale round flesh. He could feel it though. He craned his head around again, wanting to get at least a little bit of a glance at the frenzied motion behind him. Castiel spanked him three times hard in quick succession then he stopped everything, his cock poised at the edge of Dean’s swollen rim, nearly pulling free. Holding static.

“If you move your head again, I’ll give you the spanking of your life, you won’t be allowed to come, and I’ll stop the test right here and now, Submissive. Put your head back down and stay there!”

Dean cried out piteously at the threat. He had no doubt that the Alpha meant every word. He corrected his head position, back to a neutral neck with his head just enough to one side to be able to breathe—and cry or scream…moan, pant…whatever Castiel wanted—right back where the Alpha had put him to start with. Castiel spanked him hard several more times, pulling his cock clear and aiming his hand lower on the meat of Dean’s ass where he couldn’t reach while actively fucking him.

“Tell me whose slut you are, Submissive.”

Dean had always been a sucker for dirty talk. The degradation was a new thrill for him, but he went with it. Castiel wanted a slut? Then Dean was a slut.

Cas’ slut.

“I’m yours, Sir! All yours. Your slut! Please, fuck me!”

Cas’ hand rained down seven or eight more times. Dean’s cock was so hard, it throbbed. It would be dripping but for the constant pressure from behind which kept it rubbing the bedding, stealing his pre-come. They were going to have one hell of a wet spot to try to avoid later. He howled out again in pain and lust. “Sir, PLEASE!”

Castiel lined back up and drove in. He doubled his previous pace, abandoning the spanking, abandoning the goading words. He went raw and bestial. His eyes submerged into Alpha red, and Dean’s, hidden behind his clenched eyelids, matched as his own alpha caught up to the wolf, and added its two cents. Dean’s alpha jumped on board and came along for the ride.

It wasn’t about to miss this.

Dean couldn’t see. His eyes were squeezed shut as his body took the pounding of his life, but he could sense the massive beast that had taken the reins above him. It was untamed like nothing Dean had seen or heard of before. He lived only in this moment, and the moment was instinct. If he could’ve seen it, he would have seen a great canine beast, with the body of a quadruped mongrel dog, not a bipedal man, working him over. There was nothing left in that moment of anything resembling a human in either of them. Dean, a lean gray, strong, supple, beautifully submissive wolf, relinquishing control utterly to the powerfully massive and Dominant Mastiff above him.

There was nothing domesticated or domesticable about Castiel. He was eternity. He was every canid who had ever lived, every individual Caniforme’s power added up ad infinitum. He pistoned into Dean until Dean’s alpha hole grew raw and painful, the synthetic slick insufficient to its task.

Dean needed nothing but this. If he died in this coupling, he would die happy. If his asshole took the next three years to recover, it would have been worth it. He barely processed the heat building low in his gut until he spilled onto the bed with a deep guttural groan.

Castiel snarled at him and quickened impossibly again, his knot beginning to tear its way in and out of the Submissive’s unaccustomed body. He bit Dean again, hard on the shoulder, breaking the skin. Had they not both been alpha, it would have struck a Mating-bond. As it was, Dean felt the Claim slam into place, and he screamed again, his voice giving out at the last.

Castiel’s knot locked into place, filling his Submissive with his come, pumping raw emotion up Dean’s ass and into his body, warm and filling. Tears fell unheeded from Dean’s eyes, and he clung to Castiel’s arms which had snaked around him, holding him close. His ass throbbed as it tried to accommodate the knot.

Soon enough, and much too soon, they stilled together. Cas panted into Dean’s ear. He eased them to their sides so he could rest without crushing his new Claim.

Inside the control room, no one moved.

Dear god in heaven and the Universe in its infinite wisdom—what the fuck was that?

NOW:

Michael was still pale and shaking when Castiel returned him to Dean—more pale than usual. Dean was pacing in agitation over the narrow space by the door. He took one look and pressed his lips together in silent judgement as he supported Michael to the sofa.

“You provoked him, didn’t you?”

“Dean, he…why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did tell you. I told you he always wins because he’s Alpha. I told you not to go poking at him. I told you it wasn’t pretty.” Dean noted the Facility bathrobe and the absence of Michael’s clothes. He questioned Cas with his eyes.

“His clothing was sent to the laundry.”

“Ah, right. Blood, piss, or shit?” Dean asked his mate, attempting to keep calm for Michael’s sake. “Are you hurt?”

“Hurt? He almost killed me.”

Gabriel spoke up without looking away from the television, “Bullshit. If he had any intention of killing you, you’d be dead.” He picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

Castiel grunted and snatched the remote from his brother and turned it off. “Gabriel, please. An Omega in our Pack is traumatized. The least you could do is try to be supportive.”

“Me? You’re the one who traumatized him. You be supportive.”

“Shut up, both of you!” shouted Dean. “Michael, baby, are you hurt? Open the damn bond! Answer me! Did he hurt you?”

“No, Dean. I’m just embarrassed.” Michael peeked sheepishly at Cas over Dean’s shoulder as he melted into his mate.

“Good. I can live with that. We’ve all been there. Dude, I tried to warn you.” He lay down on the sofa and pulled Michael with him, wrapping a leg around him and embracing him with as much of his body as he could. “How’d the talk go? Do you at least still get to sleep in the big house?”

“Very funny.” Michael rolled his eyes a little. Dean reasoned that if Michael could pull off that deadpan voice, he would be fine. “I’ll tell you later. Or you can get it from Alpha. It’s pretty much all settled. It’s good, I think. I just need some time to be still and quiet. Will you stay with me for a while?”

Dean purred. “You bet. Relax, babe. We’re watching some ridiculous celebrity news-rag of Gabe’s. I don’t know why he watches this shit, but it’ll take your mind off everything. Maybe. Shh. You’re okay, I swear.”

Gabriel snicked the remote back from his brother and turned the TV back on. Castiel sighed and placed a hand under Michael’s chin, lifting his gaze to meet the Alpha’s. “Will you be all right?”

“Yes, Sir. I just need a few minutes if that’s okay.”

Gabriel increased the volume again, and Cas leaned over to smack him upside his head with no real heat.

Cas told them, “Of course. I’m going back to my office. Dean, I’ll come fetch you for the meeting at ten ‘till. You’re always welcome to attend these, even while you’re on leave, but you don’t have to. I just thought that since you’re here, and this one is particularly relevant, you would probably want to be there.”

“I do. Thanks, Cas.” Dean pulled Michael in tighter and shoved at Gabe’s hip with his foot until he moved onto the floor near the end of the couch. He maneuvered Michael’s face so that he could scent Dean’s throat without straining. Michael ignored the television, burrowing deep into his mate, breathing deeply.

Then the TV program broke through their interplay. “And another spoke on the rumor mill just now. We’ve got an exclusive to show you; this picture just surfaced of Lupin hottie, Dean Winchester, sporting some new bling!”

“What the…?” Dean sat up a little and nearly dislodged Michael. He looked quickly behind him to check for Cas but found he’d already disappeared behind his office door. Gabe shifted from where he was slouched on the floor against the sofa and increased the volume again. April emerged from the bedroom, drying her hands on a small towel. Michael craned his head around just enough to see, his chest going flat to Dean’s belly.

The TV showed an enlarged image of Dean and Michael, hand-in-hand in the front foyer of The Facility. Dean had pulled their joined hands up toward his chest to guide Michael forward, and his left ring finger was clearly visible with Castiel’s ring on it.

“E! News has just obtained this image, and we haven’t been able to reach the Lupin activist for comment, but speculation says that canine heartthrob, Dean Winchester, is off the market for good. Sorry, fellas! His companion in the photo, still unnamed unfortunately, is presumed to be Winchester’s new mate. If so, then well done, alpha Winchester. You won yourself quite the looker.” The amateur video from their ill-timed introduction ran behind the host. “Video surfaced a few days ago that shows what appears to be a mating-response gone awry in a Texas road stop involving the tempestuous couple, and now Dean’s got a ring on his finger and a bite-scar on his neck.”

The still image replaced the video and zoomed in to where the inflamed wound high on Dean’s shoulder was visible. “Does this mean that the couple, in addition to tying the “knot” doggie-style are also engaged to be married? Does their relationship have deeper roots than just this past week, or do they just move things along that fast in the Wolf Pack? We’re going to find out and bring you those answers. Up next, Gwyneth Paltrow, looking old.”

The show cut to commercial, and Dean scrabbled in his pocket for his phone. No texts, no missed calls.

Tried to reach me, my ass, he thought.

“Dude. You’re so fucked. They think it’s Michael’s ring.” Gabe laughed at him.

“Yeah, I get that,” said Dean, shifting Michael and sitting up. Michael had gone boneless and let Dean move him wherever he wanted. He sighed, heavy and put-upon. Dean called Billie on his cell, keeping Michael close. “Gabe, turn that shit off, would ya?”

“Hey, Billie. Did you happen to catch E! News just now? … No, I know you’re working, but don’t you monitor that crap?” He paused. “Okay, well, apparently the cat’s only half out of the bag. They spotted my ring and the wound on my shoulder. Looks like a picture from this morning. Somebody moves fast with this shit. They know it’s an engagement ring, but they think I’m engaged to Michael. What should we do?”

Billie’s voice didn’t carry through the line, but Dean responded, “I thought that’s what the New York trip was all about. If the story breaks before that, do I still have to go to New York?” Another pause. “Okay, okay, jeez! I’ll go. Whatever you say. Did anyone call you to ask about the picture? … No, me neither. All right.”

Dean paused to listen to her and glanced down at Michael who looked back. “Okay. I’ll ask him. Just let me know what else you need from us, okay? And thanks, Billie. You’re the best.”

He ended the call but didn’t move or speak. He was thinking. One thumb ran in an arc across Michael’s back until Michael shifted himself up to sitting next to his mate, still letting Dean’s legs wrap mostly around him.

“Tell me about New York, Dean.” Michael’s voice was flat and a wee bit accusatory.

“Oh yeah, baby, I’m sorry. I only found out about it yesterday, and I forgot to tell you with all the other shit we had to talk about. We’re going up in a couple of weeks to attend some fancy Broadway premiere for a composer friend of Cas’.”

“I have to go, too?”

“Yep. All four of us. We’ll get you fitted for a tux. I bet you clean up something fierce. I can’t wait to see you in a tuxedo.” Dean leaned over and kissed him soundly.

“And this premiere? This is where you and Castiel are going to announce your engagement? Subtle, Dean.”

“Hey, don’t blame me. It’s all Billie’s idea. She runs PR and does all kinds of celebrity management crap for us. She’s sort of our agent on the side. Don’t worry, Michael. She’ll take care of everything. She’s really good. We just have to go where she tells us, wear what she tells us, and smile and nod when she tells us to. It’s painless.”

Dean knew it wasn’t going to be that simple.

Michael wasn’t convinced. Dean could feel dread coming from his mate, and his heart went out to him. He hadn’t asked to be Mated to a celebrity, and now he was being pulled into the media circus and would have to endure not only having the world mistakenly believe for a while that he was Dean’s intended fiancé, but then would also have to stand by and watch as Dean and Alpha corrected that misperception. It was going to be a bitter, bitter ride for Michael, and Dean wasn’t going to be able to stop it.

Dean redirected a bit, to ease him into it. “I need you to help me put together a simple bio that we can release in a press statement announcing that we’ve Mated. It’s pretty straightforward. April’s already been announced, and that went off without a hitch. You don’t have to do any interviews unless you want to.”

Michael leaned into Dean again and let his body fall heavily against his alpha’s strong presence. His forehead thumped onto Dean’s chest. He hated the words he was hearing from his mate, but he needed Dean’s scent and strength.

April approached slowly from behind the sofa and gingerly lay a comforting hand to the back of Michael’s head. She snatched it back when he stiffened and grunted without turning his head. She looked concerned, but not offended. Dean caught her eye and sent her a grateful look, but shook his head softly, so she retreated to the kitchen to give them space.

“What’s eating him?” asked Gabe.

“Don’t be a dick, Gabe. Just. Give us a little space, please.” Dean requested.

“Can’t. Grounded.”

“Gabriel.”

“Fine.” Gabe hauled himself to his feet and joined April at the table.

Dean whispered to his mate. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I’ll protect you from it as much as I can, but there’s not going to be much I can do. The media…they have a life of their own.” Michael eased himself to the side so his back was to the sofa cushions and his face lay flat against Dean’s chest. He stretched his legs back out, lying on one hip between Dean’s legs. His face showed no emotion, but Dean could feel the roiling inside him. Michael didn’t seem inclined to speak, so Dean continued, keeping him well wrapped in the embrace of all the alpha’s limbs.

“We play them for our own ends, you see, Cas, Sam, and I. We decided years ago to see if we could really help the cause by using the media as an outlet, so we get up in front of the cameras and play our roles. We’ve always just let them make us into whatever they wanted as long as it was working to bring a spotlight to how screwed wolves were in mainstream America. It worked better than we dreamed, so we kept at it. Sam and me, we play the rockstar sex gods. Cas is the hot professor. Everybody has a role to play, and it never hurt anyone until now.

“Baby, we never meant for you or April to get caught up in any of the frenzy bullshit, but I don’t think we can stop it now. I know you never asked for this. Michael, I don’t know what to say to make you feel better. You don’t have to do anything you can’t or be anybody you’re not. You don’t have to be in the spotlight much, but they’re going to want to meet you. There will be cameras at the Broadway premiere.”

“Are they going to ask me questions?”

“If you don’t want to talk to the media, Cas and I will protect you. You don’t have to talk to them at all. Do you think you can just walk with me? Just walk the red carpet and stand beside me?”

Michael rubbed his nose over Dean’s chest as if scratching an itch. He’d grown quieter and more contemplative. Dean wondered where his thoughts had taken him. His emotions were a confusing mix. Finally, he spoke quietly. “I used to fantasize about you. Did you know that?” Dean shook his head. It was too tight a position for them to meet each other’s eyes, but Dean knew Michael could see his movement peripherally.

“I used to watch the convention videos and jerk off to the really sexy parts, imagining it was me you had up there with you. I wanted you so bad. I wanted to be inside your circle, be a part of the crazy spotlight you walk around in.” Michael shifted as if uncomfortable but ended up just snuggling in tighter. “Actually being with you is better than I ever imagined…but also worse. It’s not what I thought it would be. You, you’re great. I don’t mean anything like…that. But to get to have you for myself, but then have to share you. It’s not what I wanted. Not like that. This feels like having to share you with the entire world, Dean. It was hard enough to swallow when it was only him. Now…”

Michael sat up again and looked to the kitchen where two Omegas were studiously not looking toward him, and he scowled. He stood, slowly extricating himself from his mate, and held his hand out to help Dean up. “Where can we talk?”

Dean led him to the bedroom and closed the door. “I don’t have very long before the staff meeting, and we don’t have to finish this right now.” Dean sat on the open armchair, leaving Michael to decide how much space he needed. “But you’re important to me, and I want to hear everything you have to say.”

Michael nodded and sank to the ground between Dean’s knees. “You taught me something yesterday morning, Dean, right when we were waking up. I think I understand now, what you’ve been saying all along, and it’s both hopeful and heartbreaking.”

Dean stroked his mate’s hair and listened. He just listened.

“You were hard as a rock when you woke up, hard from hearing your boyfriend spank his mate, and when I asked you about it, you told me the truth—straight out. You said that to your own mate—that another wolf was turning you on, like, right then and there. I couldn’t believe you admitted that to me and that you didn’t hide it at all or try to make it look like it was because of me. People don’t do that, alpha. It hurt so bad. I had to get away from you for a minute and breathe through it. I thought I was going to die. How could you do that to me? I thought I had lost you. I thought you had chosen him, and I was hurt and pissed.”

Michael paused. He didn’t want Dean to misunderstand, so he thought carefully how to explain.

“But I didn’t die, and when I came back to you, you were still mine—still mine and still his, and still turned on. I’m hurt, Dean, and I’m angry that being with you isn’t ever going to mean I get to be your only one. It’s not what I wanted. It’s not what anyone wants, but what I learned from you when you did that, when you said that…I learned…well, I guess, that you have only ever been honest with me. I couldn’t understand why you didn’t try to hide that it was Alpha your cock was responding to and not me, when I was right there. I felt like your telling me like you did would rip us apart, but it didn’t.”

Dean continued to stroke Michael’s hair. His own emotions stirred, and his face twitched in a scowling grimace of sorrow at his mate’s words, but he let Michael speak.

“I told myself you must not really care much about me if you could hurt me like that so soon after you bit me. I was awake most of last night watching you sleep and thinking. But I think I’ve figured it out now. I think it took being with you and what happened with Alpha just now, but I think I’ve figured it out. I didn’t think I was safe to have these scary feelings, Dean, feelings like fear and anger. I thought you and Alpha were trying to make me pretend they weren’t there or trying to make them go away, so I was pushing back. I thought that if I kept feeling like that, it would tear you away from me. Dean, I can’t live without you. Please, god, don’t ever leave me. I’ll do anything, live anywhere. I’ll even share you. It’s not what I want, and I may always be angry about it, but I can do it.

“What I’m trying to say is, when you showed me how honest and straight you can be with what you’re feeling, when you had to know it would hurt me, it taught me that maybe I can be the same way. I haven’t ever been honest about my feelings with anyone before. I always felt like I had to hide them because they destroy things. I’m ashamed of how I feel. I always have been. If I tell you that I’m angry and hurt that you already chose someone over me before you even met me, will that destroy us Dean? Is it okay if I tell you that—if I tell you the truth, knowing it’s going to hurt you? I know you know it, but what if I say I may always feel like that, but I’m willing to try to live with it? Do I need to pretend I can get over it? Do I have to pretend, Dean? I’m so tired of pretending.”

Dean’s tears overflowed silently. “It’s okay, sweet Omega. My sweet Omega.” Dean kissed Michael’s hair and wrapped his arms around him. “You couldn’t destroy us if you tried. I’m so proud of you. And I’m so, so sorry. Please, tell me what you’re really feeling. Always.” He chuckled through his sorrow. “You can’t hide it from me anyway, you know. I’ve got an inside track. We’re bonded.” Dean tickled Michael gently through the bond.

Dean smiled wetly, cradling his face. “Michael, I’ve only ever told you the truth, even when I knew it was a punch to your gut. We have to do the hard work up front if we want anything to be real between us. When I said you Mated nothing more or less than exactly who I am, I meant it. I’m not going to try to rub your nose in my feelings for him, but I’m not going to hide them either, especially if you ask me a direct question.

“You can trust me, man. I can’t promise I won’t ever hurt you, but I promise you I’ll never hide what I’m feeling. I don’t ever want you to have to wonder if I’m telling you everything. I love you so much, and I can’t live without you, either. You don’t have to fight for me, man. I’m yours. Forever. And you don’t have to pretend you’re not mad about having to share with him. I know you are, and it’s not going to tear us apart. Those are scary feelings, but we can handle them. I promise. Even if they never go away, we can deal with them.”

“Dean, I’m so fucked up. You have no idea. I’m scared, and I’m angry, and I feel like I’ve been in freefall most of my life. I…I need help.”

“Shh, sweet boy. I know. We’re going to help you. You couldn’t have landed in a better place. Cas and Sam and I, we’re going to help you. I’m going to catch you before you hit the ground. C’mere, baby. Shhh.” Dean helped Michael slide into his lap, and he rocked his mate like a pup. Michael’s crying was soft and silent.

Dean could feel Michael begin shifting on the inside to realign, and it was a painful shift. This was what doing the hard work up front was going to look like for Michael.

Dean quickly suppressed the thought that he still didn’t know what it would look like for him. Inside, where even Michael couldn’t see, Dean was reeling.

Castiel poked his head in the door and raised his eyebrows when he saw Dean rocking a weeping Michael. “You ready, Dean? Do you still want to go, or do you need to stay here?”

Dean looked down at his mate. “Will you be okay if I leave you for a while? I’ll stay if you want. It’s up to you.”

Michael sniffled and wiped at his eyes. “I’m all right. I’ll meet you back here when you’re done?”

“Sure. I’ll come get you. I’ve got my phone if you change your mind. Just send me a text, okay?”

They left Michael in Castiel’s bedroom. He wanted a few minutes alone to pull himself back together, and Dean saw determination and pride slip back into place in his emotions. He felt comfortable leaving him in the state of mind he’d reached. It felt like a breakthrough, and Dean thought a little space and some processing time would do them both good. It didn’t stop him from wishing he had enough time to finish comforting his Omega thoroughly. A good knotting would’ve helped show Michael how solid his position as Dean’s mate was, but Dean really needed to attend this meeting, and he could finish up with Michael tonight.

Oh, wait. Fuck. Chastity.

Maybe Michael would accept a blowjob.

“Was that about me?” Cas asked Dean as they walked.

“Indirectly,” said Dean cryptically. “It wasn’t about what you did to him during your negotiations over me though.” Dean stopped walking and turned to his fiancé. “Was that really necessary, Cas? Tell me you didn’t have a choice, man. You scared the shit out of him. Was it worth it?”

“I didn’t have a choice, Dean. He needed to see. I wasn’t going to let him get hurt, but he was never going to accept his place in the Pack without knowing who I am. I swear I didn’t use it just to intimidate him. I swear to you, love.”

Dean sighed and continued down the hall. “Yeah, I know. I believe you. I just wish there was another way.”

“There’s not.” Cas caught up with him and laced their fingers together as they walked.

Dean nodded. “When do I get to find out what you agreed to about me?”

“I’ll let Michael give it to you. You’re still his for the month, so if you need me, you know where I am, but you should talk to your mate.” Cas pushed the conference room door open, leveled Dean with a pointed look, and ushered him in.

Dean entered the room without really paying any attention to it. He spoke to Cas with his eyes on the table before him. “Oh, by the way, someone spotted my ring and sold a picture to the media. They think I’m engaged to Michael. Billie’s going to leak some redirect, and we need to issue a press statement about our Mating. She still wants to hold off an official reveal until New York if we can.” Dean shrugged at Cas’ surprise. “She’s apparently a drama queen at heart. Who knew?”

“Is that what upset Michael? This can’t be fun for him.”

“Well, that’s what started it.” Dean didn’t say any more. His mate’s deepest insecurities were private unless they touched on pack life. Cas would hear what he needed to know, but he didn’t need to know everything right now.

Sam stood up from the chair he’d been sitting in, drawing his brother’s eye. He looked stiff and uncomfortable.

“Alpha,” he said.

“Yes. Sam. Please take your position. That corner will do.” Castiel pointed to the corner to the left of the projector screen. Dean watched in interest as Sam placed himself facing the corner, pushed his trousers and underwear to his knees, spread his feet wide enough to hold his clothes in place, and then laced his fingers behind his head. One elbow rested on each wall from the corner. His shirttail covered a good deal of the top of his ass, but it was still a humiliating position to be in. It was a common pose for unruly pups in Lupin schools, and Dean knew Sam’s Dominant wolf would cringe at the evocative reminder.

“That about what happened with me yesterday?” Dean asked Castiel.

“Yes.”

Sam’s backside was a little pink right at the roundest part of each cheek. His ears had gone bright red too. “Did you spank him?”

“No. I suspect that was from Benny.”

Dean looked back to Sam. He sighed and nodded, accepting. It was a fitting punishment for the beta, and both the alpha and teacher in Dean knew it. The big brother in him didn’t like seeing his baby brother in trouble, but Dean wouldn’t be doing Sam any favors by trying to protect him from paying for his own mistakes, so he took his usual seat, and tried to ignore his brother’s embarrassment.

Benny entered in a flurry of movement. He carried the orange folder that was normally in Sam’s possession. He took in the beta in the corner, set his burdens on the table where he would sit, and walked over to Sam. Benny’s face was set firm, grim. Evidently, he took Sam’s mistake very seriously. Benny pulled the tail of Sam’s shirt up and arranged it with folds and rolls to sit just above his hips so that his entire backside was fully displayed. He gave Sam two more stark swats to his ass and then took his own seat as his handprints pinkened Sam’s flesh further and the back of Sam’s neck darkened in mortification.

The table filled quickly. Punctuality was a control thing with Castiel, and his staff was never late without reason. Everyone looked at Sam as they entered, but no one asked. If his crime was something they were meant to know about, they would be told.

Just at two o’clock, Castiel opened the meeting. They discussed standard Facility business. Billie mentioned her plan to work an announcement of Dean’s Mating with Michael into that of Dean’s engagement to Cas. This was an area where private and business dealings crossed over. The nature of their relationship with the media made Dean and Cas’ engagement direct Facility business. The Board had long ago approved allocation of company resources to manage their publicity.

They worked their way through Sales and Marketing, Resource Management, Human Resources, and Quality Control. Bobby announced that he’d decided to send Pam, Rufus, and Cole to Dallas to untangle Victor’s mess. Since Castiel’s visit, Victor had done an admirable one-eighty. Several more members of the training staff had been fired, and an old and trusted colleague, Caleb, took Alistair’s place as Director of Training. There was much left to do though. The whole culture down there needed to be eviscerated and rebuilt.

“I never agreed on Cole,” Benny protested. “He’s not suitable. If nothing else, he’s too young and inexperienced.” Sam’s shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly. This was not an argument he could afford to sit out on. Dean saw the side of his jaw flex in frustration. “I know Sam doesn’t want the job, but I still say he’s the only appropriate person. It’s not forever. His new Pack will still be there when he gets back.” Sam’s head dropped when he heard his boss’ words.

Cas saw that too. “Get your head off the wall, beta,” Cas reminded him. Sam straightened. Castiel turned to Benny. “I understand your misgivings about Cole. We’ve discussed his attitude and his approach, but I agree with Bobby on this. We can keep a close eye on his progress down there. I’m not going to take my eye off the ball again, but we need to give the boy a chance.

“I’ve put a lot of thought into why this fiasco happened in the first place, and I think it’s because we hold too much of the power and the learning opportunities to just the wolves in this room. If we don’t start spreading it around and allowing more of the younger staff into the inner workings, we’re not giving our colleagues at our satellite facilities enough of a chance to learn what they need to know. None of us will be here forever, and we’ve been hoarding it mostly to ourselves.”

He turned to Pamela. “Pam, I’m putting you in charge. Rufus will be second, and you’re both to watch over and guide Cole when he needs you to. I trust you both. I expect regular reports on the progress you’re making. Let us know what resources you need. We’ll find the funds if we have to hold a bake sale to pay for what you need. Fixing Dallas is our highest priority.”

“Yes, Alpha,” she answered.

Cas spoke solemnly, “You are granted hiring and firing authority for every position except Victor’s Directorship. I’ll let him know that when you act, it’s with the authority of my voice. But, Pam, no one loses their job without the three of you reaching consensus. Even Cole has to agree before you axe anyone. Understand?”

“Yes, Alpha. I understand.”

“Rufus?”

“Yes, Sir. We’re gonna clean that shit up for you. You can count on us.”

“Thank you, Rufus. Next item on the agenda, Keller test schedules for the next eight weeks. Ellen?”

Ellen picked up the remote to the overhead projector that was mounted to the ceiling. Dean took in his brother’s posture as the lights dimmed and found him less tense—uncomfortable still, no doubt, but not quite as uptight. Clearly, Sam was relieved that he didn’t have to go to Dallas.

“Here’s the Keller schedule for the next eight weeks. We’ve got eighteen wolves to test, and we’ve spread them out evenly. A few of our staff are going to be taxed heavily to cover the ranges needed completely. Also, since our widest alpha-Sub is still on leave, it’s a little harder to get full coverage where we suspect outlying Tertiary designations. But we’ll manage.”

Dean scanned the list for Michael’s name. He was near the end, scheduled for six weeks from now. Tracking across to the matrices next to his name where Ellen had assigned the optimal tester’s designations, he frowned. That couldn’t be right. Ellen had assigned Michael a full standard spread. His Lead-off was to be an Omega-Sub male, and the box was grayed-in to show the assignment had been made, communicated, and accepted by the tester in question. The Bridge position was also gray and displayed β-N(F). Beta-Neutral? What!? Who?!? The Anchor position, likewise grayed, was A-D(M), for male alpha-Dom. If Dean guessed right, it would be an Alpha, not just an alpha. Ellen’s voice continued as she worked her way through the highlights of the schedule, where there might be scheduling conflicts and where testers might struggle at the quick turnaround requested of them, but Dean wasn’t listening.

He knew he couldn’t Anchor. As a Submissive, Dean never anchored, but he should be the Bridge. He’d assumed that he would Bridge for his mate. This was utter bullshit.

“Pardon me, Ellen, but this is bullshit,” Dean exclaimed, interrupting her.

“Winchester.” Castiel’s voice brooked no argument, but Dean barreled past him.

“No, Alpha. I’m Michael’s mate. I’m his Bridge. That’s all there is to it. I can’t do the whole test by myself, I get that. I know there’s gotta be two others, but you’re not cutting me out of his test completely.” He flung a hand toward the screen dramatically. He pointed at Cas. “You anchored for your own mate. You’re putting me in with mine. There’s no way I’m agreeing to this.” Dean ignored the internal ping from his rational mind that thumped him in the back of the head, trying to remind him of something he knew but stubbornly insisted upon not acknowledging.

“You are,” Castiel told him sternly. “The test will proceed as scheduled and assigned. We worked very hard on getting the right wolves involved, and it’s not going to change. Please apologize to Ellen for your rude interruption, and then kindly shut up so she can finish her report.” Castiel had his boss face on, but Dean wasn’t cowed by it at all.

“Fuck that. I’m not signing off on this. Who the fuck do you have Bridging? Beta-Neutral? Female? Why would you try to put anyone in that spot but me?” Dean’s head swung back and forth, trying to determine who was most responsible, Ellen or Cas.

Ellen defended her decision without rising to his anger. “Dean, you’re compromised. You’ve already got a bond with him. By the time he does the test, you will have two of them, one going both ways. We can’t use your data for the test. It has to be a clean fuck without any prior claims getting in the way. Honey, you know this. No one’s trying to usurp your position with your mate. We already have the readings from your Mating, and those will be factored in as well. In a sense, you’ve already Bridged for his test. I just can’t use you here. Not for this.”

“That’s ridiculous. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. No way!” He shifted his rolling chair away from the table so he could emote with his whole body.

“Dean, stand down,” Castiel raised his voice over Dean’s continued protests. “We’ll continue this discussion at home if you need me to explain it further, but Ellen’s decision has been validated by Benny, Bobby, and me. It stands. You will apologize, drop the matter, and let us resume the meeting, or you will be excused from these proceedings and asked to wait for me in my office.”

Dean worked his jaw. Castiel saw the proud, determined brat look out from deep in his fiancé’s eyes.

Stubborn. So stubborn.

Don’t do it, Dean, thought Cas.

“Ellen, I’m sorry, I respect you and your work,” said Dean with his eyes still boring into Castiel’s. “But this is bullshit. No. No way. Fuck that. I’m the Bridge, or he doesn’t fucking take the test!”

Castiel sucked in a breath through his nose to calm himself, but his grinding teeth only served to counteract that effort. “Dean, you’re dismissed. Please wait in my office. Do not go anywhere else. Do not speak with anyone. I will see you in a few minutes.”

Dean waited long enough to add insubordination to his list of misbehaviors, then he shoved his chair back violently and stood. Ellen wouldn’t meet his eyes. Later, after his anger abated, he would regret the words he’d thrown at her, but right now he was too pissed to care. He threw the door open, and it slammed heavily into the doorstop. Dean stormed his way back down the hallway, mumbling under his breath the whole way. He pulled his phone out and texted his mate: “Bratted bad. Really fucking pissed. Bout to get my ass beat. Tell U about it later. Hope yur better.”

Dean’s phone pinged as he pushed Castiel’s office door open and threw himself into Cas’ desk chair: “WTF? Already? Jesus Dean!”

“Don’t be mad at me baby. Please?” Dean texted back, taking on faith that he had grounds to hold Castiel to a literal meaning of the word speak. He wasn’t speaking to Michael. He was texting.

He was still pissed, but dread was starting to leak into his nerves. He wanted to tell Michael where he was, but he knew better. This close, his mate might be able to tell he was just next door, but Dean didn’t invite him in. Cas had sent him to his room to await punishment. That was meant to be a time of isolation and anticipation. Dean hated this part almost more than the stinging blows he was about to receive.

“Not mad. I don’t even know what happened. You gonna tell me, right?” Michael replied.

“I will tell you. Promise.”

“I just hope U don’t get any more bruises. Your last ones were almost gone.”

“I know Sir—Sorry.”

“We’ll talk about it later. R U OK?”

“Yes”

“K. C U soon.”

Dean waited for what seemed like forever. He spun in the chair, fidgeted with Cas’ desk supplies, rifled through the desk drawers. He could tell he was in the middle of a bratty episode, but he didn’t have the means to break himself back out. He’d learned to just go with it. Someone would come soon to help him. When the door finally opened, Cas ushered Sam in with him.

“Stand up, Dean,” Alpha instructed, and Dean popped to his feet, frowning. “Look at me.” Castiel held Dean by his upper arms and waited until the frown passed into a pout and then a stubborn scowl. Finally, Dean met the Alpha’s eye. He struggled to hold it, but he had years of training under his belt to help him along. “Do you understand why you’re in trouble?”

“No.”

“Dean.” Cas’ voice was a warning. Dean knew why, but he doubled down.

“No! I don’t understand. I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“You were rude and irrational. You continued to protest when you were instructed to drop the matter. I don’t care what your reasons are. You don’t get to make this call. I’m Pack Alpha, and it’s my decision when and how Michael’s test proceeds, not yours. You are wrong about this, and I’ll explain in full later, but right now, you’re going to be paddled for your terrible behavior during the meeting. Afterward, you will apologize in person to Dr. Harvelle, and you will write an apology and send it to everyone in attendance who had to witness your temper tantrum.” Cas turned to where Sam stood waiting by the door. “Sam?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

Fucking traitor went from standing bare-assed in the corner to wielding a paddle for the Alpha too quickly for Dean’s liking. Where was his loyalty to his brother?

“Don’t you fucking touch me with that thing, Sam!”

Sam advanced toward him. “That’s not your decision to make, Dean. You threw a temper tantrum, and you ignored Alpha’s warnings to stop.” Cas backed off and let the EO take over. Dean’s behavior was an HR issue, and it was appropriate to put him under an EO’s hand for the consequences. Cas let Sam do his job. It wasn’t the first time. It wouldn’t be the last.

“I want you to look inside for your wolf right now, Dean.” Sam stepped even closer, and the back of Dean’s thighs struck the desk as he backed up too. “Do you see him around anywhere?” It was a common exercise to get the spankee to acknowledge their state of mind before the paddling began, but it always took Dean by surprise.

“What?”

“Your wolf, Dean. Can you see him?” Sam took gentle hold of Dean’s upper arm and guided him to face the desk.

“No. He’s not…anywhere.” Dean’s child-like eyes flitted around the physical space of the office as if looking for an actual wolf. A simple disagreement had spun him off into a freefall that he couldn’t control, and the depth, the velocity, the severity of the descent, concerned Castiel deeply. He watched Dean’s eyes. Dean had no access to his rational brain right now. Sam reached around his brother’s waist and unfastened his belt and his blue jeans. Unzipping him, Sam pushed his clothes to the floor and leaned him over the desk with a palm to his back while he spoke. Dean didn’t resist. He was lost inside his Sub.

“That’s because you’re looking through his eyes right now, Submissive. You are the wolf. Your temper tantrum got you stuck inside your wolf, and you need help getting back out again. I’m going to spank you to punish you for acting out, and I’m going to keep going until you are ready to stop throwing fits and join the grownups like the alpha that you are. Are you ready?”

It was only a little disingenuous. Not all Subs really regressed to a childish state when they entered their wolves, and there was nothing inherently non-grownup about being Submissive. But Dean was a little boy when he went under for behavior reasons. Sam and Cas both knew him well. Michael would need to be counseled. Dean needed to be treated like a pup to run his wolf full circle and get him back out again. He needed his regression acknowledged by his Tops and by himself.

“NO!” Dean put his palms flat on the desk and tried to push up. Sam’s hand kept him in place.

“Stay where I put you, Dean!” he growled at his brother. Dean whined and collapsed, crossing his arms and burying his face in his hands. Sam shot a worried look at Castiel. “Cas, should we bring Michael in? Should he see this?”

“I’ll get him.” Cas slipped into his suite and emerged a moment later with Michael. “He’s pretty deep in his wolf, and Sam’s going to punish him for the tantrum and get him back out of his Sub. He can’t do it by himself once he goes into this state,” Castiel explained to Michael. “I know you don’t want anyone else to spank him, but please let us do this for him.” Michael bit his lip and nodded, looking at Dean instead of Castiel. He stayed by the door.

“Michael!” Dean called to him, but Sam blocked his rise again.

“Your mate’s not here to rescue you, little pup,” Sam told him. “He’s just going to witness. Your bad behavior reflects on him too, and I’m sure he’ll want to speak to you about that later.”

“Don’t bruise him, Sam.”

Michael’s instruction to Sam was all the confirmation Dean needed that he wasn’t about to be whisked away and coddled by his mate. He whimpered and tucked his face back into his arms. Michael breathed out a worried sigh, but he steeled himself visibly. Seeing Dean’s body language, he bit his lip and admitted starkly to himself that he was out of his league. This wasn’t scene-play. This appeared to be a far deeper dive into Dean’s emotional health than Michael was ready to own just yet.

“I hear you, Michael. I can do that.”

Sam produced his paddle, met first Michael’s eye, and then Castiel’s for final permission then started swinging.

Dean was a hard case. He could take a great deal of pain, and he was pretty deep inside his wolf. Sam set his jaw. Keeping in mind how much force he could use to turn Dean’s ass bright red without adding any bruises, he let his wolf funnel all of the frustration from his own humiliating punishment at the meeting into working his brother over. He landed swat after swat. Dean went up onto his tiptoes, and his cheeks clenched just before each blow landed. His hands reached across the desk and clutched the far side, holding himself steady. His forehead pressed into the wooden surface of the desk.

Cas watched Michael surreptitiously. The young Omega’s eyes grew hooded and dark, and the crotch of his jeans bulged. He was breathing heavily through his nose. The Keller test in a few weeks would clarify just what about the situation Michael was responding so strongly to. It could be seeing an alpha in a vulnerable position. It could be a sadistic lean. It could be having Sam and Cas sharing the experience with him. Getting those readings was going to be vital in learning how to satisfy the Dominant wolf inside Michael, allowing his Omega a safe passage to the front where he belonged.

Dean would need to be kept at arm’s length on the day of Michael’s test. Cas had known Dean wouldn’t like it, but he’d been shocked at his vehemence. Nothing about their choices for assignments in Michael’s test should have surprised him. Mates never played a role in the test. Cas had only been granted that honor with April because he wasn’t yet connected to his Omega.

Dean’s upset was concerning.

Dean had begun to cry and beg. He apologized. He swore. He held his position like the veteran that he was, but he was hurting. Sam covered his ass and thighs, keeping his paddle at a stinging force with very little follow through, turning his skin bright red, and hurting like a burn, but not going deep enough to bruise him. Michael’s mouth went slack, and his eyes glazed over. Cas smelled slick and nodded to himself discreetly.

“I’m sorry! OW! I’m sorry, please! SAM! Please! Ow, fuck!”

Sam finished off with a whirl of ten fast pops that sucked Dean’s breath away, then he pocketed the paddle and ran his hand lightly over his brother’s abused skin. “Okay, Dean. I know you’re sorry. Are you ready to come back to us now? You’re okay. Take a minute. I’m right here.”

Sam continued to stroke Dean until he was sure his brother was on his way back. Dean stayed folded over the desk, letting his sobs abate slowly. Sam punched the punishment code into his phone and handed it to Cas to sign with his finger. They spoke softly, and Michael went toward Dean, his hand already down the back of his pants.

“Michael…” Cas warned, glancing up and guessing correctly that Michael was gathering slick to use in fucking his mate. “You put him in chastity. You need to be consistent and wait until that punishment is over. And until we all discuss it, you can’t fuck him in front of anyone, not even us.”

“We talked about an exception, Alpha.” Michael spoke from his trance, continuing toward his mate. Dean stayed put but looked around at Michael, moving just his head. His eyes were wet and red. “He agreed to try an episode with witnesses that he trusts.” Dean was in the perfect state of mind. He was open and vulnerable, still so Submissive. “He gave me permission to do this.”

Sam broke in. “No, Michael. You have to stop. He may have given his consent to you, but he didn’t say it to me. I can’t be here for this. I’m not making that mistake twice.”

Michael looked at Dean who looked back at him. If he asked his mate, Dean would say yes. Right now, before he’d clawed his way all the way back from deep inside his wolf, Dean couldn’t say no, not to Michael, not to Cas, probably not to Sam. Dean just looked at him—trusting and vulnerable—and suddenly Michael got it.

The epiphanies were coming fast now, like dominoes. He couldn’t touch Dean right now. His mate’s touch would send Dean spiraling back into his Submissive where he was defenseless. It was Michael’s job to protect him, even from himself. That duty had to take precedence over Michael’s lust and over Michael’s Dominant hunger.

He withdrew his hand and wiped it on the leg of his jeans. Michael stooped and helped Dean to pull his clothing back into place. His own horniness would keep until he could put Dean on his knees at home.

“I would’ve said yes, Michael,” Dean told him with a sniffle.

“I know you would, Dean. Thank you for trusting me. We’ll talk about it all later. Let’s grab a snack and go home.” Dean nodded and leaned into his mate.

“Thank you, Sam.” Michael was sheepish as he met his brother-in-law at the door. “Thanks for stopping me. I get it now. I promise you I’ll keep him safe, even when it means denying myself.”

Sam clapped him on the shoulder.

Michael turned to Castiel. “I’ve learned a lot from you today, Sir. I’m sorry I almost messed up again. I can’t seem to help myself. But I’m trying.”

Cas regarded him. Dean was tucked beneath his arm, still quite small. He would take a while to emerge again, but the grace period was normal for Dean after a dive that deep. “Take him home and relax, Michael. Talk to him if you want to, but don’t push him to respond until he’s come all the way back to you and you can speak to his alpha. I owe him a spanking of my own for what he did today, but that’ll keep until tomorrow when you come for dinner.” Michael was about to leave when Cas stopped him again.

“Incidentally, I should’ve asked. Have you given him a Rule that he answers to you for any punishments he gets elsewhere?”

Michael smirked just a little. “Yes, I did. He said you did the same. Are we going to stick to that? Sam is Pack. Does his paddle count as outside punishment?”

“It does to me,” answered Castiel firmly. “Dean earned this paddling because he misbehaved at work. Sam spanked him in a professional capacity. It could’ve been any EO onsite who delivered it. I only chose Sam because he was close at hand when I headed back this way.”

Sam looked at the floor and blushed. Michael wondered if he was embarrassed to have paddled his brother. He hadn’t seemed so at the time, but he was clearly sheepish now.

Cas continued, with no intention of explaining to Michael that Sam was ashamed of just why he was so close at hand when Cas headed back this way. “And my Rule stands independent of yours. He needs structure and consistency. If Dean has to take multiple punishments for misbehavior, then maybe he’ll eventually learn to control his bratty episodes. Who knows? It might be good for him. I take it your request to avoid bruising him goes for me too?”

“Please, Sir. I want his first real spanking from me to be one to remember, and I don’t want it laid on top of someone else’s marks. I hope you understand.” Michael’s hold tightened on his mate almost imperceptibly.

“I do, Michael. I consider your request reasonable in this instance, as long as it’s not a standing requirement. I can’t promise never to mark him again.”

“Yes, Sir. Just this once, please.” Castiel nodded acquiescence. Michael was coming along nicely, and Dean stood nearly catatonic in a contented daze under his Dom’s wing. Cas couldn’t blame Michael. In different circumstances, he would’ve mounted the Sub himself while he lay prostrate over the desk with his ass on fire and his pants at his ankles.

If it had been possible, Cas would have produced slick himself at the deliciously tempting sight.

Cas put a firm hand on the back of Michael’s neck, Alpha-to-Omega, Pack leader-to-underling, and he used his leverage on Michael to pull them both closer so he could kiss Dean’s lips. Dean smirked at him, the first sign from the alpha that he might be on his way back. “I’ll speak to you later, Dean,” he told the Sub. “We haven’t finished our discussion. You still need to understand Ellen’s decision, and you still owe me…” he didn’t need to finish talking.

Dean’s smirk deepened, and crow’s feet lined his eyes. He stretched forward and kissed first his fiancé, then his mate. “Let’s go home, Sir,” he mumbled to Michael. “Alpha needs to get back to work.”

Chapter Text

NOW:

“Lay out on your back, Omega. Pull your knees up high. Come on now, you know this position, it’s just a number twelve.” She was aching and out of sorts. Cas took a gentle hand this morning to test its effect. His instincts told him to be harsh and structured, but he didn’t want to overdo where it wasn’t needed. Yesterday’s punitive response had yielded quite the positive outcome, but today he wanted to try a different route.

April whined like a child and rocked in position. She hated the ritual, and she hated this position. The cramps were always worse when she was on her back. “Can’t you please let me just do it myself, Alpha? It hurts so bad like this.”

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s a mild discomfort at worst. Don’t forget, April, I can always tell what you’re feeling. Now put yourself into position and stay there. Hold still.” He didn’t touch her until she stopped rocking and stilled. She needed to come to it through obedience, not force.

Cas knelt at the end of the bed and carefully maneuvered the lubricated tip of the nozzle into her rectum. It was tricky because her channel always responded to his presence and effectively pinched the rectal opening closed, but Castiel had the skills of a practiced physician, and he slipped the nozzle into place with no issue. It didn’t hurt her, but it wasn’t the most comfortable feeling in the world either. He released the valve and slowly filled her gut with warm cleansing solution.

Cas massaged her belly gently as the first wave of cramps passed through her. She pouted and moaned but held position. “Please, Sir. I’m not arguing, but can you tell me again why I have to do this? I don’t understand. It doesn’t do anything for me.”

“Stop whining. I’ve answered that question numerous times already. You will administer an enema every day, or have one administered for you, for no reason except that I’ve told you to. That’s all the reason you need. You are my Submissive and my Omega, and you obey me. If I hear another word of protest about it, you’ll be punished severely. This topic is closed for good.”

The bag drained its last into his Sub, and Castiel slipped the nozzle free. He wouldn’t need to plug her since her channel was effectively doing that for him, so he placed the equipment into the bathroom sink, picked up April’s slipper at the entrance to the bathroom, and returned to where his Omega was struggling not to cry from frustration and anger.

“Keep your feet out of the way. I have no intention of striking any part of you except your bottom, so don’t break position.”

Castiel spanked her swiftly and soundly. She had minor bruises from her previous run-in with his hand from the day before, but she was strong and young. She could take much more than this, and Castiel meant to drive his point home.

April was spoiled.

She had wrapped her father around her little finger and manipulated her way out of doing anything she didn’t want to do.

That was not the kind of Submissive Cas wanted in a mate. He had been Mated to her long enough to be ready to get serious about her training. She’d proven she could learn quickly, too. She was smart and willing when she applied herself. This one point turned out to be exactly what he’d been looking for—a point of stubbornness that would stick in her craw enough to make her dig her heels in and resist. It allowed him to hunker down and get busy training her to be exactly what he wanted.

Castiel was in his element as he finished her spanking. She didn’t have much to give, but her Omega-gland Released a bit, and she finally relaxed into the strokes before he laid down the last one. He pulled her to her feet and helped her to the toilet to finish up. Without his presence, the muscles holding the fluids inside would relax and let her release. He dropped the equipment from the sink into the bin for the staff to clean and sterilize, then he waited for her in their enormous bedroom, removing the toweling from the end of the bed and straightening the bedspread.

He took her into his arms when she waddled uncomfortably out of the restroom and kissed her head. “I love you dearly,” he said simply. “Please be good for me, April.”

“I’m sorry I argued, Sir.” She didn’t really seem sorry, but she would get there. Eventually. There wasn’t much more to say, so he held her for a moment, kissed her chastely, and then fed her breakfast and sent her off to get ready to go to class. He subdued his desire to cradle her after her punishment, drawing back carefully to test how she responded. He added another tally mark to her counting board in the kitchen for the whininess and then collected his mate for the drive back to The Facility.

Castiel happily hummed the whole way.

April sulked.

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Dean protested again. “Not only am I forbidden from touching my own dick, but you’ve locked Cas out from it too? And he agreed to that?”

“He did. He even volunteered to help me enforce it.” Michael calmly spread cream cheese out on a toasted bagel and then held it out so his mate could take a bite. Dean wrenched the whole bagel away from Michael with his teeth and then carried it across the room to eat it. Michael laughed at him happily. He pulled the next one out of the toaster, doctored it up, and joined his mate on the couch in the living room. “So that’s what we agreed to. It may change, and he says it’s contingent upon me following the Pack Rules. Basically, I’m happy with the way things turned out.” Michael and Dean ate in reflective silence for a bit.

“Now it’s your turn, Dean. I gave you some time yesterday, but you promised you’d tell me why you were in trouble with Alpha, and what you were so angry about. What happened in that meeting?”

Dean shoved the last of the bagel into his mouth and used his time chewing to put his thoughts in order. They seemed to whirl through his mind in a dizzying vortex that made them hard to pin down. It didn’t bode well if he wanted to keep himself together. “They scheduled your Keller test for about six weeks from now. I assumed they’d schedule me in as the second-round tester—the Bridge—but Ellen put someone else in instead. I don’t get to participate at all. It’s bullshit, man. I lost my temper and threw a little bit of a fit. It was barely even a tantrum, but Cas threw me out of the meeting and sent Sam to paddle my ass. Sam—who just got outta the corner himself—standing there with his pink cheeks hanging out the whole meeting, and he just gets to pull up his pants and act like nothing’s weird about that.” Dean huffed and pouted, sinking mentally into an altered state of mind.

Michael was confused. Dean had been fully alpha-rational only a moment ago, but now he sounded like a petulant teenager. “So that was what had him blushing and stammering. Why was Sam in the corner?”

“Oh. Well, uh…that was Cas’ punishment for when he helped you blindside me with a surprise round of let’s show off my Sub to random strangers walking by.”

Was Dean pouting? He was. He was pouting.

“Dean, what’s going on with you this morning?” Michael moved to squat in front of his mate. He rested his hands on Dean’s thighs and searched his eyes. Dean’s mouth pulled down into a scowl, and he shifted away. Michael let him go but stayed close. “I thought you and I were past what happened with Sam. Are you still mad about that?”

Dean’s internal struggle to stay rational burst out in a huff of frustrated body language, like an overwrought adolescent. He stood rapidly, and he paced then turned on his mate. “Fuck, Michael. I don’t know. No, man, we’re square. It just pisses me off that I don’t get a say or a chance to help in your test. And it’s massively unfair that Sam gets out of a major fuck-up like he did with just some fucking corner time and a couple of swats. I lose it just a tiny bit over something completely legit and I gotta face the fucking paddle three fucking times. How is that right?”

Michael blinked at him. “Alpha said he’s holding you to that Rule—so, tonight, I guess. And he always doubles the count?”

Dean nodded, still pouting.

“Yeah, that’s what he said. Look, I know I’m a Sub. I know all about how getting out of Balance makes me act like a prick and feel outta control. But swats to my ass over and over aren’t going to knock me out of it. I need a full-on scene, Michael. I need it bad, but I’m in fucking chastity for a fucking week—over a Rule I didn’t even know I was breaking, and to top it all off, now you tell me I can only get my cock stroked by you. It’s too fucking much all at once, man!”

Michael bit his lip. Dean’s prickly emotions pouring through the bond told him his mate wouldn’t appreciate being held right now. He needed space. He needed some answers.

“Dean, I got a notification by text yesterday from the Institute. It was a statement that you’d received a punishment. It listed the count and the severity. Listed Sam as the guy who administered it and Alpha as the Top who assigned it. Someone put my name and number in the registry as your mate and Dominant. Looks like I’m always going to know when you’ve had your backside paddled whether you tell me or not.”

Dean collapsed back onto the couch and let his head fall back to rest horizontally on the back, scrubbing his hands down his face. “Yeah, we do that so brats can’t hide shit from their Tops.”

“What do you need from me, Dean? Hey, listen to me. If I’m fucking this all up, and it’s not what you need, we’ll just sweep it all aside and start over from scratch. I mean it.”

“I need you to be Omega more often than you’re my Dom, but I can’t rush that. You aren’t ready yet. God, Michael, you don’t talk like an Omega at all. It’s so fucking hard to stay out of my Sub when I’m around you. But I’m getting it double force from Cas too, and it’s exhausting. I’m not used to this.” Dean sat upright, then stood and headed to the kitchen to clean it up after breakfast, shaking his head and muttering.

Michael followed and wordlessly assisted. They were both deep in thought. Dean paused with a damp cloth in his hands. “I’m proud of how you handled the negotiations. You did good. Kinda wish you’d asked to keep my punishments just for you and not my cock, but other than that…you did good.”

“I tried, Dean. That one wasn’t going to fly. He’s not giving up any part of your ass. He made that abundantly clear.”

“Yeah. Are you going to tell me what happened in there? Why he showed you the big guy and scared the shit out of you?”

“No. I’m not. I don’t ever want to talk about that.” Michael avoided Dean’s eye, tucking the bagels away, and opening the dishwasher.

“So, what do we do now, Michael?” Dean stood in the middle of the kitchen looking genuinely at a loss. “Am I just whining ‘cause I know I’ve got a punishment coming, and I want to get out of it? Sometimes I can’t tell until afterward when I’m for real and when it’s just the brat.”

“Do you trust me, Dean?”

“Yeah,” Dean conceded, looking uncomfortable. “My head says I shouldn’t yet. You’re too green and you could swing wide and hurt me, but my wolf trusts you completely. My wolf is never wrong, man. I trust you.”

Michael was taken aback. He huffed a laugh through his nose. “That’s funny. I don’t trust my wolf at all. Maybe that’s why we’re mates. We’re perfect opposites. C’mere, Dean.” Michael embraced his mate, but only to give him a short hug. It dawned on him that Dean was right. They fell too often into this role, with Michael on top and Dean tucked in underneath him. It was backward, but it was all Michael knew.

He took Dean by the shoulders and moved him to arms’ length, looking sternly at him. “I’m going to follow through with the punishment I promised you for what you did at work, and we’re finishing our week of chastity. When that’s over, if you want, we can talk about it all again. I’m not doubling up the swats. It’s just going to be an over-the-knee hand spanking. I saw your bruises, baby. I know one spanking isn’t going to break you. And I’m not fooled into thinking you’d be game to hand all of the punishments he hands out to me, either. That is your brat talking. I may not have everything figured, but I know that much. Whatever you owe to your Alpha is between you and him. The notification said forty-five. Is he really going to double that, all in one go?”

Dean nodded, frowning. Oh, yes. Castiel could count pretty high, and he knew Dean’s ass could take it. Was Michael right? Dean knew he didn’t want to give up the sweet agony of laying out for the Alpha’s hot hand, but he was sure Cas had meant their marriage to step upward into an even level for them both. Didn’t that mean handing punishing Dean off to Michael? It did, didn’t it?

Dean was befuddled, but Castiel would have to wait. Michael needed to be his priority for now.

Michael touched his cheek, and Dean closed his eyes. “I don’t know how to be an Omega, Dean. I always get hurt when that bastard leaks out. Always. Will you help me?”

“Mm-hm. If I can stay alpha for five minutes.” Dean leaned his face into Michael’s hand and Michael chuckled.

“Let me see your ass. I want to check on the bruises again.” Michael might not trust his wolf further than he could throw him, but he trusted the beast a hell of a lot more than he did his puny, stunted Omega.

The bruises needed only another day or so to fade away completely. Michael hoped desperately that Castiel could refrain from adding more. Dean assured him that Cas had complete control, and if he promised no bruises, there would be no bruises.

Michael decided to break his previous declaration that he wouldn’t deliver any punishments before he could do so on a clean palette, and he laid down a firm but simple spanking over his knee. It was enough to fulfill his promised follow-up, but not enough for either of them to feel like they’d explored the depths of their potential connection through impact play. Michael justified it by saying that delaying a punishment that was earned longer than strictly necessary was counterproductive. He told his Sub that when he brought his hand down next, he planned to make it memorable, but that a mild bratting at work wasn’t good enough cause.

It felt like a compromise more than a capitulation, and they both relaxed into the fact that their decisions between themselves were nobody’s business but their own.

Michael checked in with his mate afterward to be clear that he’d not overstepped anything. The conversation had started, after all, with Dean explaining how frustrated he was to be facing triple jeopardy, and in a sense, Michael had responded by fulfilling that dreaded outcome.

“I’m fine, sir. I’m going to run out for some groceries and get some distance. I need to get back to my front-brain and see if I can stay there for a while. Do you need anything?”

Sam changed clothes at Dean’s Facility suite after work. He was nervous about tonight. So much was planned for a single evening. So much could go wrong. As an un-Mated man, Sam wondered if he was doing the right thing in joining his brother’s Pack. Sam was prime age to come across a mate. Betas often Mated in their early to mid-twenties. He was committed to waiting for his True-Mate, but he wondered how she would feel about Castiel’s Pack.

Sam knew he was making the decision for both of them without giving the nameless Sub a chance to vote. As the Bottom in their relationship, she would be given no choice but to switch allegiance from her home pack to his. In the end, it came down to his trust and respect for Cas and Dean. If they could hold their marriage together, the Winchester Pack was going to be strong, stable, self-sufficient, and enduring. It could be home.

Sam longed for a family. He loved the imagery of his wolf running the packlands with its nose to the snow and feeling the camaraderie of pack wolves running with him on all sides. He wanted to belong to something bigger than himself. He wanted the pride that comes with introducing himself as a member of a prestigious Pack.

Castiel could give him that.

Or it could all crash and burn into chaos.

Sam grabbed the bottle of wine from the counter of the tiny kitchen and headed out to his car. For better or for worse, he was ready to make the jump from virtual lone wolf to full-fledged pack muscle. Sam knew where he was going to fit within the structure. He could protest all he wanted, but he was the fulcrum of this strangely balanced assemblage, and he was naturally inclined to play counselor and peacemaker. Maybe it wouldn’t fall too heavily on his shoulders. Cas liked to get his own hands dirty when he could, and Sam suspected Michael was the same way.

It was a short drive to the big manor house but just long enough to ruminate on his new Pack members themselves. Dean, of course, was Dean. If his brother hadn’t been part of the Pack that invited him, Sam would never have considered joining. In the end, Sam went where Dean was. He always would.

He worked easily with Castiel. The two respected each other, and Sam never felt the need to challenge Cas’ authority. He knew Cas to be judicious and fair. Sam had always felt free to voice his opposition, even passionately when he felt the Alpha-Dom was wrong, and Cas had never used his higher standing as a hammer to get his way. Well, not with Sam anyway. They didn’t work like that.

Sam smiled to himself when he thought of little April. She was endearingly sweet. The two of them bonded as intimates immediately. Even though the Claim had worn off, she and Sam remained close enough that outsiders might assume his Claim had been renewed.

He felt a little bad for testing Castiel over the last few days. He’d deliberately flaunted his close friendship with April in the Dom’s face to see if he would get a rise. It was a risky move, and one that would be more likely to bring consequences down on April than on himself, but he needed to know Castiel’s real mind where she was concerned. It was one thing to say you wanted your Omega to form lasting relationships and have friends but watching her do it might be more than Cas could stand, especially if one of those friends was male, especially if one of those friends was a powerful Dominant.

She’d spent time talking with Sam over the long weekend that Castiel was absent. It was April who’d finally convinced Sam to throw his lot in with the Pack. How strange it must seem to onlookers that Castiel’s mate was as committed as she was to sending her own Alpha off into marriage with another wolf, but she had spoken passionately, and Sam believed her.

Maybe it was a holdover from his Claim on her body, but he felt fiercely protective of the young Omega.

Then there was Michael—all sour comments and standoffish glares. Michael’s brief, drunken performance on the night of his introduction notwithstanding, Michael kept himself aloof from everyone else. He made it crystal clear to all of them: Michael was here for Dean and no one else. Considering the little that Sam knew about Michael’s past and his connection with Dean, Sam would give him the benefit of the doubt. For a while. Eventually, he would need to join the larger Pack like the rest of them.

Sam pulled into the long drive and approached the house. Summer was upon them, and the sun was still high enough to cast a soft light across the lawn. Sam sighed as he parked. He needed to remember to be fair to Michael. It hadn’t even been a full week yet since Michael laid his Claim on Sam’s brother in the strangest way. His head had to be spinning still. All of his moorings had been ripped up, and he was clinging tightly to Dean as his only support. Sam wanted to try to provide Michael with another hold, but the Omega seemed determined not to need anyone but Dean.

The butler admitted Sam through the front door and gestured him through to the large parlor to the left. April and Gabriel were already there, giggling together on the couch. When she spotted Sam, she ran to him for a tight hug. He smiled at her and kissed her head.

“You ready for this?” he asked her.

“Mm-hm.” April looked genuinely happy. Sam pinched her cheek playfully.

“You’re a little schemer, kiddo. I know what you’ve been up to to pull all of this off. I just hope you don’t regret it when your backside has to answer to three or four of us.” She giggled in response and lifted up on tiptoes to kiss him chastely on the lips. He swatted her as she returned to Gabe, and she flinched and squeaked. Sam shook his head in affection. He needed to remember that he could expect the Omega-Sub’s backside to be tender most of the time for one reason or another.

Ellen, Jo, Bobby, and Benny all came in together as Sam was fixing a drink for himself. He offered to pour some for the new arrivals, and everyone accepted a glass and settled to wait for the others, chatting easily.

“Where’s Andrea?” he asked Benny.

“Bit under the weather. She sends her love,” Benny replied smoothly.

Dean and Michael beat Castiel to the parlor. Dean was his usual bigger-than-life public self, all swagger and energy. He dragged Michael through the door by their linked hands and deposited him on a cushy chair where Michael could have some space around him without having to share. Then he rummaged two beer bottles from the mini fridge behind the bar and handed one to his mate, perching himself on the chair’s arm and focusing seriously on April.

“We need to talk, you and me,” Dean told her sternly. April’s eyes widened in alarm, and she sat up straight. “We haven’t discussed yet how we’re going to split up our mutual relations with your mate—my fiancé—and I wanna hash this shit out right now. You game?” He was cocky and aggressive.

She blanched. She had no idea what to say. Negotiate Castiel? What was there to negotiate? She had no power. “Uh, I guess so.”

“Okay, here’s what I want: I get to kiss him and fondle him whenever I want without you getting catty on me. If you walk into a room and he’s got me bent over and ass-up for…whatever, you just keep on walking, sister. When it’s my night to sleep with him, I sleep with him however he wants me, and you don’t get all pouty about it, capiche?”

“Dean, I…” she spluttered. “I would never. I like you here. I want you to have time with him, and I promise I won’t get in your way.” Then she noticed the twinkle in his eye. He was teasing her. She huffed at him and threw a pillow at his head.

They were called throw pillows were they not?

“You’re a jerk, Dean!” Sam declared definitively.

“And you’re a bitch, but that’s beside the point.” Dean kept his eye on April’s, and he winked, making her blush. “Nah, I know we don’t need any of that crap.” Then he turned serious to talk to her. “I got your back, April. You need anything from me, I’m there. You need more time with Cas, you just let me know, and I’ll make space for you. We’re a team, right?”

She nodded, tearing up just a little. “Right.”

Michael bopped Dean gently upside the head and scowled at him for scaring the Omega, but Dean just grinned at his Submissive little sister. She smiled shyly back.

Sam latched on to one of Dean’s statements and followed up. “Let’s get this exhibitionist thing cleared up right now, Dean. Do you mean to move your fucking out to the main rooms? Are you really okay with having witnesses now? ‘Cause you never wanted to do that before. I need to hear it from you if it’s true.”

Dean met Michael’s eye, and Michael smiled at him, not prompting an answer, just a sweet, affectionate smile. It was Dean’s choice. “I want to try it, Sammy. Are you okay with being a witness?”

“It’s fine with me, man. I don’t care either way as long as it’s what you want. I worry because it’s always been something that made you uncomfortable before. I just want to look out for my big brother. You sure you’re not just getting carried away because your mate’s into it?”

“Are you certain about this, Dean?” Castiel asked, entering the parlor and mirroring Sam’s question. He had obviously overheard enough of the conversation to know what they were discussing. Dean suppressed the desire to roll his eyes.

“Yes, Alpha. I want to do it. I think a part of me has always wanted to, but it just never felt safe before.” Dean shifted a little bit, aware that Cas might be hurt by the implication but needing to bring it out anyway.

“Michael’s going to help me see if it’s really something I want. I want to let all of you know, all of you here, that I’m okay with whatever Michael does in front of you. That’s new for me, so I feel like it’s important for me to say it out loud. You don’t have to participate if you don’t want to. I’m not trying to force anybody into voyeurism if that’s not your thing, but just so you all know, I’m onboard, and it’s not something Michael’s trying to make me do. This is me in my front-brain saying I’m in to try.”

Castiel nodded. He didn’t appear injured that none of Dean’s new efforts seemed to include him. “Michael?” he prompted. Dean bit his lip, watching the Alpha carefully.

“What?”

“Do you have anything to add? This is a big step for your mate.”

“Um…” Michael looked up at Dean who took a drink from his bottle and looked back. “Thanks, I guess? I mean, it’s his choice, really, so I’m not sure what you want me to say about it. I’ll take good care of him while he’s under like that. I’ve got the Mating-bond to tell me how he’s really feeling, even if he can’t say it, and I’m not going to lose focus on keeping him safe. Not again.”

Dean ran a hand through Michael’s hair and smiled down at him, mouthing, “Thank you.”

“Just don’t get all drippy on the furniture and wipe up your messes. That’s all I ask,” Gabriel put in, and everyone laughed. “We’ve got it all scotch-guarded, but that only goes so far.”

Castiel took the conversation in hand in a professional manner. “All right. There’s one more point of business I need to attend to before we move to the formal portion of the evening. Thank you to Ellen, Jo, Benny, and Bobby for serving as witnesses. You have been the closest of friends to Dean and me over the years, and I appreciate your support. I want you to know that my invitations to all three of you remain open, but I understand why you’ve selected not to accept them. Does anyone else have anything they need to say?”

Dean blinked. Cas had invited Benny, Bobby, and the Harvelles to join the Pack too? What happened to their awesome lines of communication? Not that he minded—exactly. All of them were close friends, but still. Cas had thought to add three more alphas to the Pack without consulting Dean? Cas had asked Bobby? Bobby? How did he imagine that would work? Jo met his eye, and he read in her expression a promise to speak more fully about it later. He vowed to sit by her at dinner and make her spill.

“No one?” said Castiel. “All right, then. Dean, I owe you a punishment, and I see no reason to make you wait any longer. Michael, would you mind relinquishing your chair? This won’t take long. Everyone, please refresh your drinks as you need to.” Cas pulled Michael to his feet and took his spot in the wide, soft chair. He pulled Dean unceremoniously over his lap and rested a hand on his ass.

“What, here? Dude, you’ve got a study, and a playroom! A bedroom! We’re doing this here?”

“Yes, Dean, right here. And I’ll thank you not to call me Dude while you’re over my lap.” Castiel thumped Dean’s thigh to prompt him to lift his hips and then made short work of the fastenings to his slacks. In no time, Dean’s ass, still a little pink from Michael’s hand on top of Sam’s paddle, was bare to the room. The alphas and Sam ignored the show. They chatted comfortably as Castiel began to spank his fiancé. Gabriel didn’t care. He went to the bar to mix another martini. Michael stayed where Cas had stood him up, close enough to the action that he could feel the whoosh of air as Cas’ hand landed again and again on his mate’s reddening bottom that was swiftly turning to match his bright red face and ears.

Dean was mortified, but Michael was transfixed and salivating. He moaned quietly, feeling a series of pings in his groin in answer to every strike as he felt Dean’s pain echo at him through the bond.

April stared too. Alphas spanking alphas. If April had been allowed to touch herself and ever needed spank-bank material, this would do it. It was hot. So, fucking hot. Dean kicked out and squirmed, grimacing in pain and protest. He wasn’t crying, but he was clearly hurting. As one who knew intimately what that hand felt like when it rained down like that, April should have had more sympathy for Dean than she did. Instead, she let it send her whirling into erotic subspace. She rocked subtly in her place on the couch and felt her channel respond. She was aware that she smelled like slick, but she didn’t care.

Castiel worked efficiently. He spanked fast and kept the count in his head. He didn’t pause or vary the speed at all. Ninety swats may seem like a lot, but when delivered in a fast staccato, the way Cas did it, they went very quickly. He covered every part of Dean’s butt and thighs that could be considered target zones, all the way down to near the backs of his knees and up at his sit-spots, ensuring that Dean would be uncomfortable all through dinner, but he made sure not to bruise him. Bruising was a matter of follow-through on the strikes, and Cas was an expert.

It was over quickly. Cas rested a hand on Dean’s back, letting the sting sink in on its own, letting Dean find the meaning behind the action from within himself, letting him pull himself together with his face turned to the floor. Once Castiel felt a shift in his Sub, a feeling he wouldn’t have been able to describe if asked, he stood Dean back up and helped him to dress, standing before him. He kissed his love where the tears had just fallen over the edge then held his gaze. They didn’t need a Mating-bond to understand the emotions between them. Cas and Dean had perfected the art of nonverbal communication through years of scening.

What began for Dean as a humiliating display of Submission, transformed as he stood before his Top in throbbing pain and penitence into absolution. Cas checked up on his Sub with just his eyes, and Dean confirmed he was all right the same way. It was a somber—but not a sad—moment for them both, and they held it for a few moments longer, reconnecting on an instinctive level.

Dean was always going to need to have this from his Alpha. He shifted forward and leaned his forehead against Castiel’s. Protest as he might, Dean needed this—exactly this—from Castiel, maybe not from Michael, at least not in the same way, but always from Castiel.

It was such a confusing mix, and much of it was still so new. This part though? He knew he would always need this part. His wolf and his alpha and his front-brain knew this part so well. He’d just been brought home, and it felt like the ground had just risen up to meet him. He breathed in his Alpha’s scent and closed his eyes, letting his feet and his touchpoints with Cas ground him. Castiel’s hand rested on the back of his neck.

“I’ll always take care of you, my love,” Cas said simply, not bothering to lower his voice. Most of the guests ignored the intensely emotional moment between the two alphas, but Michael startled as April brushed past him, approached her Alpha, and calmly insinuated herself under his arm, wrapping her arms around him without disturbing his connection with Dean. The alphas both chuckled warmly at her, and Cas dropped an arm around her shoulders to welcome her home as well. He rested his chin on top of her head but kept his eyes serenely on Dean. “We can do this, Dean. Please do this with me.” This time, his voice was quiet. It didn’t matter that Michael and April were both close enough to hear. They were to be part of This, and Cas wanted them both.

Michael bit his lower lip and hesitated, torn. His wolf’s stubbornness held his feet, but he could feel his Omega reaching for the comfort of the alphas’ embrace. He wanted to trust it. He wanted to be under that umbrella too, but his pride reminded him how cheesy they looked in a picture-perfect group hug. Dean glanced at him, his eyes still serious, and quirked his head to summon his mate to join them. Michael waited only another moment before the Omega in him finally grew the balls to assert himself and nudge him into motion. He found his place at Dean’s side, opposite April and tucked his face into Dean’s shoulder. It was scary—so scary—to be this vulnerable in a huge, stately house full of wolves, but Dean held onto him.

So he just breathed.

“All right! Jesus! Enough of that. What’s next? I’m starving,” Gabe broke the peace and the atmosphere like a pin popping a balloon.

“You’re such an asshole, Gabriel,” Jo chastised him. He stuck his tongue out at her like a five-year-old, but Castiel simply laughed, pulling away from his family and giving Michael a surreptitious squeeze on the shoulder.

“Next come the formal oaths. Then we eat and celebrate,” the Alpha enumerated. “After tonight, we’re a Pack in truth, not just on paper. I received notification by email today that our application for Pack status has been filed and accepted. The timing is excellent, but we already have a couple more names to add to the original filing. We can do that at the Federal building in Topeka next week after April’s Heat ends. Dean, will you take care of filing for Douglas County Residency for us? I don’t have to be present for that, my signature on the form will suffice.”

“Sure thing, Cas. Michael and I can make a day trip of it go tooling around like tourists. We’re on our honeymoon, after all.”

“Day trip?” said Bobby. “The county courthouse is four blocks up. You can walk from here.”

“Walk? When I haven’t shown him what my Baby can do yet? No, no, Bobby. I’m taking him for a ride in the flat Kansas prairie, really open her up out there and let her run like the wolf she is.”

“Don’t get arrested, Winchester,” Benny advised. “You’re about to have a shitload of media attention rain down on you. You don’t want to add a mugshot to that, do you?”

“I’ve got it under control, Ben. I know where all the traps and cop hangouts are. No problem.”

“Sounds like famous last words to me,” mothered Ellen.

“Oaths!” shouted Gabriel. “C’mon, focus people. Dinner’s getting cold.”

Castiel was in a good mood, and he let his brother be a jackass. For Gabe, unlike Dean, the bratting was a sign of Balance and good mental health. It was only when Gabe grew somber or very quiet that Cas needed to worry about him.

“Right,” said Sam. “Let’s do this.”

Castiel nodded firmly. “Dean, you’re first. Are you ready?”

“Yes, Sir, Alpha. I was born ready.” Cas centered himself in the middle of the room, and the witnesses gathered around behind him.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” confessed Michael in Dean’s ear.

Dean whispered bracingly back, “Don’t worry about it. It’s not really formal, and Cas will help you if you need it. Just do what I do when it’s your turn. The big Claim won’t happen until after dinner. This is just the oath.”

Dean approached Castiel and quickly stripped, dropping his clothing into a pile behind him. He moved up into the Alpha’s space with his eyes averted and his head cocked to one side to bare his neck. Castiel took in his naked body then placed two fingers of his right hand directly over Dean’s pulse and pressed gently. It was a holdover from a time when Alphas took the pulsing life-vein of their subjects’ throats between their teeth and decided on the spot whether to accept them as Pack or kill them then and there.

Castiel intoned so that it echoed through the high-ceilinged parlor, “Do you, Dean Michael Winchester, pledge to me your allegiance, loyalty, obedience, and faith in all that I may demand of you from this day until the end of time?”

“I do, Alpha.”

“Will you uphold the sanctity of Pack Winchester against all threats internal or external, maintaining its welfare, protecting it steadfastly, defending its members even to the detriment of your own health?” Castiel spoke in such a way that it was clear he meant every word of the formulaic questions, enunciating carefully, and emphasizing key words.

“I will, Alpha.”

“May I call upon your faithful service in times of crisis or threat at any hour for any reason I deem worthy?”

“You may, Alpha.”

“Can you, in good faith, offer me and your Packmates your love, support, guidance, and discipline so that we may build a stable firmament together that will endure for as long as the Universe sees fit to grant us that mercy?”

“I can, Alpha, and I always will.”

“Dean Michael Winchester,” Cas said with a smirk. “I accept your pledge of fealty, and I name you Second-in-Rank of Pack Winchester. You will hold that status for as long as you remain worthy of it. Welcome home, my love.”

Castiel kissed him hard, wrapping himself around Dean’s naked form. Dean was surprised. This was not a wedding, and kissing had no place in the formal ceremony. But he didn’t care, and once his mind caught up, he responded in kind. The witnesses cheered behind them. Cas dipped Dean into a back-breakingly low lunge as his tongue plundered Dean’s mouth. Both wolves were laughing by the time he set Dean back upright and released him. Dean collected his clothes with a chuckle that turned into a yelp when Cas smacked his fiery red backside just because it was there.

“Samuel. Please approach if you are willing.”

“Yes, Alpha,” said Sam beginning to pull his clothes off. “But if it’s all the same, I’d like to skip the kiss at the end.” Everyone but Michael laughed.

Sam took his place in front of Castiel, and Cas repeated the motions, laying his fingers with a firm touch upon Sam’s pulse point. The Dominant in Sam reacted to the physical threat and he had to draw in a breath to resist pulling back and snarling. Castiel waited without judgement for Sam to put a leash on his wolf. Cas had seen Sam’s wolf, and he was extremely glad to have the beast on his team. Sam pulled it together and craned his head to the side just a bit further than necessary to indicate he was in full agreement with the words of the oath, despite his wolf’s reticence.

“Do you, Samuel Luke Winchester, pledge to me your allegiance, loyalty, obedience, and faith in all that I may demand of you from this day until the end of time?”

“I do, Alpha.”

“Will you uphold the sanctity of Pack Winchester against all threats internal or external, maintaining its welfare, protecting it steadfastly, defending its members even to the detriment of your own health?”

“I will, Alpha.”

“May I call upon your faithful service in times of crisis or threat at any hour for any reason I deem worthy?”

“You may, Alpha.”

“Have you the strength of mind, character, and body to uphold the Rules of my household and to provide swift, fair, and decisive discipline where it is warranted in respectful administration toward the maintenance of a balanced home?”

“I have, Alpha.”

“Can you, in good faith, offer me and your Packmates your love, support, guidance, and discipline so that we may build a stable firmament together that will endure for as long as the Universe sees fit to grant us that mercy?”

“I can, Alpha.”

“Samuel Luke Winchester, I accept your pledge of fealty, and I name you Third-in-Rank of Pack Winchester. You will hold that status for as long as you remain worthy of it. I thank you for your trust, and on behalf of the Pack, I bid you welcome.”

Castiel reached out and took Sam’s hand in a firm handshake. Sam smiled dopily at him and then turned his happy smile on the others. Everyone cheered.

“Doesn’t seem quite fair that he has an extra oath that you didn’t get,” Michael whispered to Dean.

Dean leaned over and responded quietly, still clapping for Sam. “Subs don’t pledge to discipline other Pack members. Even if they are expected to do it, the door’s always open to have that part removed from their responsibilities. It’s just never part of their oath.”

“Michael. Are you ready, Omega?” Castiel called to him.

Michael took a deep breath and started to step forward but was stopped when Dean took hold of his arm and whispered to him. “Omegas kneel, baby. I’ll get you a pillow for your knees.” Michael nodded at his mate’s words and stepped up to face Castiel. Their eyes flashed the same challenge that seemed always to be there just for a moment, but Michael’s wolf deferred immediately as Castiel wisely allowed just a glimpse of his wolf to show through before bottling him back under. Michael wasn’t supposed to be meeting the Alpha’s eyes at all for this ceremony, and Cas’ wolf let him know it. He looked quickly to the floor as he undressed.

Dean slipped a knee pillow in front of Michael as he finished baring himself to the room. Being the only one naked and on his knees in a room full of powerful wolves would be extremely uncomfortable for Michael’s wolf. Like Sam, he needed a moment to get himself under control. He found it easier than usual to slip into his Omega at this close distance to the Alpha, and he breathed into it. Michael sank down onto both knees, his head to the side and his eyes downcast. He panted as his heartrate kicked up.

“Relax Michael,” said Castiel. “You’re safe with us. You will always be safe here with us. No one here is your enemy, and we will fight for you whenever you need us to do so.” Castiel placed two fingers of his right hand on Michael’s pulse point and his left hand atop the Omega’s head. Michael whined quietly. “Shhh. It’s okay Omega. I’ve got you. Just let me know when you’re ready. Take your time.”

Michael closed his eyes to help him drive back the rising sense of panic. He didn’t know why he’d suddenly become suffused with fear. He didn’t know what he was feeling except that he wanted to launch himself into the care of the Alpha and his enormous wolf. Tears sprang up behind Michael’s clenched eyelids, and he hyperventilated. Suddenly Dean was crouched behind him, holding him across the chest. Michael reached out blindly and found the Alpha’s legs before him, pulling himself tightly in and clutching Castiel for all he was worth. Castiel knelt down to place himself at Michael’s level, and he and Dean sandwiched the Omega between them, stroking him through his panic, and reassuring him he was fine.

Michael put one arm back around his mate, but the other clutched tightly to Castiel while he tried to dig his way back out. Dean moved to his side so Michael could reach him better, and he rubbed the Omega’s back in soothing, gentle circles. “We’ve got you, Michael. It’s okay. What you’re feeling is normal. You’re going to be just fine. It’s okay. I love you.”

Sometime later, Michael found himself lying on his side across Dean’s lap, his hand still clutching at Castiel’s shirt and tears staining his own face. Dean rocked him and continued to whisper gentle words and stroke his back, his arm, his hair. Slowly, the panic subsided, and his breathing calmed. Castiel squatted before him, looking concerned, both hands on Michael helping to support and calm him.

“Are you back with us, now?” he said very softly. Michael nodded, not looking around. He knew he had a wall of embarrassment to face later, but right now, he zeroed in on the alphas who both held him close. “We don’t have to do this right now if you can’t do it. I’m leaving it up to you, Michael. No judgement or repercussions. I can wait until you’re ready.”

Michael wiped the tears from his face and started to sit up, but Dean held him firmly. “Dean, I can do it. I’m ready to do it.”

“Then just do it from here, baby. Stay right here. It means the same, and I don’t want you upright right now.” Michael blinked up at Dean and then turned to where Castiel remained crouched on the balls of his feet with his knees wide. He saw Cas nod at Dean and then set his face, placing his fingers and hand as he had done before. The angle was awkward, but he managed. He smiled kindly at Michael.

“Do you, Michael Quentin Winchester, pledge to me your allegiance, loyalty, obedience, and faith in all that I may demand of you from this day until the end of time?”

“I do, Alpha.” Michael’s voice was a whisper, but there was determination in it. He meant his vow with all his heart, never realizing until just now, as he lay naked, humiliated, and brokenly vulnerable in his mate’s arms how desperately he wanted to belong to a Pack like Castiel’s.

He’d been so angry, so filled with rage for so long because deep in his wolf, he’d always assumed there was no place for him. Who would want a Dominant Omega? What possible service could someone so split in his own head ever be to anyone else?

Castiel stayed low for the entire series of promises. He included the extra one that he’d asked of Sam, about applying discipline to the Pack. Michael felt Dean’s huff of protest more than he heard it. Dean and Michael both knew that oath was specific to Michael’s relationship with Dean. He didn’t expect to have the authority to discipline anyone else. Was Castiel turning April over to him? Gabriel?

Michael, though, realized in a quick flash, that this oath granted him disciplinary authority over any pups that came along. He could maybe be a primary caregiver in the raising of their pups, his and Dean’s. Omegas didn’t always get that right. They were expected to provide care and nurturing, but rarely direction. He wondered briefly if Castiel had already thought of that caveat when he included that part of the oath for Michael to accept.

“Michael Quentin Winchester, I accept your pledge of fealty, and I name you Primary Omega of Pack Winchester. You will hold that status for as long as you remain worthy of it. Be blessed, sweet Omega, and I wish you warmth and welcome in your new home. I further grant you explicit authority over the wellbeing and maintenance of your mate’s Submissive wolf, and I offer you my assistance and mentorship as you learn to guide him.”

Dean hugged him close as Michael tried in vain to hide that his tears had started up again. Castiel kissed both of his wet cheeks and then helped both him and Dean to rise. Michael got a chance to look around at the assembled Pack and witnesses as he shakily collected his clothes and realized to his horror that almost all of them had teared up. Even Bobby was blowing his nose. He didn’t manage to get more than his boxer briefs on before the entire assemblage lined up for hugs. Old Michael would have growled them off, but his Omega accepted all of them tentatively, even one from April.

“Gabriel, you’re up next. I know you’re not pledging anew. I hold your past pledge still active, but I ask that, in the spirit of our new Pack, you renew your vows as a transferal from Novak to Winchester. I will not ask you to change your name.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes at his little brother’s formality. “Fine. If I have to…” he grumbled as he stripped. Michael found a quiet place alone to the side to dress and regroup. Dean kept an eye on him but allowed him the space. He could sense the turmoil in Michael’s emotions. Dean knew he would want some space if he was in that much chaos inside his own head.

Gabriel kicked the pillow back over from where it had been shuffled aside, and he knelt on both knees with a dramatic groan as if aging knees or arthritis pained him. He had no such affliction. It was just Gabriel. The stitches on his back and the multiple puncture wounds, bandaged and slowly healing, stood out starkly, defying his attitude of levity.

Gabriel was much harder and stronger than he liked most people to be aware of. He liked to be underestimated as a matter of course. It helped him to hide in a crowd. He hid the discomfort of being so open to scrutiny and visible though. Gabriel, at his deepest, knew who his allies were. He, his wolf, and his Omega knew he was safe here with these people. It didn’t mean it was easy to display his wounds.

In a rare display of real submission, Gabriel rested his hands on his thighs, lowered his eyes, and bared his throat. Castiel took pity on him and made his oaths quick and succinct, letting his questions come on top of each answer without pause. He maintained a Claim over Gabriel, one that would need to be renewed soon, and he could feel his brother’s discomfort.

“Gabriel Allen Novak, I accept your pledge of fealty, and I name you Second Omega of Pack Winchester. I thank you for your years of dedicated loyalty, and I pledge as your Alpha and brother always to hold you safe between my paws. I vow to let no harm come to you. Be cherished in this household, Omega, and know you are home.”

Gabriel caught Castiel’s hand just before he pulled it away from Gabe’s throat, and he kissed his brother’s palm, meeting the Alpha’s eyes. Castiel gasped softly in surprise and knelt to return the blessing with a kiss to Gabriel’s cheek. The brothers often bickered, and they snarked. Barely a day went by when they were in each other’s presence that they didn’t squabble over some bit of family baggage, but they’d been forged as a family in fire and pain, and they had saved each other. Gabriel owed Castiel his life and his sanity. Castiel owed Gabriel the passion of his life’s work and everything that went with it.

They almost never spoke of it, moments like this few and far between. But every now and then, Gabriel let Castiel see him, really see him. It meant the world to Castiel, who didn’t exactly doubt his brother’s regard, but sometimes longed for the easy affection that his big brother once lavished upon him so many years ago. Their roles had reversed, but their brotherhood hadn’t flagged, and Cas couldn’t suppress the quiet sob as he hugged his brother, carefully minding the stitches crossing his back.

“If this gets any heavier, we’re going to run out of tissues,” said Bobby, his voice sounding stuffy, the big softie.

“We’re all right,” said Cas, helping Gabriel to rise, and tapping his bare ass to send him toward his piled clothing. “April, love, that just leaves you. Come and kneel, little Omega.”

“Yes, Alpha,” she replied quietly. April was nervous. Everyone had finished except for her. She was going to have to get used to being last. It didn’t bother her most of the time, but for ceremonies like this, it was a bit on-the-nose. Being last wasn’t just a title or a nominal ranking. The last-ranked wolf had the least say, was allowed the fewest freedoms, waited until everyone else was served, and answered to everyone. She was about to take her place at the bottom of a pile. It was what she wanted, but it still scared her to think of how vulnerable she’d be down there. She kept her eyes no higher than Alpha’s chest as she stripped, her bruised ass displayed for the assembled witnesses to view at will. She knelt, foregoing the pillow to communicate her acknowledgement of her abject submission. Know thy place, Omega, was a common refrain in the world April grew up in. Castiel grunted and apparently gestured, although she couldn’t see it. She felt Dean lift her by her arms from behind, while Sam slid the pillow under her knees.

“We are not that kind of a Pack, Kitten, and we never we be. I ask for your Submission, not your subjugation. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Are you ready, my sweet?”

She nodded and took a deep breath.

“Do you, April Renée Winchester, pledge to me your allegiance, loyalty, obedience, and faith in all that I may demand of you from this day until the end of time?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

“Can you, in good faith, offer me and your Packmates your love, support, and obedience, so that we may build a stable firmament together that will endure for as long as the Universe sees fit to grant us that mercy?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Will you promise to remain faithful through all that may come to pass, to represent this Pack with honor and discipline, to be fruitful and loving, and never to forsake the members of Pack Winchester under any circumstances?”

“Yes, Alpha. I promise.”

“April Renée Winchester, I accept your pledge of fealty, and I name you Ultimate Omega of Pack Winchester. I pledge to hold you safe as my beloved mate through all of our long years together and to fulfill your needs in love and strength, offering you my hand, my heart, my seed, and myself. Be welcome here, sweet one, and find respite from the dangerous world outside our doorstep. Here you will always be protected.”

He raised her up and encircled her in his arms. She clung to him and melted into his chest. They stood together, letting their Mating-bond speak all the words they couldn’t say out loud, swaying just slightly. Finally, Castiel let his arm slide downward to support her backside, and he lifted her easily. She wrapped her bare legs around him without emerging from where she was breathing in his scent, and he carried her, naked, to the dining room. Dean swept up her clothes and followed, setting them under Castiel’s chair at the head of the table. Cas set April down in a cushioned chair next to his own, but he didn’t give her permission to dress.

The others filed in and took their places as the meal, hot and fragrant, was wheeled in. The wine flowed, and the atmosphere lightened appreciably. Dinner tonight was to be a celebration, so celebrate they did.

Jo stood and raised her glass. “A toast if you please. A toast to Pack Winchester. Y’all! Shut up a second! I’m making a toast! Damn! Okay.”

She cleared her throat and began haughtily. “Never before have the finest and rarest of wolves joined together in joy as they do here today. I am honored to have been invited to witness this moment. May this Pack flourish and grow, and may you all get busy squirting out pups, so I can finally be an aunt! May the Universe in its infinite wisdom bless this household and all who reside here. May you be a beacon of light to those who are still lost in darkness.” She raised her glass and drank deeply, and the rest of the table joined her. Then she sat back down, blushing.

Dean elbowed her in the ribs with a wicked grin and teased, “Beacon of light, Joanna Beth? Seriously?”

“Shut up,” she clarified, her cheeks pinking that much more.

Conversations sprang up around the table. Ellen was seated next to April and engaged her in a discussion about her plans for the future. Castiel listened, rapt, as his mate revealed that she hoped to be allowed to apply to study music nearby. He assured her that she had his full support, and they could look into enrolling for the fall semester wherever she wanted. April glowed under his fond gaze, completely nonplussed at being the only one at the table in her birthday suit.

She was, however, extra careful to avoid spilling her soup.

Ellen approved of the way April and Cas worked together. She understood that an Omega as deeply Submissive as April needed that extra attention and structure from moment to moment in a way that most wolves could never really fathom. But she also knew that as long as April got that structure at home, she could successfully venture outside and make whatever she wanted of herself. Ellen knew because she had done it. Ellen wasn’t as Submissive as April, but she’d also had to do it with infinitely less support. She had her mate, for a while, until she lost him, and that had made all the difference. But she wondered how much easier her road might have been if she’d had a full formal Pack behind her like April had.

At the far end of the table, Gabriel drilled Michael on the terms he and Castiel had come to over Dean. “So, can Alpha kiss and manhandle Dean in front of us, or is that only when you give him leave to scene?” He popped a large chunk of roasted potato in his mouth and chewed noisily.

“He’s, um, okay to do stuff in front of everyone. We didn’t really talk about that, I guess, but I’m okay with kissing.”

“What about groping?” asked Gabe.

“Yeah, I guess.” Michael glanced wide-eyed at Dean.

“Fucking? Can my brother fuck Dean whenever he wants as long as it’s not a scene?” Dean reached across Michael and smacked Gabriel upside the head.

“Knock it off, Gabe.”

Michael looked back and forth between them, sandwiched uncomfortably and sort of wishing he could disappear. He took a bite of his potatoes and tried to let the conversation die away.

“Hey, I’m just trying to get the rules down. I live here too, you know?” Gabriel pointed out.

Dean fixed Gabe with a rare alpha countenance that held none of the humor that usually marked their interactions, and he raised an eyebrow as he leaned across Michael’s plate. “Cas may have promised to delay spanking you until your stitches are out, but I’ve made no such guarantee. Besides, you still have my alpha to contend with later tonight. You really want to provoke me right now?”

Gabriel lifted both hands, palms outward. “My bad. Sorry, fellas. Nothing to see here. Move along citizens. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for…” Gabriel’s voice faded as he petered out and turned to speak with Sam on his other side.

“Yes, well, with a Keller score like Dean’s, I think we can all predict what Michael’s will look like, can’t we?” Benny answered Jo. The brief lull in the conversation made his voice audible to the whole table and sparked Michael’s interest.

“Pardon me, alpha, but what score did Dean get? What does it mean for me? If you don’t mind.”

Benny and Michael sat across the table from one another. Michael’s question immediately put a halt to all the other conversations. Every eye turned to Benny who set down his glass. “Do you know much about the Keller scoring matrix, Michael?”

“No, Sir. I’ve forgotten most of what they taught me in school. I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Well, it does. Your mate is extremely rare—not in being an alpha-Submissive, those are actually fairly common. But usually Submissive alphas are either only mildly Submissive, or only barely inside the alpha range. Our friend Dean is both Deeply alpha, with a rating of, hold on Dean, don’t tell me, uh, twenty-one, right?” Dean nodded. The Deep alpha ratings started at twenty, but they were logarithmic, so twenty-one was well inside the Deep alpha section of the chart. “And he’s also Profoundly Submissive. His Sub rating is negative eighteen. Means the two sides almost always need opposite kinds of care and makes him a challenge to manage. Plus, he’s a masochist and a brat, so good luck to you, Michael.” Benny raised his wine glass in an impromptu toast, adding a wink.

“Hey, now, I’m not that hard to manage,” Dean protested. Castiel spluttered and coughed into his wine glass, and Bobby whacked him on the back. “Fine, thanks for the help from the peanut gallery. All right, Benny, what do you reckon for Michael, then?”

Benny put down his glass as a plate of warm pie was placed in front of him. He thought a minute. “Are we guessing? All right. Cas is the expert, so he doesn’t get to say anything until the rest of us put in our two cents. I predict Michael tests at a negative sixteen Omega, and positive fourteen Dominant, putting him as a Standard O and a Classic Dominant.” Cas shared a smirk across the length of the table with Dean which they both hid in their wine. They knew better.

“What about you, Bobby? Do you have a prediction about Michael?” Castiel asked him.

“Nope. I gave up trying to call it after you beat me more than ten wagers in a row. I’m good to just wait and see.”

“He’s gotta be a Central O,” said Jo. “Michael, what’s your Release schedule like?” she asked the Omega.

“Um. It’s…is this really appropriate dinner conversation? Do I have to answer?” He addressed the last question to Dean. Keller scores were one thing. That was nothing but a number system that made the nerds around him happy, but Release schedules touched on things like spanking and Bottoming and Heats—Omega things. Michael didn’t like the knowing looks from around the table.

“No. You don’t. That’s actually none of their fucking business.” Dean shot him an apologetic look for having instigated this line of talk in the first place. Michael was clearly miserable under the spotlight. The dinner table grumbled at being squashed by the protective alpha, but he refused to let them discuss Michael’s Releases any further in his or Michael’s presence. It put a stop to the guessing as well.

“Looks like that’s the end of dinner,” said Gabriel as the empty pie plates were whisked away. “Dean, how do you want me, buddy? Should I just bend over the table here?” He unbuttoned three buttons of his shirt before hearing a throat-clearing from the head of the table that snapped his eyes front.

Castiel stilled him with a look, and he turned penitent fast.

“You are all welcome to stay for the rest of the proceedings,” Cas said to the four guests. “But I know you’re working tomorrow, and I’ll understand if you need to go. If I know this crowd, there will probably be drinking and carousing late into the night.”

Jo looked at her mother hopefully, but the Omega shook her head. Both of them had to get up early, and all four had shared one car. They took their leave swiftly as the rest moved out of the dining room, Ellen and Jo shuffling about to hand out hugs as they walked.

Once they were alone as a Pack, Castiel led them all to the playroom, or dungeon, as some packs liked to call it. Castiel’s was clean and bright. It held all the play equipment a Dom or Sub could want. Michael wandered, transfixed, around the benches and swings, the massive, padded surface in the middle that could be lowered flush with the ground or raised to various heights with the push of a button.

While Sam and Michael explored the unfamiliar space, Castiel summoned April to him and whispered to her. She blushed and pouted briefly but obeyed. She had half hoped he’d just forget tonight’s spanking, or maybe give her the night off. Instead, he laid her over the closest bench and worked her over as efficiently as he had done Dean earlier in the evening.

Dean placed a firm hand on the back of Gabriel’s neck and leaned into him while the smacks from Castiel’s hand echoed in the bright space. “You nervous, Gabe?”

“Nah. It’s not my favorite thing, but…it’s just a thing, you know. I’ve seen the numbers. I know it’s necessary. Just, watch out for my stitches, would you? They’re really tender, and they itch like the devil.”

“Will do,” said Dean, helping Gabe out of his shirt to inspect what he had to work around.

Castiel was already finished with April. He brought her down from the bench and carried her to a wide chair in the corner where he sat with her and snuggled her close, using his thumbs to dry her eyes. Dean could smell contented Alpha in the air around the couple.

“How do you want to do this, Alpha? Do we need any formalities?”

“I don’t think so. I’d rather go one at a time though.” Cas stroked April’s hair while he talked and let her scent his throat.

Sam approached them. “If you don’t mind, alphas, I’d like to stand as witness and spotter over the Claiming. I’ve got no Claims coming, so I can be independent. I’ll make sure no one gets hurt.”

“Thanks, Sammy,” said Dean. “That’s perfect.” He looked across at where Gabe had kicked off his shoes and was testing his weight on one of the swings. “I’ll go first. I plan to knot him, so that puts me out of the game for the next round, but as long as you think you can handle your Claim with just Sam as spotter, I figure it’ll be better for Michael if I’m already tied when you take him.”

“Agreed,” said Castiel. “I can handle Michael.”

Michael wasn’t listening. He was stooped down to check the support structure of Castiel’s binding cross, his hands running carefully over the smooth varnished wood in appreciation. Castiel stood and set April on the chair. “Stay here, April. Don’t leave the chair. I don’t want to have to worry about you getting in the way.”

“Yes, Alpha,” she said meekly.

“Go ahead, Dean. We’ll both spot you. Gabe’s not going to be a challenge to your Sub, so you shouldn’t have any trouble.” Dean nodded. He closed his eyes and focused on what he needed to do.

Claim-Fucking needed to be aggressive and powerful. It established a chemical structure within both wolves that crystallized their places in the Pack. The bond formed would be temporary, lasting anywhere from three weeks to several months, although close family members stayed bonded much longer. Filial bonds were nearly as permanent as Mating-bonds. Castiel often waited nearly a year before renewing his Claim over Gabriel.

As long as the bond was in place, the deepest part of the wolves’ psyches would know and trust one another intrinsically, instinctively. Omegas felt loved and cared for from the inside out. Alphas felt protective of every Omega under their Claim in a way that allowed them to respond to the Omegas’ needs without thought. Within a pack, Claiming made all the difference in the success or failure of the relationships.

Dean growled softly to himself, readying his alpha. He stripped again, wondering if he should even have bothered to put clothes on at all this evening. Once naked, he focused on his target, stroking his cock to hardness, and letting his alpha feel free to open up its desire to own. Gabriel heard the growl from across the playroom and pulled his hands out of the webbing of the chair. Dean saw his eyes go golden in an instant as he squatted down defensively. Gabriel was no longer acting with conscious intent. He was an older, experienced Omega, and he knew when to let that side of himself have full control.

Dean stalked quickly toward him with menace in his red eyes. In just a handful of strides, he was on top of the Omega. Dean tossed him carelessly onto his belly and attacked the back of his slacks with his teeth, melodramatically ripping an enormous hole in the fabric and taking in the musky odor of his slick as it began to issue copiously from the Omega’s channel. He used his hands to tear out the back of Gabriel’s underwear and then pulled him up by his hips to rest on his knees with his chest still on the padded floor.

The whole room was useable surface, but Dean’s alpha didn’t give a shit if it was easy or hard to clean. The Omega was going to be taken, appropriate time and place or not. He wasn’t aware of Sam and Castiel spreading out near enough to help if Gabriel was distressed but distanced enough to be out of the way. He wasn’t aware of Michael watching from a much greater distance with his own hand on his cock, stroking slowly. Dean’s alpha fixated on one thing: there was an open, leaking, presented Omega channel before him, and the alpha meant to own it.

He roared loudly—not like a wolf, more like a lion—and he bit Gabriel’s shoulder well above where the stitches started. Gabriel cried out and angled his ass outward in complete submission. The Omega knew what the alpha wanted, and it resolved to give it to him. Dean’s alpha took over every part of his body, rutting at the Omega’s channel until his cock sank in, and then growling with intent as he plunged into his body hard and fast.

“Take it, damn you!” his alpha breathed into the Omega’s ear, and Gabriel whimpered, bowing his back further.

It was animalistic, a frenzy of grunts and coarse odors that rose off the couple. Dean bared his teeth and breathed through them, slinging spittle as he hissed. Had any witness doubted the depth of Dean’s alpha designation beforehand, they would doubt no longer. Dean was alpha atop his prey. His hips worked furiously. His muscles strained and plundered. He forgot all about the stitches in Gabriel’s back as he let himself fall heavy over the Omega to cover his body completely, shielding his prize from the eyes and clutches of any other claimant. Gabriel’s Omega cried out a long keening wail of pain. Sam looked to Cas, but Cas held his hand up to stop him from interfering yet. A little pressure wouldn’t tear the stitches. As long as Dean didn’t do any real harm, Cas wanted to let the two finish.

Michael moaned loud and deep as he spilled over his own hand, falling to his knees, but the others ignored him.

Dean wrapped a hand around Gabriel’s hips and pulled the Omega in as tightly as he could, screaming and rutting faster, deeper, harder. Gabriel joined his screams as his wails increased in volume and intensity both. Dean’s knot began to bulge, ripping brutally into and out of the Omega. Dean locked back onto the Omega’s shoulder with his teeth, holding tight, but not breaking the skin. His thighs burned. His shoulders burned. Sweat poured off of them both. And at last, his knot popped past the muscle of Gabriel’s asshole and locked tightly into place.

Dean was reduced to tight, quick jabs and grinding against the Omega’s ass. He grunted loud and deep, his voice going hoarse, his eyes rolling back. The image he presented with his own ass still bright red and glowing after the abuse it had taken in the past twenty-four hours contradicted his aggression, made stark contrast, and if the wolves in attendance were less distracted by their responsibility to keep watch over Gabriel, they might’ve found the incongruity of the picture amusing.

As it was, only Michael noticed, and he had found it highly arousing, not funny.

With a last guttural yell, Dean ground out his climax and spilled deep into the Omega. The Claim concussed them both and left them breathless and disoriented. Dean’s hips slowed as he came back to himself. He realized with a start that he was hurting Gabriel’s wounded back, and he pulled up quickly enough to pull at their tie. Both of them hissed.

“Stop. Just stop fucking moving for a goddamn second!” shouted Gabriel. Dean froze. Gabriel lowered his hips slowly to the ground, taking Dean with him, and then they carefully, mutually rolled to the side.

“I thought you were supposed to be more compliant after I Claimed you,” said Dean sleepily.

“Whatever. You try to be compliant when every one of your stitches has alpha sweat in it. Jesus, Dean, you said you were gonna be careful. That fucking stings, you asshole!”

Dean kissed the reddened spot on Gabe’s shoulder where he’d worried it with his teeth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

Sam slipped pillows under their heads and threw a blanket over their joined bodies. “Are you both okay?” he asked.

“Fine, Sam,” Gabe answered crankily, unbuckling his belt and pulling it loose from its loops awkwardly. He could grouch all he wanted, but Dean could feel how contented his Omega was. He wrapped his arms around Gabe and pulled him in tight, adjusting their torsos so that they could watch the show that was just about to start.

Sam took in a deep breath through his nose, then he looked at Castiel and nodded. Cas nodded back and looked to where Michael sat on the floor, his eyes still glazed over.

“Come here, Omega!” Castiel said in a loud, stern voice. Michael startled out of his trance. He stood and walked to the Alpha without hesitation or fear. He was submission. He was obedience. Michael was Omega, possibly more deeply than he’d ever been in his life.

“Undress yourself.”

Michael stripped with haste and efficiency. His shoes and socks slipped off as his pants fell and bared his legs. His shirt disappeared as fast. He stood before the Alpha unashamed and beautiful. Sam backed off, and Dean whimpered. Castiel stood completely still and regarded him for a full minute in severe silence, then two. Michael bit his lower lip and lowered his eyes even more. He dared not speak, but the waiting was so hard. Castiel undressed in no hurry, but he kept his eyes locked on Michael, and he forced him to wait for several more minutes once he was bare.

At last, the Alpha took two steps toward and around him and guided his body to the ground, like a puppet master molding a figure into place. Michael was placed flat on his back. His eyes turned golden as the Alpha lifted the Omega’s legs slowly into place over his shoulders. He was exposed and indefensible, and he shivered.

“I own you, Omega,” Castiel told him in a whisper. “I own you, body and spirit. Hold on tightly to my shoulders and keep your eyes on mine. I require nothing else from you. Just relax and hold on.”

Michael’s golden eyes almost vibrated as he tried to lock them onto Castiel’s. He knew what he was going to see there, and his trust began to stretch thin, but a long stroke down his body grounded him, and he pulled his eyes up, and they locked. Michael’s thin black scrapper of a wolf panted and rocked as it beheld the behemoth within those red eyes. But the threat that it had seen last time—the danger—was just a memory. This time, huge and powerful, the great beast poised grand and strong, offering shade, offering shelter, and Michael’s skinny wolf pup scuttled between its huge paws without hesitation.

Outside, in the physical world, Castiel lined his cock up carefully and pressed inside. His was an aggression borne of anticipation and control. It was the relentless, unstoppable tide climbing slowly to its peak. He didn’t growl or snarl at Michael. He didn’t need the frenzied rutting that he sometimes used. Castiel’s Alpha was in control at the moment, but his monstrous wolf honored the Dominance of the smaller wolf and allowed him the respect of beginning with a measured, deliberate pace, never taking its eyes off its prey. For, respected or not, honored or otherwise, Michael was prey, and like the falling of the night that takes light from the sky, Castiel would subsume him.

The wolf would get his turn.

Castiel began a powerful, almost thrumming pace. It was slow, like the rhythms of old when their forefathers still lived in caves and beat out the echoes of their hearts on crude drums with gnawed-bone beaters. It was deliberate and evocative. It matched Castiel’s breathing at the start and forced Michael’s to keep pace. Slowly, so very slowly, keeping their eyes locked, Castiel increased his pace, switching from matching his breath to matching the pumping of his heart.

Michael’s heartbeat responded.

Michael couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t have said how much time passed. He didn’t know where he was or why. His vision tunneled down to nothing but staunch red irises surrounding the endless, endless night.

Michael’s body matched Castiel’s. The Alpha and the Omega, as was always meant to be in endless cycle. Forever. The Alpha sweated as he picked up his pace, setting his jaw. His face twitched in effort. He began to move with intent, holding onto the outside of Michael’s thigh in a powerful, painful vice-grip. The purposefulness of the Alpha’s movements was deceptive. Castiel kept himself in his front-brain most of the time, and moved with just such deliberate purpose, but this…

As Castiel allowed his wolf space in the front, allowed it to power his movement, the Dominant wolf began a mimic of the droll professor in a mockery of his careful resolution. His motions became robotic and stiff. The wolf was mocking Castiel, and soon it sparked his Alpha’s temper, throwing him over the edge and into a frenzy. Cas shouted in rage, not at the compliant Omega before him, but at his defiant beast of a wolf, whose respect was obviously waning. He wrenched control back from the huge wolf and took it for himself, sending the wolf panting back into the shadows in surprise.

Castiel gave up all pretense of a measured pace and began to tear into the Omega with speed and force, pumping himself deep and hard. Michael, for his part, continued to do exactly as instructed. He clutched the Alpha’s shoulders, kept his eyes on the deep recesses of the eyes above him, and submitted his body wholeheartedly.

He wasn’t afraid, exactly, but the Omega knew he had a wolf by the ears. One wrong move, one wrong thought, and he would be snuffed from existence. He could feel the turmoil inside his partner, and he couldn’t quite tell who was at the other end of his submission, but he wasn’t about to stop and ask.

Castiel’s knot began to pop, and as with Dean’s, it tore its way into and back out of the Omega’s channel with brutal indifference. Sam was alone, and worried. They looked so feral. Castiel had claw marks down his back, and Michael’s channel had to be stinging with the intensity of the friction. Dean and Gabe couldn’t have helped if they’d needed to, and the only other wolf present was April.

Sam circled the rutting, grunting, moaning couple, wishing like hell that he’d asked Bobby or Benny to stay. Sam pulled his phone from his pocket to call them back. Then suddenly, Castiel rammed his knot into place, threw his head back, shutting his eyes and breaking the visual connection between the two wolves. He came with a powerful scream, and Sam felt the percussion of the Claim forming through his feet as it rocked both wolves.

In utter exhaustion, they crumpled into a tangled pile of moist flesh. Michael’s belly was smeared with his own semen. Sam approached cautiously and helped them roll to the side to rest on Michael’s right thigh and hip. Michael whimpered like a wounded puppy, but he didn’t appear to be injured. Castiel panted with his eyes closed. He showed no signs of aggression.

Sam inspected Michael’s channel where Cas’ knot disappeared into the Omega’s body briefly but closely enough to be sure the Omega wasn’t injured, then he pulled more pillows out of the chest along with a blanket. He attended the locked couple, checked on Dean and Gabriel who hadn’t yet untied, collected April to him, fell into the chair where she’d been sitting, biting her nails to the quick, and closed his eyes.

Holy shit! What a day.

Chapter Text

THEN:

“Claire, slow down! What do you mean Gabriel’s busted it open? What’s he even doing there? Gabriel is in Lawrence. I saw him here this morning!”

“He’s right here, Bobby!” she shouted back. “I just got a ping from Ash that…that he and a small team, with Gabe on the inside, just heisted an Omega straight out of the basement and booked it. Ash snatched the girl, but Gabriel is MIA now.” Claire mopped the sweat off her brow and cast another furtive look around. She was alone with a lot of greenery for cover and a good view of her surroundings, but she needed to lower her voice and get control anyway.

They were fucked.

They were so very fucked.

“I’ll kill him. I’m gonna kill him and Ash both! So, how many does that leave stuck in there?”

The odds seemed insurmountable now. Claire shook her head in despair. “Fourteen more Omegas, not counting the one Gabe grabbed. Bobby, we can’t do it. We have to pull out.”

“Hold on, Claire. Just tell me what you need. I can bump the timeline. We can still do this. We have to make it happen. We’ve invested too much to just walk away. They’ll scatter if we wait.”

“No, alpha. We can’t do it. It’s a kicked anthill in there. Gordon himself is onsite, and he’s raving! There’s no way to get to the basement, and they never pull all of them out at once. Plus, my team is at risk every second we delay. We have to abort. I don’t want to any more than you do, but there’s no way to get the vans in place in time, and I can’t make it happen. God! I’m so sorry!” Her voice broke on a sob as the full weight of what was going to happen to the fourteen souls she couldn’t save hit her in the solar plexus. “I’m so sorry, Bobby! I can’t! We have to abort.”

Bobby paused to process then lowered his energy. “Shhh. Breathe for me, Omega. I know. It’s not your failure, it’s mine. Get your people out of there. Get them all safe. We’re busted anyway, so if you spot any of the fourteen on your way out and you can do it safely, you grab them and run. I’ll take anything you can give me, but don’t put any of our people at risk. Head for Vegas. Get to Christian and go to ground. Where’s Ash now?”

Claire took in a massive breath and leaned back on one hand. “He’s taking the Omega straight to you. Apparently, Cas and Dean are already in the area and getting closer, so he’s sent Cas an SOS on Gabriel.”

“Well, fuck. That’s just great. Now Castiel’s going to know everything too. And he’s going to be pissed…no, not pissed, that’s too weak. He’s going to be livid when he gets the full skinny on everything. I left him out of this on purpose, Claire. He hates it when I do that. Shit! Okay. Look, you just take care of your team, get anybody else out that you can, and don’t sweat it. We can’t win them all. You let me worry about Gabriel. I’m going to skin that little mongrel alive when I get hold of him. If he’d just stayed where I put him. Damnit!”

“Bobby, I’m really sorry, but you can’t put this all on Gabe. You left him out of it too. You know he never stays where you put him for long, and he was bound to dig this one up on his own eventually. If you had just let him know we were here… Remember, I said it was a bad idea to keep him in the dark.”

“Save the I-told-you-so, Omega.” Bobby imbued his words with an alpha warning. He was in no mood for attitude.

“Sir, listen. You can’t let him think it’s all his fault. Once he finds out that his little caper cost us fourteen others, he’s gonna shit himself. If you add another layer on top of that and make him think it’s his fault, it will break him again. Please, be careful, alpha. Please. I know you’re mad, but this is more on us than it is Gabe. We should have predicted he’d pull a stunt like this sooner or later, and he didn’t know.”

“You mean I should’ve predicted.” Bobby sighed. “Okay, Claire. Call me when you’re clear and get your asses to Nevada, pronto.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Claire sent the abort signal to the team inside and out, called off the van drivers, and sneaked carefully to her spot near the back tunnel. She never caught sight of Gabriel, but she hadn’t expected to. Gabe was invisible when he wanted to be. She broke cover just in time to provide the assistance Alex needed to forcefully neutralize three thugs who were trying to load two Omegas into waiting black armored transport vans. They made a run for it and were joined by the other four team members. Claire wiped the blood off her knife with a quick sweep along the inside of her jacket then threw the jacket into the trunk. Alpha had told her to try to save any that she could, and she felt no remorse for how she’d had to accomplish that.

All eight of them packed into the tiny Volvo and disappeared down the side streets. Claire was certain they’d been spotted. Their faces had been covered, and the three transport guards weren’t going to be telling anyone anything ever again, but eyes were everywhere in a place like that, and she wasn’t stupid. They were made, no doubt about it. All hell would be breaking loose back in Kansas over the next few days. Claire checked on everyone, helped quiet the terrified Omegas, and tried to get her own breathing under control.

Two Omegas. After two months of detailed planning and practice, they only walked away with two Omegas. That meant twelve more were being drugged and moved right at that moment, to disappear into abject slavery or worse, never to be seen again. Twelve souls just like Claire’s.

There but for the grace of…

Claire sobbed in her seat and clutched the warm body on her lap who was clutching her right back, grateful to be safe. Claire took the comfort of knowing she’d at least pulled out two, and Gabriel had one as well. It would have to do. They couldn’t save everyone.

Bobby texted Cas to check on their status, find out whether they had reached Gabriel yet, and assure his boss that he knew nothing about Gabriel’s actions beforehand. That part wasn’t a lie, but the omission weighed heavily on Bobby. There was going to be hell to pay very soon.

Castiel lived by a moral code that appeared starched white and unbreakable on the surface, except that his right to operate above board was purchased on the black market by letting Bobby do his dirty work. It had not always been thus, and there were still things Cas had a hand in that even Bobby didn’t know about, things Cas barely accepted about himself. Sometimes he acknowledged the contradiction, and sometimes he fought it. Many times Bobby allowed him his luxury of ignorance by not telling Cas what he was up to. In those cases, all went well as long as Castiel remained in the dark. This was about to become one of the rarest and most painful moments where the full depth of Bobby’s willingness to break all the rules was dragged into the light unless he could find a way to stop it, and he’d have to face a great reckoning with the Alpha soon. Bobby spared only a moment to consider whether his boss would be more outraged by the loss of life or the fact that the plan had all fallen disastrously apart, leaving the rescue team vulnerable.

Damnit all, Gabriel! Damn it all!

Bobby prayed for the Omega’s safe deliverance if only so he could break a cane over his unruly ass.

NOW:

Sam kept watch over the five wolves in Castiel’s playroom. April snuggled in tightly on his lap, her eyes on her mate where he was tied to the other Omega, but her mind at peace. She had no argument with hierarchical sex. Claiming and pack fucking occupied a different place in a wolf’s psyche than intimacy did, and she had no problem with the distinction. Castiel was still her mate and no one else’s. He always would be, so she felt no threat from Michael.

Dean and Gabriel pulled themselves apart after about fifteen minutes. Both wolves were familiar with the protocol of Castiel’s playroom: Dean, having been here many, many times over the years with Castiel, and Gabriel having spent numerous hours under the strap and power of whoever Castiel rented for him to keep him Balanced. They headed together to the back of the space, cracked open the upper windows and turned on the vent fans above the open shower. Dean washed Gabriel and then himself efficiently, carefully minding Gabriel’s stitches and looking them over to see if he’d done his brother-in-law-to-be any damage in his carelessness. Gabe put up with the inspection impatiently then threw a towel over Dean’s head, grabbed one for himself, and limped back to his clothes to get dressed.

Gabriel scowled when he found his shredded clothing. “Really, alpha? Was that necessary? I liked those slacks.” Gabe snatched up Dean’s pants before the alpha could get to them and used his teeth and hands to rip the pants in half while Dean gaped at him.

“Oh, come on! At least I did it in the throes of passion. You’re just being a dick!” Dean protested loudly as Gabe pitched the ruined fabric at his chest.

The two bickering wolves were interrupted by the sound of a ring tone coming from Michael’s pocket. Michael stirred from his drowse and tried to grapple for his pants but couldn’t get there. He was still tied tightly. Dean scooped the phone from his mate’s pants and held the screen so that Michael could see it. It read, POP.

“It’s my father,” said Michael, reaching for the phone. Dean handed it to him, and he answered it as Castiel, much more gracefully than Dean had done at their Mating, righted them and worked his knees under Michael’s thighs, sitting carefully upright in a kneeling position.

“Hello, Pop,” said Michael bringing one arm up to rest his hand under his head. He set his feet wide and flat to the ground on either side of the Alpha’s body, still spreading his bent knees obscenely.

“Yes, Sir. I’m fine. I’m good. Look, Sir? It’s not really a great time right now. Can I call you back in a few minutes? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

Castiel thrust his knot in a dirty grind against Michael’s channel and took hold of his flaccid cock, stroking him firmly. Cas kept his eyes on his work, ignoring Michael’s conversation with his father, or seeming to, but his actions were classic Alpha posturing.

They said, don’t pay attention to another alpha while you’re on my knot.

Michael’s breath caught, and he wasn’t able to hide it from his father on the other end of the line. “No, no. No, Sir. I’m fine,” Michael’s voice caught and pulsed, his breath repeatedly punched out of him as Castiel got to work with intention. “Alpha, please! Sir!” Michael was caught between the two of them, both demanding his attention, and he had to choose. “Pop, it’s not a good time. I’ll call you right back!”

He hung up the phone and dropped it. Michael let himself enjoy the sensations. Castiel’s hand on his cock increased speed and pressure, bringing him back to full arousal. Michael let his chin point at the ceiling in a posture of complete submission and took the reward from his Alpha. Everything felt heavenly—the strokes to his cock, the meaty grinding thrusts into his ass where the huge knot had not diminished since it locked into place. Castiel grinned at him in approval and redoubled his efforts.

Good Omegas got rewarded in Castiel’s Pack.

The phone rang again, so Dean picked it up and took the call. He had scrounged bath robes for himself and Gabe. Sam and April were up and straightening the room. Everyone ignored the grunting, moaning coupling that Cas and Michael were up to. Michael’s reward was for Michael alone.

“Hello, Dean Winchester.” Dean moved slowly away from the noisy pair. “Yes, Alpha. It’s good to hear from you. I’ve been meaning to call to introduce myself.” He paused to listen. “Michael? Yes, he is. We’re doing really well, working things out. He’s a great guy, Alpha. Thank you for trusting me with him. I know it was sudden.” Dean paused again and turned to look across the room where his mate was losing himself to the pleasure. He was beautiful when he let go. Dean watched Cas pull an orgasm out of Michael’s cock while grunting his way through another one himself. There was no Claim or aggression in this one, just pleasure for them both.

“Oh, that would be great, Alpha Lancet. Does he have very much that you need to bring? We’ll pay for a rented trailer if you need one. Only thing is the timing. We’re all going to be out of town that weekend, and Michael and I were planning on a full month of isolation. Can you put it off for about five more weeks? Would that be okay?” Michael lay still other than his breathing. He still had his neck fully bared, and he’d let his knees and feet sprawl grotesquely wide.

“No, Alpha. He’s here. I’ll have him call you back in just a few minutes. It’s just, we had our Pack Establishment ceremony tonight, and Michael’s still tied on Alpha’s knot after the Claiming. He just needs a few minutes to separate and clean up.” Dean pulled the phone away from his ear, grimacing at the sudden volume from the Alpha on the other end of the line. “Jerry! Jerry Lancet, hold on a minute! It’s not what you think. We’re not hurting him. He’s just fine. This is going to be good for his Omega. Can you please just wait until you get a chance to talk to him?” Dean rolled his eyes at Michael’s alarmed expression.

Alphas! thought Dean for the thousandth time.

He sent Michael a calming, soothing caress through the Mating-bond. “Yes, of course you’re welcome to visit. If you want to fly up tomorrow morning, we’ll have someone pick you up from the airport, man. We’re not the monsters you’re making us out to be, and Michael’s just fine. It’s just a Claim-Fuck, and I was only putting you off bringing him his stuff because we are literally not going to be here that weekend. Calm down, Alpha.”

Michael threw an arm across his face in embarrassment, but Cas just chuckled at his discomfort and kissed his throat. April brought a warm washcloth over and knelt to wipe them both off. Michael allowed the contact, suffering her touch with more acceptance than he had been capable of prior to the Claim. It felt nice—not sexual, but nice.

Dean ended the call and tossed the phone back on top of Michael’s wadded clothing. “I’m going to find something to wear and get something to drink. We done here, boss?”

“Is Alpha Lancet dropping by for an impromptu visit tomorrow, Dean?” Cas asked him, stretching his arms over his own head, still kneeling on his ass.

“No, but he’s expecting a call from his son within the hour.”

“All right. Um, yes, we’re through here. Everyone is dismissed. If you want drinks, how about gathering in the conservatory. I still haven’t had a chance to hear April play. Gabriel says you’re very good, and I wanted to ask if you might play something for us.” He addressed his mate, who blushed and smiled.

“Of course, Alpha. Do you want me to stay while you’re knotted in case you need anything?”

“No, April. We’ll be along in a bit. You go on. Get dressed if you want.”

She didn’t want. April enjoyed the feeling that she was at home here and free to remain naked whenever she wanted. It made her feel accepted. Omegas in some packs were punished for allowing their nudity to be viewed by the wrong people, so the freedom to walk naked through her house sent a message that there was no chance of encountering anyone here who didn’t belong.

It made her feel safe.

The others assembled in the huge high-ceilinged conservatory. Sam dug out a cart of drinks while Gabriel dressed and ran by the kitchen for some ice. The staff was gone for the day. Cas only kept enough people on the cleaning and maintenance staff to keep the place running. He cleaned up after himself, but the house was too much for him to care for alone. Security was an unfortunate necessity too, but he had no permanent kitchen workers or chauffeur. He catered when he needed a formal meal, and he always drove himself. Castiel had been born into wealth and status, but he shrugged off many of the trappings like an ill-fitting coat. As Alpha, he had the luxury of being free to make his own choices, so he did.

Everyone served themselves. Sam brought his drink to where Dean was admiring the new piano. “I heard you asking Jo about her invite to join the Pack, but I didn’t hear what she said,” said Sam.

Dean turned to meet him. “Yeah, apparently, Cas invited all of them. You’d think he would have let me in on that, but he didn’t. He made that offer without telling me, much less asking me.”

Sam defended the Alpha. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to hide it, Dean. He probably just assumed you would agree and went with his gut. You’ve all been close forever, and you can’t tell me you don’t consider all of them Pack in a way. Besides, none of them were gonna accept anyway. The invitations were a courtesy. Bobby’s never going to submit to Cas to that degree. Benny’s planning to establish his own Pack once Andrea is ready, and Jo and Ellen are happy just as they are. Once Jo Mates, they’ll be set.”

“Yeah, maybe. I just wish he’d told me before the ceremony so I didn’t have to stand there looking stupid.” Dean fetched a hand towel from the bathroom just outside the conservatory and spread it on the leather bench of the beautiful piano so April could sit to play without having to dress. “Jo said just about the same thing. She didn’t think Cas expected any of them to accept the invite either.”

“Tell him you didn’t like being left out, man, but don’t rag on him about it. Pretty sure it was an honest mistake, not a deliberate cut. You two are under enough stress as it is without making a big deal out of everything.”

“Thanks, Dr. Phil. I’ll think about it.”

April sat down and ran her fingers over the board to get the feel for the volume in the space. She wanted to be able to play in the background of any conversations without drowning them out. She started up a frisky ragtime jaunt, and Dean leaned over her shoulder and tapped out a spontaneous beat on the bass end. She turned to look up at him without pausing. “I didn’t know you played, Dean.” She was very surprised. He was extemporizing a harmony on the fly. Few amateur musicians knew how to do that without some training and years of practice.

He winked at her, flourished an ending and pulled his hand away from the keyboard. Sam leaned over the bend of the grand piano and grinned at the two of them. “Why don’t you sit down and play with her Dean? I’ll bet the two of you could put something good together.”

“Thanks, Sam. I’m through with sitting for a while. Dinner was hard enough, but I knew I wasn’t getting out of sitting there. At least now I’m on my own time. Think I’ll stay on my feet for the time being.” He ran a hand along April’s hip and flank, admiring her bruises. “How about you, kid? Aren’t you too sore to sit?”

She laughed and switched tunes to a sexy blues piece that she made up as she went along. “Nope. I like the way it feels. Not always crazy about how it feels when it’s happening, but I like the soreness when it’s over. Don’t you? I thought you were a masochist like me.”

He admitted, “Sometimes I like to be sore, but sore from being punished is different from sore after a good scene, you know?” Sam rolled his eyes and left them to compare Sub experiences and tones of flesh when bruised.

Must be a Sub thing.

The drinks flowed. The tunes kept them lighthearted. Castiel joined them after about half an hour, freshly showered and dressed. He looked good. He was king of his domain, lord of the castle, and he knew it. Dean put a drink in his hand, kissed him deeply, then asked about Michael.

“He’s calling his father. He’ll be with us after that. He’s fine, Dean. We had a little bit of a chat, and I think we’re in a good place right now.”

Dean indicated April’s performance with his head. “Did you know she played like that?” Castiel shook his head, intrigued, and moved across the room where he could watch and listen. April grinned at him and drove the blues ramble into a dirty grind that made him narrow his eyes at her. Cas straddled her hips and shoved his groin into the crack of her ass from behind, taking a seat on the bench behind his mate, holding her hips, mouthing at her neck. She laughed happily, ending on a squeal and a disharmonious note.

“What shall I play for you, Alpha?” she prompted.

“Can you play Tchaikovsky?” he asked, rutting his hips easily. The Alpha was insatiable tonight, but of course, it was really his night after all.

She started up a bit from Romeo and Juliet with a side-eye at her mate, and he chuckled and bit down on her mating-scar. She gasped, overcome at the powerful sensation. He noticed and pulled her hips in tighter. He re-framed the grip with his teeth and bit harder, grinding his jaw into her flesh and furrowing his brow in concentration. April continued to play, but she cried out as a sudden orgasm overtook her with no lead in or warmup. He rutted harder, letting his slacks create friction for his cock against the cleft of her ass and taking hold of the front edge of the bench for support.

Gabe huffed, “All right, you two. I thought Dean was the one who wanted to get into displaying himself. You gotta give me more notice if you expect to put on a show every damn minute.” Gabriel was only pretending to be perturbed. He didn’t care, but he liked to tweak his brother whenever the chance presented itself. “And you,” he said to April. “This is a party. If you’re gonna play, play something fun, not whatever the hell that crap is.”

“That crap, Gabriel, is Tchaikovsky. It’s wonderful, and he’s a countryman of yours, so show some fucking respect.” Cas admonished him, but he stopped grinding into his mate and stood back up to refresh his drink with a wink at her. She blushed and switched to something playful and current she’d picked up from the radio.

“Countryman? I’m an American, Alpha,” Gabe retorted. “Don’t know what you are.”

Michael entered the room looking sheepish. He headed straight for Dean and put his arms around him. “No wonder I’m fucked up,” he moaned pathetically. “Now that I’ve seen another way, I can’t believe I ever thought that was normal.”

Dean hugged him back and gently kissed his lips, happy to find himself still alpha, even this close. “You don’t ever have to go back, Michael. We’re going to keep you here and give you whatever you need. Don’t cut your father out though, okay? Just give it some time. You’ll get to a place where you can have a relationship with him without fearing him. It’s just going to take you some time and training. I’ve got you now, baby. I’m never going to send you back there.” April’s playing went back to slow and sexy blues. Dean wrapped his arms around Michael’s hips and swayed with him to the slow rhythm, whispering, “Dance with me…”

Michael melted into his mate and moved his body in a slow sway with the music, resting his forehead on Dean’s shoulder and closing his eyes. They danced slowly, rotated and ground their hips together, kissed softly, and rocked as if alone and naked.

“Dean, baby, will you let me do you here with the Pack around?” Michael whispered. Dean whined at him. He felt his Sub wolf ready to slide into place, and he was horny enough to go with it. The music was helping to take him into a deep, sexy place where he could be vulnerable no matter who else was watching. Then Michael turned it up. He whispered, “I asked Alpha if he would help us get you there, and he said yes. Do you want to see if you can let us both touch you together? It’s not the slow pace we said, Dean. If you don’t want to, just let me know, and I’ll call it off. We’re not going to let you get hurt, I promise. You still with me, alpha?”

Michael slipped Dean’s Henley over his head. Dean raised his arms, continuing the sway of his hips.

“Yeah, Michael. I’m still alpha. Barely.” Dean bit down on Michael’s mating-scar to prove it. That wasn’t a move a Sub would dare try without a command. It didn’t have the effect on Michael that it would have on April. Sensitivity inside the scar that was strong enough to elicit a spontaneous orgasm was a rare development anyway. Plus, Michael’s and Dean’s bonding went backward. But Michael moaned and gripped Dean tightly. It still felt really fucking electric. The nerves were forming a link from his scar that went straight to his Omega gland, and it sent sparkles of sensation through his whole body. He panted and ground his hips in harder.

“Well? You wanna?” Michael asked again in a breathy exhale.

“Hell yeah, I wanna. Can I just go under now? Are we through talking about it?”

Michael gripped Dean’s swollen, sore ass and mm-hmed at him, biting Dean’s mating-wound in retaliation, and Dean slipped away into subspace, letting his wolf take him home. Michael gestured to Castiel. Cas whispered to his mate, and she smirked and accepted a dirty kiss from him, followed by a sip from his glass while he tipped it carefully for her to keep her from needing to take her hands off the piano.

Cas stripped off and dropped his clothes over the back of one of the couches. Sam kept up his conversation with Gabriel, but their eyes were drawn inevitably to the dancers before April’s piano. Castiel approached Dean from behind, fitted his own hips into motion with the other two, and ran his hands over Dean’s hips. He latched on to Dean’s opposite shoulder, sucking and nibbling until he brought up a purple bruise. Dean’s cock was hard and aching. He knew that his brother, Castiel’s brother, and his de facto little sister were all watching him, and he fought the desire to put on a performance or turn it into something outside of himself as he had always done before.

The music helped. April kept it slow and sensuous. Dean closed his eyes. It didn’t alter his knowledge that he wasn’t alone with his lovers, but it allowed him to focus on the bodies pressed to his and the sultry piano. His hips never stopped moving as someone’s hands worked at the fastenings holding up his jeans. He kept a stash of clothes at Castiel’s house, had done so for years, but they hadn’t been on him long enough to make dressing worthwhile. His mind supplied that maybe April had the right idea to just stay nude and save everyone the trouble until the feel of four hands working the fabrics off his body sent tremors down his limbs.

No, he wouldn’t want to skip this part.

Castiel reached around and unbuckled his belt at a glacial pace.

The young Omega at the piano began to hum in a low, sweet voice along with her playing, bringing in a counterpoint to the keystrokes and adding a breath of human emotion that went straight to Dean’s cock. Michael—he could tell it was Michael, even with his eyes closed—helped him step out of his pants and shoes, while Cas ran his hands across Dean’s bare chest and laid warm kisses along his spine.

“Gabriel, toss me that bottle right there,” Castiel called to his brother, and then he caught the bottle of lube easily with one hand.

“Dean, my love,” Cas whispered to him from behind, keeping as much contact with his Sub as he could along the lines of their bodies as they swayed. “This is Michael’s dance. I’m here to help him with you, so I want you to listen to him, now. Obey him, Pet.” Dean groaned again. Castiel, the great and powerful, stepping in to assist in someone else’s scene took Dean that much further into a deep and sacred place. That they thought he was worth this much effort, this much work, was a heady feeling. And Dean was under no illusions, their hands might be gentle and sultry, but this was a scene. He was being worked into a Submissive place, and he reveled in the luxury of letting his own will go.

Dean didn’t startle when Castiel’s fingers nudged his hole. He worked two lubed digits into Dean while they danced, thrusting them, scissoring them, stroking Dean’s hip with his other hand, and pulling him into the swivels that Castiel wanted from him. Dean widened his stance. He let his head drop onto Michael’s shoulder, in a reflection of the position Michael had found when he entered in frustration with his Alpha father. Michael didn’t strip, but he let Dean’s cock work against the front panel of his dress slacks, soiling them with pre-come until they shone.

Michael’s hand ran under Dean’s balls and worked them, tugged them, squeezed them while Castiel added a third finger. Michael kissed his compliant Sub while they danced. They rocked together for a while, listening to April’s fingers torture a slow grind out of the ivory keys and starting to sweat together. Sam refilled his glass with ice and whiskey. He’d stopped talking to Gabriel.

Dean quit fighting against his need to perform. He stopped thinking at all and became an extension of his Doms’ will. They were still dancing in a sense—in the sense that dances mimic sexual motions—but they’d slipped from mimicking to sex in truth. Michael leaned in close to Dean’s ear and growled, “I’m going to swallow your huge cock straight down, Dean. Your Alpha is going to fuck you from behind and drive your cock into my throat. You just stay right here between us and take it. Sam is watching you. His hand is on his own cock now. Let’s see if he comes before you do, my baby. God, you’re sexy!”

Michael dropped slowly to his knees. He licked Dean’s cock with a flat tongue, a ritual by this point. Dean nearly fell forward with his support gone, but Castiel’s arm came around his chest and gripped him tightly, holding him upright. Michael found the lube bottle on the ground where Cas had dropped it and reached around Dean’s hips as he swallowed down his cock, using both hands to coat the Alpha’s. Then Michael wiped his hands off down the length of Dean’s thighs and took hold of Castiel’s hips, letting his reach force his face even further along Dean’s length. He pulled Cas right up tight against Dean.

Dean whimpered when he felt Cas’ cock push up along the crest of his ass just as Michael hummed onto his own dick. Castiel kissed Dean right on top of his bruised shoulder, keeping his face on the opposite side from where Michael’s mark was still healing. Cas took the flesh of Dean’s shoulder between his teeth and lined himself up with his hole. He took a firm hold of Dean’s hip, while still holding him upright across the chest and began to let Michael’s hands pull him in, sinking very slowly into Dean’s body.

The music continued to lay out the rhythm of their bodies. It was a dance, just as before, except that now the three of them were joined as one in motion. Michael held his head motionless, using his hands to work all three through one another. Cas let him do as he would. Castiel considered himself a mere prop in Michael’s tableau, but he kept his lips in motion on his beloved Dean and took the pleasure offered to him. Dean’s body was relaxed. He began to moan and whimper in a constant unintentional harmony with April’s voice. He still swayed as he could, his wolf lost in the music and the sensations.

Cas angled his head to check on their brothers and almost laughed out loud. Both men had freed their own cocks and were stroking themselves slowly. Somehow, in the thick pheromones that were swamping good sense, the fact that each was engrossed in watching his own brother get off no longer mattered. It really didn’t matter. At heart, they were dogs, and dogs just didn’t care about DNA when it came to being aroused.

He checked the other direction to make sure April still had both hands on the keyboard. She did. Good girl. Cas could feel how much she wanted to work herself over, but she wasn’t allowed. He sent her pride and satisfaction. Her blush told him she’d received the message.

She changed pieces to one with a slightly quicker tempo, and Michael responded with a grunt. He worked Dean’s cock a little faster, a little deeper, letting go of one of Cas’ hips so he could wrap a hand around Dean’s knot and apply the pressure that would make him crazy. Cas knew Dean’s knees were about to buckle, so he lowered the arm supporting him to hold him at his center of gravity. It allowed him to force Dean’s hips into a better angle for fucking as well, and Cas threw off Michael’s slow pace and started taking his own. He growled and snarled into Dean’s ear as the music swelled around them.

Michael moved both hands to Dean’s hips and tried to hold on and match the Alpha’s harder pace without having the back of his throat punched out. He opened his jaw just right and pulled his lips out of the way so that his teeth just barely brushed Dean’s cock as Castiel drove it deep into Michael’s mouth. It was more tease than contact. Dean leaned over at the waist, unable to hold himself upright any longer, and he put his hands on Michael’s back with a lewd moan. “Michael, I’m gonna come! Baby, can I? Oh, Fuck!”

Michael didn’t pull off. He nodded subtly. Cas picked up for him and fucked Dean hard, shoving Dean’s dick that much deeper and faster between Michael’s jaw. “Your mate wants you to come down his throat, alpha,” Cas told him in a sensual growl. Dean didn’t need to be told twice, but neither did Sam. The Winchester brothers spilled simultaneously with nearly identical groans of pleasure.

April let the music crescendo into a climax as Dean’s eyes rolled back in his head.

Cas pulled out, stroked himself two, three, four more times and then painted Dean’s back with his come.

“Jesus Fuck!” whimpered Gabriel, spilling over his own hand as well.

Michael let Dean’s cock slide out of his mouth and allowed the exhausted man to collapse to the floor and rest his head in his Dom’s lap. Their Mating-bond was alive with emotion: satisfaction and trust, love and pride. Dean knew something new about his mate now, something that Michael hadn’t told him. He suspected Cas knew it too, and he wondered if Michael was aware. They regrouped, cleaned up, snuggled, and kissed. More drinks were poured. April was laid out and petted by everyone while her mate brought her to a screaming climax with his tongue in thanks for her delicious accompaniment and her self-control.

They stayed up late, all of them, but the mood became relaxed and easy in a post-coital way. Everyone lay out upon everyone else, puppy-piling amid the endorphins. Sometimes April tickled the ivories again, and sometimes they just let Castiel’s complicated sound system stream whatever music tickled their fancy.

“Do you and Michael want pups, Dean?” April asked him in a somewhat drunken slur.

“Oh yeah. Lots.” He petted her hair as it cascaded over his lap. “Will you help us? Will you be their Mama? I want you to be their Mom, and Cas to be their father, too. They can have four of us. I want that. I want… all of us.” His eyes weren’t focusing quite right, but she took him seriously.

“Dean, you know Alpha won’t go for that. Does that mean he would share our pups with you and Michael, too?”

“He didn’t tell you? It’s all his idea. I’ve even got all our names picked out. I’m Dad, no matter whose pups they are biologically, I’m Dad to all of them, or Daddy maybe. Cas is Papa. I can’t picture Cas as anything but Papa, and you’re Mom, maybe Mama? I dunno. Michael isn’t going to want a girly title, so I worked one out for him, too.” Michael was close enough to overhear, so he raised a droopy eyebrow at his mate.

“And what’s my title, alpha?” he asked.

“You’re O-Pop. You like it? You call your own father, Pop, and it just came to me. Pop is too close to Papa, so it has to be different enough to tell them apart when someone’s bellowing from three rooms away.”

Michael chewed on the word for a few moments. Dean was right that he wouldn’t appreciate being called Mother or any derivative of a feminine name. O-Pop. It was masculine enough, but it kept his Omega status right out front and seemed so permanent.

Then his mind swirled with images of young, happy faces running toward him, their arms outstretched to be lifted into the air and calling out to him, “O-Pop! Did you see me?!”

Damned drunken emotional tear ducts; damned Claiming hormones; damned post-coital endorphins. Dean’s eyes crinkled as he caught the emotional reverie in Michael’s mind. Smugly, Dean said, “O-Pop it is, then.”

“Alpha!” April called to him where he lounged on the opposite couch with Sam and Gabriel, her voice pitched to travel much further than it needed to go. He winced and looked up. “Are we all going to share pups? I get to be Mommy to all of them, even Dean’s and Michael’s?”

Cas sat up, immediately more sober. He needed to be cautious of how this conversation went, especially if they were soused. “I meant to talk to you about it alone later, not when you’re drunk, not with the whole Pack around. But what do you think of the idea? Dean’s on board. Michael hasn’t agreed to it. He has some significant concerns, I believe.” Castiel’s drunk voice wasn’t far from his normal one.

“I like it!” she enthused. “My pups, Michael’s pups, they’ll all be siblings. It’s perfect! What don’t you like about it?” She turned to Michael whose eyes widened at being put on the spot.

“I don’t know. I just need to think about it a little longer, I guess.”

“Don’t pressure him, April.” Castiel struggled to his feet and knelt beside her. “Right now is not the time to be making life-altering decisions.” She giggled and Cas patted her cheek sloppily.

“I’m going to bed,” announced Gabriel. “Good night, Winchester Pack. ‘Night Papa!” He hauled himself to his feet and made his way out of the room to the happy goodnight wishes from his new family members.

“I need to go, too,” said Sam. He stood and swayed just a bit.

“Hey, hey!” Dean stopped him. “You’re not going anywhere like that. You’re staying here tonight. We’ve got extra toothbrushes and shit. Here, I’ll take you to a room you can have for the night.” Dean slipped out from under April’s head and helped his brother to the grand staircase leading up to the bedrooms on the second floor. Michael followed them, hoping to find one for himself as well. His eyes were struggling to stay open, and a deep, soft bed sounded like the perfect solution. He caught up to Dean, who slipped an arm over his shoulders in welcome.

Cas and April found themselves alone in the conservatory, so Cas put his arms under his mate’s knees and behind her shoulders and lifted her effortlessly. He kissed her as he carried her to bed, immensely satisfied with the evening and filled with hope for the future.

Naomi adjusted the microphone and tapped it to make sure it was on, then she focused out into the audience. They were her constituents, but Naomi had a steep hill to climb before the next election. Her approval rating with Lupins in her district was at an all-time low of twelve percent, and her approval among Primates wasn’t good enough yet to make up the difference. She represented a district in Kansas that was overwhelmingly Primate, so that’s where she focused her efforts. Besides, her opponent wasn’t a Lupin, so it didn’t really matter. She hoped she could write their vote off as a loss and not lose much overall.

“Good afternoon, Kansas,” she called cheerfully. “I appreciate all of you who have made our state’s governance a priority by coming out today, and I appreciate your support. Together, we can bring Kansas to a whole new level.” The applause was too sparse for her liking, but she pressed forward with her speech. Her real audience was the television camera. News outlets would be picking and choosing the sound bites that best fit the story they wanted to tell, so she needed to craft her words to make the best impression in thirteen-second sound bites.

“We have a grave threat upon us in this country, and as you know, it’s centered right here in the heartland of this great nation, right here in Kansas. The Modern Lupine movement that seeks to turn impressionable, innocent young people into drooling zombies, slaves to their basest animalistic impulses has run amuck in Kansas for too long. The leaders of this disgusting campaign would have you believe that Lupin-Americans are incapable of living outside of their instinct, that they cannot survive without debasing themselves in sex and violence of the grossest nature. They are, as we speak, brainwashing an entire generation of defenseless Canids into a life of abuse, open marriage, sodomy, perversion, prostitution, and pornography.

“Let me state right here and now, so there can be no misunderstanding: Wolves do not need this unholy lifestyle to flourish, and anyone who tells you differently is selling wholesale and dangerous lies. I am a wolf. I know of which I speak. There is no inherent requirement that any of us must live in a den of depravity merely to survive. In that vein, and in yet another commitment in my lifelong fight against the wickedness that threatens to sweep our beautiful state and our great nation under a shadow of Satan’s lies, I have just offered a bill to Congress which would remove all sources of funding for Lupin-related houses of depravity.” A few of her constituents clapped with enthusiasm, but boos sounded from even more places, and she noticed a couple of fists thrown violently into the air.

“Hedonism has no place in great country!” She raised her voice above the increasing volume of the protests. “Lupins may do whatever they like in the privacy of their own homes—may God forgive them—but there is no justifiable excuse for we, the God-fearing American workers, to support or fund their immorality. It’s time we take a stand to protect the children from this degeneracy!” Naomi struggled to remember that the cameras were her target. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Her wolf wanted her to snarl at the perceived attack from in front of the dais.

The boos were getting louder.

She stuffed the wolf in her chest ruthlessly back down where it belonged, deep into her subconscious where it could do no harm.

Fucking wolf.

She resented having been born with such a defect in her soul, and she scourged it regularly with the flames of hellfire to route it from her mind. The bitch was relentless though. It had become an incessant fight of late, and Naomi’s back and thighs were scarred with the marks where the nettles had pulled at her flesh over and over again through the years.

“Stand with me, Kansas! Heart of the American prairie, breadbasket to millions, where the people are tried and true, the descendants of the brave pioneers who crossed the grasslands in prairie schooners and built this state out of the base dirt with their bare hands! Stand with me and take Kansas back from the hedonists! Tell Congress to send your money to build up our state and defend our country. Tell them to stop feeding pornography and depravity! Thank you!”

She nearly fled the podium at the end, keeping her even pace with the strongest self-control as jeers followed her off the stage. She slipped into her limo along with her Lupin guard and they made a quick escape. Naomi was at a loss. Her campaign manager sat ashen-faced across from her with nothing to say.

Naomi’s face darkened.

“You promised me a friendly crowd, you bitch! What the fuck was that?” Her lip raised in a snarl. “Who were all those people? I thought you vetted the crowd before you let anyone in!”

“We did, Mrs. Novak. I don’t understand. Sometimes, there are a couple of plants that slip in, but I can’t see how the whole crowd could’ve been planted.” She steeled her nerves and set her jaw. “It won’t happen again Ma’am. I’ll see to it.”

“It won’t happen again. You’ve got that right,” snapped Naomi brutally. “You’re fired!”

Chapter Text

THEN:

Sam kicked the door again, bruising his toe.

Again.

Furious, he paced the small space and growled under his breath.

“Knock it off, Samuel, or I’ll increase it to a full week. Right now, you’re only looking at two days suspension.”

“I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING!” the wolf pup yelled at his administrator.

The Vice-Principal kept his cool despite the Lupin child’s temper. The man’s unflappability was part of the reason Sam was so pissed off. Couldn’t he see that Sam was innocent? He wasn’t even listening. He didn’t care one way or the other.

“Sit down and behave yourself. Act your age. Your father is on his way.”

A cold chill ran down Sam’s spine. He had no way to predict whether his alpha would see reason and take up for Sam or belt him right there in the office. Either way, sitting down wasn’t an option. He wanted to run; needed to run. Sam hated this fucking school. He continued pacing but managed to refrain from kicking the door again.

Mister Jansen went back to his paperwork and ignored the boy. Sam growled even louder and struggled to control his breathing. (That fucking desk looks like particle board), he thought through his wolf. (I bet I could rip it to pieces with my bare hands if I tried. Bet that would get his fucking attention.)

Sam fumed and paced for what seemed like forever. At last, a knock sounded firmly on the door, and his father was ushered in. Dad looked tired and pale, but he didn’t look like he’d been drinking today. The alpha put a firm hand on Sam’s shoulder, grounding him, but holding him tightly, and he faced the VP, who had stood to greet him.

“Mister Winchester. Thank you for coming. There’s been an incident involving your son, and we need to discuss it.”

Sam’s dad met the administrator’s eye coldly and shook his hand, but his first words bolstered his son a little.

“It’s alpha Winchester, Mister Jansen, not mister. I’m no ape. You’re surrounded by wolves in this town, sir. Might be about time you learned a little bit about your community before you find yourself being misunderstood.”

Jansen’s face paled, but he rallied and nodded. “My apologies, alpha. Will you please sit?” He gestured to the visitor’s chairs in his office, and alpha Winchester guided his antsy son into one then took the other.

“Tell me what happened,” the alpha directed, assuming control.

“Your son instigated a fight in his math class, and he injured two students—with his teeth.”

Sam shrank in his chair when his alpha turned to look at him, but his face remained defiant.

“He’s being suspended for the next two days, starting tomorrow, so we’ll expect him to return to school on Monday, and he will be expected to complete his coursework at home on schedule, handing it in upon his return.”

“Whoa, hold on a minute. You’re not suspending him. Sam’s a good kid, and I don’t know what he did with his teeth, but this is not how it’s going down. He needs to be in school. You can’t tell me that kicking him out of class is the best way to handle this. Just give me a second to find out what the boy has to say.”

Mister Jansen gestured at him with a go ahead wave of his hand, and John Winchester turned the full power of his alpha designation on his beta son.

“Sam? Explain.”

“I didn’t do anything!” Sam found himself incoherent. He knew he needed to make his father understand, but he couldn’t get the words out. He worked his jaw in frustration and looked helplessly into the alpha’s eyes.

“Did you bite anyone?” John wasn’t caving to the sad hazel eyes of his son. He had years of practice against puppy eyes.

“Yes, sir. But they started it. They said I was cheating, and they grabbed my paper. They were about to rip it up! I worked for two hours on that homework! I didn’t plan to bite either of them, but when I tried to get it back it was two against one, and I just…they were throwing punches, and all I did was defend myself! It’s not my fault! I didn’t instigate anything! I didn’t FUCKING DO ANYTHING WRONG!” Sam shot to his feet again, his fists clenched.

“Where was your teacher during all of this?” alpha Winchester asked calmly. He put his hand back on Sam’s shoulder. Somehow, when faced with the calm of an alpha, Sam could breathe. The same reaction from everyone else only made him angrier.

Sam looked down into his father’s stern eyes and felt stronger. “Mister Rose was at the front. He didn’t do anything or say anything until they started hollering I’d bit them. It barely even broke the skin, the big babies.”

“Samuel,” Mister Jansen broke in, “your language in my office is unacceptable, and your lack of control speaks poorly of your species.”

John turned on him coldly. “You shut your mouth! You and this travesty of a school have done all the damage to my son I’m going to take.” Jansen sat back, startled to silence. “He’s not suspended, you ass, he’s leaving! I’m pulling him out today, and I’m filing charges of discrimination against you and this jackass of a teacher who lets monkey children gang up on other students with impunity!”

Sam stood gaping at his father. He’d never seen the alpha behave like that before. After Mom died, he thought he’d never see much of any kind of life signs again. His father wandered from day to day now in a fog. Yet here he was, taking Sam’s account at face value and needing no further confirmation. He trusted Sam far more than he trusted the adults running the school, and it made Sam’s blood warm in his veins.

He was jolted from his trance when his father turned his eyes back to Sam. “And you! How long have you been waiting for someone to notice you’re out of balance?”

“Sir?”

“Don’t look at me like that, son. You’re swimming in it right now. Fighting over someone calling you a cheater? Are you a cheater, Sam?”

“Of course not!”

“Of course you’re not, so why would you give those assholes the time of day? This is not you, Samuel. How’d they even get the jump on you? You’re a fucking Winchester. They took your homework paper from you? Seriously? Nuh-uh. I’m not buying it. kid, you may have Presented beta, but your body knows you’re still a pup. What have I always said to you and Dean when you were little, huh? You start to feel like you got ants inside your skin and everybody’s out to get you; it’s not outside, it’s inside. You come tell me. I’ll take care of you, right? Son, that doesn’t change just because you’ve Presented—not until you’re full grown. If I forgot to make that clear, then that’s on me, but you’ve been through this many times before, and I know you knew what it was; knew what it was and said nothing.”

Sam shuffled his feet and looked down. He was busted. He had prayed his Presentation as a beta was going to mean he didn’t need any more rebalancing. He had genuinely thought he had left that shit behind and stepped bravely into adulthood, thanking the Universe not to have Presented as Omega. When the fog started to invade his thoughts and actions a few weeks ago, he knew it was the cortisol, or whatever they called the stuff, but he thought he could hide it. It only got worse as each day went by, and he got angrier and angrier.

His father’s eyes were brutal.

“Right, Samuel?”

“Yes, Sir.”

John looked from his sheepish son back to the Vice-Principal. “Do you have any Lupin teachers here? Do any of them know how to handle wolf pups, or are all our kids just running around on their own in the dark?” He put his finger in the administrator’s face. “You can’t treat these kids like they’re gonna break if you look at ‘em sideways. These are wolves, goddamnit! Sometimes they need to be pulled up hard by the scruff of their necks and dealt a coupla hard blows. Jesus, man! These are your students, and more than half of them are wolf pups! You got a whole staff of teachers who didn’t even notice this boy is out of balance? Do you even know what it means for him to be out of balance? Just assumed he’s a troublemaker and thought kicking him out would fix everything? Don’t they teach you this shit in your teacher school? I’ll tell you what I think. I think you got no business around children; not wolves anyway.”

Jansen didn’t answer him at all. There was no point, and Winchester had told him he was pulling Sam. He stood with his jaw set and waited for the alpha to make his exit.

Why was it always the school’s fault when parents didn’t parent their own children?

Back home, John laid into the thirteen-year-old pup with feeling. It was a lesson in responsibility that Sam remembered to his adult life, the kind of lesson that sinks into your soul and makes you who you are forever. His backside recovered eventually, but even years later, when John Winchester had lost the struggle against his own demons and succumbed to grief and loss, Sam remembered that lesson. He remembered his father’s outrage at how the system had overlooked him in his need. He remembered his father explaining to him during the long, dreadful car ride home that even in the pain over the loss of Sam’s mother, they had to struggle to stay true to who they were and be upright and proud. They had to remember who she had wanted her sons to be.

They had a responsibility to be wolves.

Oddly, Sam wasn’t in trouble for biting, only for hiding his precarious unbalanced state. That too stuck with him into adulthood.

Dean was pulled from the high school as well—from the public school the city ran, theoretically for both species, but really not accommodating to the wolf population at all. Both boys were enrolled in a Lupin-run private school in Kansas City instead. The drive was monstrous every day, but Dean had a license, and they managed, finding the adjustment much easier than they expected. The difference struck Sam like a kick in the gut. He had all the support he needed at the new school, and everyone understood him there. His fish-outta-water sensation faded, For the first time in years, he felt valued at school. Like what he was growing into mattered. The downside that he couldn’t get away with anything anymore seemed a problem at first, but he quickly began to appreciate how much easier the strict structure made it for him to focus and learn.

Both of them blossomed, even with a drunkard at home, and both of them found the next step into college after high school was a thing that didn’t intimidate them.

It was arguably the last successful parental decision that John Winchester ever managed before he fell into the abyss of grief and alcohol, but it was enough.

NOW:

They assembled for breakfast slowly over the course of the morning. Sam swept in first, showered, shaved, fully dressed and feeling cheerful. Sam’s constitution somehow protected him from hangovers. He’d never had one, and it made him a bit reckless where drinking was concerned, even when his companions started eyeing their next drinks with trepidation, knowing what could be coming with the rising of the sun.

Sam looked around the kitchen in surprise at being alone. He should’ve known better. He sighed and started the coffee brewing. He dug through the fridge and settled on eggs and sausage and a fruit salad. He was craving biscuits, but Sam was no baker. Dean would cave, he knew, if he threw some puppy eyes at his brother once he emerged, so he started working some fruit from the basket onto a cutting board. He put the salad in the fridge and staged the rest near the stovetop to wait for the others. No use cooking a hot meal that would be cold by the time everyone appeared to eat it.

Gabe was next. Sam was scrolling through the morning news on his phone and sipping his coffee when Gabriel wandered in looking lost, completely naked.

“Really, Gabe? Not even a robe?”

Gabriel grunted at him and scratched his ass while he poured himself some joe. Sam considered sending him back to his room to dress. If it had been his own home, he wouldn’t hesitate. No one wanted to see Gabe’s short-and-curlies first thing in the morning. But Cas seemed to encourage nudity in the house, so Sam let him be. Once Gabe was seated opposite Sam, it wasn’t so bad.

“Food’s not gonna cook itself, you know,” Gabe said, staring morosely into his coffee cup, obviously queasy.

“Be my guest,” said Sam with indifference.

And now they were in a standoff, neither willing to give in and serve the other. Sam took another sip and went back to the news. Naomi’s catastrophic speech caught his eye. He wanted to laugh. She’d obviously miscalculated badly, and it should have been funny. But she was also cunning and scrappy, and she got more dangerous as she got desperate. It could mean bad news for them soon. He’d have to help keep an eye on her and her whole movement. They’d come too far to be stymied now by one of their own.

A cornered wolf was a dangerous animal.

Dean and Michael slipped in next, rumpled and limping, both of them. The catch in Dean’s gait was expected. Cas hadn’t gone easy on him last night. Alphas weren’t really built for that kind of abuse. But seeing the same funny walk from Michael this morning brought Sam a strange sense of satisfaction. He caught Dean’s eye and saw him smirk. He smirked back at his brother. There was the alpha Sam knew. He hadn’t realized until now how much it bothered him to think that Dean might be trapped inside his Sub wolf with no outlet to be the alpha he was at heart. Maybe his worry was premature if Michael’s gingerly careful seated posture was anything to go by.

Michael looked happy as he accepted a cup of OJ from his mate. Sam hadn’t ever seen him happy before. Michael and Dean both had dark circles under their eyes and a green tinge around their mouths, but a hangover wouldn’t last long once they got some breakfast in them.

Michael caught his mate looking at him with a wistful smile, and he blushed and looked down, a smile of his own slipping discreetly onto his face. Dean hummed as he gathered supplies to put a pan of biscuits together and started the oven heating. Obviously at home in this kitchen, Dean moved like he knew everything about it, like it was his and had been for years.

Sam liked what he saw. He liked seeing the easy intimacy between his brother and his new mate. He liked seeing his brother happy. Sam knew that more must have occurred between the two than he’d witnessed last night.

He didn’t know that Michael had awoken quite early to find his mate sitting up in bed with a laptop across his legs and a pair of glasses perched on his nose, balancing his checkbook. Michael remembered Dean telling him that he thought he looked nerdy in glasses, but that wasn’t the word that crossed the Omega’s mind when he took in the concentration evident in Dean’s furrowed brow and focused green eyes. The sight made Michael whisper a sleepy gasp.

His arousal leaked through the Mating-bond, catching Dean’s attention. Before he had a chance to slip into his wolf and take control, Michael found himself on his back with an alpha covering him, entering him, pounding him, and kissing the daylights out of him. Blame it on slow reflexes from the hangover, but for once, Michael didn’t fight it.

Dean’s knot locked fast as he panted and collapsed on top of his Omega, and he giggled, giddy.

“I’m still alpha!” he enthused.

Michael kissed the side of Dean’s throat and rubbed his hands along his mate’s back.

“Congratulations, alpha. Now roll off, or I’m going to puke.”

“Is that the way an Omega speaks to his alpha?” Dean had teased him, rolling them to an angle so his weight didn’t fall entirely on his queasy mate.

“I wouldn’t know,” Michael cheeked, “I haven’t been trained yet.”

Dean took full advantage of the freedom afforded him by his access to his alpha, and he pumped his knot into Michael over and over again, keeping them locked much longer than strictly necessary and leaving Michael’s rim and channel swollen and sore. They made quite the pair as they hobbled down the stairs together, reeking of sex.

The biscuits were in the oven faster than Sam could have dug up a recipe and found measuring cups, and Dean moved on to heating a flat griddle for the sausage links. He found Sam’s fruit salad in the fridge as he scrounged for milk and butter.

Dean put Gabe to work setting the table, or he tried to anyway. As soon as he saw Gabriel’s state of undress, he sent him straight back out to find something to wear.

“Not fair!” Gabe protested. “April gets to be naked whenever she wants!”

“April’s hot and eighteen years old!” Dean shouted back at him as he slouched out of the kitchen. Dean pretended not to see the middle finger he got in answer. You see it, you own it only held if you admitted to seeing it, and Dean really didn’t want to be that guy this morning.

April and Castiel entered just as Gabriel was returning with a pair of sweats and a t-shirt on. April was naked again. (Naked still?) Gabe shot Dean an indignant look and gestured at her as if to say, There! You see? Dean ignored him and wrapped his fiancé up in a tight hug. The good morning kiss they shared nearly caused the sausages to burn, but Dean saved them.

April’s eyes were bloodshot and puffy. She didn’t look sick, so Sam guessed her bright red backside and her impending Heat to be the cause of this morning’s misery. She folded herself silently onto her knee pillow next to Castiel’s chair. She didn’t meet anyone else’s eyes. There was a somberness to her this morning Sam found out of character. He tried to meet her eye, but she kept her gaze downcast.

Castiel collected drinks for himself and his mate, then thought better of it and brought the whole coffee carafe to the table. Dean had efficiently refilled it. He sat down at the head of the table, placed a hand in his mate’s hair, gripped it painfully enough that she winced for just a moment, then stroked it lightly and offered her a drink of juice.

“Good morning, everyone,” said Cas a little pompously. Dean snickered while he scrambled the eggs, thinking to himself that he was engaged to the world’s biggest dork.

“Good morning, Alpha,” Michael answered with equal gravity, and Dean snorted out loud. He tried to cover by turning it into a cough, but the flat stares they both gave him told him he didn’t cover well enough, and he gave it up and giggled quietly. He put Gabriel back to work getting all the necessary accoutrements on the table and checking everyone’s drink choices. Gabe grumbled but did as he was told. Gone were the days of a quiet, secluded bachelor’s life for one where he could slip unnoticed in and out of his suite in the back and not need to interact with anyone.

Breakfast delivered, plates served, hangovers abated, and coffee continuing to flow freely, they relaxed and chatted. No one had anywhere they needed to be this morning, for once, so they stayed. Eventually April found herself pulled up into Castiel’s lap, but she remained quiet. She nestled into his chest, curled beneath his chin, listening.

“Did you see the press release Billie put out yesterday afternoon on Michael?” Castiel asked Dean, holding a forkful of eggs out for April.

“No, not yet. Did she change it any from what we gave her?” Dean answered with his mouth full.

“I didn’t see what you gave her, so I don’t know. Take a look. It’s on The Facility website now, on the Home page.” Cas took a bite for himself.

Dean got up and took a tablet off its charger near the kitchen entrance and brought it to the table, starting it up as he moved. “I thought she was planning to make both announcements at once.”

Michael asked Castiel, “Will there be very much media attention, do you think, Alpha?”

“Dean thinks there will. We’ll keep an eye on it. Hopefully, no one will think it important enough to fly reporters all the way out to the middle of nowhere to cover it. We’ve let our trip to New York leak out, so if we’re lucky, they’ll settle for waiting until they have easy access to us there. Don’t worry, Michael. We will protect you from unwanted spotlights. You don’t have to make any appearances you don’t want to make.”

“What if I want to?” he asked. “Maybe not just yet or maybe not to talk to them, but would you let me go with Dean sometimes when he does appearances? Eventually?”

Dean answered him. “Yeah, Michael. Man, it’s gonna be up to you in the end. If they ask for you, and it’s something we’re doing as a Pack, you can decide for yourself. I’m not stuffing you in a closet, man. I’m pretty sure I already told you that. You gotta believe me and stop listening to your Pop.”

Michael wasn’t convinced. Omegas didn’t get that kind of opportunity to decide their own fate. And Michael couldn’t help measuring Dean’s assertion against the backdrop of his own terribly unrealistic ambitions. Dean had said, as a Pack, and there was a limit embedded within that statement that Michael felt obliged to press against. He kept it to himself for the time being. He still needed to feel his mate out a bit, feel the Alpha out.

“We’re appearing on GMA the morning after the premiere,” Cas said. “I expected to leave you and April at the hotel for that but only because I assumed you wouldn’t want the media attention. However,” Cas laid his fork down and looked at Michael. “If you want to go too, I’m sure they would be thrilled to have you. Just be sure before you commit. The purpose of this appearance is to announce our engagement. If that’s going to be an uncomfortable conversation for you to participate in on television, you would be welcome to excuse yourself. As you know, you and Dean are already making the gossip columns now that someone has spotted Dean’s ring. I don’t like the way it’s going, and my preference would be to keep you shielded from the cameras.”

Michael opened and closed his mouth like a fish two or three times. Alpha’s preference was to keep him safe, but he still had the freedom to choose for himself? The world had flipped topsy-turvy.

Dean put a warm hand over Michael’s. “You don’t have to decide right now, man. Wait until we get there and walk the red carpet. You’ll know then if it’s something you want to do. No pressure either way.” Dean scraped the last of the eggs from their wide platter onto his plate. Sam took another biscuit.

“Change of subject,” started Sam as he reached for the jam. “So, Jody and Donna are moving into the dorm today. Anyone who is free should help out. Jody said they don’t have that much stuff to move, but they could still use a bunch of hands getting it all up the stairs and unpacked. They said sometime after one o’clock.”

“Where’s Jo moving to, then?” asked Dean. He needed to spend some time with his friend to catch up. He was woefully behind, but he loved the idea of the Mills mates serving together as Dorm Moms. They were going to be perfect. If nothing else good came from his sojourn to Dallas, at least it had sparked a better situation for the boarders in the dorms and a promotion for Jo.

She deserved it.

Castiel answered. “She’s moved back in with her mother. They are thinking of getting a larger house in Jo’s name, but right now they’re working to save enough for a down payment. Jo’s promotion brought a big raise with it, so she’s excited about finding a home of her own. I know she’ll feel steadier once she’s able to provide a home for her Omega on her own dime. It’s the alpha in her getting unsettled and feeling the need to nest, no doubt, but she’s maturing, and it’s time.”

“I can’t picture Jo Mating anyone,” Dean mused out loud. “But then, I never pictured it for myself either.” He smiled at his mate and kissed him chastely to assure Michael that there were no regrets.

The conversation drifted into a dull suburb of snoozeville in the opinion of the elder Omega, and that didn’t sit well with Gabriel, apparently. So he did what Gabriel does, and he stirred things a little bit…

“When are you two getting married, anyway? Set the date yet?”

Michael choked on his eggs.

“Not yet,” Dean said as he whacked his mate on the back and looked at Castiel.

“Maybe at the end of the summer?” Cas suggested. “Before October at the latest, I think.”

April perked in his lap. “That doesn’t give you much time. It’s four months at the most. Weddings take a lot of planning.”

“Nonsense,” Michael interjected. “It’s just a party, really. People plan parties in less time than that every day.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” April huffed at him. “It’s not the same thing at all.”

They argued back and forth for a while about the relative complexity and planning requirements of celebrity weddings. Dean and Cas stared at each other across the table without interrupting while their mates bickered like siblings.

A bubble of mirth broke from Dean’s lips. Then another. Soon the argument between the two grew heated. Inappropriate names were flung across the table, and Dean was laughing openly.

Castiel tried to hold it in, but in the end, he broke too. It was too preposterous, especially considering where they’d come from. Four months ago, he’d had no hope of claiming the right to call Dean his, and neither of them were Mated. This morning, their mates were fighting bitterly over how to plan their wedding. The alphas lost all control and laughed with abandon.

The Omegas, for their part, broke off the fight and stared at their mates, both of them incensed. Tears ran down Dean’s cheeks as he tried unsuccessfully to get himself under control. Sam kicked him under the table, and Gabriel just shook his head.

Finally, to break it up and relieve the two annoyed Omegas, Sam pulled the calendar up on his phone.

“September ninth is a Saturday.”

The statement hung there in the air above the table. Dean stopped laughing and bit his lower lip. His green eyes bore into Cas’ blue ones.

Somehow, this felt like a test. All the blood left his face. They’d talked about it, agreed to it. Castiel had proposed. Dean had said yes. Dean was wearing Castiel’s ring. They were committed.

Somehow, though, it felt like this was the real moment of truth, like everything leading up to this right here had been mere overture to the idea of building a Pack around their marriage. It wasn’t real, was it? Not really. If Cas hadn’t really meant it, Dean was about to find out. The sausage and biscuits were lead in his gut. His vision swam. Castiel was silent on the other end of the table, and Dean dropped his eyes as the bottom fell out beneath him.

Michael put a hand on Dean’s thigh under the table, his irritation forgotten as he sensed Dean’s turmoil.

It was all a charade. How stupid Dean had been to allow himself to entertain the idea that Cas loved him that deeply. It had been a surreal dream, a fantasy. Dean was not worth loving that much. He wasn’t worth it, and Castiel was about to reveal that he knew the truth. He would say it kindly, letting Dean down easy. Cas had never in his life been unkind, but there was a limit to the reach of his charity.

Dean risked a peek upward. Cas’ eyes stared without blinking. His face held the same beautiful strength Dean had always seen there. Dean swallowed. The table grew still and silent.

Dean wanted to flee. Had it not been for Michael’s grounding touch, he would’ve done.

At last, Castiel broke the silence.

“September ninth is perfect.”

Dean let out a rush of air that he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“Dean, will you marry me on September the ninth?”

Dean couldn’t make his voice work, so he just nodded and leaned against his mate’s chest, keeping his eyes on Cas.

Castiel smiled sheepishly at him, realizing only now how his delayed response had been interpreted on the other end of the table. Cas stood, setting his mate back on her pillow and went to hold and kiss his fiancé. He squatted between Dean’s chair and Michael’s with a hand on each of their shoulders and his forehead resting against Dean’s.

“We’re gonna have to figure out how to bottle up all this sap and sell it,” Gabe sassed. “I hear they make bank off maple syrup in Vermont. This stuff’s gotta be worth at least that much.” Sam slapped him upside the back of his head, Gibbs-style, and poured himself more coffee.

Michael took a breath and pulled away from the two alphas. “I have a question about the Keller test.”

“Good change of subject,” Gabe approved. “It’s getting a little thick in here right now.”

“Whose fault is that?” Sam accused.

“Go ahead, babe, shoot,” said Dean, pulling himself together, wiping his eyes subtly, and casually adding Marry Cas to his phone’s calendar at 9 September under the table. Cas patted him on the shoulder and resumed his seat, bringing April back up with him again.

“I don’t know how it works. Can you guys give me the rundown without turning it into a PhD lecture?”

They all laughed. This was the wrong crowd to be asking a question like that. Sam took pity on him, and explained the readings, the test, and the chart as well as the range limits with all three axes, keeping it in layman’s terms and skipping a lot of the chemistry. He and Dean both taught classes enough to have the presentation down to a quick explanation. They just needed to keep Castiel’s lips buttoned so Michael didn’t get overwhelmed with unnecessary detail.

“And everyone but me has their scores already?” Michael prompted.

Dean pulled up an App on the tablet he’d brought over earlier, abandoning the press release. Billie had sent it out exactly as Dean and Michael wrote it. That pleased him. He opened a blank graph that was formatted for Keller charting. He pointed as he spoke. “Except for right near the X-axis, the lower left is for the Ozzies. Upper left is for the Dominant Omegas. That section is just about always empty no matter how many wolves you throw into the graph. The lower right is my home, the Submissive alphas, and the upper right is for Castiel. Everything near an axis is for Neutrals and betas. The further you get from an axis, the weirder people tend to be, like the four of us.” Dean circled his finger in a gesture that included Cas, April, Michael, and himself, but not Gabe or Sam.

“This is me.” Dean entered his ratings into the App at the top where it asked for user inputs. “I’m like this:” He entered, [A/β/Ω: 21], [D/N/s: -18], [Z-Scale: -42]. His dot appeared on the graph quite low in the lower right section and set back in the shadowed section of the three-dimensional graph. “Good?” he asked Michael.

Michael nodded. So far, so good. Dean egged him into a guess, “Okay, and where would you guess April is?”

“I don’t know, she’s a Sub, right?” Dean nodded, fully alpha, fully engaged in teaching. “So then, she should be down here somewhere.” He scrolled his finger near the bottom and to the left of the y-axis.

“Good. That’s right. April’s numbers look like this.” April quietly prodded her mate for permission, and Cas let her rise to join the other side of the table on Dean’s other shoulder. Her training covered this material, but she’d never seen this App, and she’d never seen her own Pack graphed out together before. Dean finished labeling his own dot, saved it, and then erased the entries and added the new ones.

“[A/β/Ω: -23], [D/N/s: -17], [Z-Scale: -35].” April’s dot appeared, and Dean labeled it and hit save. Michael studied the graph for a minute.

“You’re more Submissive than she is?” he asked in wonder.

“Yep,” Dean confirmed. “A little. The ABO scale is logarithmic, but the DNS scale isn’t. My eighteen is only a little more profound than her seventeen, but whatever. We’re nearly a matched set.” Dean smiled at her in solidarity, and she glowed back at him, thrilled to find she wasn’t the bottom of the pile in every way.

“And this Z-Scale, that’s…?” Michael asked.

“Basically,” answered Sam, “That’s relative kinkiness. The closer your rating is to zero, the more vanilla you are in your preferences. Negative numbers tend toward the Bottoming, or receiving side where kinks are concerned. The Z-scale goes to fifty.”

“Dude!” Michael exclaimed. “Dean, you’re a forty-two out of fifty? I had no idea. There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep up with that.” Dean could feel that Michael was genuinely anxious about it, and he smiled reassuringly at his mate.

“Don’t sweat it, baby. You just be yourself. We wouldn’t be True-Mates if we didn’t fit. Besides, I think you’ve got more under the hood than you’ve shown us yet.” Dean’s eyes twinkled with mischief.

“Do Cas next,” said Sam enthusiastically. He was geeking out as usual, but Dean always got a little nerdy himself with this shit, so he humored Sam, wiped the numbers out of the entry box, verified that the first two dots were still showing, and typed in Castiel’s ratings.

[A/β/Ω: 28], [D/N/s: 20], [Z-Scale: 36].

Michael read them, pulling the tablet closer to study the graph and then relinquishing it back to Dean when April squawked a protest. Castiel’s dot was nearly off the chart on the upper right-hand side, and it sat very far forward in the third dimension along the Z-axis. April scrunched her face while she studied it, and the teachers at the table gave both Omegas time to take it in.

“No,” she finally declared. “This is wrong.”

Dean’s eyes crinkled with amusement. He was proud to see she caught the discrepancy so fast. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked her. Michael looked confused too.

“You said that DNS isn’t a log-scale, but Cas is the most Dominant Dom ever, and he just gets a twenty? That’s barely higher than me and you. That can’t be right.” Dean could feel Castiel wanting to break in and explain it himself, so he shot the Alpha-Dom a look to ask him to stay out of it.

“You’re right.” Dean turned his attention back to the Omegas. “They re-drew the chart for his Alpha rating. ABO is based on empirical data. It is objective and indisputable. It’s based entirely on numbers. If the numbers go off the chart, then the chart itself has to change. You with me?”

They nodded.

“But DNS has a big subjective portion. It’s derived from some readings, like hormone responses and temperature fluctuations and shit, but a lot of it is based on observed behavior.” He tapped Cas’ dot on the screen. “When Castiel took the test, the poor testers were outside of their own abilities to rate him. There wasn’t any reference point higher than eighteen to base his rating off of. They knew he was higher than nineteen, and the scale stopped at twenty…so…”

Michael finished for him, “They just gave him a twenty because they didn’t know what else to do?”

“Essentially, yes.” Dean smirked at his Alpha and shook his head. Cas’ eyes smiled back at him as he rested his chin in his steepled fingers. It was an old argument in the community: shouldn’t both scales be extended to accommodate Castiel? Cas himself stayed out of it. As the subject himself, he felt he should stay neutral.

Sam added, “They knew that in comparison, Cas’ Alpha is stronger than his wolf, and like Dean said, the ABO scale is data-driven, so they had no choice but to record his twenty-eight and raise the scale, but they just went lazy after that. They were satisfied that the twenty-eight was higher than his Dom’s twenty and left it alone, published it like that. It’s been fifteen or so years now, and we’re still arguing the point.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Michael huffed. “I thought this was science.”

“It gets really heated when the purists and the progressives go at it,” Dean told his mate. “You’d think the conferences would be incredibly dull, but I’ve seen literal fist fights break out over all this.”

Gabriel spoke up again for the first time in a while. “I know a certain Alpha-Dominant who could settle the matter once and for all if he just stood up and told them all to get bent.”

“Gabriel, what are your ratings?” April asked him.

“Oh, well. I’m just a boring ol’ O-Neutral, not some exotic outlier like you people. I’ll be surprised if you don’t burn the frikken’ house down within a year between the four of you.”

“Here.” Dean drew the tablet back and started typing. He knew these people well. They were family, even if the gilding was still settling around the Pack itself, and he knew all of their ratings like the back of his own hand. “Here’s Gabe:”

He typed in, [A/β/Ω: -17], [D/N/s: 3], [Z-Scale: 15].

“I would’ve figured you for way kinkier, Gabe,” Michael opined.

“Fuck you,” Gabriel responded. “I’m plenty kinky.”

“And Sam?” from April.

“Yeah, here’s Sam:”

[A/β/Ω: 0], [D/N/s: 15], [Z-Scale: 6]

“Right at zero? Exactly at zero?” Michael queried.

“All betas are rated at zero,” Dean reminded him. “But he’s Profound Dom, and about as vanilla as a wolf can get. Although…” he looked at Sam. “That was pretty fucking kinky of you last night, getting off watching your own brother. Damn, Sammy, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I wasn’t focused on you, Dean.” Sam protested, and Dean pounced.

“Oh, really? So, were you hot and bothered for Castiel? You like ‘em all Alpha and huge, or were you drooling over my Dominant Omega mate? It’s his control, isn’t it? You’re into some Dom-on-Dom shit. Fuck, Sam, that is kinky.”

“Shut up, Dean.” Sam was blushing and decided it was time to clean up after breakfast. He nudged April and Gabe into helping him. Dean sent Michael along as well with a twitch of his head. The Omegas both reluctantly abandoned the tablet.

“No, but here, I’ve got lots of entries saved of some of the people we know. Just click this file.” Dean showed Michael before he collected the remaining plates.

Keller Scores @ User: Dean Winchester

“Can you send that file to me?” Michael asked him.

“Sure. It’ll probly force you to download the App, but it’s free, so whatever.”

Michael scraped plates into the garbage, but he was clearly still deep in thought. “What happens to Doms and Subs who test between nineteen and twenty?” he mused. “If nineteen is part of the old range on the scale, and twenty is Alpha’s new expanded number, how do they rate people who are past nineteen but not all the way to Alpha’s equal? Do they break out the fractions?”

Castiel rose and carried the juice and coffee carafes back to the kitchen. “It’s a problem that will eventually have to be resolved, but so far, there have been no nineteens, so we haven’t confronted it yet. I suspect that finding a Dom or Sub who reaches that mark is what will someday force the community’s hand. Until then, we can keep arguing about it.”

“Wait,” Michael stopped scraping. “Dean’s an eighteen. Does that mean Dean is the most Submissive Sub ever?”

“Not exactly,” explained Sam. “There are a lot of others who equal him at eighteen on both the Dom and Sub side. It seems like eighteen is about the natural limit though. No one except Cas has ever tested higher.”

“Holy fuck,” breathed Michael.

Without warning, Castiel’s hand swatted his Omega mate’s ass with a loud pop, and she yelped. “Go wash your hands, put another tally mark on your board, and don’t ever let me see you do that again.”

“Yes, Sir,” she said meekly, rubbing her backside where his handprint stood out angry red even over the bright pink that was there already.

“What’d she do?” Gabriel mouthed at Sam.

“No idea,” Sam mouthed back.

***************

Sam checked with Dean a little later about helping out with Jody’s move, but Dean begged off. Much as he would love to spend some time with Jody, his priority needed to be his commitment to spend a month isolated with Michael. They weren’t in seclusion exactly, but the cause needed to be dire to pull them away from each other. New York rated and so did establishing their Pack, but carrying boxes up four flights of stairs, not so much.

He and Michael slipped out after breakfast although the day was half gone by then.

Their departure meant they missed seeing Bobby pull up in his ancient pickup truck. Bobby didn’t look happy as Fred, the butler, let him in. Fred had been with the Novaks forever, as had his father before him, as Regency as that sounded. April got her butt singed when Cas overheard her making fun of his name. What kind of a Butler name is Fred? He was people, that’s what he was, the Alpha clarified. Not Pack, but human and family, and he deserved respect. People’s names were their dignity.

Bobby found Cas in the playroom, doing a quick inventory and trying to decide if the changes to the Pack meant changing its functions.

“I need to speak with you, Alpha,” said Bobby grimly.

Cas led him to his office and closed the door. When he emerged thirty minutes later, he sent April to fetch Gabriel. Bobby’s face was dreadfully pale, and he looked worn in a way that wasn’t…normal. Bobby wasn’t a young man, but he’d always seemed hale to April. She wondered what could possibly have happened behind that door to break the unshakable older alpha. Castiel’s face was forbidding. April prayed she never saw that look directed at her. She ran to find Gabe but had to wheedle to convince him to come with her. He sensed bad news, and his jackal wanted him to bolt.

Castiel ushered Gabriel into his office and closed the door. Bobby leaned against the wall, studying his feet. That didn’t bode well.

“I thought you were going to wait until the stitches were out,” Gabe tried.

“Bobby’s got something to tell you, Gabriel, and you need to hear it,” said his brother with no other introduction.

Gabe switched his gaze to the alpha, and Bobby cleared his throat. “Gabriel, what I have to tell you…I didn’t want to. I was hoping you’d never need to find out, but things are moving now, and the time for keeping shit under the hat is past.”

“Okay…”

“When you broke out that Omega girl from Gordon’s place…that was monumentally stupid. You could’ve been killed. You could’ve been made. You stupid, stupid, fucking lucky son of a bitch…”

“Bobby.” Cas didn’t raise his eyes off his desk, but Bobby stopped and regrouped.

“What you didn’t know—because I didn’t want you to know—is that we were running an operation in OKC. We had all fifteen of the Omegas that that asshole was ready to transfer already lined out, scoped, and ready to pull. Claire was on it, pup. We were ready to move all of them as soon as Cas and Dean got there for their tour. I had it under control until you decided to go rogue and break into it yourself.”

Gabriel’s heart stopped beating. He felt faint. Fifteen Omegas? He had found only one. Where were the rest of them now? He sat down hard on the floor, right where he stood, and put his face in his hands.

“You didn’t know,” Bobby continued. “Hell, even Cas didn’t know until just now. Claire pulled off a miracle and grabbed two more in the chaos after you skedaddled, a guy and a girl. They’re safe in Las Vegas. The others. Jesus, Gabe.” Bobby huffed, thinking about his abject failure. “Shit. Fucking shit!” Bobby breathed hard through his nose, struggling to say it. “The other twelve are gone. The basement is empty now.” Bobby was still talking, but Gabriel’s mind had stopped on twelve are gone.

“Gordon’s already signed a contract to turn the basement cells into dorm space for real. He’s turning the whole building legit and moving the trafficking elsewhere. I don’t have any idea where he’s taking them now. We have to start over.”

Gabriel’s voice shook. “I’ll kill him. He was right there in front of me. The guard was all the way across the fucking room! I could have ripped his goddamned throat out!” Gabriel was shaking. Cas went to him, squatted behind, and held him, like he’d done ten years ago.

“You would have been killed, Gabe,” he reasoned.

“It would have been worth it, damnit! What good am I…is my life if I can’t save anybody?” Gabriel broke into heart wrenching sobs.

Bobby knelt in front of him, ignoring the daggers stabbing him from Castiel’s eyes. They were broken after this, Bobby knew. It would take ages to recover the Alpha’s trust again if he ever managed it. But right now his focus had to be on Gabriel.

“You were never supposed to be there, Gabriel. Why were you even there? God. It’s not your fault, kid. I ain’t saying it is, but what we do…it’s so delicate. You can’t just go mindlessly crashing off wherever the fuck you want, doing whatever you want, and think it’s all gonna be fine.” Bobby took a deep breath.

“Gabriel, listen to me. You did not do this. This is not on you. It’s on me, right square on me. I got a lot to own to over this, and I ain’t gonna sleep good at night for years. I shoulda told you, and I shoulda told Castiel. I kept you in the dark, and I used him. I fucked up bad. This is not on you, but damnit, son! When I tell you to go somewhere and do something, you have to do it. When I tell you to sit tight, I need to know you’re gonna stay where I put you. I needed those asshats to fix their eyes on you putzing around in Lawrence and miss the operatives on their doorstep. Instead, the whole team was blown before they could make a move. Gabriel, I’m moving pieces around a fucking chess board so carefully, and you’re a chess piece that just randomly wanders wherever it sees an empty space.”

Bobby took another deep breath. How to hold Gabriel accountable for his bad decisions without breaking him was beyond him. “Tell me how you fooled me into thinking you were in Lawrence when you weren’t. Tell me that.”

Gabriel sighed. “Body double.”

“A body double? You paid a guy?”

“Yep. He just had to wander around and be seen every now and then. I slipped him in through the turnstile one night while the guard wasn’t paying attention. He’s been in there ever since.”

Bobby was dumbfounded. The lengths Gabriel had gone to… “How did the security system not register that there were two of you when you came back?”

Cas answered for him, dawning realization making him wonder if he had any control at all, over anything. “We came in through the front door, through the clients’ entrance.”

Bobby nodded. “We got a long road to go to fix this, Gabriel. They know it was you in there. That’s why I had to break cover myself. Alpha and me, we’re gonna protect you, but you have to stay put, do you hear me, Omega? Do not leave this house—no matter what you set your mind to doing. Do I have to put a Claim on you myself to get you to obey me?”

Gabriel mumbled a quiet, “No, alpha. I’ll stay. What do you want me doing?”

“You stay right here, and you leave Gordon and his men alone.” Bobby didn’t believe the Omega was planning to obey a stand down order. Gabriel was capable of appearing meek whenever it suited him. Didn’t mean he was. On the other hand, he was truly shaken at the news. Gabriel was many very frustrating things, but his commitment to saving Omegas from the darkest, basest side of what humanity was capable of doing to one another had never been fake.

Bobby fixed him with his eye. “You stay away from all of it for a while, do you hear me?” Gabriel nodded and searched Bobby’s face. There was a message between the lines. Gabe knew Bobby better than to think there wasn’t. “If anything I don’t plan myself happens to Gordon or anyone at that site, if he gets a fucking cold or a hangnail, your ass is on the line, Omega.”

“Yes, alpha.” Gabriel laid his head back against his brother’s chest and closed his eyes. Heads were going to roll for this. His jackal was low and already creeping stealthily forward. Bobby had told him to stay put and leave Gordon alone.

Fine.

Gabriel had twelve Omegas to name, locate, and rescue. He could do that from here.

Bobby stood to leave but paused in the doorway. He kept his gaze straight ahead at the doorframe opposite as he stopped and leaned against the jamb. Bobby was part owner, but his employment was contingent upon Castiel’s approval. Always had been.

“Am I fired?”

“No. Fix this, Singer.”

Bobby nodded his head and left.

Chapter Text

THEN:

They gathered around the conference room table for the last time to review and finalize the research findings they’d all worked so hard on. It was a beautiful, glossy report, well-researched and carefully reviewed, worthy of any reputable science publication. This one was headed for the front cover of NATURE, a major step up into the popular mainstream of science.

Benny finalized the meeting. “Congratulations, team. I feel really good about the work you’ve all done here. This is the first study in the last two decades on the Mating-bond that doesn’t completely contradict itself. Well done!”

Everyone laughed and applauded. The sense of accomplishment was palpable. They’d be changing everything with this study.

The problem all the other studies had faced, and why there was so much contradiction, was the assumption that all Mating-bonds were equal. Once they decided to consider all of the variables involved: in demographic, True-Mating versus decisional, age and gender, they learned how much variation there actually could be to the bonds themselves, variations that produced differences in behavior no one had been able to ascribe a cause to before today.

That opened up a whole new level of research opportunities, not just in whether bonds could be equally valid but different, but in how they could differ, and what might be done about those differences in the future.

Their research showed conclusively that True-Mate bonds were the cleanest and the strongest. Some True-Mates could almost read each other’s minds. Also, the right age mix among the mates made a difference. Young Omegas Mating with middle-prime alphas were also relatively strong and clean. The betas didn’t seem to enjoy much of a strength change no matter when they Mated.

Decisional mates—those who Mated by choice and not through a TM mandate—had real and permanent bonds, but they tested quite muddy and couldn’t be used as quite the line of direct contact that the True-Mates enjoyed. Also, pups born to strongly bonded parents were statistically larger and healthier than those whose parents had a muddier bond. Still, some wolves would always opt to choose to Mate for love and not just biology.

And, too, they’d proven definitively what wolf culture already knew to be true, that Mating-bonds were singular events. One person, one mate, no matter what. If a wolf’s mate died two days after they took the plunge and bit someone, they could never Mate again. If two wolves Triggered with a third at the same time, a vicious fight was a certainty. Only one winner would walk away with a mate. The rival limped away to lick their wounds and nurse their pride, hoping to find just as tight a match with someone else.

True-Mates themselves intrigued Benny. Bobby had shared statistics with him that a standard alpha-Omega couple might actually have roughly thirty-thousand True-Mate options running around worldwide at the same time. Whoever they ran across first was their Trigger, and the rest went dark forever thereafter.

Benny argued that the Universe intended True-Mates to be once-in-a-lifetime singularities, but Bobby reasoned that sometimes, American visitors to China came home with a Chinese True-Mate, or never came home at all if their True-Mate was the Top. If TMs were singularities, the Universe had to have made its task unimaginably complicated to produce TMs a globe apart at birth that required gymnastic logistics to bring together at their maturity.

It defied logic.

It couldn’t be mysticism; it had to be chemistry.

All evidence to the contrary, Benny steadfastly held to his idealized belief. Other options might be close enough to Trigger a response, but there was one person meant for each person, and the Universe could be relied upon to find a way to make sure the right pair joined at the right time.

If True-Mates could Trigger for the vast majority of wolves eventually, then they couldn’t be singularities. It had to be a matter of statistical chance, Bobby argued. The more middle-of-the-road designated wolves had a higher chance of meeting their TM, but everyone had to have literally thousands worldwide, or the chances of meeting one would be too minimal for it ever to happen.

It happened all the time, even in small towns and pack communes.

Maybe Benny was right, and the all-wise Universe was guiding people to where they needed to be at just the right time, but Bobby was no mystic. Bobby was a scientist.

The team compared notes, reviewed the list of credits to make sure everyone got fair credit for their contributions, and signed off on the report. Then they cracked open the champagne.

“This study is going to make a difference, Alpha.” Kevin told Castiel, bubbly and proud of his contribution. “First, we have to understand the chemistry, physics, and biology of the bond, and then we can apply it to people’s lives.”

“I’m happy to hear you say that, beta,” Castiel responded. “That’s exactly what we intend to do. Cheers!” Cas clapped Kevin on the shoulder and clinked their glasses together.

NOW:

As soon as the door closed behind them, Michael slipped into Dom-mode. “Go to the bedroom and position yourself for me, Dean. We have something to discuss.”

The switch in the alpha-Sub’s mind was instantaneous, and Dean finally understood what prompted it. It shouldn’t have taken him as long as it did, but it had been a whirlwind week or so, and he was thinking a little slowly on the backwash.

His Sub wolf was always ready to take its place at the front, right between Dean’s eyes, and all it took to grant him permission to shove the alpha and frontal lobe out of the way was to be within four feet of Michael once the Omega slipped the cowl of Dominance over his own head. Since Michael usually avoided his Omega like the plague, Dean’s wolf had been responding at a near constant rate. It was only while the pair were near Castiel, and Michael’s Omega felt safe enough to surface, that Dean was able to catch a break.

So, Dean realized, he was incapable of maintaining an alpha’s perspective if Michael was occupying his own wolf. It wasn’t fair. The Mating-bond was supposed to work the other way, granting authoritative power of the alpha over his Omega. Even as his Sub took over for him and bent Dean’s neck in Submission, the last vestige of his alpha vowed to find a way to reclaim its authority over his Omega.

Michael had too much power, and they both knew it. And he was using it. It wasn’t sustainable or healthy, but until Dean could fight his way back into the alpha, there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

Dean slipped easily into his Submissive and made his way, baffled, to the bedroom, pulling off his shirt as he went.

Something to discuss was code that every Sub knew. It meant pain was coming. This Sub was ready. This Sub had been ready for days now. He wanted to feel Michael’s hand and walk proudly about displaying his marks. But he didn’t know what the offense was. Had he displeased Michael? Dean bit his lower lip as he knelt, naked in the middle of the room, and bowed his head.

He waited for several minutes in silence. Well-trained, Dean waited without fidgeting. He was capable of holding his position for hours if he was told to. It gave him time to think. Hadn’t he been good for Michael? Hadn’t he been good to Michael? Surely, he wasn’t in trouble for letting Alpha take him last night. That had been under Michael’s instruction.

Also, Michael had loved it.

Michael appeared at last and stopped just inside the door, taking in his Submissive. Dean’s body was a beautiful sculpture, folded perfectly in place just for him, glowing in the afternoon sunlight that painted the lines of his body perfectly. The Sub didn’t raise his head or even flick his eyes toward his Dom. He was relaxed and at rest, deferential, just as Michael had asked him to be.

Michael took a deep breath and stepped a little closer. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and I expect simple, straightforward answers. Please speak clearly, but do not look at me.”

“Yes, Sir.”

There was no edge to Michael’s voice. He didn’t sound angry. Perhaps he just wanted to play with his toy. Dean could be down with that.

“Do we have a Rule regarding the handling of any particular part of your anatomy?” Michael asked, beginning slowly to circle Dean.

“Yes, Sir,” Dean answered him, leaving the details out. He’d been instructed to keep his answers simple.

“Very good. Please tell me that Rule, or Rules, so that we can both be sure we’re speaking of the same thing.”

“No one but you may to touch my penis except for hygiene or health purposes, or to piss I suppose.”

“That’s correct. That’s the very Rule I’m thinking of myself.” Michael ran his hand gently through Dean’s hair. It felt nice. Dean fought to keep his eyes from closing in pleasure. The penis in question responded to the touch and the words with a twitch and a thickening in girth.

“And since that Rule was delivered to you and received your acceptance, have you broken it, Dean?”

Dean paused. He hadn’t broken it on purpose, but yeah. He’d been caught with his hand down his pants and been put into chastity for a week. Surely Michael wasn’t going to punish him twice for the same thing. Where was Michael going with this? Dean thought for a beat too long, trying to work out what Michael was looking for rather than simply answering the question.

“Ah, shit!” Michael gripped Dean’s hair and pulled him up onto his knees by the roots.

“I asked you a simple question.”

“YES, SIR! I touched myself in the kitchen before breakfast the day after you said not to! That’s the only time! I swear!” (Jesus, stop thinking! You’re gonna get us both punished!), his wolf shot at him. (Let me handle it, you moron.)

Michael released him and rubbed the spot to soothe it. “Very good, Dean. I believe you. And I’ve already set you a consequence for that, haven’t I?”

“Yes, Sir.” Dean got his breathing back under control and let the pain settle in. He’d long since stopped trying to comprehend the simultaneous and conflicting desires to avoid punishment while deliberately seeking it. What happened would happen. His job right now, if the Dom was worthy, was simply to Submit. Sometimes it was necessary to make the Dom prove he was worthy, but right now, Dean was more curious than rebellious, so he went along with the questions.

“What was that consequence?”

“You put me in chastity, Sir.”

“For how long?”

“A week.”

“And what is the extent of the chastity, Dean? What are you allowed?”

“Um, I can give you whatever pleasure you demand, but I can’t receive any myself except for one scene involving witnesses as long as I try to keep myself authentic as I would when we’re alone.”

Michael petted his hair again and ran the back of his hand over Dean’s cheek. “Very well put, my love. That’s it just exactly.” He circled around Dean again and then squatted in front of his Sub. Dean was able to see that he was still fully dressed, and the knowledge drove his cock further toward fully erect. Dean’s Sub loved to be naked when the Dom wasn’t. It felt…debasing somehow, in the best way. He didn’t raise his eyes from the floor, but he shivered in anticipation. Something was coming. A shoe was about to drop. He could feel it, and it felt like he should already have figured it out, but he hadn’t.

Michael reached around Dean’s kneeling body, bracing himself with his other hand on Dean’s thigh, and he ran a thumbnail along the crack of his ass to his rim, which was still sore and swollen from last night. Their chests and faces were very close together now, and the proximity made Dean break out in a sweat. “You’re sore today, Dean. Tell me why that is.”

“Sir, I scened with you last night—with you and with Castiel. You asked him to fuck me while you sucked me off to fulfill the promised exhibitionist scene we talked about. I’m sore because he fucked me, and his dick is huge.”

“I see. Yes. That makes sense to me. That doesn’t break any Rules then, does it?”

“No, Sir.” Dean almost looked up at Michael but stopped himself at the last minute. Michael stood up and undressed quickly, dropping his clothes on the bed.

“Dean, I want you to take a look at me. Go ahead and look up at me, but don’t meet my eyes. Just look at my body. Do you notice anything notable?” Dean glanced up and found Michael standing bare before him. He took in the view, and he hardened all the way. His breathing caught again at Michael’s beauty.

“You’re beautiful, Sir.”

“Thank you, Dean. Is that all? What about if I turn around?”

Michael turned and squatted back down, presenting himself to Dean obscenely on all fours, his hole loose and raw, leaking slick down both thighs. He looked over his shoulder and caught Dean licking his lips. Michael’s rim was red and swollen from the pounding he’d received this morning and the multiple regroups before Dean’s knot untied.

Dean’s heart stopped completely and picked up at the same time.

Oh, shit.

Oh, fucking holy shit.

How had he missed it? How could he have been so stupid and careless?

“What do you see, Dean? Does anything seem off to you?”

“Sir, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I forgot about the chastity this morning. I fucked you, knotted you, and I’m not supposed to… I’m sorry.” Dean babbled at him as Michael turned back around. “But…you didn’t say anything. You didn’t stop me. Why didn’t you stop me?”

Michael tssk’ed at him and swayed his head in disappointment, turning as he sat down in front of his Sub. “I’m no Sub trainer myself, like you are, so maybe you can clarify for us both: If a Sub breaks a Rule, does the Sub get to avoid punishment if no one stops him from breaking it?”

Dean’s fingers went cold, and his cock throbbed. He hesitated to answer the question, but in the end, he had no real choice. “No, Sir. There is no excuse.”

“Where is your hairbrush, Dean? The one that made those purple bruises on your thighs that I had to wait for days to fade.” Michael’s voice was a barely decipherable whisper.

“Sir, it’s Alpha’s brush.” The lie sent another shiver down Dean’s spine and made beads of sweat run down his temples. (WHY DID YOU JUST SAY THAT!? HE’S GONNA FIND OUT! FUCK!) This time the thought flew from Dean’s alpha mind to the brat who wasn’t even trying to temper its mouth.

“All right. No matter. I have a good strong lap cane of my own to get us started, and I’ll just phone our Alpha and have him send the brush over. I think I can manage to wait a few minutes. I’m sure he won’t mind. It’s not far.”

Dean panted in panic. What to do now? Michael was going to call Castiel?

FUCK!

They’d both be pissed at him for lying, and he’d get it from both sides again.

SHIT!

What to do? Should he fess up before Michael hit call on his phone?

He should. He needed to say something. Michael dug through his suitcase and produced an evil-looking cane about two feet long. Dean couldn’t make his mouth work.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

Michael moved to the side where Dean couldn’t see him, even with his peripheral vision, and dialed the manor house. He could still salvage this. All he had to do was fess up to Michael that the hairbrush was in his bathroom drawer where he’d put it when he unpacked, and although he’d still get it from Michael, Cas never needed to find out.

But he couldn’t speak.

An image of Michael in the Oklahoma hospital, defiantly raging that he would never double up with that man to Dominate in scenes with Dean flashed through Dean’s mind, but it seemed ages ago.

“Yes, hello. This is Michael Winchester. Is the Alpha at home, please? Thank you.”

Dean felt faint. He wanted this. He truly did. He wanted to know what Michael was like when Dean pushed him. He’d been begging Michael for a strap since they got home, and he’d been so frustrated that Michael’d made him wait. And now. Now that the waiting was obviously over, Dean wasn’t ready anymore. He sucked in shallow breaths and tried not to pass out. (Focus, Winchester! Don’t be a baby.)

“Yes, hello Alpha. Sorry to bother you. No, sir, we didn’t forget anything. I was wondering if I might borrow something of yours for Dean?”

He paused briefly, and Dean forgot himself and closed his eyes.

“Our mutual Submissive has unfortunately earned himself another round over my lap, and I would very much like to use an implement that I know will make an impression on him. Would you be willing to lend me the hairbrush that you use on him in times like this?”

Dean’s breathing was a quick shallow pant that barely supplied him any oxygen at all, and his eyes clenched shut as if he could transport himself away by willpower alone.

“Oh, it is? No, Sir. He told me that it belonged to you. So, then it should already be here somewhere in the house.”

Michael’s body began to give off a tension that had not been present before.

“Yes, he definitely did, Sir. I don’t think it could have been a mistake. It’s been his all along? I see. Thank you. I’ll get to the bottom of this. I appreciate your help.”

Michael ended the call and slowly put the phone down on the bedside table.

He walked back around in front of Dean who was trembling and sweating. “Where is it?” he asked Dean very simply. Dean rocked in place and tried to answer but nothing came out.

“Go fetch it for me, then.”

Dean struggled to his feet and kept his head bowed. He trudged unhappily to the bathroom and pulled the brush out of his drawer before skulking back and laying it wordlessly in Michael’s hand.

Michael wrapped his fingers around the handle of the brush and stood silent and still, letting Dean’s guilt fill the Submissive. He took stock of his Sub through their bond and reeled. There was nothing left in Dean’s mind of the alpha, nothing present of the brilliant researcher, teacher, writer, friend, brother, or quirky goofball. Dean’s whole presence was consumed by his Submissive, and it felt like looking into the eyes of a needful child, begging for someone to notice him. The remorse shaded everything, but off to the edges, almost unnoticeable, there was a titillating anticipation that vibrated to a different frequency.

It was Michael’s first full direct view of Dean’s wolf, his Tertiary gender. The brat stood front and center, cowed for now in penitence and shame, but Michael could tell that given the right circumstances, it would be capable of all kinds of mayhem. The brat was a street urchin, skinny, filthy, mischievous. Off to the side, prepared to revel in the beautiful pain, lurked the masochist. They were separate entities entirely, and they were nearly opposites.

The brat liked to stoke the flames but then regretted his actions when they inevitably brought the hammer down. Dean’s brat didn’t like the hammer. He’d finagle his way back out of trouble again if he could. His masochist didn’t care what brought it about, but he was always on board for some rough stuff, and there was no threshold too high. If an arm could swing harder, the masochist could take it and want more.

The masochist egged the brat on, goading and prodding, tripping him up until the Sub pushed his Dom over whatever edge he had been standing on and delivered Dean what he needed. Michael felt humbled by the view, inadequate to the great task before him. How had he ever thought he could handle Dean’s needs on his own?

Then his own wolf growled at him, and he hardened his features.

“You lied to me.”

“Yessir.”

Michael manhandled Dean’s large, squishy armchair around backward so that it faced the wall.

“I have nothing more to say to you right now. Bend yourself over the back of the chair and put your palms flat on the seat.”

Dean scrambled to comply.

Michael laid the hairbrush and the lap cane on the seat beside his hands. The stretch forced Dean onto his tiptoes and pressed his erection uncomfortably against the wooden frame beneath the upholstery.

“Don’t count. I don’t care what the count is.” Michael’s words drew a whimper out of Dean. He only had himself to blame. His simple forgetfulness this morning should have meant a quick and memorable punishment, painful, but easy to move on from afterward. Michael hadn’t even seemed angry. It was just consequences, follow through on a broken Rule. Standard Dom/Sub stuff. But then Dean went and lied to his Dom’s face and got busted. Now Michael felt betrayed and hurt on top of angry, and Dean had done it on purpose to provoke him.

Well, mission accomplished. Michael was provoked now.

His hand fell sharply. Then it fell again, and again. Michael spanked Dean until tingles of pins and needles ran up the Dom’s fingers and his own palm was bright red and painful. Dean held position, but he let himself feel the spreading heat, and he cried, his head draping upside down, and his nose running miserably.

The cane and hairbrush never moved, a reminder that however long Michael drew this first part out, there was more to come.

He didn’t lecture his Sub. He didn’t say anything at all. The emotions streaming through the Mating-bond were all grim ones without waver. It went on and on, much longer than Dean would have anticipated for a first run. Dean’s ass usually didn’t bruise from a hand-spanking, but he knew this one was turning his flesh multiple hues besides just pink and red.

At last, Michael stopped, shaking his hand out to relieve the tingles. He didn’t soothe the heat from Dean’s flesh though, and he still didn’t say anything. Dean sobbed against his stretched arms. His erection had long since flagged.

Michael picked up the lap cane and inspected its integrity. He flexed it a couple of times and stretched his arms over his head. Without warning, he whacked Dean across the crease of his thighs. Dean cried out and struggled to pull in a breath.

Goddamn it all to hell! That fucking hurt! Dean kicked up a foot and reached a hand around behind him to ward off the next blow. Michael caught it wordlessly and placed it back on the seat of the chair. Dean struggled to find the control he counted on when he scened with Castiel.

It wasn’t the same.

Somehow, it wasn’t the same at all.

Cas could do anything, and Dean would hold still and let him. Surely his True-Mate deserved the same respect, but it felt so different.

Dean couldn’t see through the tears in his eyes. The cane SWAPPED down again onto a new spot, a spot already swollen and bruised, and it hurt so badly that Dean went dizzy for a couple of moments. The third strike forced a scream out of his mouth, and he began to ugly cry, sucking in breaths around his hiccups.

Michael finished the caning with three rapid-fire strokes that sent Dean so far onto his toes that he almost tumbled over the back of the chair. His hands swung round to hide his butt, a move he wouldn’t dream of when Cas took a cane to Dean’s swollen backside.

(What’s wrong with you?) the wolf wondered, baffled at his own response.

Michael huffed and dropped the cane onto the bed behind him. He stood breathing for a minute, listening to Dean through the bond and regaining his equilibrium.

Was it too much?

He searched inside his mate for any sign that he was in there and lucid. He found the roles of Dean’s wolf reversed from their initial position. The brat hunkered on the periphery, completely ashamed, penitent, remorseful, chastised. Punished. He was done. The brat needed no more thrashing. In the middle though, glowing like an angel, angry, defiant, and glorious in its power, the masochist celebrated the pain. For all his outward protest, the flinching, the crying, the shielding himself with his hands, a part Dean was in his element, and he was loving every minute of it.

Michael had never imagined anything like this before. How could he…? He was insufficient. He couldn’t give the masochist who trembled before him, bruised and broken, but standing proud, anything nearing what it needed. Michael picked the hairbrush up with trembling fingers. Could he do this? He checked on the little pup inside Dean’s mind, the brat who had let the pain-lover manipulate him into stoking Michael’s fires. How does Castiel do this, he wondered. How do you feed one without denying or overwhelming the other?

(I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing), he confessed to his wolf.

And the wolf took control.

Michael put a hand on Dean’s back and felt him trembling in pain. “Shh. You’re doing well, baby. Just a little more to go, then we’re finished, and it’ll all be over.”

Michael’s wolf knew what to do: comfort the child and hold him tight through the last and then push through with a mighty unleashing of lightning to give the masochist a full meal.

Michael swung the brush so fast that it blurred. He covered every part of Dean’s ass and thighs that had previously been bruised purple by the Alpha’s blows. Michael’s wolf wanted to leave a lasting impression that made a bold statement. No matter how much progress they’d made with Michael’s Omega and both alphas, the Dominant wolf still wanted his say too.

Woe be to anyone who tried to sideline the Dom.

Dean screamed out long and shrill. His back bowed up, pulling his hands off the seat and flinging his head back. Michael kept it up as he watched the masochist inside Dean’s wolf. The moment the light blazed hot as the sun in an explosion of light, Michael stopped.

He dropped the brush behind him and pulled Dean up, carrying him to the bed. Dean was so lost in subspace that he showed no sign he knew the punishment had ceased. His screams continued, undimmed. Michael held him tight, fearing he’d pushed too far, fearing he’d scarred his mate. He searched desperately inside Dean while stroking his back with gentle hands.

The screams faded to sobs and painful writhing. Dean lay prostrate on the bed, squirming in agony, and Michael lay out beside him, beating himself up for breaking his mate.

It was too much.

God, all Dean had done was break a simple Rule by mistake and tell a single, forgivable lie. (What was I thinking?)

So, it took Michael by surprise and shocked him to his core when Dean’s voice croaked a request through his tears. “Bite me again, Michael. Please, baby? It’s healing up. God, please put it back. I need it. Bite me again.”

Dean was still writhing, but he was back inside the bond where Michael could see him and touch him.

The pain was exquisite, but Dean wasn’t broken. He wasn’t broken, rather, he was reveling. Michael leaned over Dean’s shoulder without touching his ass and fixed his teeth back around the same spot he bit last time. It wasn’t healed yet, but it was close. Wolves heal quickly, and alphas don’t scar. Michael wanted to see if he could alter that through repetition. Michael bit down hard, breaking the skin again. Dean flung his head wide and howled at the pain, his voice giving way to a gruff rasp.

They lay still for a few minutes, still not capable of talking in words. Michael lapped at the wound gently to clean it.

Finally, Dean said, his voice almost gone from the screaming, “Now’s the time I’d normally want you to fuck me from back there and drive the pain home, but my Dom’s put me in chastity, and I don’t think I’m gonna convince him to make another exception. Maybe next time?”

“Maybe,” Michael answered, kissing Dean’s neck. “Not likely, but maybe.”

The rest of the day was Michael taking care of his mate. If there hadn’t been a cloud over his head in the knowledge that Cas knew he’d lied to his mate, Dean would’ve been nothing but a sated pool of Jell-O.

“You know, I think it’s funny.” Dean mumbled through sleepy lips.

“What’s funny, Dean?” Michael continued spreading the arnica ointment very carefully across Dean’s flesh. It was the third application this afternoon, and he would follow it up again with more ice.

“When Cas first gave you Rules you offered to shove them up his ass, but when Sam forbade you to play Dom for me until we’d hashed out our own Rules, you followed his instruction without any complaints. What gives with that?” Dean had his head and shoulders craned around so he could look at Michael from where he lay draped over his mate’s lap, naked on the couch.

“Well, I guess it has to do with the fact that Sam’s just watching over you like a brother should. I’m a brother myself. I know what it’s like to watch people who can hurt your sibling get in there and…maybe mess it all up. Plus, Sam isn’t sleeping with you the way Alpha is.”

Dean turned back around and laid his chin on his crossed arms, hissing when the icepack went back on. “You don’t say his name anymore. You know you can, right? I mean, yeah, he’s Alpha and Sir and shit, but he’s also just Cas. You can call him Cas, Michael.”

“Maybe you can. I’m not ready to yet.”

“How’s it look back there?”

Michael lifted the icepack and evaluated the damage. He smiled. “It looks beautiful, Dean.”

April went into Heat the next day. Castiel called Dean at the house to let him know and to ask that he and Michael come by so Dean could do the CF while she was ramping up. Dean agreed with some trepidation. A part of him didn’t want to get within arm’s reach of his fiancé at the moment, but there was nothing for it. The CF needed to be placed before their trip, and now was the perfect time.

Dean pulled the Impala into the long drive and parked in the garage in his usual place. He groaned as he worked his way to standing, using the car’s frame to help him to his feet. They entered through the kitchen just as if they lived here. Dean scrounged up two beers from the beer fridge in the butler’s pantry and handed one to Michael. Michael accepted it and used his proximity to catch Dean by the shoulder. He passed his thumb over Dean’s newly refreshed mating-wound and checked his eyes. “You’ll be fine, Dean. You’ve had worse, you said so yourself.”

“I know. Thanks. I just hate disappointing either of you. It’s not the punishment that’s got me on edge, it’s seeing how he’s gonna look at me when he knows I lied to you.”

“Be honest with us from here on out, and you’ll never have to feel like this again,” Michael snarked, heading into the living room.

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Dean called after him.

Castiel found them in the living room a few minutes later. He was already dressed in a bathrobe. He looked freshly showered and ready to go. Michael lounged on the sofa with his feet on the coffee table, but Dean was on his feet.

“Feet off the table, please, Omega.” Cas told him, and Michael jumped, almost spilling his beer in his haste to put them back on the floor. But Alpha had already moved on.

“Are you ready, Dean?”

“I’m ready. She in the H/R room?”

“No, she’s in the Master. There’s no one here but us, so I’m just keeping us there. I’ll lock the door so the maids don’t come in.”

“You want me to just…?” Dean gestured, finger-walking himself heading in that direction, up the stairs and straight through to the Omega.

“I want to discuss what happened between you and Michael before you leave today. Your lie to your mate affected me directly. You owe me for putting me in the middle of whatever you did to rile Michael. We’re going to get your debt to me squared away too, but go take care of April first, please.”

“Oh, come on, Cas! You can’t throw that out there and then expect me to just go dominate an Omega. You know what that kind of talk does to me.” Dean’s eyes flashed. He was no longer worried about having disappointed Cas, he was worried about where his mind was heading.

“That’s a personal problem, Dean. You’re still an alpha, and you still have a job to do for this Pack. I’ll see you afterward. Meanwhile, Michael and I are going to make plans for updating the playroom. Michael? Would you please come with me?”

“No, hold on, Michael.”

Michael froze halfway between standing and sitting, his eyes wide at the palm Dean extended in his face.

“I’m still an alpha? Seriously? What the fuck is that? I screwed up, Cas. I get it, but you’re not only gonna screw me if you kick me into Submissive right now. It’s gonna hurt April too. She deserves better than to be sabotaged by her own mate. You’re doing this on purpose.”

Castiel didn’t respond other than to pause in the doorway, meet Dean’s eyes coldly, then turn back to Michael and say, “Coming?”

“Uh, yes, Alpha.” Michael hurried after him.

“Yes, Alpha,” Dean mimicked rudely after them then began to mutter under his breath into the empty room as he paced. “Dick. He fuckin’ knows what that does to me. God, what a dick!” Dean paced in a circle. “Alpha-thoughts, alpha-thoughts, c’mon Winchester, pull yourself together.” He downed his beer and set it on the coffee table without a coaster, hoping childishly it’d leave a permanent water mark.

Dean’s mind was whirling as he mounted the stairs. What the actual fuck? Cas never did anything without a reason, and he’d never intentionally sabotage his own mate. Even if he was really, really pissed at Dean, he wouldn’t do this to April. He wouldn’t. Dean couldn’t work it out. It made no sense.

He shoved the door to the Master bedroom open and let it slam against the doorstop on the wall. He took distracted notice of the Omega waiting naked on the bed as he worked it over and over in his mind. His Sub was right there on the edge, wanting to jump in front, take over his feet, and run to find his Alpha. He wanted to beg for forgiveness, to sink into the depth of those icy blue eyes until they warmed toward him again. But he couldn’t be Sub for this. It would defeat the whole purpose. His Sir would have to wait.

Dean snarled and shoved his wolf ruthlessly aside. It yelped shrilly as it dodged. He didn’t speak to his little mate-in-law, too pissed at Castiel and his own tendency to roll at the drop of a hat. Dean turned his snarl on her and advanced on the bed, unbuckling his belt. He unzipped as he put a knee on the bed and pushed his pants down just far enough to free the organ he needed. This sweet girl whom he loved dearly was miserably in need, burning up with desperation, but Dean didn’t even glance at her face. To him, she was a task to be completed while his mind was occupied with Cas. He straddled her hips, shoving her thighs together forcefully and stroking himself to hardness.

Fucking Alphas!

Fucking Dominants!

Fuck them and their fucking big-dog-Tops’-Club!

Dean leaned over April, ignoring her squeak of alarm, ignoring her wide eyes, and he scanned her body almost sightlessly. Then he growled and lifted back up. He angled up onto one knee and flipped her roughly over, shoving her back into the mattress, and falling back into place with her thighs between his knees and her red ass presented.

Dean was not really present for any of this, and in any other circumstances the situation was rife to get out of control, but Castiel knew both wolves better than Dean knew he did. His alpha body responded on instinct to the scents in the air. Omega-in-Heat burned his nostrils and made his eyes water and his stomach tighten. Dean took hold of her hips and lifted her up at the same time he drove down, impaling her channel on his cock and grunting like an animal.

April wasn’t really present either. She floated in subspace where the sensation of being no more than a hole to fuck sent delicious shivers up and down her body, emanating from her Omega gland and going electrically to every nerve ending. She let go and let her wolf make her decisions. The bitch was just about to roll her own eyes back in her head and Submit to the will of the alpha covering her, but then, just as she was letting go, she sensed a strange chink in the bigger wolf’s armor. Dean’s alpha might be driving the train, but his wolf was perched on the periphery, so close to jumping in. So close. She cocked her head to one side and watched him, curious.

Dean let her body flatten against the bed, held himself up on his arms and pistoned his hips into the tight space between her reddened cheeks. The spread of his knees kept his jeans from working their way down his legs, and the fastenings scraped at her skin as he pumped into her.

Her hands shot out and took hold of the bedframe, and he growled at her and slapped them loose. She cried out at the sharp sting and began to scramble for purchase with her feet, seeking a better angle and a deeper reach, seeking pleasure for herself, a cooling of her Heat, seeking a modicum of control of her own for once. Dean growled again at her daring and pushed up onto his knees, laying out strike after strike against her already red backside while he held her hip with his other hand and continued to pound in.

Omega-Submissives didn’t behave this way to a Claiming by a Deep alpha.

The little Sub continued to push against him, ignoring his spanks, ignoring his aggression. She saw a break in his strong presentation, and she wondered if once, just this once, she had a shot at owning something for herself. She would never know if she didn’t try. She took hold of the headboard again and thrust her ass back hard against him, impaling herself on his cock. The outcome might be the same, but the method was different enough that it registered as a shift in control to both wolves.

“Stop it!” he shouted at her. “Stop fucking fighting me! Submit, damn you!” He spanked her again…

…And she giggled.

Oh no, she didn’t.

Dean’s alpha was furious.

It pushed its sleeves up and leaned over the Omega-Sub, taking her shoulder between its teeth and biting down hard. She screamed and went still. Dean wrapped his hands hard and tight around hers on the wrought iron headboard, fucked into her with abandon, and growled around the hold of his teeth. He tasted blood in his mouth and let go to whisper into her ear as his hips worked her channel and his body weight flattened her. His fingers crushed hers into the iron bars.

“Still think it’s funny? Still want to fight me? I’ll fucking tear you apart. Submit to me, damn you! FUCKING SUBMIT!” Dean screamed it into her ear, and she tucked her head under and let go of her fight. The wolf tucked tail and rolled onto its back to display her belly to the angry alpha.

Dean’s sense of satisfaction made him redouble his efforts, and he released her hands, taking hold of her by the hip and the shoulder. He drove her body onto his cock as much as he drove his cock into her body. He knew he was hurting her, and it gave him a grim satisfaction.

His knot bulged and swelled, pulling at her rim, and in no time, it locked tightly inside her. Dean shouted as he came deep inside her. She screamed as his hand tightened on the fresh wound on her shoulder. She didn’t Release, and she didn’t come, but the Claim snapped into place like a rifle report, and they both gasped as it sent a shockwave through their bodies.

Dean came to himself, finding himself tied in her channel, holding his chest up by a single locked and trembling arm braced against the bed beside her ribs, panting above her with her blood on his lips.

The Omega wept quietly.

Jesus. What had he just done?

He lowered himself to the side and pulled her over with him. She went willingly and curled up with her knees pulled high, not touching any part of him except where his knot held them fast together.

“April? Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

She shook her head but didn’t speak and didn’t try to look at him. He realized he’d asked conflicting questions, and he didn’t know which one she was attempting to answer, so he started over.

“Sweetie, are you hurt?”

She sniffled and reached a hand back to his hip and held on. He hissed at the pressure to his own new bruises but didn’t protest. “I’m…I’m okay, Dean.”

“Baby, did I scare you?”

“A little. I’m okay. You’re not still mad at me, are you?” She sniffled again and cocked her head toward him. He reached for her and wrapped her up in his arms. The Claim-bond gave him a vague sense of what she was feeling, but it was nothing like the clarity and reach of his Mating-bond with Michael. She seemed to be in shock, but not damaged.

“I’m not mad at you at all. I wasn’t mad at you the whole time. God, I’m so embarrassed. April, that wasn’t me. I don’t know what the fuck that was. Jesus, you didn’t deserve that. I was mad at Cas, and I think my alpha took it out on you. I’m sorry. Fuck, I seem to be saying that a lot lately.”

“It’s not your fault, Dean.” She uncurled and turned her upper torso so that she could see him. It strained their tie a little, but they both ignored the pull. “I don’t know why my wolf challenged you. She doesn’t usually do that.”

Dean huffed at her. “Yeah, mine either. Guess your wolf noticed she had an advantage over mine and decided to make a play. I’m sorry I bit you. Does it hurt?”

“Not much. Guess it’s good I’m already Mated, though, huh? Otherwise, you’d be stuck with me forever now.”

He laughed and kissed her lips sweetly. “We’re stuck with each other forever anyway, sweet girl. Hope you don’t mind sharing a household with a dick like me.”

“You’re not a dick, Dean. You’re too hard on yourself. I’m okay now. You’re okay. We’re okay, right?”

He laughed again and shook his head in disbelief.

This girl.

This girl could make him feel better in no time, even though he knew he’d just practically assaulted her. I mean, yeah, it was a Claim-Fuck, and they were meant to be rough, but there was no call to make it rougher than it had to be.

“We’re okay,” he whispered back to her.

He went quiet and listened to the Claim vibrating in his head wondering what it must’ve felt like for April’s wolf to have had a glimpse only for a moment of another wolf even more Submissive than she and get the shortest-lived hope that she might be able to win in a straight-out battle, only to be subsumed in the end because that Submissive wolf was attached to an alpha who wasn’t about to let it happen. He worked his blue jeans all the way off and tossed them over the side of the bed. He pulled her in tightly and used his stumpy toes to grab hold of the blanket at his feet and work it over them both. She felt hot against his body, but she was also sweating, and he didn’t want her chilled.

“Hang in there, April. I’ll untie soon, and then Alpha will be here for you.”

She mumbled drowsily and fell asleep in his arms. Dean sighed and ran a hand across his face.

God, what a fuck-up.

Michael followed Castiel to the playroom. “Why did you do that to him? I don’t understand. Was it really on purpose, like he said?”

“Yes, it was. Look, I know you don’t understand, Michael, and I don’t expect you to.” Cas turned just inside the room and faced the Omega. “I’m not trying to patronize you, but you’re new to this. Dean is in a very vulnerable position right now. His alpha is at risk of getting swamped by the Sub that you and I keep pulling out of him. He needs to find his alpha again and teach it to fight its way back to the front.”

“Then why bring the Sub up intentionally when he’s got an alpha role to play?”

Cas looked tired as he shrugged. “He needs a chance to fight for it. That’s the best I can give you. I…can’t explain how I know it’s what Dean needs, I just do. I need you to trust me on this.”

“And what if his alpha can’t do it, and April’s less Submissive wolf takes it from him. How would that help?”

“It wouldn’t, but we also have to trust Dean. He’s a strong alpha. He can do this. And April is tougher than she looks. I’m not worried about my mate. Besides, I’m keeping an eye on her.” Castiel tapped the bridge of his nose, close to where Dean had said he could feel the Mating-bond connect.

Michael shook his head. “I hope you’re right.”

“Come here, Michael. I want to show you Dean’s toybox.” Cas led him to the far wall near the showers and pulled the drawers open one by one. “All of these belong to him, not me. There’s a little bit of everything. It’s all sterilized after every use, and it’s never been used on anyone but Dean, so please feel free to make liberal use of whatever the two of you want. Add to the collection whenever you like.”

Michael pawed through the collection of dildos, vibrators, beads, clamps, rings, ropes, cuffs, gags, floggers, plugs, and more. “Holy fuck,” he whistled lowly.

“Exactly. Michael, you saw Dean’s Z-Rating. You need to know that’s not just a number. He’s pretty far out there in terms of what he likes and needs. Did he give you his hard limit list?” Michael nodded absently as he pulled out a dildo bigger than his fist. “It’s very short, isn’t it?” Cas made certain Michael knew he wasn’t talking about the dildo.

“Yes, it is. I thought he was just leaving some stuff out.”

“No, that’s all there is. You can do almost anything you want to do to Dean when he’s in subspace, and he’ll be fine with it. In fact, I’d be willing to bet you couldn’t bring yourself to go far enough for him.” Cas took a deep breath and leaned against the spanking bench. “He especially likes the pain of impact-play, but he also likes wax and clips. If you rip a clothespin off just the right spot at just the right time, he’ll come so hard it’ll shoot over his head and paint the wall.”

Michael didn’t know what to say. He found the candles, all of them at least partially spent.

“What you have to understand about him, though, is that all that toughness is on a different level than his vulnerability. Dean may seem unbreakable, and physically, he pretty much is, but emotionally, he’s extremely fragile. He’s the strongest man I’ve ever met. He’s stronger than I am by a mile, but it would take no effort at all to destroy him completely if you’re not careful with him.”

Michael was transfixed by the items in the box. He couldn’t keep his hands off them, passing curious fingers over all the different textures and surfaces, imagining Dean’s face as it would look while he pressed each one into his mate.

“I saw his wolf when I was punishing him yesterday.” Michael said it in a distracted, trancelike voice. “It was so much more than I’m ready for, Alpha. I don’t think I can be who he needs me to be. I don’t know how to do this,” he indicated the toy chest, “and hold him safe at the same time. How do I do that?”

Michael looked away from the toys and across to where the Alpha stood watching him.

“Do you love him?”

“Of course, I do.”

“Then hold him safe. That has to come first. It will always be the top priority. You just do it, Michael. Take it slowly at first and learn who he is. Watch over him while you scene with him. Trust that wolf of his. It’s crazy what his wolf wants sometimes, but it will tell you when he’s in danger. I don’t understand it, and I should, because he and I are so perfectly offset from each other, but I don’t. All I know is that if Dean’s wolf needs something, you give it to him. Whatever it is, you give it to him. And you watch out for him while he’s in there. It’s that simple.”

“But that’s not simple at all, Sir. There’s not just one wolf in there. I saw at least two, and I get the feeling there may be more of them. What do I do when they all need different things?”

“No, there’s only one wolf with different aspects. Welcome to the high Z-Rated wolf, Michael. We’re very complicated.”

“But there was a little boy in there, and a crazy, glowing masochist, and they wanted such different things. Don’t tell me I didn’t see that, Sir.”

“Michael, you don’t have to call me Sir all the time. My name is Cas.”

“No, Sir. Not yet, it’s not, and don’t change the subject. Please.”

Castiel pushed himself off the bench and took Michael by the shoulders. “All right, listen. It’s simpler than you realize. You’re True-Mates. All you need to give him is what your wolf wants to give him. You have the advantage of being free to trust your wolf’s instinct. That’s it. Don’t try to be me or any other Dom. Don’t try to fake your way through this. It’s not Calculus, it’s instinct. Don’t be afraid of it. You can’t harm him physically as long as you trust your wolf and his. Just don’t break his spirit. Don’t tear him down. And Michael, you have to bite at his heels every time you hear him do it to himself. Dean’s his own worst enemy. If he goes to a destructive place in his head during a punishment, that’s a perfect time to build him up again. That’s when he’ll really listen to you. Use your Mating-bond to let him see what you really feel.”

Michael nodded and let himself release the tension in a big exhale. “Oh, and don’t cut him any slack when he acts like a brat, even if it’s just a little. That’s his wolf asking for something, and it’ll just keep getting worse until you deal with it. Right now, if I go out there where we left him, I guarantee he’s left us some kind of bratty editorial comment behind. You wanna go look with me?”

Castiel’s eye twinkled in anticipation.

“But he’s not really spankable right now, Sir.” Michael followed Castiel back to the living room where they found Dean’s beer bottle sweating on the wooden table, leaving a damaging ring. Dean was a fastidious man. This was intentional, and slight as it was, it broke one of Cas’ five Pack Rules. Cas raised his eyebrow at Michael and indicated the bottle. It was such a minor thing, but the message was clear.

Dean’s brat was sending his Doms a message.

“He’s swollen and bruised. I don’t want him hurt on top of that. And Sir, that’s not just me being possessive.”

“Okay.” Cas smacked his lips in thought. “Have you ever caned someone’s feet before? Would you like to watch me do it?”

Michael’s pupils dilated envisioning Dean’s face as Cas laid the cane across the bottoms of his feet. “Um, I…yes, Sir, that would be…But I thought you said he needs to spend more time as an alpha.”

“He’s got to fight for that himself, Michael. We can’t just hand it to him. And besides, he lied to you. I know you punished him for it already, and I might’ve let it go on your say-so, but this,” he indicated the bottle still covered in condensation. “This tells me he’s not through with it yet. Remember, Michael, trust Dean’s wolf to tell us what it needs. All we have to do is listen closely and give it to him.”

Dean let Michael drive them home. Dean let Michael carry him into the house, too.

Castiel locked himself away with his mate for the next four days. His Pack took turns checking on them, providing food, water, and clean linens.

Michael was fitted for a tux that fit so well Dean peeled him right back out of it. His week of chastity finally passed. They made a mess of the tailor’s back room, but neither of them cared. They were celebrating.

Alpha Lancet mailed Michael’s signed custody release, and the mates celebrated that too with a trip to Topeka to file the Change of Custody form making him legally Dean’s property—well, Castiel’s property, but whatever; he was listed on the form as Dean’s mate. They also stopped by the Douglas County Courthouse in Lawrence as Castiel asked them to and filed a petition for Pack Residence. Then they made out on the Courthouse steps and had to be shooed away by the local beat cop. The cop called them back after a moment, having just recognized Dean, and asked for a picture and an autograph for his daughter.

Dean grinned like a moron in the photo.

In no time, they were four wolves in the airport lounge, and Dean had his head between his knees.

“Just breathe, Dean. You’re going to be fine. Do you want me to give you a sedative?”

“I don’t want a fucking pill, Cas! I want to fucking drive there!”

“We’re not driving to New York. You can choose between the sedative that will help you sleep through the flight, or you can have three drinks onboard instead.”

“I’m gonna throw up.”

“Throw up before you board if you’re going to, please. The smell always leaks out of the lavatory.”

Michael watched them bicker in mute wonder. Everyone but him in this family was crazy.

Chapter Text

THEN:

Dean and Michael walked through the car lot, but neither looked very hard. They had already decided what they wanted, and Dean had already decided what he would pay. He wasn’t buying from this lot anyway. He just wanted to be seen here perusing the choices with his mate. They discussed the merits of a couple of different muscle cars with the dealer, pretending to need some time to consider their options.

Dean could feel when he’d been spotted by his target, and he winked at Michael as the car peeled out on the street across the way. Michael shook his head at his mate. “Trust me,” was all Dean told him before they’d started this charade, and Michael was a quick study. They thanked the dealer and Michael took Dean’s hand as they made their way back to the shiny Impala that had drawn the dealer’s eyes like a moth to a flame when they pulled in. He knew his job, and he recognized good horseflesh when he saw it. He’d offered Dean a substantial price before they’d even been introduced. It wasn’t what Baby was worth, but to Dean she was priceless, so it didn’t matter either way. He wasn’t selling her. She’d always been family.

Dean made a single phone call after that which ended with the firm word, “Deal.”

He and Michael met the guy, handed over the cash, and Michael drove back home in a shiny, sleek, bright red 1969 Chevelle. It was mint, and expensive, but it was beautiful, and it looked like a perfect mate parked next to Dean’s Baby in Dean’s modest garage.

“He knew you were just playing with him at the car lot, Dean.”

“No, he didn’t. I know Paul well. He’s not as bright as he looks, but he knows how to take care of a car like this. She’s gonna be good to you, Michael, if you treat her right. Sweetheart like that hasn’t even needed refurbishing except to renew the leather and update the wearable parts. She’s in terrific shape, and we’re gonna keep her that way.”

Michael grinned. “You gonna teach me, grease-monkey? I can’t wait to see you all covered in motor oil and road grime. I’m getting hard just thinking about it.” Michael pressed Dean’s belly against the red paint of his new driver’s-side door and sucked on his neck while he ground his hips into Dean’s ass.

“Too bad I still have a couple days left of my chastity sentence, babe.” Dean shoved his ass backward in a dirty tease and received a hard swat for it, but they both walked away laughing and happy.

NOW:

Michael watched them bicker in mute wonder. Everyone but him in this family was crazy. That was the greatest Alpha in the world, coldly ignoring the rising panic emanating from the man he purported to love and placidly turning pages of a magazine that was at least six months old. And the other, with his head tucked between his own knees, hyperventilating at the thought of entering an airplane—a task he’d managed to do hundreds of times already. That was the rockstar sex-god from YouTube.

“Does he always panic like this?” Michael asked. No one had warned him this was coming, and it seemed like something he should’ve known. “Dean. Sweetheart, just try to breathe.”

Michael moved to kneel before Dean, laying his head upon Dean’s knee. Castiel had advised him to watch over Dean’s wolf and give it whatever it needed. Michael guessed that Dean’s wolf needed to be eclipsed within the alpha’s mind by Dean’s Secondary gender. Dean’s Sub needed to take a hike. Michael struggled to make it happen. He slowly worked his Omega to the forefront of his brain and gave it to the alpha to cling to. It wasn’t nearly the struggle it had once been, although in truth, he’d never really tried before.

Dean’s hands worked through Michael’s hair, scrunching and scratching his nerves into the Omega’s scalp. He didn’t lift his head. Michael whined softly into his alpha’s touch, letting Dean’s nails dig painfully.

Cas kept an eye on them but didn’t lower his magazine. They still had almost forty-five minutes to wait. The security team insisted they arrive early to the airport, and the waiting was always the hardest part.

Billie was already in New York, preparing to meet them.

April lay across several seats with her head in her Alpha’s lap. She watched with large eyes as Michael tried awkwardly and ineffectively to soothe his mate. To anyone watching, his struggle to be the Omega his alpha needed was evident. He looked supremely uncomfortable in his own skin.

But he was trying, and he had resources now that he hadn’t had before.

April spoke up meekly. “Tell me again, how you two Mated the other day—how you Mated again.” She looked sleepy as she lay on her side watching Dean and Michael.

She wasn’t sleepy.

Michael rolled his eyes and sighed. He’d recounted the story twice already, and he knew Dean had told her at least three times himself. Then Michael caught a change in the whirl of emotion from Dean. He was rallying and rising to the request. Dean lifted his head a bit and rested his cheek on Michael’s head.

“You really want to hear it again?” he asked April, pathetically weak and uncertain.

The security guard at the tall table across the lounge looked up. “I do. I haven’t heard it yet.” April nodded as well. The huge bodyguard collected his coffee and made his way over, keeping enough distance from them to be capable of watching for threats from every direction while he focused on the narrative.

Michael was seconds away from extreme irritation until he realized that the ploy was working. Dean was less focused on his fear of flying. Michael could almost see the greenery of the woods flashing through Dean’s mind as he recalled the unlikely events of a few days ago. Michael caught Castiel’s small smile and decided to play along too.

The wound on his palm itched as it healed beneath its bandage.

Dean sat up slowly and looked down at his mate with a smile that lived in his eyes although he still held tension in the muscles of his jaw. His panic receded as he ran a hand over Michael’s cheek and whispered, “Thank you,” to him. The alpha knew what this position cost his mate. Then Dean patted the seat beside him and draped an arm across Michael’s shoulders once he’d taken it. Michael tucked himself into Dean’s body, letting the alpha lead the narrative. Again.

“I took Michael on a picnic back beyond the border of the grounds of The Facility…you know, back off to the East where it grows wild? There’s a clearing I found years ago, nothing but soft grass surrounded on all sides by trees, so it’s private. Cas, you know the one.”

Castiel smirked and raised an eyebrow without looking up. Michael imagined the shenanigans that must have occurred to make the Alpha look like that at the memories, and he let his own memory take him as Dean told the story:

They’d taken a picnic lunch out into the woods just after Castiel had presided over the Certification ceremony for Jeremy Lister’s Omega class. Alpha had almost missed that due to his mate’s Heat but emerged from their bedroom in the nick of time, looking tired and wan, with dark circles under his eyes that the staff knew not to remark upon.

No one paid any attention as Dean and Michael shook only three or four hands each and then slipped quietly out the back door. They weren’t really required to be in attendance anyway. It was only an excuse for Dean to take Michael behind the stadium as it were. Dean showed Michael his favorite spot, spreading a large heavy blanket out on the grass and unveiling a picnic lunch that he’d prepared himself. Michael swooned, allowed Dean to feed him until he could barely move, and talked happily for the next couple of hours. Neither suggested sex even though the awful chastity sentence officially ended today. Neither brought up any of the stressors that had dominated their waking lives for the last two weeks.

“How many times have you brought someone here, Dean?” Michael was sleepy, his head resting in Dean’s lap.

“I’ve been here with Cas before, but no one else. You want some more pie?”

“One more bite.” Michael opened his mouth for the final bite hoping it would prove one fewer than it would take to make him actually explode.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Creosote, it’s just a wafer-thin mint.” Dean was reading his mind, apparently.

Michael laughed before the morsel made it into his mouth, and it landed messily on his chin instead, dripping down the side of his neck.

“Oh, now you’re in for it, Winchester!” he threatened as he sat up and looked around for a weapon. “You did that on purpose.” Michael picked up a dish with their leftover potato salad and scooped all four fingers through the messy dregs.

Dean was on his feet and laughing in no time. “Ah, hell no! Don’t go blaming me because you haven’t figured out how forks work yet.” He dodged, but Michael caught him in a half-Nelson and ran his goopy fingers through Dean’s hair, spiking it up oddly with potatoes and mustard.

“Fuck! I can’t believe you just did that, Michael. Game on, man!” Dean grabbed the soda bottle and shook it, aiming it toward his mate who dove behind a tree.

It got sillier after that.

They wrestled and smeared food on each other, laughing and throwing taunts without either of them gaining a clear upper hand—that is until Michael scooped the last of Dean’s homemade peach ice cream out of the icepack that cradled it and managed to slip it down the back of Dean’s shirt.

The look on Dean’s face registered instantly with the Omega, and he ran for it, disappearing with a shout of laughter between the trees.

As the Omega dashed away, the alpha responded instinctively and gave chase.

Instantly, what was one thing became something else entirely.

Dean’s pupils enlarged and his eyes reddened. His heart began to pump the alpha’s life-force at greater capacity, as he zeroed in on his target. Every movement became instinct, and Dean thrived on instinct.

Dean sometimes took his Omega classes to the gym for chasing games. He knew he was good.

John Winchester hadn’t waited for his sons’ Presentations to train them to pursue and defeat in a chase, and Dean had always been a natural. But this was no game. Sticky with the residue of their food fight, the alpha emerged from the shadows of Dean’s psyche with a powerful roar of determination and pumped Dean’s legs quickly and powerfully along the uneven ground.

Michael heard his alpha’s pursuit, and his body reacted instinctively as well. The laughter died in his throat. He went light and fleet on his feet, ducking swiftly beneath the low branches. His golden eyes focused on the path ahead, searching for escape. He had the advantage of his head start, and he was nearly Dean’s equal for speed. Plus he could choose the route, zigzagging unpredictably through the trees.

Dean followed relentlessly; his vision zeroed into a tunnel that ignored everything he didn’t need to take in. His breathing was deep and paced to match his legs. The alpha wasn’t panicked or overwrought. He was focused, resolute. The alpha had had enough. He’d had enough of getting shoved rudely aside by his Dominant mate’s selfishness and his own needy Submissive. He’d had enough of waiting to take possession of his Omega.

His fucking Omega.

Dean snarled and growled as he ran, meeting every turn of Michael’s increasingly desperate zigzags with a turn of his own and advancing relentlessly closer. They were fast through the forest but weren’t covering much ground as Michael’s constant turns took them in a wide circle. Michael let the adrenalin spur his pace as his Omega fed off the instinctive chase response and fled for all it was worth.

Michael ducked and dodged, trying desperately to keep just ahead of the snarls behind him. The closing gap sent him deeper into his terrified Omega. The picnic and the food fight and the laughter forgotten, he regressed to pure instinctive self-preservation, so he ran as if his life depended upon it, gasping desperately in his panic.

For the alpha, the sight of any Omega in flight would always be enough to trigger a chase, but the sight of his own mate in frantic flight drove him insane with the need to pursue and capture. Dean lost himself in the chase, ignoring the burning of his lungs and his thighs to the sole objective of capturing and defeating the Omega who dared run from him.

No one had yet explained why an Omega fled his own mate once a chase was triggered. They all did it. They all ran with terrified determination. Instinct made them run, but what sense did an instinct to run away from the security of one’s own mate make in perspective of the survival of the species? It was a baffling but ubiquitous behavior.

Michael wasn’t thinking about why. Michael wasn’t thinking about anything except the placement of his next steps as his breath turned ragged. He wasn’t making headway, but he was able to maintain a pace to hold his own and try to tire the older wolf out. If he could just hold out for a few more minutes, he might yet escape.

He might have made it too, if he hadn’t tripped hard on a loose root beneath a carpet of leaves and gone tumbling gracelessly to the ground. The alpha snarled fiercely as he fell upon his mate, on him in an instant, grappling him to the ground, tearing at his clothing, and biting at his flesh.

Michael fought ferociously like the Omega that he was. He kicked and bit savagely at his attacker. Both wolves sprouted bloody scratches along their necks and arms. Unlike the fight at their ill-timed introduction though, this time wolf evolution worked with them both. Michael was lost inside his Omega, an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place for him to be when his conscious brain was in full control, but the best place for him to face a challenge like this. Sparked by the instincts of the chase, Michael was robbed of his usual defenses and thrown into a world where he was out of his depth. The Omega was on its own, but the Omega was formidable in its own right, as long as Michael let him work through instinct.

They reached a stalemate as Dean let his weight fall heavy upon his mate, pressing Michael’s face into the leaf litter. Dean snarled at him and held the large Omega down in the leaves and dust with his body, drooling into Michael’s hair in his effort but unable to let any part of the Omega go in order to free him of his clothing. They lay still for a few moments, panting, trembling, stuck at the impasse. Dean could hold Michael in place, but he couldn’t Claim him through the layers of thick material covering his mate’s channel, and he couldn’t let go to work Michael’s pants down.

Michael had no intention of helping in any way.

They panted in the dirt. Michael swirled into movement with a burst of effort to free himself, but Dean pressed him flat again and managed to grab both of Michael’s wrists. Their eyes glowed in the late afternoon sunshine. Sweat poured off them. Dean rutted his hips aggressively against Michael’s blue jean-covered backside in frustration. Michael whimpered.

That was all the alpha needed to spur it back into action.

Dean’s jaw took hold of the mating-scar that lay on the flat of Michael’s shoulder through his shirt and bit down hard enough to make Michael scream. While he was lost in the sensation that was only half pain, Dean released his wrists and heaved him to his knees with a grip at his hips. He used the residue of his own conscious mind to work Michael’s belt and jeans open. (Secondary and Tertiary wolves don’t pay much attention to the complicated workings of human clothing, so many a spontaneous Claim-Fuck has been stymied by Levi Strauss and his goddamned button-flies.)

Dean managed to get the job done before Michael could respond and kick out with his feet. The Omega’s scrabbling feet found purchase against the ground again. He made a break for freedom now that his wrists and hips were loose. But the alpha had worked his pants and underwear low enough on his thighs that they tripped him up in his escape, sending him tumbling back down into last year’s crumbling leaves.

Michael’s palm caught a sharp rock buried in the leaves, and the cut went deep into the flesh of his hand. He didn’t notice, and neither did Dean. The alpha threw himself forward to arrest his mate’s flight, straddling the backs of his legs and grabbing at Michael’s jeans to pull them further down, revealing his mate’s perfect ass and sopping wet channel. He kept his weight heavy on Michael’s knees and leaned into his hand on Michael’s back as he worked his own pants open and shimmied to get them down low enough.

There.

That’s all he needed.

Dean’s cock was purple and leaking with need.

He didn’t bother stroking himself or coating his cock with slick. He didn’t try to dominate his mate with words. He didn’t demand submission from his Omega verbally. The alpha owned the moment, and it took everything it wanted from Michael.

Dean mounted his mate hard and feral as it had wanted to do from the beginning, from the very first moment he smelled and saw Michael. All the days of frustration showed on Dean’s face as he snarled into his work, thrusting violently into the Omega’s dripping hole, careless of the Omega below him.

The alpha was angry and taking it out on the recalcitrant Omega.

Michael writhed beneath Dean, refusing to take the onslaught with the grace of its inevitability. He had no intention of submitting unless Dean’s alpha made him submit. He was going to have to prove he deserved Michael’s submission, just as Castiel had done.

Michael growled and struggled beneath his mate, unable to free himself from the pounding in his ass but unwilling to accept that just because Dean had mounted him, he must give in and take it. Michael was no Submissive. Dean had to earn it. But Dean—Dean’s Deep alpha—wasn’t messing around.

The power in evidence from the strong alpha gave silent gravity to the depth of his Submission when Dean gave it. Any time he wanted, this alpha could turn the Omega into a bloody pulp. Instead, he knelt and offered up everything he was to Michael. What he gave when he gave it was breathtaking.

But that was not for right now. Right now they were both someone far more ancient, far more elemental.

Dean dropped his chest onto Michael’s back, crushing him into the leafy forest floor, and he worked his arms beneath Michael’s squirming shoulders and brought his hands up onto the top of Michael’s head, linking his fingers together to hold them there, continuing to thrust into Michael’s ass through it all.

Michael’s face was forced into the scratchy forest litter. Dean grunted and snapped at the side of Michael’s face as he drove in brutally with his hips, kicking up leaves with his violence and growling loudly. Michael cried out in frustration. He couldn’t move. He wasn’t getting out of this. The alpha was going to knot him and own him. Forever.

Michael rallied in desperation, using his feet more than his torso to attempt to roll the alpha into imbalance, but Dean spread his knees for stability and kept the same pace, breathing harshly in Michael’s ear and growling in fury. The rough zipper of Dean’s jeans tore at Michael’s perineum, rubbing him raw.

“I OWN YOU, OMEGA!” Spittle flew from Dean’s mouth into Michael’s face, and the Omega flinched. “SAY IT, MICHAEL! FUCKING SAY IT!”

“AAAAH! FUCK YOU!”

Michael sucked in a leaf and coughed it back out, struggling against the alpha’s hold over his body and his mind. The Omega needed the alpha to force him. He wouldn’t roll for anyone who couldn’t prove he was worthy, alpha or not, True-Mate or not. Dean had to earn it. Merit was the sole basis of the transaction underway, and each was committed to playing his part to the utmost.

Dean’s knot bulged and butted against Michael’s wet rim, but Dean didn’t drive it into him yet. He wanted submission, and if he could gain it before he forced Michael’s hand, all the better. Dean increased the pressure against Michael’s head and locked onto the meat of his shoulder with his teeth, growling ferociously at his mate. The alpha ignored the mating-scar that his Submissive wolf had placed upon Michael’s left shoulder when the Dom instructed it to, instead locking onto his right, high up near his neck and well forward by the clavicle, identical placement to the mark Michael left on Dean. It was an awkward stretch, and he whuffed through his nose to breathe.

Dean kept his jaw clamped tight, not breaking the skin, but threatening.

The moment of precarious balance upon the pinnacle of decision lasted no time at all, but it was an eternity to both wolves. Michael lay crushed in the dirt, defenseless, defeated, and furious—but defeat wasn’t submission. Dean’s alpha held every muscle taut, waiting for his mate to tumble over the edge of the cliff into submission, and he wasn’t going to give an inch until that happened. It wasn’t an impasse anymore, it was an inevitability, but Michael was just that stubborn, and he held out as long as he possibly could.

Anything less would rankle and chafe forever. Michael owed it to himself to put up the best fight he had in him.

Dean lisped through clenched teeth, grinding them harder into Michael’s flesh, “THUBMIT, DAMN YOU! THAY IT!” He pumped his hips ferociously and the knot popped past the ring of muscle and locked tight. He’d meant to wait, but he let the chips fall. Dean wasn’t about to retract it now.

He was done waiting.

Michael screamed. The couple fell over the edge of the cliff together in slow motion. All of Michael’s muscles went lax in his defeat except the powerful muscles holding Dean’s bulging knot in place, and he slumped into the dirt, utterly conquered. “ALL RIGHT! FUCK! I GIVE! GOD, PLEASE! DEAN!” Michael had no idea what he was begging for, but Dean accepted it, scuffling in the moist forest litter, sticky with sweat and food. He redoubled his pace to make up for the limit to his strokes, and he clamped his teeth tighter into his hold on Michael’s shoulder, breaking the skin in a deep and powerful wound and bringing another scream out of his mate.

Several events happened all at once: Michael’s Omega-gland Released. He came hard, spurting into the dusty earth beneath him, grinding his cock repeatedly through the mess. And a Claim-bond exploded from his mate’s body to concuss his own and bind him in a skin-tightening grip that covered him from head to foot.

The pain from his shoulder, his palm, his ass, and every point of contact where blood oozed into the leafy mold, overwhelmed the Omega. His eyes rolled back in his head. His vision whited out, and then everything went black, and he knew nothing else as his body collapsed onto the ground in unconsciousness.

“Michael? Baby, you okay? Michael!?”

When Michael came to, the world wasn’t as he knew it to be. All the colors were muted and yellowed. He lay on his side. He lifted just his head a fraction of an inch off the ground, aware of a strange sensation below his tail and a million scents in his sensitive nose.

A wide, flat tongue was at work, cleaning his channel noisily. It felt…nice, but not normal. Michael whined and thumped his black tail against the ground, straining to look over his own bloodied shoulder at the gray wolf behind him. Dean stopped licking him and lifted his head, his triangular ears pricked forward. Tension fell away from the lean gray wolf’s anxious body, and he slumped heavily to the ground beside his mate in relief, perhaps a little more dramatically than strictly necessary.

Michael shifted up to rest his torso on the elbows of his front legs. His hips stayed flat to the ground in exhaustion, and his vision swam for a moment. He felt the watery semen Dean had deposited deep within him dribble messily out and run down his fur. Dean responded to Michael’s movement, struggling tiredly back to his feet and sniffing Michael’s face, licking across his snout and biting affectionately at his ears. Michael shook his head to ward off the kisses but went right back in to lick at the underside of Dean’s muzzle, whining in recognition, affection, and acceptance.

Dean stood over his mate’s exhausted body and scanned the forest for threats. Finding none and following a final inspection of his mate’s face and ears, he slumped back to the ground and began to clean himself. The alpha’s enormous cock was still shiny and inflamed, still hanging lewdly out of its sheath in all its glory. Dean licked it in long slow strokes to collect all the combined flavors of his own release and his mate’s sticky slick. When he finished, he sat back upright and licked his lips, restless.

Michael’s small penis had already re-sheathed, but Dean gave it a few licks anyway, shoving his furry head beneath Michael’s leg. Then he whoomphed down beside his mate and rolled onto his back, pawing at the black wolf who blinked at him in surprise.

Michael huffed, and Dean thumped his tail, feeling playful now that his mate was awake and out of danger. Michael was too tired and dizzy to play, but he opened his jaw and placed his teeth gently upon Dean’s throat, mouthing him lovingly and growling in adoration. He pulled himself to standing but stumbled as he went to take a step on his injured front paw.

Dean went immediately on alert when he saw Michael limp, shouldering him back to the ground and sniffing at his feet urgently until he found the bleeding wound. Dean whined high in his throat and began to clean it with his tongue. He laid his ears back and growled when Michael flinched away. Dean nipped his partner in warning, then resumed licking the wounded paw until he’d cleaned the dirt out and brought out clean blood again. Dean watched over it, licking at it occasionally as it gelled and stopped bleeding. Michael relaxed into the touch and slipped back into a doze. The last thing he saw before he fell asleep was his beautiful gray mate sitting tall and proud beside him, flicking his ears and keeping watch all around.

Michael knew he was safe, and he fell into a deep slumber.

This time, when Michael awoke, he found himself wrapped tightly in the picnic blanket, his head cradled in Dean’s lap while Dean rocked nervously above him. His mate was distracted, keeping watch all around, watching for someone, humming to himself what sounded to Michael like a badly rendered version of Metallica’s Sad But True.

Dean’s voice warbled, but he stopped humming when Michael shifted. Dean looked down and let out an explosive breath of relief. “Oh, thank the entire fuckin’ Universe! Michael, I thought I’d killed you. Don’t ever do that again, man.”

Tears wetted Michael’s hair as Dean pulled him in tightly and wept into his mate’s head. Michael struggled to free a hand from the tightly wrapped blanket and wrapped his arm around his mate. “I’m okay, Dean. Little weirded out, but okay. Help me sit up.”

“Nope. No, you just stay where you are. The team’s coming to collect us and look you over. We’ll let them decide if you’re all right to stand. You were out cold for almost forty-five minutes, baby.”

Michael took it in in wonder. Forty-five minutes? He rubbed at his eyes with his free hand and found it wrapped in a strip torn from his own t-shirt, a stain of blood leaking through.

Voices called through the trees, and Dean responded to them, beckoning them toward the clearing. Soon three medics carrying supply cases and a litter emerged. They went to work efficiently on Michael, unwrapping him gently and looking him over from top to bottom.

Dean growled at them when they tried to take Michael off his lap, so they just worked around the alpha. Soon all the minor cuts and scratches were cleaned and bandaged. Dean received a few bandages himself, but when he recounted what had happened and how long Michael had been unconscious, the team focused in on checking Michael more in-depth than Dean.

They looked into his eyes, took his blood pressure and temperature, asked him pertinent questions to assess his brain function, quickly determining he was not in any danger. He’d just collapsed from the overwhelming experience, not from a stroke or heart attack or anything else truly scary. The Omega was fine, they assured both wolves, and Dean breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“Get him up and walking soon but hang close. Just hang around here for another half-hour or so. Take it slow, boys,  and don’t try to go anywhere until you’re sure he’s good. Let him lean on you if he needs to and watch out for spells of vertigo. They shouldn’t last long, but sometimes, in cases like this, they can keep going with the aftershocks for a day or two. Don’t let him do anything strenuous for a couple of days, unless, you know, you just Triggered a Heat. I don’t smell Heat, but I recommend you let Bobby check him over before you go home just to be sure. His hand will probably heal just fine, but Bobby may want to put a couple of stitches in. Call us back if you need to. I believe he’s gonna be just fine.”

Dean thanked the medics as they repacked their cases and readied to trudge back to The Facility. Michael sat naked on the blanket, leaning forward, his knees spread wide and his feet pulled close together. He wasn’t listening. Michael was deep in thought.

“Oh, and congratulations, both of you. That’s a good, strong Mating-bond you just laid down, alpha!” The medic tucked his peliomometer back into his hip holster and caught up to the other two.

Dean turned back to his mate. “The fuck?” He squatted down by Michael. “Do you think he’s right? Did I just Mate you again?”

Michael looked up at him and giggled. “I think you did. Can’t you feel it? It’s different now. Here, take this…” Michael pushed his wonder through the new bond-link and his puzzlement through the old one. The pathways were different. The colors and the flavors of the emotions changed subtly as they passed through from one wolf to the other, while retaining their essence.

Dean’s eyes went wide as he received Michael’s feelings from two directions at once. It made the feeling rich and stereoscopic—like taking off an eyepatch and finding your vision three-dimensional. He responded by sending his happiness back to Michael and the two laughed in giddiness, rolling together off the blanket and into the soft grass where wolves belong.

After a while, the sun sank low, and the two mates quieted again to a somber, comfortable silence. They were both tired. Dean held his mate to his chest lying flat on the ground. “I don’t know if this is going to make things easier for us or harder,” he mused. “I like that I get to see and feel your Omega now. He’s a really chill guy, and I like him, but Jesus, Michael, your wolf is always going to want to be out front. How do we balance that?”

Michael rolled up to lean back onto his arms and looked into Dean’s green eyes. “I trust you, Dean. You’ve got the same kind of spread I do, and you learned to balance them both, right?” Dean nodded uncertainly. It wasn’t a perfect balance and finding it hadn’t been easy, but most of the time he knew who to be when. Most of the time it worked. “I just need to learn from you. Help me figure it out. You know I hate being Omega, but this right here, right now, this isn’t so bad.” Michael laid his head back on Dean’s chest, and Dean kissed his hair, tasting sticky soda.

“Dean, can I ask you something personal?”

Dean laughed at his mate while picking a leaf stem out of his mouth that kissing Michael’s hair had deposited there. “I can’t imagine what you could possibly ask me that would be too personal after all the shit that just happened today.”

“Your wolf. Not the actual wolf-psychic-response-deep-in-your-mind-Tertiary gender, but the imaginary one you talk with when you need to envision it…” Dean nodded for Michael to continue. He could share anything with his mate, even this.

If Michael knew what questions to ask, Dean would spill everything right in this moment. All of Dean’s walls were down right now where Michael was concerned, so Michael pressed on. “Does he have gray fur, a white streak running between his ears, and two white socks on his front paws?”

Dean sat up in alarm and held Michael by his biceps. “How do you know that?” Dean’s eyes were wide and scared. He’d never told anyone. He’d never described his metaphorical wolf to anyone but Jo. Ever. But white streaks running between a wolf’s ears—that wasn’t a marking ever seen in actual wolves. That was a dog marking. There’s no way Michael would have guessed that.

Michael’s eyes went wide in response, but he lowered his head and met his alpha’s eye in meek bravery. “I saw him. When I was passed out. Dean, I saw him. It felt like I woke up as…as a wolf. We were both wolves—really wolves. I was my own black wolf, and I couldn’t see my own face, but the rest of me was right. You were…you were medium-sized and lean. You were dark gray with a pointed muzzle and large darker gray ears. Your tail is almost black, and it’s full and flagged, thicker than any wolf I’ve ever seen—like it has a strain of domesticated dog, maybe. Dean, your wolf is beautiful and strong. I don’t know how I saw it, but it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t. It was real, and you and I were both there. You took care of me. You cleaned the blood off my…my hand, but it was a paw, and you licked it clean, and you watched over me while I slept.”

The Mating-bonds were alive with both of them sending back and forth instinctively: questioning, confirming, illustrating, and clarifying. They could almost paint pictures in each other’s minds now. They could smell the other’s emotions. They could nearly speak words to each other within their own minds. Everything that Michael said went through Dean’s ears but also entered his brain through their dual bonds.

“I don’t know, man,” Dean admitted. “It was real. I can see that, and you’ve got me pegged. That was me you saw, no doubt about it, but I never went under like you did. I’ve been awake the whole time, taking care of you, watching over you. When you didn’t wake up, I carried you back here and called for help, but I was tied to you for maybe twenty minutes, and you didn’t fucking move the whole time. That was some scary, scary shit, Michael. I didn’t have my phone, and we’re too far out to yell and be heard.”

“The images, the vision started after we’d untied. Just after, I think. I woke up in the dirt, and you were…cleaning me with your tongue. You were cleaning my ass.”

“Well, I didn’t do it like that out here in people-land, but I did clean us both up. Sorry about your shirt.”

“And then you found the cut on my palm, right? After you wiped my ass down? Not before.” Michael was testing the truth of his vision by checking the chronology of events against what he’d seen. His instinct knew that what he’d seen and where he’d been was real, but his head didn’t want to believe it.

“That’s right. I used a strip of cleanish t-shirt to clean your palm and wrap it. I noticed it just after I got you back here.”

“Let’s go home, Dean. I’m tired, and I don’t want to think anymore.” Dean nodded in agreement and helped his mate to his feet, letting Michael lean on him when he began to sway precariously. Dean abandoned their gear. He could come back to collect it all tomorrow while Michael slept in. He didn’t want to try to carry a buttload of stuff at the expense of his mate’s need for support.

“Congratulations, alpha,” Michael teased. “Looks like you finally got your Claim in. I wonder if the new bite will scar too.”

“Not a chance,” Dean scoffed. Double Claims might have occurred before, Dean didn’t know, but no wolf ever got two functional mating-scars. It had never happened.

“Wanna bet?” Michael prompted. “I bet mine’s the outlier, not yours. I bet you forty bucks that when the dust clears, both scars stick around for good, but the first one fades out a bit.”

Dean scoffed again. “Based on what? You’re just guessing.”

“Maybe. But I can feel them both, and my intuition tells me your Claim is going to take precedence even though mine was there first. I can feel it.”

“You know, Michael…” Dean’s alpha was still firmly in place as they moved slowly toward the Impala in the parking lot. “Your Omega is a pretty smart guy. I like to see you putting some faith in him. That’s where intuition comes from.”

“We’ll see. If he dumps me on my ass again, I’m done. I mean it.”

“Baby, it was never your Omega failing you in the past. It was all those assholes you were trusting to keep him safe who let you down over and over.” Dean opened Michael’s door and sat him down, squatting down outside the car beside him and looking into his hard, green eyes. “I’m not going to let that happen to you again. Not ever. Trust me.”

That was three days ago. Bobby and Castiel, Benny, Pam, and Ellen had all checked Michael and Dean over and made them talk through what happened again and again.

April was fascinated—fascinated by the contradictory Claim-bond that was supposed to be impossible, by the vivid imagery of Michael’s wolf-dream, by the erotic visual of the two of them racing through the trees.

The meter readings were clear. The couple now shared a double-bond—one in each direction. The strength of Dean’s Claim didn’t surprise anyone as Dean was a Deep alpha, and he was powerfully in his prime. But the meter readings also seemed to be showing that Dean hadn’t simply Claim-Fucked his mate, he’d Mated him. Capital “M.” Two Mating-bonds seemed to exist simultaneously within a single Mated couple.

Everyone agreed that Dean’s alpha Claim should take precedence, but they still couldn’t account for how Michael had slipped one in in the first place, or how Dean’s alpha had the wherewithal to ignore it and place a new one.

Since that fated picnic chase, Dean and Michael were inseparable. Michael handed over his first weekly schedule to his mate as Dean’s Rules required, but he did it with a smirk and a dry sense of humor. The schedule just said, “Week of May Fourteenth: I’ll be wherever you are (unless you leave me somewhere and tell me to stay).”

Dean crumpled it up and threw it into the trash. “I’m not leaving you anywhere this week, my love. For now, you go where I go.”

Dean hadn’t forgotten Castiel. His fiancé’s place in Dean’s heart wasn’t negotiable, and it wasn’t weak enough that a mate could come along and push it out. They were simply different, and each relationship would have its time and place.

This time and this place was Michael’s.

Dean cleared his throat as he finished telling April and Chris-the-bodyguard the story of his Claiming again. The bodyguard snapped back to focus with a startled look around the room. He’d neglected his job while the story unfolded, transfixed and resting his ass against the top of one of the chairs in the lounge, and now he was embarrassed. He went back to his table and stood stiffly at attention, glancing around the mostly empty room as if dangerous predators were going to leak through the A/C vents like smoke.

April snuggled back into Castiel’s lap, content. She hoped that the Claim would mean Michael would be less standoffish with the rest of the Pack. As Omegas, they could expect to spend a great deal of their time alone together in the house, and she had noticed a certain amount of sibling-rivalry coming off Dean’s mate, so to speak.

Now that the other shoe had dropped, maybe he would settle.

Dean was feeling better, but the announcement that their flight was starting to board stiffened him back up. Cas silently offered him two pills, and Dean downed them with a swig from his water bottle. Michael sent him stark disapproval about the drugs, but Dean’s responding sense of panic and helplessness thawed Michael.

He helped Dean out of his seat and through the door to the gate.

“How do you fly so often if you have to go through this every time? Doesn’t it ever get easier?”

Dean shrugged miserably and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

The feeds were all in place, running through the tunnels to a carefully hidden trigger beside the closed-circuit monitor. They were only waiting on the all clear, waiting on just the right moment. Claire sighed while Ash dozed. Getting everyone who wasn’t a target out of the building had been a master stroke in itself. Carefully laid tips to just the right cronies in just the right way and at just the right time hinted that incriminating evidence vulnerable to being discovered if the wrong person stumbled upon it first. Critical secrets would be unearthed by the wrong wolves at any moment, and it sent Gordon into a frenzy.

He cleared the campus of all students, innocent staff, and clients, and set only his most trusted employees to tearing the place apart for whatever those carefully laid tips were meant to lead them to. He thought he was protecting his interests against someone who had carelessly left evidence where it didn’t belong.

He didn’t know the tips had originated from Bobby and that they were bullshit.

When Gordon himself uncovered the bombs deep in the belly of the basement, it was too late.

The building went up in a flash and a fireball that sent a shockwave across the Oklahoma landscape where residents of the nearby suburbs felt it shake them in their beds. They thought it was an earthquake at first.

Castiel and three of his housemates were in the air on their way to New York. Benny was knotted to his beta mate, sweaty and spent and happy. Bobby was housesitting at the big manor with Sam and Gabriel, playing another round of poker and getting his ass handed to him by the Omega and the beta both.

At nine-fifty-four, he and Gabriel both subtly checked the time without meeting each other’s eyes. Sam didn’t notice, as he was up refilling his glass at the bar and looking for more peanuts.

The explosion wasn’t meant to look like an accident. But the trails had been immaculately laid, and they led to a goldmine of real incriminating evidence against Gordon and his team, and then it spun off into a spider’s web of possible suspects who ranged from honest-to-god lowlifes to up-and-coming politicians, to the patently innocent, to Castiel’s mother, to their own Facility (just to make it believable, but not enough so that anything could stick).

The investigators were in for about twenty years of digging before they even got close to the truth. It would go on forever if they didn’t just walk away from it, chalking the explosion up to the frontier justice that it was. After they’d finished uncovering everything that Gordon had been up to, no one would have any sympathy for his fate.

Bobby couldn’t play poker for shit, but he was a genius at chess.

Phase one was complete, and the clean-up would need all hands on deck. For Gabriel though, phase two was the real work. He had some leads, but he still had twelve Omegas yet to find and rescue, and he wasn’t going to sleep more than three hours a night until he had them all.

He laid his straight-flush out and collected his winnings with a cheeky grin.

Chapter Text

NOW:

“I’ve got an idea for getting you through this, Dean.” Michael whispered into his mate’s ear. Dean’s white-knuckled grip tightened on the arm of his first-class seat at the front of the plane. Even simply trying to process Michael’s voice through the buzzing anxiety in his head made him clench up tighter. It was too much input, and he was spinning.

“Mm-mm,” Dean shook his head vehemently.

“Shh, just listen to me. We’re not even moving yet. You’re safe on the ground right now. Hang on a second.” Michael leaned in intimately close. “Baby, if you can get through takeoff and keep it together, we’ll wait until the flight attendant passes us with her cart and blocks everyone else from coming up here…” Dean leaned his head toward his mate. Michael had wormed his way through the buzzing. He had Dean’s attention now.

Castiel sat across the aisle and a full two rows back with April. He allowed Michael to sit with Dean against his better judgement. He knew Dean. He’d been helping Dean through his phobia for years, and a huge part of Castiel’s Dominant wolf demanded that the thin gray wolf stay parked directly between his large paws where he always sat, where he belonged. But Castiel suppressed the wolf and allowed Michael’s Mating-bond connection a chance. Perhaps Michael could affect a better solution through his direct link straight to Dean’s mind.

Michael chose a different route.

“…Once she’s blocking-out for us, we’ll slide your pants down real slow—no one will know—and you just slip right into my lap and mount up. I’ll pull a blanket over to hide it. I want you to ride me.”

“Michael…” Dean whined, the pills beginning to slow his responses. “The blanket won’t do any good. There’s no reason I’d be sitting in your lap. They’re gonna know.”

Michael kissed Dean’s cheek and positioned his lips close to Dean’s ear. “No one’s going to be passing us. We’ll be quick and sneaky. I can be quiet. The engine makes enough noise to cover, and the seatbacks are high enough. Come on, haven’t you ever?”

“Nuh-uh. Cas won’t take the risk. I almost…with Balthazar once, but I chickened out.” Dean closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was intrigued enough to think about it, but he didn’t know if he dared.

His head spun with anxiety, making deciding all the harder. He swung his head around to look back at Castiel. Cas was deep in conversation with April. He wasn’t paying attention to Dean and Michael.

Dean let the images run through his mind. It took on a fuzzy quality as he fell a little further under the influence of Castiel’s sedative. “If we got caught, man…there would be hell to pay. They ban people from flying for shit like that.”

“You don’t have to say yes, Dean.” Michael whispered into Dean’s ear. His breath tickled. “I just thought it might help you get your mind off what you’re feeling. Watching you suffer like this sucks. But I’m not really in charge of you right now. It’s your call. Hey, are you still with me, or are we off the clock ‘cause you swallowed those pills? Dean?”

“I’m still good for now. Gettin’ a little relaxed, though.”

Michael made a resigned face. “Maybe next time, then. I always wanted to join the mile-high club. Think about it for our flight home, yeah?” Michael sat back in his seat and closed his eyes for a second, his fingers still blue where Dean was cutting off the blood flow.

“Oh, hey, Dean. We’re in the air already. You didn’t even notice, did you?”

“Nice try, but yeah. I, uh, I noticed. Nearly pissed myself.” Dean’s eyes stayed tightly closed and his jaw was set, but he had himself relatively together. Michael fed him a constant stream of calm reassurance. What helped the most though, was that Michael left himself completely open, and Dean could see that Michael wasn’t just putting on a brave face as Dean had always suspected about people who claimed not to fear flying. Michael was not afraid. He was concerned for Dean, but he took all the turbulence and the tilt of the cabin with a level of equanimity that wasn’t faked.

Dean snuggled against his mate and tried to sleep, but he felt twitchy, so he quickly gave up. The flight attendant served them and then moved on with his cart. Dean sipped his ginger ale with a pout on his face. Michael had flatly refused to allow him any alcohol on top of the pills and threatened him with stiff punishment if he pressed the issue.

Michael was incensed that Dean even asked. The medication helped Dean stay calm, but it also regressed him and pushed him toward his Submissive brat, and he wasn’t good at making wise choices once he slipped under.

Dean peeked at his fiancé again and found him reading on his tablet. Dean pulled the blanket out from its pouch and spread it over his lap and across to Michael’s as well, working it underneath their lowered trays. Michael side-eyed him with a quirk to his mouth.

“Can I help you, Dean? Are you cold?”

Dean leaned in wordlessly and slipped a hand down Michael’s pants with no preamble, took a strained, cramped hold of Michael’s dick and began a rhythmic pressure. He avoided Michael’s eye. He didn’t have enough room to work up a stroke yet.

Once Michael was hard, he’d have more play. Michael chuckled, and closed his eyes just long enough to sigh and take a breath. He opened his eyes to give Dean the bad news that they needed to stop and take hold of his wrist to pull his hand back out, but he jumped when he found Castiel looming over them with an annoyed expression on his face and a stiff posture.

“Get up, Dean. You’re switching places with April. Michael, I’m disappointed that you would take advantage of him while he’s under the influence. We’ll discuss this in full later.”

Dean slipped his hand out and didn’t protest. He unbuckled his belt, grabbed his drink, and skirted guiltily past Cas, nudging April out of her seat with a whisper.

“Sir, I didn’t. He did that himself. I was just about to stop it, I swear! You have to believe me.”

The Alpha raised his eyebrows. April slipped into Dean’s empty seat with a puzzled look from Cas to Michael and back again. Castiel’s voice went low and charged, “You have until we arrive in Newark to decide how you want to explain yourself to me, Omega. Use that time wisely.” And just like that, he was gone.

Shit. Shit. Fucking shit!.

“What happened?” April asked him.

“Mind your own fucking business,” he snapped, leaning his seat back, pulling up the blanket that Dean had left spread over his lap, and turning to face the window.

Two rows back, Dean slumped in his seat, pouting. “It was just a handy, Cas. I didn’t even unzip him. We weren’t going to get caught. You’re so uptight when you travel.”

“Save it, Dean. I’m not going to discuss this with you until the medication wears off. Go to sleep.”

The flight sucked for all four of them. They were still cranky as Billie met them and herded them to the penthouse suite. Cas hated the frivolity of luxuries like first class seats and penthouse suites, but Billie insisted that at times like this, when media attention was on high, appearances mattered. He was unbalanced and risked taking it out on his Pack.

He stalked past the bellman once the door to the suite opened for him and threw his jacket and tie on the bed. “I’m taking a shower,” he grumbled over his shoulder as he disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Michael grimaced. Dean tipped the bellman and sent him away. Billie turned on all of them.

“What did you numbskulls do now?”

“He’s fine, Billie. You know he hates traveling. Give him twenty and he’ll be right as rain.”

“Twenty. Yeah, I’ll bet. Twenty each, maybe,” she muttered, picking up one of the suitcases. “Who’s sleeping where?” She paused, unable to deliver Dean’s luggage without knowing which of the two rooms he’d be crashing in on this trip.

April hadn’t moved from her spot in the middle of the room. She was pensive, and Dean guessed she was reading Cas’ emotions. She took four steps toward the bedroom Cas had claimed for his own and began to strip, folding her clothes neatly and laying them beside her on the floor.

Dean was just about to respond to Billie, but he diverted to intercept April. “Hold up there, sweetie. You don’t have to do that. He sees you, he’s gonna take you first, and you didn’t do anything wrong. Let him take it out on me, and then you can have the lee-side of Hurricane Cas afterward.”

“Yeah,” said Michael, building himself a sandwich from the groceries in the fridge and not really giving a damn, “Dean gets the Hulk, and you can have Bruce Banner.”

“Michael, quit being such a dick. Seriously.”

Michael ignored him and started on his sandwich.

April ignored them both. She wordlessly folded her naked body into her Submissive default starting pose and waited for her Dom.

“Well, shit,” Dean muttered.

“C’mon, April,” Michael called over to her with his mouth full. “Dean’s right. This isn’t your problem.”

“She won’t talk to you now. You know that. Once a Sub’s in place, only the Dom or a natural disaster can move them.”

“You just gonna let her take the first swings, then? I figure your Sub might take exception to that. I’ve seen your wolf, man.” Michael took another bite. “You need to get in there too.”

Dean looked from April to Michael and back again. Then he looked over at Billie. She had set down his suitcase and simply waited with raised brows.

“Billie, I don’t know where the fuck I’m sleeping. Ask Cas.” Dean slowly pulled off his own travel suit and draped all his clothes over the back of one of the chairs. When he was naked, he stepped up to his mate and kissed him, smearing mayonnaise over his own lips. Then he whispered to him, “You too, big man. If I’m gonna do this, you’re doing it with me. Or are you willing to let that tiny woman take it for you?”

Michael gulped and his eyes went wide. “Me?”

“He got on to both of us, dude. There’s no way this is just on me. He’ll be easier on you if you’re waiting like the good Omega boy you are than if he has to drag you to it.”

Michael wilted. Dean felt fear course through his mate, but Dean firmed his jaw without sympathy and took the plate out of Michael’s hand, setting it on the counter. “Dean, I didn’t do anything. Why would I be in trouble? Is he going to spank me?”

“Stop whining. Yes, you did. You may think I was too out of it to know what happened, but that sedative he gave me isn’t strong enough to knock me loopy. It just calms me down and helps me sleep. You…” Dean put a finger in Michael’s face “Put the idea in my head and tried to convince me to go for it. If it had been up to you, we would’ve been caught doing way more than we were. You don’t get to stand there and pretend to be innocent. Now, get your clothes off and get yourself on the floor.”

“I don’t know the pose. I haven’t ever done this before.”

“Bullshit. You Dom all the time. Just pretend you’re showing a new Sub what you want. Cas won’t care if your pose isn’t exactly like April’s. No more excuses.” He walked back across the room and stroked April’s hair.

It’s taboo, of course, in most circumstances, to touch another’s Sub once in pose, but Dean was making no challenge, and he really didn’t care about that rule.

Without another word or glance at Michael, Dean folded himself next to April with his knees set about six inches closer to the door than hers. He exhaled a long, relaxing, releasing breath, and then he settled.

Michael stood frozen. He could feel the shift of Dean’s state of mind. Dean wasn’t reachable to him anymore. Not really. Michael’s eyes cut over to Billie, who had settled on the long sectional under the plate-glass windows and pulled out her phone and a stylus.

She gestured wordlessly to the pair before Cas’ door with her chin and then turned to her device.

Michael hesitated only another moment. He needed to pee, but he decided to wait. How much worse would it look if Alpha emerged to find his two Subs in position and ready for him, but his last wayward Omega missing entirely? He made quick work of his clothes, hanging them next to Dean’s, and then he regarded the kneeling pair. Symmetrically, he belonged on April’s other side, but did appearances matter? Should he kneel closer to the door or flush with his mate?

He thought about why Castiel was out of sorts and where he fit in the puzzle. Unless something had happened between April and Castiel that he hadn’t seen, she was completely innocent, and she was falling on her own sword to soothe her mate, to buffer her Packmates from Alpha’s bad mood, or to feed her masochist while he was riled and ready.

No matter which it was, she didn’t deserve the first strokes.

Dean had been participatory, but he’d also been drugged and potentially more open to suggestion, where he might not have been if he’d been in his right mind. The pills seemed to have worn off now. Dean’s presence through the bond with Michael cleared up rapidly over the last legs of their trip.

Michael sighed and closed his eyes. He rubbed his palms nervously over his thighs to wipe off the sweat, and the bandages caught and pulled uncomfortably on his leg hair. He checked April’s and Dean’s positioning, and he copied it, placing himself beside his mate and two inches closer to the door than Dean. He tried to catch Dean’s eye on the way down, but even though Dean had his eyes open and focused directly forward, he didn’t move or register that he knew Michael was there. Even Dean’s bond-link didn’t waver.

Michael put his palms on his thighs and exhaled. He was tense and a little scared, but it was the best he could do.

The waiting seemed to take forever. Michael used anticipatory waiting on his own Subs all the time. They always responded better when he made them wait alone for a time before he addressed them, but he’d never wondered what it felt like in this position—knowing something’s coming, but not knowing what or when, and utterly powerless to change any of it.

His mind raced through why he was here over and over and jumped with no notice to dread at what might be coming. Several times he had to stop and remind himself to breathe. Michael could hear Dean’s even, smooth inhales and exhales beside him, and he tried to copy the pace and depth, but then his mind would whirl away and take his breathing with it.

The bathroom door opened at last in a swirl of steam. Alpha emerged with a towel wrapped around his waist and rubbing another through his hair. The bedroom door was open, and he caught sight immediately of his three waifs-in-waiting. He pursed his lips and breathed heavily out through his nose.

Michael trembled.

Castiel cracked open his suitcase and dressed in no hurry. He chose a pair of tan slacks and a casual white button-up shirt, rolling up the sleeves. As he emerged from the bedroom, he stepped around the three waiting wolves and spoke to Billie.

“What does tomorrow look like?” It was quite late already. They’d eaten on the plane.

“You’ve got the day to yourselves until two. I need to get everyone to the stylist by two-thirty, and after that it’s all full until after the cast party ends. Maybe try to sleep in. The party will go until three or four in the morning, and you’ve got GMA right after. You probably shouldn’t try to sleep in between the party and the interview. Makeup can only do so much for your face if you sleep a couple of hours and get yourself all puffy.”

“Thanks Billie. You’ve done an outstanding job as usual.”

“Are you dismissing me, sir?”

“You can stay as long as you like, but you must be tired as well. It’s late, and tomorrow’s going to be busy. You have everything you need from me concerning the explosion? I don’t know what else I can do from here. I’m in shock, I think.”

“Yeah. Just let me finish up a couple more emails, and I’ll let myself out.”

“Sounds good. Thanks again, Billie.” He patted her thigh as he stood back up and turned to look at his Pack. The sadist in him suggested leaving them like that for another hour or two, but he reminded himself how much would be demanded of them soon.

“All right, you three…” he approached, but stayed behind them where they couldn’t see him. “Simple answers, please. April, what is Pack Rule One?”

“Be obedient, Sir.”

“Dean, what’s Number Two?”

“Be safe, hygienic, and care for yourself and others?”

“Is that a question, Submissive?”

“No, Sir.”

“Michael, what is Pack Rule Number Three?”

“Um, I…Sir, I’m not sure which one’s which. Is it, uh, the one about respect?”

“Describe to me the one about respect.” Cas began to circle them slowly. Michael trembled again. Castiel seemed cold and emotionless, but there was an undercurrent of power restrained. Michael feared being the one to cause the dam to break, and his mind went blank.

“Sir. Alpha, um…it says, like…I think it says something about not being dicks to each other.” Michael squeezed his eyes shut and cringed. So stupid. That was just stupid!

“Very eloquently put, Michael. Thank you for simplifying Rule Three perfectly. All right, April, you get the next one. Rule Four…” Michael nearly fainted as the Alpha moved on.

“Rule Four says to keep our home and spaces neat, well-ordered, and in good repair, Sir.”

“Mm-hm. And Dean? Please finish up for us.”

“Don’t lie... … … …Sir.”

He almost omitted the Sir, and Michael knew Castiel heard the pause. He didn’t know Dean was intentionally trying to draw Alpha’s ire to himself to protect his mate.

“Very good. I’m pleased.” He really did sound pleased. His upset from before his shower was gone. He seemed strict and stern but no longer angry.

Michael understood. The willing submission of a good Bottom was often enough to bring balance to an overwrought Top. Of course, keeping the Top in that balanced state was predicated on fulfilling the promise of a message wholly delivered.

“Please answer my next questions with as much clarity, all of you.” Michael was struck by how similar their styles were. He too, liked to talk through an issue with a series of leading questions, and he too, liked to keep his Sub in position through the discussion. Michael began to relax just a little. He knew this process. It was a process, and all he had to do was get through each step.

“April, have you broken any of those five Rules in the last twelve hours?”

“I disobeyed your Rule about how much water I need to drink while we travel. Sir, I only drank half as much as you said to. That was disobedient of me.”

“All right. Noted. Kitten, did you believe that I was upset with you when we arrived here in the suite?”

“No, Sir, but I knew you were upset and needed an outlet. I am here and willing if you choose to use me to balance yourself.”

“Thank you, love. I accept your generous offer.” Castiel ran a gentle hand over her hair and down the side of her face. “I’ll come back for you in a bit.”

He moved on, aware of the spacing they’d placed themselves in. It spoke to their perceived relative guilt, and Castiel agreed with them.

“You two. Up. Into the bedroom and stand at the end of the bed facing the headboard.”

They scrambled to obey and set themselves shoulder-to-shoulder. Castiel left April where she was and closed the door behind him. April would be fine. She’d slept on the plane, and he knew she had it in her to hold position for hours. Her training was in full swing, and he was quite pleased thus far with her effort and progress.

“Sir, I’m sorry. Can I please use the restroom before we start?” Michael was dancing like a pup where he stood, and Cas gestured toward the bathroom, suppressing his need to shake his head. For all his dominant bravado, Michael was still such a pup at heart.

Soon he was back in place beside his cohort.

Castiel stood behind them and took them both in. No bruises marred either of their bodies except where their Mating had gotten rough. Both had managed to go days without a punishment, and Cas wondered if that might be the reason they’d made the attempt they did. Travel was stressful for them both.

He should have eased that strain before leaving for the airport. Somehow.

“Dean, we’ve discussed airplane etiquette before. We decided, mutually, that the legal and publicity risks of getting caught with our pants down on an airplane outweighed the satisfaction promised by the Mile-High Club sales brochure. It isn’t worth it. You said you agreed with me on that. What’s changed?”

“I was really anxious, Sir, and it seemed like a good way to distract myself from my nerves. I’m sorry. I lost my head. You’re right. It won’t happen again. And Michael didn’t ask me to jack him off. I did that on my own. It wasn’t his fault.”

“Thank you for the apology. Do you have anything else to say?”

“Did I break a Pack Rule, Sir?”

“You tell me, Dean. Did you?”

“Rule One says to obey you. It doesn’t mention public law, just you. I don’t think I did. You and I made an agreement to avoid sex on airplanes because of the publicity risk, but you never made it a Dom/Sub Rule or a Pack Rule.”

“Okay. I’ll concede that, and I’m going to alter our Pack Rules. I’m adding a sixth that requires all Winchester Pack wolves to adhere to applicable laws. You shouldn’t have to be told that, but it looks like you were planning to use its omission as a loophole to get out of trouble. What about Rule Five?”

“Sir?”

“You and I agreed to avoid sex on airplanes, Dean. That’s an agreement between us. By engaging in sex after making that agreement, you broke your word to me. I consider that a lie.”

“Oh… Yes, Sir, I guess… I agree.” Dean was busted. He hadn’t considered it from that point. It was like sentencing Al Capone on tax evasion. He had known Cas was going to spank him, but he hadn’t worked out just how his crime would be filed in the register. His fiancé was always deliberately methodical.

Castiel turned to Dean’s mate, who startled at the attention. “You, Michael. What Rule did you break? Did you break a Rule at all?”

“Yes, Alpha. Um.” Michael stumbled. It wasn’t the question he was expecting to be asked. He had his story about what happened all laid out in his mind, but he hadn’t tried to link it to any particular Rule.

“Take your time,” Cas soothed.

Michael didn’t find it soothing.

Rule One was about obeying the Alpha. Cas hadn’t ever told him not to elicit sex from his mate on a plane. Dean had shared that information after Michael asked, and Michael had called a halt. Cas’ clear displeasure had been one of the deciding factors, so Michael felt he hadn’t broken that one, exactly. He had been instructed to watch over Dean when he was vulnerable and to keep him safe, but Michael didn’t quite feel the situation pulled against Rule One. Rule Two would only have applied if their activities mussed them up or harmed one of them. Even drugged, Michael didn’t think a quickie with his mate would injure Dean, physically, psychologically, or otherwise, as long as no one saw them, and Michael felt certain they could have pulled it off in secret. That one shouldn’t apply either.

Rule Three. That one was about respect. The one about respect…what else did it say? Obey the wolves above you and protect the ones below you in the Pack. Michael stuck on Rule Three. Sam and Cas had spoken to Michael over the last couple of weeks about how his rank was separate from his role as a Top over his mate. Castiel had made it clear on several occasions that he considered Michael to be a Top and to bear all of the responsibilities of that station, regardless of his pack rank. A tryst in confined spaces on a plane wouldn’t hurt Dean, of that Michael was sure, but planting the idea in the head of a compromised Sub set him up for trouble when his poor judgment grabbed the idea like a brass ring.

“Sir.” His voice cracked as he shoved the unhappy words through unwilling pipes, and he cleared his throat. “Sir, I broke Rule Number Three. I suggested Dean try to relax through the flight by riding me when the flight attendant had passed. I knew he was drugged, and I suggested it anyway. As soon as he told me you didn’t like him doing it, and as soon as I realized how much of an effect the pills were having on him, I called it off, but the idea was already planted. I did that. I apologize, Sir. I should have protected my mate from himself. Instead, I planted a bad idea in his head, and I hesitated to stop him when he put his hand on my dick because it felt too good. I really was about to stop him, Sir, but that’s no excuse.”

Michael’s confidence grew as he spoke. He was seeing the issue from a Top’s perspective, so he managed to touch on all the points Castiel had been hoping to hear. The problem was that he couldn’t be punished as a Top. He was in the wrong headspace. Castiel wanted him Omega, so he turned the matter over to his leashed wolf.

Dean felt the change immediately, and his cock hardened where he stood. He struggled to stand still, wanting desperately to drop to his knees and swallow his fiancé’s cock in long strokes. Cas picked up on some tell or other from Dean and he growled a menacing whisper, “Wait your turn.”

Dean whimpered, and his cock hardened further.

Castiel turned back to Michael. “No. It’s no excuse.” His voice had lowered and become a gravel-scratch. Castiel saw Michael wilt like a tulip in hot weather. A golden rim appeared around Michael’s eyes. Castiel pressed him. “This is not the first time you’ve failed as a Top where Dean’s consent was concerned. I’m extremely disappointed that the issue has come up after you promised me it would never happen again.”

Michael whimpered and looked down at the floor, unable to meet the Alpha’s eyes. “Consent is not this difficult, Michael. You don’t initiate activities with another wolf unless you can do so with their enthusiastic explicit consent given to you while they are in full use of their competent adult faculties. It’s that easy.”

Castiel took hold of the back of Michael’s neck and squeezed it. Michael swayed. “Your Submissive mate grants you authority to take liberties with explicit consent only while he’s not under the influence of drugs and only within the confines of your agreement with him. Is any of this confusing to you?”

Michael shook his head miserably, his eyes welling dangerously. “What got into you, Michael?”

“I…I…wanted to help him get through it—through the flight. He was so scared. I couldn’t watch him go through that and do nothing.”

“I don’t like having to see Dean that way either, but he’ll live. He’s working on it, and we are going to keep helping him, but not by breaking the law and not by taking advantage of him when he can’t make appropriate decisions for himself.”

“Alpha?” Michael’s voice was small. He didn’t know where this need he felt was coming from, but he hoped the Alpha would help him with it.

“Yes, Michael?”

“Will you please punish me?” The Dom in Michael rolled his eyes and threw his hands up in the air. (What the fuck?) But the trembling Omega stood his ground.

“I will. Thank you for taking this seriously.” Castiel’s Alpha calmly slipped the wolf back under now that it had achieved Cas’ goal and Michael stood ready. In time, Cas knew he would have to practice taking Michael there without leaning on the wolf to do it for him, but he allowed himself a learning curve. Michael’s designations were a challenge to untangle, and Cas had no illusions that he would always get it right. After years of taking punishments through his Dominant, Michael needed a break.

“Place yourselves over the bed. I want each of you on a different side.” Cas gestured Dean around the bed to the left and Michael around to the right. They positioned themselves so that their heads were in the middle near one another. Dean took Michael’s hand and held it, but he closed his eyes.

Castiel dug his belt from where he had dropped his clothes when he took a shower, and Michael decided that was a good time to close his own eyes. A shiver went up Michael’s legs, and he felt an answering one from Dean, but he didn’t think the shivers were all about the same thing exactly.

“Dean, you’ll go first. Don’t get up until I release you both.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Dean mumbled.

Castiel smacked his fiancé’s ass hard with his hand. He did it again. And again. He set up a quick and steady rhythm, pinking Dean’s backside soundly. Dean squeezed Michael’s hand and kept his mating-link wide open. He didn’t tear up, but he grunted when Cas’ strikes landed on the crease below his ass. After several minutes, Castiel paused, and Dean let out an explosive exhale followed by a deep breath in.

Cas wasn’t through yet.

The Alpha used his own feet to nudge Dean’s further apart, quite far in fact, opening up his stance and giving access to his inner thighs and sit spots. Cas went back to work, bringing color to Dean’s thighs. The Sub whined.

It was a simple correction spanking, not a deep punishment. Dean needed the consistency of straightforward consequences, but his Alpha wasn’t angry with him. After a final round, Cas picked up his belt and applied seven lines across Dean’s ass, enough for him to feel it in his sleep, and then he laid the belt down.

Cas ran a loving hand over Dean’s back as he crossed to the other side of the bed, ending with a caress through his hair.

“Can you feel your mate, Michael? Do you see how this works to bring him peace?” Castiel stroked Michael’s back in the same way he had Dean’s.

“Yes, Alpha. I can feel him.”

“Are you ready, Omega? You can expect to find a similar peace when we’re finished if you look for it. I know you feel awful right now, and I can help you let it go, but it will only work if you’re honest with yourself about your actions and if you don’t fight me.”

Dean shifted his head and opened his eyes so he could keep watch over his frightened mate. He dared not speak, but he squeezed Michael’s hand again. His ass burned. He wanted to rub the sting out, but he knew he couldn’t do that either. Dean was just glad Alpha had allowed him to stay for Michael rather than stand him on display in the corner.

Cas slapped Michael’s ass twice with little strength, getting a feel for his swing and placement, and then he went to work. Michael’s spanking was both longer and more intense. Even with just his hand, Castiel had Michael up on his toes in no time, gritting his teeth and clenching his eyes through the pain. Michael’s grip on Dean’s hand returned the favor from Dean’s fear on the airplane, and Dean’s fingers took a turn at going blue.

After several minutes of ceaseless swats, Michael broke and sobbed. He resisted kicking out with great effort and used his Mating-bond to pull self-restraint from his mate who sent him strength in constant waves. Castiel repeated the same pattern he’d applied to Dean. He shifted to Michael’s inner thighs and sit spots after a good five minutes working over the meat of his backside. Michael wasn’t accustomed to being struck there, whether in his Omega or his Dom, and his eyes flew wide as the sting heated his thighs. He cried out with increasing volume and fervor, but he managed to hold position like a strong Omega.

Castiel slowed to a stop and wiped the sweat from his brow, exhaling deeply. “You’re doing well, Michael. Just one more phase to go, and then you’ll be through.” Cas retrieved the belt again. He took a moment to gather himself and check the Omega’s trembling form. Michael’s breathing through his sobs was steady and unpanicked. He was in pain, full of dread for the last part, but he wasn’t unduly anxious anymore.

Castiel had never laid his hand across Michael before, and he wanted this first time to set a precedent that Michael could turn back to any time he felt frightened of Cas’ wolf. Castiel needed the punishment to be fittingly severe, but not harsh or scary. He also wanted Michael to stop putting Dean into inappropriate situations that might result in a Submissive Drop.

Castiel took another deep breath and then swung hard. The SWAP echoed in the large bedroom and sent Michael lurching forward with a scream. A line appeared across his butt deeper and redder than the ones on Dean’s ass. Michael fought internally as his Dom tried to take back over and get them both the hell out of that room, but Michael’s Omega fought back harder and refused to yield the playing field. They snarled at each other until the next stroke knocked them both off their feet with another yelp of pain. The Dom fled, and the Omega breathed and centered himself with conviction. The third stroke fell, and the radiating heat made him reconsider. He wondered why he had fought for this as his eyes teared back up and he lost his breath for a minute.

Fifteen strokes. Castiel kept it up at just that intensity for fifteen strokes. Michael was a snotty, sobbing, trembling mess at the end, but his Omega nodded his head in grim, firm satisfaction, and let the guilt go. Michael’s wolf sat far away and watched the Omega with wide, impressed eyes as the Omega dusted himself off and strode away at a stately, dignified pace, limping only a little.

That little dude could take a lot.

Cas kissed him on his brow, leaning over the Omega, and stroking his back. “I love you both, and I want you to get to sleep right away. No sex and no talking, understand?”

“We’re staying in here? Just Michael and me?” asked Dean, stamping his foot which had fallen asleep.

“Yes. Our travelling doesn’t change my commitment to give you and Michael a full mating-moon to yourselves. Crawl up into bed. We’ll sort luggage in the morning.” Cas helped them both work their way onto the bed and under the covers. He kissed Michael’s forehead, and he kissed Dean’s lips, then he turned the light off and opened the door. “Thank you—both of you. I’m very proud of you both. Good night.”

“Night, Alpha,” they chorused, leaning in and clinging to each other.

The suite doors were heavy. They didn’t hear the Alpha collect his mate and take her to bed. They whispered quietly together for a few minutes and let their bonds say everything they couldn’t put into words, as usual. Michael had never known the solidarity of sharing a punishment with anyone but his sister. To have Dean in his head through the ordeal gave him great comfort.

“Hey, Dean?” he whispered into the darkness.

“Mm-hm?”

“How long does it take for our birth-control to work its way out and for us to be fertile again?”

“I don’t know for sure. Doctors usually tell you to wait a couple of months at least, but I don’t know what the actual timeline is.” Dean’s voice was already coated with sleepiness.

“Aren’t you a doctor?”

“Not a medical one. Got my PhD in Comparative Behavioral Development. Cas is the one with both a medical doctorate and a PhD. He’s the overachiever, not me.”

“You go into Rut in July?” Michael rolled in close.

“Yeah, second week. Usually hits me on the seventh or eighth. January and July. I’m pretty regular—only had a couple of break-through Ruts in my whole life. It’s too soon, baby. I know where you’re going with this. Even if we stopped the birth-control tomorrow morning, it’s less than two months. It’s too soon. Plus, your Keller test is between now and then. It’s too big a risk.”

Michael lifted onto his elbow. “My Keller is in exactly one month. I’d still be safe then, wouldn’t I? Besides, I plan to do all the Topping. I can’t get pregnant if I don’t take the Bottom position.”

“Shh, baby. Whisper, remember? I don’t want another spanking tonight.”

“Sorry, Dean.” Michael lowered his voice again and nuzzled into his mate.

Dean took the discussion back up. “I know you want this. Baby, I know you do. I’m right there with you, but it’s just… Your last round is going to be with an alpha-Dom. Even if your Dom outscores his, whoever he is, he’s an alpha, and he’ll probably take you. It’s not worth the risk.”

“It’s not Castiel?”

“No. If they won’t let me do it because of my bond with you, …my bonds, I mean,” Dean smirked in the dark, “they’re not going to let him do it either. He Claimed you. Besides, there are two sides to fertility for you. Your first round is with an Omega. If you’re not on the pill, and you Top…Michael, you run the risk of paternal conception.”

“What if we could get the test moved up? I’ve already passed the minimum wait time. I was originally scheduled to be tested over a week ago. Is there anyone we can conspire with? Can we come up with a reason to move it up? Maybe say our pack dynamics are all fucked because we don’t know for sure where I fall.”

Dean chewed his lip and let his hand run tenderly across Michael’s hips and ass. It was risky even to consider playing this game, but Dean could read what was driving Michael’s impatience, and he had powerful reasons of his own to drive the same road. Dean prayed silently that Michael didn’t catch on to any of those reasons. There would be awful hell to pay when it all shook out, but by then it would be too late to change course. Time was running out though. If they were going to do it, it needed to be now.

“I can’t get through the turnstiles at work if I’m off my BC. I’d need an inside helper to change the codes, and that would get someone fired.”

“No, we can’t get anyone fired. What if I put a mate-restriction on you that you can’t fuck at work at all? Would they care if you’re on birth-control if you aren’t allowed to fuck?”

Dean pinched his lips between his teeth and thought about it. “If you and I both stop taking birth-control starting tomorrow, and I tell Cas that you forbid me to fuck anyone at work, it might work. But what about if you don’t wind up Topping during your Keller?”

“Whoever Tops me, if they Top me, they’d be on the pill too, right?”

“Jesus, Michael. Cas is going to kill us when he finds out we did this without talking to him. This is my marriage we’re talking about, man. I don’t know if I can do it. You saw how he feels about lying.”

Dean crossed metaphysical fingers that Michael bit the hook and ran with it. He couldn’t do this one by himself.

The Universe forgive him, he needed Michael to run the gauntlet with him.

“Dean, I know I have been anything but supportive of your marriage, but I’m ready to change that. I see what he gives you and how much he cares about you, and I can see this too…” Michael massaged the ocean of love within Dean’s core that covered every aspect of his regard for Michael and the Pack, including Castiel. It tickled a little. “We’re still going to talk to him about it, and if he comes around and gives us his blessing, a couple of days off our meds isn’t going to make a difference. He’ll never even know. But if he doesn’t agree…”

Michael took a deep breath and shifted up onto his hip from where he’d settled on his belly. “Alpha’s all about balance. He wants his Pack balanced; he wants his relationships balanced. He gave his name away for yours to even out the imbalance.”

Dean nodded in the darkness. Their eyes had adjusted. Enough light leaked past the heavy curtains from the sleepless city that they could both see. “Dean, he and I are not balanced. No matter how much I’ve come to accept how it’s going to be, he still stole from me. I should have had you to myself, but I didn’t. I don’t. I never will. He owes me. It’s a simple matter of pack justice.”

Dean thought about it, and he could see it from Michael’s perspective. It was a brat’s view, and Castiel was sure to object. Dean had a hell of a choice in front of him.

And Michael only knew part of it.

“What I’m asking you to do is huge. I know that. I’m asking you to go behind your fiancé’s back before you even tie the knot and give me a puppy whether he says it’s okay or not. I want the firstborn pup in this Pack. That’s what will balance things between us, between him and me. I don’t see another way, and I’ll take it happily with his blessing, but I’ll steal it from him like he stole from me if I have to.”

“Jesus, Michael…” Dean repeated softly. He explored Michael’s emotions and found him standing resolute. Michael’s wolf and his Omega were in full agreement with each other for once, but Dean sensed it wasn’t for the same reason. The Dominant wolf wanted a reckoning, but the Omega wanted… Dean’s heart went out to the young man who’d never yet in his life been allowed to have anything he really wanted in its entirety. There were always caveats or outright denial.

Dean followed up. “I never meant to ask his permission anyway. We were asking for his blessing and asking for help shifting resources around to accommodate the change to the Pack. Baby, he doesn’t get to say yes or no on this. I mean it.”

“He thinks he does, Dean,” Michael whispered fiercely. “I’m asking you to stand up to him if he tries to shut us down, and if you can’t get him to budge…just to go ahead with it anyway. Take whatever ramifications he throws at us afterward if we have to, beg forgiveness if we can’t get permission.”

“I’m not asking permission! Damnit!”

“Shhh!”

“Michael. What you’re asking me to do…it could destroy his trust in me. It could destroy our marriage. I don’t see why we’d need to go behind his back.”

“It’s your decision, Dean. If he sees it as a matter that requires his permission, and then he closes the topic for good… But he won’t do that, will he? It probably won’t be necessary anyway. We’ll keep thinking of another way, and I don’t want to drive a wedge between you. I know that goes against everything I’ve said before but see for yourself. I’m wide open. Dean, I want a pup. I want to be a mother. I’m going to make a good one, I can feel it. This is what I want, and I think no matter how it happens, in the end, we’ll be a stronger Pack… and more balanced.”

“And what about the pup? You don’t use an innocent baby to throw javelins at your rival.”

“The pup will be fine. The pup gets a strong, loving Pack where it is so wanted that we stood up and fought just to give it the right to exist. It’s more love than I ever got as a pup.”

“Let me sleep on it. I don’t know. It’s a lot to take in. I love you.” Dean didn’t try to hide the squiggle of guilt in his gut. Michael would feel it. But he wouldn’t have any way of tracing it to its source. Dean could feel something big coming.

His backside throbbed.

“I love you, too. And Dean? I’m not evil to want this. Sometimes you know something’s right for you even when every logical argument says it’s not. This is right for me. I need you to see that.”

“Good night, Michael.”

“Night, Dean.”

In the morning, late in the morning, Dean stood fresh from the shower. He’d brushed his teeth, and he’d cleaned himself inside and out. He stood naked before the bathroom mirror, dewy from the humidity, holding a small green pill in his palm.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he tipped his hand over and let the pill fall into the running water in the sink and down the drain. Dean blinked rapidly at the flush of adrenalin he felt as he watched that tiny pill disappear. His backside twitched, and he rubbed a hand over the welts remaining from last night.

They weren’t bad.

Dean exited the bathroom and met Michael’s eye. Michael was pulling a sock up over his heel. He knew Dean was conflicted, and he knew Dean had reached a decision, but he couldn’t tell which one. Dean said, “I’m actually putting more trust in Castiel here than I am in you and me put together, but I’m in. Let’s make a baby.”

Michael’s smile took up his entire face, and his eyes glistened with triumph. He swept Dean up in a hug and spun him off his feet.

“Whoa! Dude! Put me down! Hey,” Dean caught the floor with his feet and stumbled to a stop, clutching his mate. “We’re doing this my way, and that means we go full disclosure unless he slams a door on us. You got it? No posturing, no deception (except, no, I’m not telling him where my pills are going to), and no pretending to ask for permission. We straight-up tell Cas that we’ve decided it’s time for us, and we go from there. Let me do the talking.”

“Wait until we get home, Dean. A couple more days won’t matter, and that’s the timeline he already set.”

“Okay, but the longer we wait, the longer the strapping when he finds out we lied to him.”

Michael’s hand rubbed over his butt and his face paled a little, but he nodded, still resolute.

Chapter Text

NOW:

“Just tell me straight out, Billie,” Cas whispered in the quiet of the morning light, seated in his bathrobe at the suite’s kitchen table. “Did we do this?”

Billie just looked at him.

He didn’t need to ask.

Castiel knew.

Bobby, for once, had done the right thing and run it through the Alpha before he’d moved. But Cas didn’t know who else might be involved, and asking Billie served a dual purpose. If she was already in the know, he’d have a confidant to help him funnel instructions and communications through to Bobby. If she wasn’t, then she could face the upcoming press and investigators’ questions with a clear conscience in a way that was not necessary to fake. Plus, he could use her ignorance as a smokescreen. Genuine regret over the senseless loss of life in Oklahoma would come across better without the need to hide guilt behind her eyes.

“I have to know what’s coming down the pike for us. I have to know how to respond.” He narrowed his eyes and held hers. “Have we become murderers?”

Billie’s pause while she studied him was all the answer he needed, so he nodded and sat up straight. “What does Bobby need from me now?” Cas ran a hand down his face. He was tired and strung out. He hadn’t slept at all through the long dark night hours in the strange hotel.

Billie sighed. “I issued your statement to the press. This morning’s paper is full coverage of the explosion. They’re already drawing correlations between yesterday’s bombing and Timothy McVeigh. Most every significant leader in the Lupin community has a quote in there denouncing the violence and loss of life.”

“What conclusions are being drawn? Are there suspects yet?”

Billie scoffed a humorless chuckle. “Everything from Muslim terrorists to Russian mafia. Your mother’s name comes up a lot. Her newest tirades seem badly timed, and I suspect she could get way more than her fair share of the fallout.”

Cas peeked out at her through the fingers scrubbing his eyes. He didn’t know how to feel about that revelation. A hit at Naomi was usually a good thing, but she didn’t deserve to be blamed for this, and deep down, she was still Pack. Cas felt a wave of protectiveness surge up. He sighed heavily.

Billie refilled his coffee cup.

“You’ve done all you need to for now. Bobby wants you out of the loop. Can you try to get some sleep?”

Cas felt…twitchy. His face tic’ed occasionally, and he couldn’t stop rolling his shoulders, readjusting his arms on the table, and generally fidgeting restlessly.

“I wanted him dead, Billie.” Cas confessed. “I hated the bastard so much for what he did, and I’m glad he went up in a billion bloody pieces. I should feel something like regret over this.” He let his head fall to the table in a rare sign of emotional weakness. She waited while he regrouped and sat up again. “But I don’t. I don’t regret a single damn part of it, and if I had the decision to make all over again, I’d still say yes.”

Billie studied her lap and worked her lips and her jaw, thinking. “Cas…”

He waved a hand and cut her off. “I know. I need not to say anything more. I know. But I want you to know that you don’t have to protect me. I’ll play whatever part Singer tells me to.” Cas stood up and carried his empty cup to the sink. “Tell him he’s still on my shitlist. Tell him if he drags Gabriel into this and my brother gets hurt, there’s no fixing anything.”

“Cas,” she was still whispering, but she grew even quieter. “Gabe’s already in it up to his eyeballs. He needs to be. He needs this, don’t you see? Please don’t try to wrap him in bubble wrap. You know he doesn’t work that way.”

He turned alarmed eyes on her, and she was quick to respond. “He didn’t take part in the bombing. Bobby’s got him on lockdown in the Manor. He’s got Gabe squirreling information to dig up the whereabouts of the twelve missing Omegas. Gabe’s making some progress, too. He’s following up on a couple of leads, and it looks promising. With Gordon dead, his whole operation’s in chaos, and Gabe’s right there to pick up the dribbling pieces. Please don’t try to stop him, Alpha. Gabe’s good at this. Let him try.”

“What’s Benny’s role?”

“Benny’s not in it. Neither is Dean. Bobby wants it kept clean and simple. It’s just you, me, and Bobby from The Facility. Everyone else is off-campus and unconnected.”

“Ash and Gabe were at The Facility two weeks ago. That’s not unconnected.”

“It’s a loose end that we’re aware of. It’s manageable. We’re on it.”

Castiel approached the beta. He touched her head where she sat and pulled her to lean in to his side, stroking her hair. “Just take care of yourself, beta. And take care of my brother.”

“I will, Cas. And I’m going to take care of you, too—just like always. Trust me.”

“I do, Billie. I always do.”

April woke slowly to an empty bed. Every muscle group was sore. She stretched her arms over her head and grimaced at the pull of inflamed skin across her shoulders. She let herself slump lazily back into the pillow with satisfaction. She was sore in all the right ways, in all the right places.

Alpha had been on fire last night. Revved up over his too-frequent run-ins with his two delinquents, Cas’ face had held cold fury and tension that he unleashed with abandon upon her tiny body.

April had once spent many an hour secreted away in her home as an adolescent, hands on her own body, fantasizing about a faceless, nameless Dominant wolf who wouldn’t flinch at using her like the whipping-boy she was. The reality of what it felt like to be at his mercy in real life, and to be nothing but a fuckhole and a firm piece of meat for him to strike again and again overwhelmed her in the best possible way. Her pulse raced as she relived the moment late in the night when the buckle-end of his belt tore a gash across her outer thigh, and she’d thought for a moment that the pain would make her pass out.

Biting her lower lip, she slipped a hand down that thigh and fingered the bandage that he must have placed on her while she slept. Did this count as unacceptable touching? It wasn’t overtly sexual, but it was definitely erotic. April took the chance and let her fingers trace the edges of the bandage that she’d earned fair and square, humming contentedly to herself.

She sent Alpha a stroke to let him know she was awake and got one back in return. He was close—still in the suite, probably in the kitchen—but April wasn’t ready to face the day. She rolled over and grunted at the pain in her backside and hip as she put pressure on those muscles in their turn. She liked it. She let herself doze off again. She could tell that her Alpha wasn’t as settled as she wanted him, not as settled as she was herself, but he’d told her not to worry about it, and she trusted him to know what was best. He had…other outlets he could turn to if he would just do it already.

They only had a couple of days in New York. Michael had never visited before, and he would have liked a chance to scout around a bit. He and Dean had slept late though. There wasn’t time, not today anyway. Saturday would be filled to the brink with Broadway premiere stuff, and Sunday morning was Good Morning America, Weekend Edition. If he wasn’t too exhausted from the overnight, he wondered if he could talk Dean into exploring with him on Sunday after a nap. Monday, they would grab a rental car and drive to Boston to tour the ACRI Facility there. Cas wanted to check in on it firsthand, and Dean wanted to show it off to his new mate and mate-in-law like a proud Papa.

Billie was gone by the time Michael and Dean emerged, washed and fully dressed late in the morning. Dean made a beeline to straddle his fiancé’s lap while Michael went right for the food—room service laid out as a buffet on the kitchen counter.

“What are we doing this morning, Alpha?” Michael asked over his shoulder as he filled a plate. He didn’t get an answer, and he understood why once he turned.

Answers are difficult to enunciate when someone’s tongue is down your throat. Dean’s hips, canted back to keep his cock clear of contact, ground his ass shamelessly into Castiel’s lap, and Dean’s fingers clutched at Castiel’s skin. The Alpha’s bathrobe slipped off one shoulder.

The lead dog was giving as good as he got with wet suctioning noises, and bruising handholds of his own.

“I’ve missed you, Dean,” Cas whispered into Dean’s ear. Michael sighed. Then he cracked his neck to the side and pulled a chair out opposite the grinding, groping couple. He sat down to eat.

“You okay, Cas?” Dean whispered back. “You seem off. I can still smell stress on you.” Dean leaned in to scent Castiel’s throat. His hands massaged his Alpha’s shoulders. “You need me, I’m there.” Dean pulled back to catch Cas’ eyes.

“I’ll be fine, Dean. I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep. This thing in Oklahoma’s got me upset, and I couldn’t settle.” Cas’ words were dismissive, but his hands stayed tightly clutching the wolf on his lap.

Dean took him in for a moment, then he pivoted to speak to Michael. Most of what he said wasn’t verbal. Michael knew what he wanted before he even opened his mouth.

Dean pleaded, “Come on, man. He needs it. We’ve gone three months now without regular scenes.”

Michael wanted to protest. Castiel had April. They’d played just last night. He knew they had. Why should Cas still be off-balance? Why couldn’t Dean just be his for one month? But Dean’s pleas through their bond were based off true concern, and Michael could see the state Cas was in. He’d committed to working things out with Cas with reason and practicality. It looked like one month was going to be too much to ask.

Dean didn’t need it. His wolf was in good shape after the corrections it had taken over the last few weeks, but Cas wasn’t getting the same payout.

“There’s not time.” It was a weak protest, and Michael didn’t really expect it to fly. They had four hours before Billie needed to collect them to pretty them all up.

Dean sent him a bitchface through the bond and doubled up with his physical face. “Michael, you promised.”

Michael deflated with a dramatic sigh. “Fine. Whatever. But don’t forget the Rules. I’m serious. Neither of you touches your dick, Dean.”

Dean rolled his eyes, but he slid off Cas’ lap and pulled Castiel to his feet. The Alpha had allowed Dean to make the deal for him. He’d committed to giving them a full month, and he meant to honor that, but he really couldn’t continue for another two weeks without a fix. Cas was addicted to Dean, despite being Mated. No one else could do for him what Dean did.

“Come on, Alpha. You know you wanna,” Dean teased him as he led him to the room he’d shared with Michael and closed the soundproof door.

Dean loved this hotel chain for far more than its soundproofing. The Facility promoted the hotel in its literature and kept a contract up to support each other because each site was constructed with Lupins in mind. Each hotel had a number of soundproof rooms stocked with sturdier-than-standard furniture and a fridge full of nutritious food and drinks. Laundry services on premises replace soiled linens and clothing on a faster schedule than normal hotels, and the workers all knew how to remove stains involving any bodily fluid. They also kept a list of local support resources close at hand for emergencies that regularly came up where wolves were involved.

Cas had laughed at April’s concern that he might need to return the sex toys the concierge sent up to them overnight. The hotel kept a varied supply. She wanted to keep them all. “They’re single-use, Kitten. I’ll buy you good ones when we get home if you like these, but no, we don’t have to return them. No one wants to use toys that have been up someone else’s channel.” He thought her blush was adorable, and he kissed her pinkened cheeks, all four of them.

Dean stripped. Again.

He settled back into his pose, keeping his eyes on his Dom and wondering if Cas knew yet what he needed. Dean’s ass wasn’t even pink anymore, although he had seven tightly spaced red lines across it, barely there, just a hint. Castiel stood by the door, his eyes unfixed, chewing on his lip. He closed his eyes, breaking all contact with his Sub and centering himself.

“Are you sure, Dean? I don’t need this. I can get through the month like I promised.”

Dean smirked. “Right. Of course, you can.” He threw enough attitude in his tone to irritate Castiel’s wolf. The Alpha’s eyes opened and hardened. “Just don’t touch my dick. Michael might have to spank you for that…”

Dean’s brat was playing with him, teasing him, provoking him, and Cas stepped away from the door and gripped his neck in a tight hold. Dean turned it up. “How’s your mate this morning, Alpha? She a little hard worn? Bruised? You ride her hard and put her away wet? You didn’t break her, did you? Little thing like that could snap in half if you’re not careful.”

Castiel didn’t exactly rise to the challenge. He tightened his grip but simply raised one brow and smirked back at his Sub, looking down into Dean’s beautiful green eyes. He wanted to take the Sub apart slowly. He wanted Dean’s cries, screams, and his pleading wails to echo from the high ceiling, but he needed to stay in control. He needed to keep his promise to Michael as closely as he could. He just needed a fix, not a full scene, and he enjoyed Dean’s taunts. April, much as he adored her, much as she met every desire of his Alpha, never taunted him.

“She’s fine, Pet. Don’t worry your pretty head about her. I suggest you worry about your own skin instead.” Cas lifted Dean’s chin. “Did you and Michael follow my instructions last night and go straight to sleep?”

“No, Sir.” Dean wasn’t ashamed of his answer. He didn’t blink or dodge. He simply answered and waited for the next question.

Cas’ eyebrows went up again, in surprise this time. He thought he’d left them both spent and punished enough that they would fall asleep immediately, cradled in each other’s arms. Obviously, he’d miscalculated.

“Did you have sex?”

“No, Sir.”

“Did you stay up, talking?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“I see. How late?”

“I dunno. Couple of hours, maybe.”

Castiel chuckled and patted his brat’s cheek. “I wonder if you’re capable of behaving yourself for ten minutes straight sometimes, my love.”

“I will if you make me,” Dean snarked. He hid his worry that Cas might ask what he and Michael had talked about. It wasn’t time yet. He wanted to hold on to his illusions for as long as he could.

Sue him, he’d always been selfish that way.

“Would you like to have something to think about while you’re sitting through tonight’s long performance, Pet? I can make you sting all evening if you ask me to.”

Dean couldn’t hide the want in his eyes, nor the whine in his throat. Cas was holding himself back with the leash tightly coiled around his fist. His wolf, straining at the lead, whined back in answer, and drooled a little into the grass.

“Yes, please…” Dean answered as softly as he could say it and still be heard.

“On the bed, then. All fours.” Dean popped up and nearly took his Dom out in his hurry. Cas had to close his eyes again and grit his teeth to keep himself from laughing outright at the puppylike enthusiasm. It never got old. Cas took a deep breath and then slowly unwound the leash from his tight grip, letting his wolf bound forward to tackle Dean’s in playful mirth. They’d obviously missed each other. Cas sucked at Dean’s shoulders and ran his hands all over the man’s body. Everywhere except where he’d promised not to.

“Whatever you need, Alpha,” Dean told him over his shoulder, a tremble of anticipation rolling across his shoulders.

“I need you screaming, Dean. Will you scream for me?”

“Make me.”

The large wolf growled at him and bit his shoulder hard enough to hurt.

Challenge accepted.

Dean flinched but didn’t cry out. Castiel disappeared from above him and another shudder went through the Sub at the loss of his warmth.

Alpha dug through Dean’s luggage until he found a bottle of lube in an outside pocket. He stripped slowly out of his bathrobe, letting it fall carelessly to the floor, taking a moment to watch his twitching Sub whose eyes never left the Dom as long as their positions allowed him to see.

Cas knew many Doms found having a Sub’s eyes meet their own to be an unacceptable challenge, but he liked the feeling it elicited. Cas wanted into the secret world of the wolf, and the most direct path was always through eye contact, so he insisted his Subs keep their eyes trained on his unless he moved where they couldn’t do it. Dean, well trained after all these years, rarely even blinked.

Cas nodded in approval and walked back around behind his boy, letting their gazes break. Dean lowered his head between his arms and relaxed. “Down on your elbows, Pet.” Dean didn’t move until Cas struck his outer thigh and forced him down with a forearm across his back, snarling and digging an elbow in painfully.

Dean huffed as he lowered.

“Don’t move until you’re told to.” Cas gripped the back of Dean’s thigh and thrust two slick fingers into his hole, sinking them deep in one firm push and bottoming all the way out. Dean gasped and bowed his back. The pain outweighed the pleasure at this early stage, and he took a minute to brace himself and relax into it.

Castiel growled again. “Don’t. Move.”

The Sub breathed fast through his nose, clenched his eyes closed, and tried to stay still, tried to relax. He was teetering between rolling into full Submission and sticking his brat’s nose in again to see how much he could pull from his Dom. What did Cas need from him in this moment—a struggle or compliance?

Dean took a deep breath, relaxed his ass, and shoved himself backward onto Castiel’s slick hand in a move that couldn’t be interpreted as anything but intentional. He rocked there for three or four pulses before the Alpha stripped his fingers out, manhandled Dean back to the floor on his knees, and thrust his cock deep into Dean’s throat. He held Dean on his cock, buried into his throat, stretching his lips wide. Dean couldn’t breathe. His eyes watered and his gag reflex churned his throat around the Alpha’s dick. He struggled against Cas’ hold, lips stretched, beating at his legs with clenched fists and trying to rise. Cas had a firm, solid grip of his head and a good many hairs at the sensitive nape of his neck.

Dean was nailed fast in place.

“Let me know when you’re ready to try again, Pet. I’ve got a great deal of patience, and I’m not the one robbed of oxygen.” Cas thrust his hips minutely, not enough to pull free and allow Dean a breath, but enough to keep him gagging uncomfortably.

Dean fought the urge to vomit. Throwing up was essentially the same as calling a safeword. It meant full stop until the Dom knew he was all right, and Dean did not want to stop. He moaned piteously, struggling to keep his defiance. But even bratty wolves need to inhale. In very little time, Dean gave in, tapping Cas’ thigh three times in their agreed-upon version of Uncle, letting his muscles go slack.

Cas pulled out slowly. Dean gasped in a breath, coughing on the exhale, crumpling to the floor.

“Shall we try it again?”

Dean nodded and pulled himself back onto the bed, going down onto his elbows and rocking his ass up to angle his hole in presentation.

“Mmm, very nice, Submissive. Much better.” Cas re-slicked his fingers and went right back to work opening his Sub up. He massaged Dean’s prostate and added a third finger soon enough that Dean had to breathe through the stretch again. Both of them were hard and panting as Cas worked him open deliberately. He licked, nuzzled, and nipped Dean’s back as he moved his fingers in and out, leaving red or purple marks across the freckled expanse. Michael had not forbidden him from marking Dean. He intended to leave Castiel was here across the Sub’s entire back.

“Don’t come while I’m fucking you, Pet. But if you want to when I strike you, go right ahead. Understand?” Cas removed his fingers and pressed his cock to Dean’s swollen, slick entrance.

“Sir,” was all Dean could manage. His wolf was in front, and the wolf often preferred not to speak in human words when the physical sensations took him to a deep place.

Cas lined up, pressed in, and bottomed out. Dean groaned and pressed back, presenting fully. Cas left bruises from his tight grip on Dean’s hip, clenching with his fingernails to remind him to stay still, turning Dean’s groan, mid-breath into a high whimper. The Sub stilled. Three of Castiel’s thick fingers hardly approached the full girth of his penis, so Dean was still insufficiently prepared. It was a new stretch. It hurt. Alphas are not built to be fucked. Dean’s cock drooled and twitched.

He wanted badly to touch it.

Dean was so aroused he nearly forgot who and where he was. He nearly forgot who owned him. With his eyes squeezed shut, only his years of conditioning kept his hand off his dick, kept his hips still as his Alpha fucked him. Dean had never figured out which of his many aspects kept track of all the Rules in play during each session, but he rarely forgot one long enough to break it accidently, even while he floated free of his own sentience.

Cas took his time, making each pass as dirty as he could, bottoming out and grinding himself against Dean’s prostate, before pulling slowly out with a squelch and turning to rock back into him. He continued to snarl into it, his face tics becoming a steady stream of grunts and moans as his lips worked into some strange unintentional gargoyle-esque shapes, feeding the wolf inside him.

His teeth marks littered Dean’s back.

Cas leaned over his Sub and wrapped a hand around to pinch and pull at Dean’s left nipple. And finally, his Sub cried out, caught off-guard as Cas rolled a thumbnail into the sensitive edge of his nipple. He picked up his pace and fucked the Sub faster, letting all pretense of control fade away. Dean struggled to keep his ass off the mattress at the powerful pounding, but he squirmed a bit, got his knees re-situated beneath his weight, and gritted his teeth. His hole was going to hurt afterward. He’d been prepped enough to prevent tearing, but not enough to prevent pain.

Cas pistoned into him until his knot began to pull brutally at Dean’s rim, and then he pulled out, stroked himself, aimed at Dean’s asshole, and came across his swollen rim with a shout. The Alpha breathed hard, running a thumb over Dean’s abused flesh and took in the line of tension across the Sub’s shoulders. He was hurting already. Time to make him scream.

“Stay there, Pet. Stay right where you are. If you want to come. Now’s the time to go for it. I’m going to get the switch out of your bag, and I’m going to abuse your pretty, pretty hole. God, you look beautiful for me right now.” Cas couldn’t stop babbling as he removed himself from the end of the bed. “Just stay right there and scream for me, Dean. Yeah, stay there and tremble just like that.”

Dean’s eyes picked up his Dom as he circled the bed, coming back into his Sub’s line of vision. They locked eyes and both stopped breathing for a moment at the startling rawness of the connection. Dean saw the change that had come over Castiel’s body. All of the strain he’d been carrying for weeks had fallen away, and it took Dean’s tension with it. Their pupils were still wide with lust, despite the release that dribbled off Dean’s ass. Cas wasn’t finished with the scene, but he knew he had what he’d been missing, and the wolf was relaxing into it.

Cas pulled the hickory switch out of Dean’s bag without having to dig for it. He’d packed it there himself, so he knew which pocket it was in. Cas never travelled anywhere with Dean without making him carry instruments of impact in his bags, even if they never used them before returning back home. Dean knew they were there, and he had to carry them himself.

Cas swished the pliant switch through the air with a high-pitched Swish. Dean shut his eyes again and shivered. This was going to hurt like hell. His asshole was already sore, red, swollen, and wet.

“Hold yourself open to me, Dean. Don’t move, or I might injure you in error.”

Cas gave Dean time to muster his courage and snake his shaking hands around to pull his cheeks apart. His reticence this time, borne of trepidation not defiance, earned him his Dom’s patience.

“Scoot back to the end of the bed for me, Pet. … … Good. Right there.”

Cas went down on one knee behind the Sub. He braced his hand, the one holding the end of the switch against the bed so that the thin, springy end sat between Dean’s cheeks, ending just above his swollen hole. Dean cried out in worried anticipation, and his hands trembled. “Color, Pet?”

“Mm-mm.” Dean rubbed his face back and forth characteristically across the bedding.

“Dean? I need you to talk to me.” Cas put a grounding hand on his Sub’s back. “We don’t have to go through with this.”

Dean rocked back against the switch poised and ready on his flesh. He struggled to make words work, but he knew Cas would stop if he couldn’t say the words. “Want it. Bad. Please.”

“Color, Dean.” Cas wasn’t taking the wolf’s word. He needed to hear from Dean.

“Please, Alpha…green.” It was a monumental effort, but Dean forced the code word out that would let them move forward.

“Good boy. Now. Scream for me, baby.” Cas took his free hand off Dean’s back and used it to pull the switch back against the tension of his braced hand. He let it go with a Zing and a Pop against Dean’s sensitive hole.

Dean complied.

He screamed and bucked, the pain ferocious.

Dean’s breath left him in one long shriek. It took several beats before he caught it again and found himself humping his hips convulsively. Cas slipped a hand beneath his Sub’s thigh to prevent his cock from riding to completion in friction against the bed. That part was going to be harder than he thought with Dean in this state.

“Get back into position, Submissive. You forget yourself.” Cas’ voice brooked no dispute, but Dean hadn’t actually slipped out of position. His hands were still in place, his weight still upon his knees and elbows, and his hips cleared the mattress. It was a close thing. Dean stilled with a sob.

Cas put the switch against his anus once more, just holding it there in line with the red welt that was now forming, angrily perpendicular to those placed last night that had faded nearly to nothing. “Color, Dean?”

“Yellow!”

“Do you want another one?”

“YES! FUCK! GOD, YES!”

“Can you come like this?”

“Wanna come, Alpha!”

“Good boy. Let’s see if you can do it. Stay in place, don’t flatten. You can’t rut against the bed. Michael’s orders.”

“Nnngh!”

Cas took another breath. He felt centered for the first time in weeks. He felt solid, in control, fed. He pulled the switch back once more and let it go again to snap across Dean’s ass, then before Dean could move, he did it again.

Dean lost it.

He screamed until his voice went raw, coming in spasms into the bedding, and letting his Dom roll him to his side while his hips jerked of their own recognizance. He went so deeply into his wolf, that he floated in inhuman space for time immeasurable, held tightly by his beloved, unable to think or know or speak.

Pain was pleasure.

Up was down.

Aftershocks clenched his jaw and his asshole alike and sent more fluid jerking through his cock to ruin the bedding.

April limped out for breakfast just after ten a.m. She had showered and dressed. As she began to fill a plate, she suddenly paled and looked toward the closed bedroom door across the vast space. She trembled, clung to the counter, and nearly rutted her own hips against the cabinetry in response to the waves coming through the bond from her mate, so powerful was the sensation. He was obviously…indisposed. The last time she’d felt that from him had been from hundreds of miles away, and it had been muted.

Castiel’s Claiming of Michael hadn’t felt anything like this. This was very, very present through the bond she shared with her mate.

Cheeks flushed, she gasped and turned to look at Michael. He lay long across the couch with his arm thrown over his eyes, his breathing heavy, and his cheeks flushed as well. His slacks tented rudely, but he didn’t move to adjust or alter the situation.

“What should we do?” she called to him, looking for a Dominant to guide her. Michael peeked from beneath his arm.

“Eat something,” he said, and then he disappeared again.

She carried her plate to the couch and wormed her way beneath his feet, setting her plate on his shins. He didn’t acknowledge her presence. April took his lack of reaction as permission. They stayed like that, not speaking or daring to move until the erotic sensations peaked in an almost nauseating wave of borrowed pain and lust. Michael went up on his elbows in alarm, and both of them stared at the closed door through which they could hear nothing.

April’s mostly full plate crashed to the ground and shattered.

Michael blinked, turning to the Omega-Sub with frightened eyes.

Dean.

His mate was wide open through their bond, and the pain he was in was devastating. Yet Dean loved it. He was lapping it up like ambrosia, feeding off the waves of agony. April mirrored Michael, her mouth hanging open. She wouldn’t be able to feel Dean, but what must the Alpha feel like to her, his wolf tearing off huge chunks of meat and devouring his kill in great, gluttonous bites?

April was the first to come down from the adrenalin rush. “That’s why they need each other even though they have us,” she breathed to Michael. Her voice didn’t sound certain.

“Shut up.” He closed her out of his mind. He knew it was the truth. He couldn’t give Dean that, but he didn’t want to hear it from this weak, subservient child. He pulled himself up, told her not to move, and went digging in the kitchen for tools to clean up the broken ceramic and food so her bare feet wouldn’t be at risk of getting cut. He carried her to the kitchen table, served her a new plate of food, and petted her head before he could stop himself.

Damnit.

Stupid pack instincts.

Billie arrived at two-fifteen that afternoon. The small pack hadn’t even made it out of their suite, much less explored New York. She herded them into a waiting limo, ignoring the limping from three of them, some worse than others. Billie was pleased to see that Castiel, at least, finally looked like himself. He was still tired, but his presence and carriage were his own once more.

They spent several hours at the stylist’s storefront, turning from everyday handsome-but-carefree wolves, into deadly gorgeous, over-prepped, over-gelled caricatures of themselves. April glowed in a strapless, knee length peach confection of lace that showed off the spot-bruises and hickeys on her neck and shoulders but hid the bandage on her thigh. Her mating-scar was contoured carefully to stand out dark against her pale skin, and her hair was swept up to curl in tendrils around her pretty young face.

Michael’s thick black hair got a trim and a dose of color to add texture. Then it was styled within an inch of each and every separate strand’s life to look like he’d just been fucked six ways from Sunday and rolled straight out of bed. Once fitted into his tuxedo, Michael was sex on legs. He pouted into the mirror at Dean who sat mesmerized behind him. Dean salivated and checked his watch to determine if he had time to blow his mate in the back room. Michael picked up on Dean’s intentions and shook his head. There wasn’t time, but a saucy wink made the rejection sting a little less.

There was already plenty of sting.

Cas had instructed Dean to stay seated as much as possible. If there was a chair and it wouldn’t be socially awkward, he expected Dean to occupy the chair. Dean’s ass burned with a constant thrum that sent a stream of arousal through his body. A fucking would hurt too much to attempt, but he wanted to… … …

He just wanted.

Cas was an asshole.

Dean thought he, himself, looked fine—not especially sexier than usual—but he cleaned up okay all things considered. Castiel, on the other hand, looked edible. Dean wanted to lick the man from the middle of his back, around and underneath, and all the way to his navel.

Oh, right, but Cas was an asshole.

Maybe, he’d change the licking to biting. Yeah, that would do it. Dean squirmed on his chair and waited for the expensive stylists to put the finishing touches on the rest of them. He wanted to misbehave in the limo.

They were fed a light snack and bullied into drinking some water. The premiere was a big deal in New York. Nicholas Maraby was a brilliant Lupin up-and-comer-turned-arrived who’d already had two huge award-winning hits on Broadway. The new one was his first attempt at a musical dealing directly with the life circumstances of being Omega. He’d confided in Castiel, his old college roommate, that he was nervous as hell. He couldn’t predict how it might be received.

The red-carpet rollout would spotlight a who’s who of Broadway’s elite and celebrities from across the world, Primate and Canid alike.

Billie rode in the limo with them, but she had her own plans once they’d disembarked. Billie knew a girl in New York, and she wasn’t about to miss a chance at spending time with her while she was here. Billie’s tastes varied from the typical appetites of her kind, but she had kinks of her own, in her own way, and she needed a good scratching every now and then.

Billie made short shrift of any plans Dean might or might not have had of sinking into the wheel well and putting his lips to work. She had instructions to deliver, and her expression put him on his ass on the seat between Castiel and Michael. Somehow, she knew what he was thinking before he ever made a twitch out of line.

Once she was sure he was planted, she cleared her throat and checked her notes. Most of her instructions were mundane. He’d heard the same before every public appearance. But as the limo neared its destination, she smiled and gave them both what they’d been waiting to hear: the teaser.

“Go ahead and let the ring show, Dean. Hold Castiel’s hand. Let the cameras catch you kissing but try not to answer any direct questions about your relationship with a direct answer. I’ve promised ABC a scoop tomorrow morning.” She looked over her shoulder and realized they were pulling up for their turn to jettison. “Call me if you need me. The limo can pick you up whenever you want. Just buzz Jose, and he’ll be there. Enjoy yourselves, all right?”

“Thanks Billie,” said Cas, kissing her cheek.

The limo pulled up another car length and stopped. The door swung open from outside, and Castiel emerged first. He reached in and helped Dean step out. They both sparkled as they paused side-by-side in the camera flashes, both holding the other by the waist. Dean’s public persona snapped into place, and he became the extroverted, cocky, fun-loving showoff that his fans adored, waving and grinning.

Cas left him standing for just a moment, leaning back into the limo for April, and the crowds went wild at their first live look at the Alpha’s new mate. Her delicate shyness and the blush on her cheek as she clung to her mate’s arm won the public over in an instant. She was Diana as a new bride, not yet fully awakened into her own womanhood, but carrying all the raw materials in her shy blushing downward gaze.

Cas kissed her lips and whispered something the crowds couldn’t hear, and she blushed crimson.

Dean waved at a reporter down the line, and then he stepped around his Alpha with a word into his ear to retrieve Michael, who had waited in the car as they’d discussed. Dean held out a hand in a gesture but let Michael emerge without offering him help. He was Omega, but he didn’t deserve to be emasculated in front of cameras. At Michael’s appearance, his tall stature and his unbelievable good looks, the volume of the crowd and the press of bodies against the ropes stepped up another notch. Michael flinched at the first camera flashes, but he quickly recovered, smiled confidently at Dean, took his mate’s offered hand and stepped forward to take his place within the foursome. Dean kissed him, and the cameras whirred all around them.

Dean kept Michael on his right so he could take Castiel’s hand with his left, allowing the deliberate photo-op when Castiel slowly, intentionally lifted Dean’s ringed hand into full view of the crowd and cameras, kept his eyes locked on Dean’s, and kissed the side of Dean’s knuckles so that the cameras could get a clear shot of both of their faces and Dean’s engagement ring in the same frame. Dean grinned at him, his eyes alight. Castiel sparkled back. It was a magical moment. Bulbs popped all around.

In slow motion, they started down the red carpet between the velvet ropes toward the first reporter. It would be a gauntlet run, but they’d talked it through and prepared the Omegas. They could do this. They had each other.

“Alpha Novak! Dean! Can you answer some questions?”

“Of course, Jamie. Any time. We’ve always got time for you.”

The questions varied, from thoughts about the show they were about to see, to requests for insights into Congresswoman Novak’s latest move, to the tragedy in OKC, but every last one of them asked about Dean’s ring with knowing looks cast toward Michael.

Most of the reporters hadn’t been positioned to see Castiel’s staged kiss, and they weren’t watching closely enough to notice that Cas and Dean were still holding hands. Many apes would have chalked their handholding up as just another quirk of how strange wolves could be without realizing it was just as intimate a gesture among Lupins as it was among apes.

“No,” Dean laughed as he was given the gift of a badly worded leading question. Those were easy to sidestep. “I’m not engaged to marry Michael. He’s my mate, and I’m lucky to have found him.” Dean kissed Michael again and scurried away before the reporter could follow up with another question that might hit closer to the mark. Cas stumbled as he was dragged in Dean’s wake, and the four of them tumbled at last through the theater door and into the relative quiet of the lobby where reporters weren’t allowed.

They took a minute to catch their breath and check on one another. The Omegas seemed fine, more than fine. Both of them appeared to have found the entire experience to be great fun. April giggled to herself and patted her dress back in place. Cas stopped her from trying to straighten her hair. It was fine, and the less it was touched, the longer the upsweep would last.

Michael’s upper cheeks were still red with enthusiasm. He had crow’s feet crinkling his eyes, and he couldn’t resist sweeping Dean into a deeply bent dizzy-inducing kiss.

“Can we do it again?” asked April.

“Come on, let’s go see who’s here. We should network before we take our seats.” Dean took her hand and led her into the crowd. Michael and Castiel followed.

They found Nicholas with little trouble, and amazingly, even surrounded by big name celebrities, the crowds parted for Dean and Castiel. Nicholas shouted in greeting. He had obviously begun celebrating early. He embraced all four of them as if he’d known them all his life. They congratulated him on his premiere and wished him luck and a broken leg. April shyly admitted to being a musician when Cas prompted her, and Nicholas stopped everything to grill her about her plans for the future. The conversation left her breathless, especially when he reached into the passersby and pulled Lin Manuel Miranda in to ask his opinion about how to get her where she wanted to be.

Dean felt a rush of secondhand arousal and looked up to find his mate’s eyes locked on to Channing Tatum’s ass.

“Really, Michael? I’m standing right here.”

“I’m not touching, Dean. I’m just looking.” Michael gestured to the beautiful sight before him. Channing’s hands were deep in his pockets while he talked animatedly with a friend, and it served the dual purpose of pulling his tuxedo jacket away from his ass, and pulling his pants tight over the round, firm swell. Dean had to admit that it was a thing of beauty like a Michelangelo sculpture, and they both glazed over until the figure under review turned and caught them staring. All three of them blushed and then laughed uncomfortably before moving apart without comment.

The lights dimmed three times, so Castiel herded the party to their seats in the orchestra. He set Michael on the inside, then placed April next to Michael, then Dean, and then Cas took the aisle seat. Castiel took Dean’s hand again as the light dimmed and the music swelled and brought it to his lap to hold, Dean’s ring still glinting slightly in the stage lights.

The musical was wonderful and tragically heartbreaking. At the intermission, they sipped white wine and discussed with some old friends Cas ran into that while the story seemed rocky at the moment, the expectation was that the Omega would triumph in the end. They all agreed that the young Primate ingénue cast to play the Omega’s wolf was a genius and a star-in-the-making. Her voice was breathtaking in its power and clarity. April begged permission to speak to the orchestra conductor, and Cas let her go alone. He kept an eye on her though. She smelled Mated and Claimed, so she should be all right in a place as public as this, but the Alpha twitched the whole time.

The end of the show broke Castiel’s heart. Abandoned by everyone, even her own Alpha, and destroyed in body and spirit, the Omega died in agony onstage with no musical accompaniment. The starkness of its realism brought the depth of the tragedy that much closer to home. Cas felt his face drain of blood and his fingertips grow cold.

He looked across Dean’s grim face to his mate. He could feel her devastation in his mind. She had tears streaming down her cheeks and looked close to a panic attack as all her fears appeared in cold, vibrant, live color before her eyes. Cas nudged Dean and then nodded toward April. Dean wrapped her up with an arm over her shoulder and bumped into Michael doing the same from the other side. Michael’s eyes had overflowed as well.

(Omegas should be warned about the ending before they come to see this), Dean’s wolf shot out viciously. He didn’t like seeing his Pack this disturbed over a fucking musical. It was supposed to be fun.

The limo picked them up and took them to dinner at a swanky late-night New York restaurant, the kind that was impossible to get into without reservations months in advance, even for celebrities. The wine and music helped wash away the lingering sorrow from the play. Dean ordered steak for everyone and drank himself silly before Michael put a hand over his glass and refused him more.

After a long dinner, late into the night, the limo delivered the quartet to Maraby’s penthouse premiere cast party which was in full swing. Only the thirteen-year-old star of the show was missing. Nicholas explained that her mother didn’t allow her out after eleven, even for a premiere.

They stayed through to the end, enjoying the easy atmosphere. Nicholas served another meal at one a.m. on the twinkle-lit rooftop on round, white-clothed tables. Cas settled into a chair, fairly drunk by that point, and unzipped his fly. Most of Nicholas Maraby’s friends were Lupins, and the rest were comfortable around wolves, so no one was disturbed when the Alpha stroked himself hard before working his mate’s dress over her hips and seating her on his lap to warm his cock through the meal.

He didn’t eat much, and he couldn’t settle for a simple cock-warming. Soon, he had her by the hips as he drove upward into her, and shortly after that he’d swept the plates, glasses, and silver service aside to fuck her hard on the table in front of everyone. A chorus of cheers went up as he ground out his climax and knotted his mate.

Michael and Dean barely even looked up. They were deep in discussion with an arrogant, pretentious Gender Studies major from Brown who thought he knew everything there was to know about Omegas because he’d read some stuff in a book once (not one of Dean’s), despite having never met an Omega in his life before he moved to Providence where Lupins outnumbered Primates. Dean let Michael set the ape straight on a few things, only getting involved when Michael’s contempt leaked through more than was socially acceptable. Winning converts and establishing allies meant not pissing people off more than necessary.

Michael would learn.

Dean couldn’t fault him really. Sometimes an asshole was an asshole was an asshole, and it didn’t matter whose side they supported.

Dean kept his sore ass seated as he he’d been told to do, and let his raw voice heal by listening more than he talked.

They didn’t leave until almost five-thirty in the morning. Castiel followed Michael’s example and cut himself and Dean off several hours before they were to make an appearance on the morning show.

Everyone else from the party slipped away or passed out in compromising positions. A number of other Lupin couplings left bare asses and breasts displayed lewdly around Nicholas Maraby’s exclusive penthouse party.

At least three wolves earned themselves physical reprimand during the night of revelry, and Dean enjoyed watching their asses turn shiny and red, laid out over their Tops’ laps. Dean’s eyes hooded. His mate shook a head at him.

“What?” Dean protested. “It’s hot.”

“Time to go,” Cas said, startling Dean out of his sleepy trance. Apparently, Cas had already said their goodbyes.

Cas had spent the last couple of hours flipping through the early morning editions on Nicholas’ tablet, checking the first reviews. They were all resoundingly positive, and Cas rapped his longtime friend firmly on the back with a hearty congratulations.

Nicholas turned the gesture into a hug.

Cas had always been there for the Omega and believed in him when no one else did. Nicholas was thrilled to learn of Cas’ engagement to Dean and his Mating to April, but he wasn’t happy to have been kept in the dark like the rest of the world. Cas apologized sincerely and accepted another tipsy hug.

The four drooping wolves made their way down to the waiting limo, each leaning against a wall of the elevator. Cas reached out and took Dean’s hand as the bell dinged and the doors opened. He tugged to get Dean moving. April had her shoes in her hand, and she and Michael trudged to keep up.

Billie met them at the limo, fresh-faced and happy. “Had a good evening, I see,” she sauced.

“Likewise,” he muttered back. He liked seeing her happy. Billie had a tough time finding scening partners who wanted the power-exchange play that she liked without the sex. She rarely got to visit Helene, but when she did, it was magical. She’d debated proposing a Mating with the Submissive but hadn’t worked up the nerve yet. She didn’t think Helene would be willing to give up her journalism job in New York to move to the sticks of Kansas.

And Billie, of course, wasn’t about to leave the Alpha for New York.

“You’ve got about twenty-five minutes in the hotel suite to shower and change before we absolutely have to leave for the studio.” Billie was all business again. “I’ve been monitoring the websites, and it looks like the photo-op did the trick. Most of the supposition has switched targets to you and Cas now,” she told Dean. “Remember to try to keep it all lighthearted. I can’t stop them from asking you about Naomi or Oklahoma. Both of those subjects might come up, so think about how you want to answer those questions before you get there. Oh, and who’s going? I need to text ahead, so they’re ready for you.”

Castiel answered. “Dean and me. April and Michael will be staying at the hotel to get some sleep.”

Michael let out a sound of protest. Castiel looked at him, and Michael realized he really didn’t want to go. He would look like an awkward third wheel, and he didn’t have anything relevant to say on the subject of his mate’s engagement that America needed to hear. Plus, he was wiped. Going to bed sounded like an excellent idea, outweighed only by the suggestion his wolf made of sweeping Dean into bed with him.

Michael nodded at Cas’ questioning expression, and Cas nodded back firmly.

Twenty-seven minutes later, Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak pulled away from the curb by the hotel en route to the New York studio where Good Morning America was broadcast live.

“Are you ready for this, Alpha?” There was an edge to Dean’s scream-gruffed voice that made Castiel’s heart wrench. No matter how many assurances Cas gave the man that his love was unconditional and his commitment unwavering, Dean always seemed to be bracing himself for a surprise rescinding of Castiel’s proposal.

“Absolutely, my love. I’ve never been more ready for anything.”

The routine was familiar to both of them. They’d been here many times before. In no time, they were spruced up and ushered into place on the couch across from Robin. She greeted them as warmly as always, but she made a special point to take hold of Dean’s left arm in the middle of their hug and examine his ring for herself. He winked at her playfully, letting her turn his hand to catch the light.

Soon they were on the air and introductions had been made. Neither Dean nor Cas were surprised when she led with the explosion in Oklahoma that destroyed Gordon’s shiny new building and killed four people. “Did you know any of them?” she asked.

Castiel answered somberly. “We knew all of them. I had never worked directly with Gordon Walker, and neither, I believe, has Dean, but he was a colleague of ours, and we had a professional relationship through our work. There is a great deal of overlap in our networks. The other three I knew as acquaintances through Gordon. We weren’t close, but we were colleagues. We’re devastated for their Packs.”

“I knew Peter Holstings,” Dean added hoarsely. “He and I hosted a seminar together several years ago on Submissive training. He was a passionate man, and his death is a tragic loss. All of them…it’s tragic. I don’t know what to say. At a time like this, we really feel the pull of the Pack holding us all together, and we take comfort from each other’s strength.”

Robin nodded gravely, let the moment stand dramatically, and then segued smoothly. “Your Pack’s growing, I hear. And congratulations are due. Sources tell me that you have just established a brand new Pack on the foundation of your father’s, in fact, and you’ve added new members.”

Castiel nodded, smiling.

“Yet, you still named your mother as a member of the new Pack, is that correct? …Even though she’s turned some amazingly vicious turns of phrase your way in the last few weeks?”

Cas wasn’t perturbed by the question. “It’s no secret that my mother and I are estranged. She and I don’t see eye-to-eye on much of anything. She can be delusional and destructive, and I believe her to be motivated by political advancement more than she is by the welfare of her own species. Again, this is no secret. But she’s still my mother, and she’s still Pack. I would never cut her off, despite how she chooses to live her life. Pack is forever, and it’s unconditional, right Dean?”

“If you say so, Alpha.” Dean let his eyes sparkle to lighten his judgmental words, but he wasn’t about to stick up for anything Naomi-related. She’d never said a word to him that wasn’t laced with contempt.

“So, then…” Robin paused. “Will she be invited to the wedding?”

Castiel sat up and back, his eyes widening. He’d known this was coming, but he hadn’t expected it to come out like that. “Wedding?” he tried lamely.

Robin and Dean both laughed at his pathetic attempt. “Alpha, the world has known that Dean Winchester is engaged to be married for almost two weeks now, and up until last night, we all assumed he was engaged to his amazingly hot young mate, Michael. Congratulations on landing Michael, Dean,” she asided. “He’s, mm-mm, he’s some kind of…I don’t think I should say any more on live television, but just…wow.”

“Thanks,” Dean laughed, blushing in spite of himself. “I’m fond of him myself.”

“But then, it was pointed out that the video from the Texas rest stop where Dean and Michael evidently met and Triggered,” she was back to addressing Castiel. “…shows that Dean’s already wearing that ring right there.” She pointed with her pen. “Do you mind holding up the ring, Dean? Can you show the camera? Yep, just hold your hand right there.” Dean put his left hand on display and one of the three cameras focused in tightly. His diamonds sparkled in their platinum base, and another wave of warmth washed over him. Castiel took Dean’s left hand in his own to stop it from trembling.

Robin went on, “And then last night, the two of you along with your new mates took Broadway by storm, and next thing we know, this picture is everywhere. Can we put that shot on the monitor?” Robin indicated the monitor behind them, and Dean and Cas both turned to see how their posed picture turned out.

It was perfect.

Cas vowed to get a copy from the photographer to use as the front face of their wedding album.

His own face, happy and relaxed, paled next to Dean’s glow. The ring shone. Cas’ lips were barely visible as he placed them against Dean’s knuckle, but the light in the picture was the spark between their eyes as they looked at each other. There was no faking a feeling like this. It was a picture of two men deeply in love with each other.

Dean turned back to face Castiel, his face alight once more, and he leaned over beneath the hot lights and under the examination of Robin Roberts, the cameras, and who-knew-how-many viewers and he planted a deep wet one on Cas.

“Can I take it from that exchange that it’s not Michael who gave you that ring, Dean Winchester?”

“Mm-hm,” he answered, pulling back and swiping a thumb across Cas’ lower lip to dry it. “I’mma marry Cas.” He paused for just a moment and then added, “And I don’t give a **Bleep** if Naomi’s invited or not.”

Chapter Text

NOW:

Dean and Castiel were still asleep at two o’clock that afternoon. Michael and April watched television on the couch in their underwear when someone knocked on the suite door. They played a quick and dirty game of Not it! which Michael lost.

He checked the peephole and was surprised to find Nicholas Maraby outside the suite with his hand raised to knock again. Michael slipped the door open and let the Omega in.

“What the fuck are you people doing sitting on your asses in a hotel room when you’ve come all the way from fucking Kansas to the Big Apple? Get dressed, both of you, we’re going out. I’m gonna show you my town. Where’s the old man?” Nicholas swung in a wide circle as if Castiel was suddenly going to appear in view.

“Um, they’re both asleep,” April offered from the couch.

“Well wake their old asses up! Cas said you’re going from here to Boston. Fucking sleep when you get to Boston!”

“I…I’m not sure that’s a good idea. They’re cranky when they’re tired,” she tried again.

“Fine. I’ll do it. Which room?”

Michael pointed.

When Cas and Dean had returned from the studio, April was still asleep where she’d spent the previous night, and Michael was dozing on the couch. Cas took Dean wordlessly into the room Michael had shared with Dean overnight.

Michael followed the loud Omega through the door. The alphas were fast asleep, naked as fuck and spooning. Dean’s left leg was pulled up high across the bed where he lay mostly on his belly, and Castiel’s left knee was almost but not quite pulled up tight enough between Dean’s legs to touch Dean’s balls.

Almost touching.

But not quite.

They hadn’t had sex. Michael would’ve known despite the soundproof door, but he ground his teeth in frustration anyway. It dawned on him that where he’d assumed he retained all rights to Dean that hadn’t been deliberately granted to their mutual Alpha, in reality the opposite was true. Michael only held control of what he’d asked for—that and nothing else. He had never told the couple they couldn’t nap naked together. His jaw tensed and then released.

There would be no fixing the mistake now.

Cas’ hand stroked idly up and down Dean’s belly in his sleep.

“Wake the fuck up! Both of you!”

They startled, growling and snarling as Nicholas’ words pierced their dreams. Identical scowls met Castiel’s undergrad dormmate, but Nick didn’t seem to notice.

“Get dressed. We’re going out.”

April was already dressed by the time Nicholas re-entered the main room. “Are we really going out?”

“Tell me what kind of music you play, and I’ll take you somewhere good,” Nicholas responded cryptically.

“I’ve trained classically since I was four, but I like all kinds of piano music. Blues is the most fun. I like to make people…feel things when I play.”

“Blues piano? I know just the place. You like fiddle music too?”

“Fiddle? Do you mean like Appalachian or that kind of thing?”

“Yeah. Old fashioned reels and shit.”

“If I can play along, I like it, but I don’t really listen to it much.”

“Does he let you drink?” Nicholas indicated the bedroom and Cas by inference with a cock of his head. “Oh yeah, right. You were drinking last night. Yep, I know just the place.”

“I’m eighteen. That’s too young for the clubs here, isn’t it?”

“Uh,” he snorted. “Trust me. You’re good.”

“Dean plays, too. Do you already know Dean from before?”

“Yeah, I know Dean. He and Cas have been thick as thieves for…forever, I guess. Didn’t know he played though.”

“I don’t,” Dean clarified, buckling his belt as he stepped into the big room. “I know three guitar chords, and I can fake a blues riff on a piano. They’re all based on the same four notes, so if you can keep the beat and you know how the structure goes, anyone can do it.” Dean’s voice was still a bit gruffer than usual. It made him sound like a blues man from Memphis to April.

April didn’t believe him, but she didn’t contradict the alpha either. He sighed and fessed up when he noticed the look on her face. “My dad used to spend time in a piano bar back at home after my mom died. He let me tag along on occasion ‘cause I told him I was interested in the music. The piano man, a guy named Roger—Rog actually—took me under his wing and taught me some basic stuff. Of course, I was really there to watch over my dad, but whatever. I can’t play Mozart like you can, but I can hold a tune together while somebody else runs it.”

“You never told me that, Dean,” said Castiel emerging with his wallet in his hand.

“Never came up, Alpha. See what you miss when you decide to skip straight from scening to marriage?”

“Are we ready?” Castiel asked the group in general.

In the cab, April grilled Nicholas. “Do you have your next project lined up yet?”

“Yeah, I do,” he admitted. “I’m basking in the glow of Omega, Re-Claimed. We’ll see how much I can squeeze out of this one, but I can’t sit still too long. You wanna hear about it? It’s the reason I asked you about fiddle music.”

“I really do,” she enthused.

“Kay, well, it’s set in sixteenth-century Scotland, and it’s an intrigue piece with dark magic, witches and shit.”

Dean rolled his eyes and took Michael’s hand. Five wolves sharing one cab was a tight squeeze, so he easily reached Castiel’s, too.

They bar-hopped for several hours. It wasn’t quite the tour of New York that Michael had anticipated, but at least it was authentic, and they were out of the hotel. Everyone knew Nicholas here, knew him personally, as opposed to simply recognizing him as a celebrity as with Castiel and Dean. Catcalls followed them down the sidewalk and many, many drunk partyers demanded photos with them all. Their respect for Nicholas kept the worst of the pushy drunks at bay, as the hometown folks diligently protected their Omega hero.

They began to slow down at about one-thirty in the morning. Squished into a too-tight booth, they all leaned on each other. April and Nicholas argued the merits of classical musical training versus street cred where real music was concerned.

“Nope,” he stood firm. “Give me a street musician in my shows any day over one of those fucking automatons they wheel out of the classical conservatories these days. I can spot them from a mile away. They have no soul, and they don’t know what music is despite spending their entire lives pounding out notes on a piano.”

“Oh really? You think they would let me play that one?” April pointed to the small stage which was empty while the band took a break. “I can show you how we automatons can have soul, too.”

“Oh, hell yeah. I thought you’d never ask.” Nicholas grabbed her by the hand, not giving the Omega-Sub the chance to ask her mate’s permission, and he hauled her to the piano and sat her down hard enough to make her grimace.

“She’s okay, Cas.” Dean put a hand on Castiel’s arm to stop him from protesting. Soon Nicholas and April were working together at the keyboard to make something strange and wonderful together. It had a weird bluesy Scottish tilt, and Cas wondered if it was something from Nick’s new show.

“Can I ask you something, Alpha?” Dean was in a weird mood. The drinking left him open and sleepy, and the blues helped run the rest of his inhibitions away.

“Of course,” Cas replied.

“Were you ever gonna tell me you invited Bobby, and Ellen, and Jo, and Benny—and I guess Andrea—to join our Pack?”

Castiel blinked, taken aback. “I did tell you. I told you before I ever put it to them—on the drive up from Dallas.”

“No, you didn’t. I would’ve remembered a conversation like that. I promise.”

Michael sat turned sideways in the booth with his back against the wall. He looked back and forth between the alphas and wondered if it were time for a bathroom break.

“Yes, I did. We talked about it. I know we did…didn’t we?”

“Nope.” Dean popped the P like he always did when irritated and certain he was correct. “I would remember because I wouldn’t have agreed. Cas, I never wanted Bobby to join up, or any of the rest of ‘em really, but especially not Bobby. You know I have my reasons.” Cas frowned in confusion. He thought he remembered getting Dean’s go-ahead, and he was surprised at Dean’s vehemence.

Dean leaned forward onto his crossed arms to address his fiancé. “I love the guy. I love all of them. You know that, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to slide lower down the pack ladder just so we can make everyone family. Besides, none of them needs a pack like ours. You wanna talk about adding extra, unnecessary complications—starting a new pack with that many alphas is nuts. It’s a really bad idea, Cas, and you should’ve let me weigh in on it before you talked to them.”

Cas let his memory float backward to their trip north a couple of weeks ago. He’d rehearsed the conversation in his head before he spoke his plan out loud to Dean. He had rehearsed it numerous times, and… And then Dean pulled into that rest stop before he ever said it out loud. Castiel was remembering the rehearsals, not an actual live conversation. He’d never brought it up, and in the aftermath of Dean’s Mating, his memory had become whirled.

“Dean, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you out. I was just about to bring it up when you Triggered with Michael and I got turned around. It was my mistake. I guess, no harm done though. None of them said yes. Besides,” Cas took one of Dean’s hands across the table. “You would still outrank them all in the Pack just by being my husband. It would be my call, and I would put you right under me where you belong.”

Dean smirked at the double-entendre. “It’s not that simple, Alpha. Home packs have a hierarchy to them. Pack ranks have to be set according to our designations, or they don’t work. It’s not really up to us. No matter what you might set as Pack Alpha, we will always behave according to our nature.” Dean sat back up and turned to look out toward the piano.

He’d made his point and stood up for himself. He believed that Cas hadn’t excluded him on purpose. And he wasn’t resentful, not really. It felt like closure to Dean and he was ready to let it go. Besides, none of it would matter in the end. Once Castiel discovered what Dean and Michael were up to behind his back, he would cast both of them out. Castiel Novak put all of his faith in trust and honesty. Dean had a firm hold of that vulnerable young sapling in his teeth, and he was fixing to snap it in half.

Michael’s knees were crooked up at a steep angle, and his feet rested flat beneath Dean’s butt. He twitched them to get Dean’s eyes on him, a questioning look on his face. Michael could feel the resignation and sadness in his mate, and it didn’t fit Dean’s words. There seemed to be a lot of meaning to Dean buried inside the phrase, according to our nature, and Michael was uneasy with an unsettling premonition.

Dean was hiding more than his flushed birth-control pills from Cas, from Michael too.

Dean bit his lower lip and turned away from his mate without speaking, his eyes on April and Nicholas.

“Why did you have to kill the Omega at the end?” she asked him with her hands in constant motion on the higher end of the keyboard keeping up with his lead.

“You wanted a happy ending—just like all the sappy, crappy, love story bullshit they always put on Broadway?” Nicholas put so much contempt into his words that April looked into his face in shock.

“Well, yeah, kinda, although I wouldn’t have put it like that. Hey, do that part again. I didn’t catch it. How did you make that bagpipe turn?”

Nicholas stopped playing and reset his hands. “It’s just a regular turn, just a note, and then down one half-step, up another half-step, and then the note again, except you double-down on the upper one.” He demonstrated again. It was a piano, mimicking a fiddle, mimicking a bagpipe. Classical music didn’t work like this, and April was hungry to learn. She copied him, nailed it, then nodded, and they played on.

“I know not all stories have a happy ending, but when you’re Omega, and you worry every moment of every day that something like that can happen to you no matter how much protection you seem to have at any given time…I just wasn’t expecting to have it thrown in my face like that during a night on the town. That’s all.” She couldn’t help her tone of resentment.

Nicholas stopped playing and turned on the bench to look at the side of her face. April kept her eyes down and continued to play but moved into a more familiar realm, switching to a slow, sad piece that she knew well.

“The ending isn’t in the show for the Omegas like us, April. You and I know what it feels like. It’s part of who we are, and if I could shout the message I need to send without having it slap you upside the face, I would do it in a heartbeat, but I can’t. Your mate and I, we’re on the same mission, but we go about it in different ways. All I know how to do is tell stories. For some reason, people come to see my stories. I have a megaphone that reaches all kinds of people. I don’t deserve it. I didn’t do anything special to get it, but I have it, and I’ve got a responsibility to Omegas like you and Michael, and to myself, to use the megaphone to the greatest effect.

“Everyone thinks they know what it’s like to be Omega, but unless you are Omega, you can’t understand. No one can, not even Castiel. He’s spent his whole life studying Omegas and what they need, and he still doesn’t really know the first thing about us. You want a happy ending? Yeah, don’t we all, but we don’t all get one. Which ending seems more real to you, April? The Omega loses everything, or the Omega becomes a towered, petted, protected princess?”

April let the sad music answer for her. Nicholas joined in and played down two octaves in tandem. He let her lead, and she accepted the role smoothly.

April changed the subject. “Don’t you have a Top? Why were you alone at the premiere last night? And today?”

“I have an alpha who takes care of me when I need her to, but we’re not together. And the neighborhood watches out for me, too.”

“I noticed.” She smiled at him kindly. “You’ve got a good thing going here. I’m happy for you and happy I met you. Your musical is wonderful…until the ending.”

Nicholas snickered. “Thanks.” He developed an alarming twinkle in his eye. “You wanna see how my good thing works?” She looked at him in confusion. He leaned in close to whisper to her conspiratorially. “I was supposed to text a check-in half an hour ago, so she’s probably already got feelers out for my whereabouts. Are you a brat, April?”

“No, I’m not.” April’s eyes were wide. They searched out her Alpha in the dark. She could see his head come up and turn her direction at the swell of apprehension in her head, but she couldn’t really see his face.

“Well, I am. You want to help me get a little bit of a reaction from my alpha?” Nicholas played a mischievous trill up near her end of the piano, leaning in close.

“No, I really don’t.” She scooted back to the edge of the bench.

“I’m not hitting on you; I just need it to look like I am. All you have to do is give me one kiss, and ta-da! I get pulled up tight and given a fast ride to blissville. C’mon, you’re not going to get in trouble. Cas knows me.”

She laughed at him but shook her head in disbelief. “Not a chance. Why don’t you ask Dean? He’d probably jump at the chance. Of course, then you’d have to face Michael, and I don’t think you want that.”

Nicholas didn’t back away, but he didn’t touch the other Omega either. “I’ve considered it over the years. If I was gay, he would be my type to a T.” Castiel stood up and walked calmly to the piano. He didn’t increase his pace as a huge female alpha appeared from nowhere and encircled the gifted Broadway superstar in her arms, pulling him roughly off the piano bench in one motion. She met Alpha’s eye as he reached April and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Castiel,” the large woman nodded at him.

“Hello, Jenn,” he answered her back with respect.

Each alpha collected their respective Omega and led them in opposite directions, one pulling the girl in close with affection, and the other leading the brat out with a firm grip on his earlobe. Both Omegas smiled a goodbye at the other.

Nicholas winked.

The drive to Boston was uneventful. Dean drove, grumbling the whole way about the Expedition Billie rented for them, cranky at not having his Baby beneath his hands and at the sting that remained from his scene with Castiel.

“You’re free to make the trip by air, Dean,” Billie reminded him on multiple occasions. It didn’t stop the griping, but it turned his volume down.

Jim Murphy met them all at The Facility entrance, his hand extended in warm greeting. He fed them lunch in the cafeteria and then took them on a tour.

Michael ogled the sophistication of the technology involved and the comfortable styling built into every room and corridor. “This has to have cost a fortune. Where do the funds come from?”

Castiel answered. “We use Federal funds for community outreach programs. Every dime we get from the government is funneled straight into education, medical care, counseling services, and Keller testing. The rest of what we do is expensive, but we’ve been blessed over the years with a remarkably loyal and generous corps of donors. Contract fees and tuition from the classes we teach help as well.”

“Well, it also helps that your mate,” Jim indicated Dean, who grinned, “is a gifted and persuasive fundraiser. People always seem to fall over each other to say yes to him.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. Just one. “You better not be selling sexual favors for donations, Dean.”

Dean scoffed. “Don’t give me that stink-eye. You’d be all for it as long as you were allowed to watch.”

Michael froze, paled, and sputtered.

“Besides, I don’t need to open my pants or my…you know. People like me. They like to write checks for me. I’m just naturally charming and charismatic. Right, April?” Dean put his arm around her shoulders and led her down the hall, leaving Michael gaping like a fish. She looked back at Michael and winked cheekily.

“We charge fees for the services, of course,” Jim continued, shaking his head. “And the proceeds from various public appearances and speaking engagements are split between all of our sites, but you’re right, it’s an expensive endeavor. We only move into new territory once we’ve secured the funding and support to do it right.” He gestured them into an empty conference room to talk, and Michael preceded their host through the door.

They were on the second floor where the far wall was made of plate glass and overlooked the gym below. Dean still had April with him. He was pointing something out to her at the far side. Faint, excited shouts drifted up to them. There was movement everywhere beneath them.

“The place looks good, Jim.” Castiel addressed the other alpha-Dom from near the head of the table. “I’m relieved to see that whatever happened in Dallas hasn’t infected you here.”

Pastor Jim, still so named from a previous stint as a Universist clergyman, a profession that had led him into a more and more progressively active role in aiding his fellow Lupins through the injustices of life, nodded his appreciation at his boss’s words.

The Universist Church, not to be confused with the Universalists, supported his work despite their not-so-friendly parting. Pastor Jim couldn’t stand by with his hands tied by their wishy-washy well-meaning fence sitting, so he’d left to join Castiel’s war. At heart, Jim Murphy was a warrior, and he needed to go to battle, not just clean up the damage afterward.

“I just got back from Dallas, Alpha,” he replied. “It’s looking up. I have to say, you sent a strange mix from your team in Lawrence to take the reins down there, but maybe you’re more a genius than I give you credit for, because it’s working. Victor’s back in the saddle full time, and the place has turned the corner rapidly. Caleb was the right choice for Training Director, as I believe I advised you and Victor years ago.”

Dean left April and took a chair at the table. “What else do we need to be doing, Jim?” he asked, skating over his brazen I-told-you-so and cutting Castiel’s blustering off before it began.

“Keep an eye on them and give them time.” Jim sat down as well, and his face grew serious. “You know, what happened in Dallas can happen anywhere. We’re always vulnerable to slipping into an ugly, dangerous monstrosity any time a good leader retires or moves on. Any time one of the good guys takes their hands off the wheel long enough, the sharks are always circling, looking for a way in to take control. We’ve got what they want: a steady supply of fresh, trusting, compliant meat, ready to be trained, trussed up, and sold in the underground economy.” Michael paled and sank into a chair at the far end of the table.

April leaned her head against the pane of glass, trusting it could support her weight, closing her eyes.

“If we can’t find a way to make it impossible for us to become Gordon Walker, we shouldn’t be in business at all. It’s too risky.” Jim was serious, and the topic scared all of them.

“I don’t know how to protect us longterm, Jim. All I know to do is to keep trying to reach people, strengthen our cause from the inside and the outside both. I need ideas.” Castiel’s eyes were wide, searching.

“Hell if I know,” Jim admitted. “People either get it, or they don’t. Those that don’t aren’t usually open to being taught.”

“We need to stop acting like we’re the weird ones.” Michael’s face was determined. What he lacked in education and research experience, he made up for in real life street experience. “We still act like we’re the species that needs to hide and grovel. I say, get rid of the dog parks and let Lupins do whatever they need to do right out on the main streets and in public—like they do in the Aboriginal villages. The apes will get used to us eventually, and they won’t shout pornography all the time once they get bored from seeing it every day.”

“We’re not ready for that yet, Michael.” Dean shook his head. “One step at a time. The dog parks serve an important function still. At least cities that have a dog park have a place where Lupins can go and be free to be themselves without getting arrested. Don’t forget, our movement is still very young, and we’re still dependent on the goodwill and support of lots of people in high places in the government. We’ve promised them certain things, and we need to stick to those promises or risk losing their support. Those people still have to be re-electable, so it’s a balancing game.”

“Do you ever just stop and think what a weird life we live?” April spoke into the glass, fogging it up where she still leaned into it. “I mean, we’re just animals really, right?—like ducks, or pigs, or salmon? But we spend all of our time and energy in figuring out how to live through each day without falling apart at the edges. And it turns out that we need massive amounts of sex and violence just to stay sane and functional. Maybe our species wasn’t supposed to make it. Maybe we’re supposed to be extinct. Why would any species evolve to need this much…special care? One wrong move and we lose our sanity—how is that…natural?”

“Salmon spend a lot of time and energy on sex, too,” Jim reminded her. “Well, on reproduction anyway. April, you’re young. Maybe you haven’t had a chance to look back at what we used to be, back before we decided to go modern. There are still small Lupin communities sprinkled here and there in the wilderness who follow the old ways. They don’t have cellphones or sleek spanking benches, and they spend far less time than we do thinking about their own Balance. They don’t have charts and graphs and rating scores. They do it all by instinct. Somehow, they listen to each other, scent each other, and get it right. Everyone has a place. Everyone gets fed. It’s not unnatural until you try to put it in pants and a tie.”

April turned and regarded him. His comment about her age might have sounded patronizing from anyone else, but from him, it seemed kind.

He went on. “I spent a couple of years in my youth with a Pack north of Vancouver. A big part of me wanted to stay. They were a genuinely peaceful lot…in their way.

“Sex was out in the open. It could get fierce. Any time someone sparked a challenge, there would inevitably be bloodshed, but there was no resentment afterward no matter who won and who lost. Both parties walked on once it was over, and the Pack settled back into a natural fit again. Sometimes the Claiming led to real injuries, but those times were rare. The key was that everyone understood that the health of the Pack trumped everyone’s personal needs, but that it depended on everyone’s needs being met. It’s circular. No one hid their desires. No one felt ashamed of their needs. Red bottoms were as common as sunburned faces, and spankings were as frequent as meals. It’s all the same to them, and they don’t give any of it a second thought. If a Top desires a mounting, it happens, and it’s accepted. Meanwhile, the hunting and fishing still get done. New clothes are crafted when they need them. Huts are repaired when they deteriorate. They’re happy with their lives, even the Omegas, because everyone knows their place and what’s expected of them, and everyone knows they are valued and safe.”

Castiel wished he wasn’t feeling a trace of longing from his mate. He wished she lived in a world where she could have that kind of peace without needing to fight for it so hard. He locked eyes with his mate. “The Omegas are revered in the wild packs,” he explained. “They’re protected and honored, but they aren’t really considered fully competent Pack members. They don’t get a say in much of anything about their own lives. It’s not a perfect world, April. They seem to have chosen stability over personal agency. Maybe they do the instinctive Balancing better than we do, but I don’t think they have all the answers either. I, for one, would rather know you as a partner and a person despite our power difference, than bind you to my home, naked and silent, awaiting my will and prepared for my knot. You could stay Balanced that way, and if it’s all you ever knew, maybe you would be happy like they seem to be. But we know that you’re capable of more, and I’m not willing to give that up on a false ideal of security now that we know better. We have to find a middle ground between treating Omegas like child-bearing pups and leaving them to waste away in agony. I’m sorry that we’re not there yet. I want so much better for you and Michael.”

Dean looked between the two mates, overwhelmed with how beautifully righteous his lover was. The talk of what wolves need and how to give it to them reminded Dean that he needed to coach April on how to brat for Cas on occasion.

Otherwise, the Alpha would suffer needlessly once Dean was gone.

When she learned how to stroke Castiel’s wolf with a challenge once in a while, Dean knew, the Alpha could learn to live without him. It was going to hurt like hell for them both, but Dean was a true masochist after all, and he’d recover eventually.

If he could do it, Castiel could too.

“Psst!” Michael’s stern face caught Dean’s attention again. They communicated wordlessly while the discussion continued between Pastor Jim, April, and Cas. Michael wanted to know why Dean’s thoughts kept turning so dark. Dean shrugged. The conversation was dark, so he didn’t think his emotions were out of line.

Michael’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t buying it. Dean had been feeling fear and regret and longing, all emotions that fit with the topic at hand, but Dean’s seemed to spike at the wrong times, in the wrong ways, and they seemed too personal to allow to pass. Dean was hiding something. Michael was sure of it.

“What happened in Oklahoma, Alpha?” Jim asked out of the blue, grabbing Michael’s attention back from his mate. “Don’t tell me Singer doesn’t know. Bobby’s got a finger on every pulse-line in this country.”

“I haven’t talked to Bobby since we left Kansas. I asked Billie to check in with him when we got here. She should have something for us soon.” The lie, well, the omission, rolled off Cas’ tongue easily, much as it pissed him off that Bobby and his own brother had put him into the position where lying was the only safe course.

When had his life become this complicated, and how did he still believe he had any moral credibility left? He was complicit in the murder of four wolves, and that fact was a secret from his own closest Packmates.

Cas rubbed his face with his hands. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

April removed herself from her spot by the window and knelt at his feet, sensing his disquiet. He petted her head and pulled her in to lean against his thigh, letting her suckle on his thumb. Jim Murphy smiled at him and changed the subject again.

“Congratulations on finally Mating, Alpha. I approve. She’s spunky, smart, and sweet, not to mention quite the loveliest Sub I’ve seen in some time.”

“Hey!” Dean protested. “What about me? I’m a loveliest…uh…I’m pretty too.” Everyone laughed at his awkwardness, and Jim rolled his eyes.

“All right, Me Too, you’re quite lovely as well, but the difference between you and April is, if your backside isn’t as red as our marquee six days out of the week, I’ll eat my own shoes. You’re trouble from the jump, and it’s nice to see a Sub who doesn’t always have to brat back at her Dom. You, Dean Winchester, deserve every swipe your ass takes. That one doesn’t. She’s just on the far end of the spectrum, that’s all.”

“Fuck you,” explained Dean.

Dean’s mouth. It was a death trap built right into his face, and it hated him. April grimaced in sympathy as Dean’s Omega mate hauled him unceremoniously onto the conference table, stripped him, wailed on him while Dean’s eyes clenched closed at the sudden heat and spiking pain, and then held him in place so Castiel could double the count, all in one go. Dean protested loudly, but he didn’t struggle against Cas’ palm. Double jeopardy was supposed to apply when someone outside the Pack disciplined him, not his own mate. Jim just chuckled and declined when Cas offered him, as the injured party, a chance to take a few swings himself.

It was over as fast as it started. Michael pulled Dean onto his lap, Dean’s jeans still wrinkled around his own knees, ignoring Dean’s grumbles that a double whammy had never been part of their deal. The alpha-Sub’s eyes were a little red, but he wasn’t upset. He met Jim’s gaze and smirked at him, leaning in to absorb the comfort and warmth his Dom offered. Dean needed the touch, having let himself get too emotional over the impending deadline of his time with the man he would love until he died. At least he didn’t have to give up Michael. He might be an anchor and a burden to Castiel Novak, but Michael he got to keep.

“What’d I miss?” Billie asked, pushing the door open and reading the electricity in the air.

“The usual,” said Michael, kissing Dean’s cheek.

“Okay, whatever. Jesus, Dean.” Billie slid into an empty chair and dismissed the subject. “I talked to Bobby. His network doesn’t have any solid info yet, but they have some leads. The common assumption among those who might know something is that Gordon got on the wrong side of the syndicates with his trafficking business. They don’t like anyone starting up a new storefront without going through them, and they’re not subtle in conveying their displeasure. It may even have been a coalition of rivals that joined forces and pulled it off.

“The investigators found some interesting and incriminating evidence at the blast site. That’s not public knowledge yet, of course, but Bobby has an inside guy, so he gets the inside scoop. Apparently, Gordon and Peter were both dicks-deep in all kinds of shady shit.”

Michael ran a hand over Dean’s ass to feel the heat from his mate’s skin physically while he let the soreness in through his bond. He might be turning into a sadist. Feeling Dean react to pain was becoming as enjoyable as feeling him react to pleasure.

“On the plus side, Claire ran a rescue run early this morning based on Gabriel’s info and pulled three more Omegas out. They were part of the original fifteen that Gordon had, and they are all in relatively good shape, so it’s a solid win. No one was hurt. Claire, Ash, Krissy, and Alex split up to get them to safety. That leaves nine more, and Gabe’s homing in on two others.

“It looks like Gordon ordered them pulled off into small groups. Gabe thinks none of them are being kept in groups larger than three. That’s going to make them harder to find but maybe easier to rescue. He just wants to get to them before they get sold. Everyone seems to have gone to ground though, so that’s on our side too. If they’re too scared to make a sale or transfer, that means they stay traceable longer.”

Billie stopped and sucked in a deep breath. “Wow, Billie. I think you said that all in one breath,” Dean commented, impressed. “You’re turning into Charlie a little more every day.”

“Fuck you, Winchester.”

No one scolded or spanked Billie, which Dean thought was unfair.

To Billie.

He nuzzled in close enough to scent Michael’s throat.

Sam entered the store through sliding glass doors, annoyed at himself. He was halfway through the recipe before he realized he’d forgotten to buy heavy cream. It wasn’t alfredo without cream. If he’d stayed at The Facility, he could have raided the kitchen there, but instead he’d gone home over the weekend while Dean was in New York.

He muttered to himself in aggravation, heading through the freezer section toward dairy when his mind went completely offline. Instead of continuing on past frozen entrees, Sam calmly put his huge paws on the shoulders of a surprised young woman, pressed her back into the glass freezer case door and lifted her skirt while unbuckling his belt and shoving down his own pants.

Sam was still sentient. He knew he’d just run into his mate—his True-Mate. He knew he wasn’t supposed to Mate her right here in frozen foods. He knew the police would come. He’d be cited. He could cause property damage. He should wait, hole up somewhere safe and call Benny to come help. There was a protocol. They should do this right, safely. He didn’t know anything about this girl except that she was exactly his type physically, tall and blond, with striking eyes which were now hooded with lust.

Her eyes sparked something deep inside Sam’s unconscious mind.

All the logical thoughts ran through his mind the way thoughts do, on top of each other and in multiple layers of consciousness, but Sam was in a different place, and he passively watched them float by, unconcerned. He felt calm. He felt oddly, utterly, decidedly calm.

The woman’s panties came off with a swipe of one of Sam’s hands. She breathed out through her nose in anticipation, helped him to lower his briefs, and lifted one leg to wrap around his thigh. He caught it and held it in place.

His eyes and hers locked as if tied by an intangible link.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh, shit! They’re gonna fuck right here! Hey! Hey, you two! Get a room! You can’t do that here! Hey!”

“Oh god, they’re Mating!”

A radio crackled. Someone mentioned a store manager. Someone mentioned the police. Sam heard it all, but he was large and confident, Dominant and committed. It would take an army to stop him now, so he smirked. One dimple crested as his eyes sparkled into hers.

He would pay the citation.

Only one thing could stay his plan at this point, and that was…

“Yeah?” he asked her.

“Hell, yeah,” she responded, holding her skirt up and out of his way. Neither blinked. Sam needed no further encouragement.

Sam drove into her wet body and bottomed out in one smooth drive of his hips. Her head cracked back against the glass in response. He decided to move her. He didn’t want to break the glass door and have her cut by broken glass. Sam pulled her up onto his hands and cock, and she wordlessly wrapped her long legs around his hips, her skirt draping loose in the back keeping her mostly covered.

“Mine!” he gritted between his teeth, noting they had an audience. No one tried to stop him, so he sank carefully to his knees with a strong arm supporting her lower back, and he settled the woman out on the floor without losing his connection with her.

“Sam!” she shouted as his hips began a deep, powerful, demanding rhythm. Her eyes slipped closed as her chin raised to bare her tender throat. It was a cry of wanting, of longing, of fulfillment.

She knew him.

He startled and looked at her closely again. Really looked at her face.

Sam growled and whined in one strange vocalization, his fucking never slowing down. He knew her, too. He knew her well. He hadn’t seen her since they were young together, but he could only blame his initial failure to recognize his first girlfriend on sight on the altered state of mind brought on by the rush of mating hormones and the changes her facial features had undergone as she matured.

“God, Sam!” Her voice had taken on a desperate quality. Her face had slimmed and lengthened, all the baby fat melting off in the intervening years.

Sam still held her virginity sacred within a lockbox in his heart. It wasn’t a very masculine thing to prize. He’d never boasted about it when he was an adolescent, but it had long been the most meaningful possession he owned. They’d popped each other’s cherries. She held his too, and to Sam it was a hallowed thing. That had been years ago. Years too long.

How had he not known her on sight?

“Jess! Fucking finally! Oh god, Jessica!” Sam let the years fall away. He’d been lost without her since her family moved her away at fifteen. He kept himself balanced using the contract services at work, but he’d never seriously dated anyone else. Sam began to sob as he took her for his own.

She couldn’t be comfortable against the cold, dirty tiles of the grocery store. His own knees where he used them for leverage were growing red and sore, but he’d make it up to her later. Right now, he needed her right where she was before she took off on him again. No one had believed him back then, but Sam had always known he was meant for this woman and she for him.

Sam sobbed as he worked his cock deep into her slick wetness, and she clenched around him with every muscle she had.

“MINE!” he grunted again, meaning it with all his heart and forcing her body to agree with him. She pulsed her hips in time with his and made no protest.

“Yours, Sam! Always.” Her body told his that it was the truth, and her eyes showed him a bitch wolf in complete agreement. Years of longing showed in those blue eyes, fear and hurt replaced by hope and lust. The bitch rolled in Submission, so the Dom took a deep breath, set his jaw, and went for it. Her plastic shopping basket lay near her head on its side. The eggs had spilled and broken and turned her blond hair dark where the curls became sticky in egg white. Sam ignored the mess. He was still sentient. He was still Sam. There was a dreamlike insubstantial feel to the air around him, but his mind was clearer than he could remember ever experiencing before in his life. It didn’t feel much like how he’d heard Mating-Triggers described, but he didn’t doubt himself for a moment.

His guttural growls turned into grunting chuckles as he fucked his mate in public, in the grocery store, on the cold tile floor. What was Dean going to say when he heard about this? Sam was never going to live this down. He half expected he’d be on the internet within fifteen minutes, but he didn’t care even a little.

“You ready, Ginger?” It was an old pet name from an inside Gilligan’s Island joke that had fallen flat. The joke sucked, but the name stuck.

“Lay it on me, Professor.” She craned her head further back to give him access to her throat, and his possessive growling returned, far more aggressive than it had been, a Claim gathering steam. Sam sank his wolf’s Dominant teeth deep into the Submissive’s shoulder as he pummeled into her with his hips, snarling fiercely and letting a line of blood escape the seal of his lips as he sucked a bruise into the wounded flesh. He sucked hard, willing her flesh to make itself pliable to his will. She didn’t scream, but he felt her orgasm around the movement of his cock.

The electricity of their connection as it snapped into place felt better than anything Sam had ever experienced in his life, and he lost the fight to prolong their coupling. Sam released his hold with his teeth to shout into her throat, grinding his hips in a barely-there motion, emptying into her cunt, scenting her deeply with his nose buried in her throat.

He sought and found her mouth, forcing his way in, sobbing, laughing, growling, moaning all at once. Jessica wrapped her arms around his huge shoulders and let her tears fall uncontested into her hair.

Soon they were separate again, wrapped in blankets and sitting in the manager’s office, ignoring the tirade from the Primate store owner about appropriateness in public spaces. Jess sat next to Sam, turned toward him, their knees touching, their hands in each other’s hair. They were just waiting to be picked up by Benny. Sam wanted to keep kissing his new mate, but he couldn’t look at her and kiss her at the same time, so he dove in to taste her lips and pulled back out again over and over.

“Should press charges… This here’s a clean, family establishment… Grandmas and little kids watching…”

Blah, blah, blah.

Sam winked at her, and she smiled at him. It was a smile that he’d never forgotten, hidden mostly in his dreams in the last few years, but cherished whenever he remembered.

A police officer stopped in before Benny could get there and wrote Sam the expected ticket for public Mating. It was a misdemeanor. He’d pay it without protest. Some things were worth far more than they cost.

Benny hugged them both. He didn’t know Jess, but he loved Sam, and if Jess was right for Sam, then she was Pack. ‘Nuff said.

“Have you called your brother?” Benny asked, driving Sam and his mate home. He should be taking the couple to get checked out by medical, but as he’d told Cas on numerous occasions, Mating was a natural drive. Wolves did it all the time without needing medical surveillance, and Sam had asked to be taken home. Benny was just glad Sam didn’t try to drive himself. Mating hormones were strong motherfuckers, and they could fuck up even the stoutest wolf for a good while.

“Not yet. I expect someone will show him a video soon enough. I’m not looking forward to the next time I talk to him.”

Benny laughed. “I’d love to be there. Can we call him when I get you home? Please?”

“No.”

Jessica had nothing to say. The leggy blonde was busy sucking hickies into Sam’s neck.

They didn’t have eggs or cream with them when they made it home, so Benny agreed to do a fast-food run, leaving the food on Sam’s kitchen counter once he had it, and ignoring the squeaking of the bedsprings and the grunting from Sam’s room.

He locked the front door behind him as he let himself out. The closed door didn’t prevent Jess’ scream from making it out of the house. Benny whistled lowly to himself as he walked to his car.

His single friends seemed to be toppling fast these past few months. Benny wondered who might be next.

One step ahead of all of them, he decided to take the rest of the day off. He texted Andrea to see if she needed anything before he headed home. Her cravings had just begun to turn weird, so he hoped she wouldn’t come up with anything too hard to find.

She texted back—fish sticks and pimento cheese. Benny smiled happily at her response. He headed straight back to the grocery for the goods, stepping carefully over the freshly mopped patch in the freezer section. 

Chapter Text

THEN:

“C’mon, baby, push! One more, Omega! One more push.”

“Shut the FUCK UP, BILL! I’M PUSHING, DAMNIT!”

Ellen squeezed her mate’s hand with all her might and dug her fingernails into the arm he’d slung around her shoulders. Her feet shoved hard against the stirrups, lifting her backside clean off the delivery bed.

“Keep yourself focused, Mama,” the nurse chided her again. Fucking again! Ellen hated how the staff called her Mama. She wasn’t their Mama. “Put your energy into pushing through the contractions, not into your legs. Come on, breathe with me again.”

Ellen tried to focus on the rhythm of the nurse’s breathing, but she was so fucking tired, and everything hurt so bad. All she wanted was this goddamned baby out of her—this light of her life that she’d prayed for, tried for, that she’d begged Bill to give her—all she wanted was to get the damned thing out!

“Aaaargh! F….uuuuuu….ckk!!” Ellen clenched everything she owned and tried to funnel it all through her channel.

“Good! That was a good one! One more, now. Come on, catch your breath, let’s do it again. Your pup’s almost here, Mama.”

“YOU FUCKING SAID ONE MORE THREE PUSHES AGO!”

“Looks like you’ve got a stubborn pup on your hands, Omega. Let’s go. Work with me now. She’s been crowning for a while. She’s ready. I know you’re ready. Look at me, I’ll get you through this, I promise. Count us down again, alpha.”

The nurse was too fucking calm. Bill began a slow countdown from ten, letting his mate grind the bones in his fingers together and dig more bloody divots into his arm.

“AAAAAARRRRGHH! GET IT OUT! PLEASE, FUCKING PLEASE!!!! AAAAAAHHHHH!”

“That’s it, sweetie! Great job! We’ve got a head all the way out now. Just be still for me and breathe for a sec.” The nurse and the doctor switched places, working efficiently to support the wet, slimy head and suck sticky fluid from the pup’s tiny nose and mouth.

“Are you ready, dear?” The doctor’s tone was much gentler on Ellen’s nerves. “I’m not going to drop her and neither are you. Just trust me.” The doctor switched her attention to Bill’s pale face. “Still doing okay, alpha? All you have to do is hold onto your mate. I’m not going to let anyone get hurt.”

Bill nodded vigorously and stifled a growl. His instincts were working in overdrive telling him to rip the staff into tiny pieces, but he’d been through their detailed training program, and he put all the coping mechanisms they’d taught him into use.

The liability and insurance clauses still required two trained security alphas to be in the room during the birth if the couple insisted on Bill’s presence. Both were still parked casually by the wall. Bill watched them peripherally. He took their detached attitude as a sign that all was still well. His mate was in good hands, and he needed to allow them to work.

“Okay, then. Let’s get this pup out into the world where she belongs. Give me a good strong push, Ellen. That’s it. The hard part’s over. You don’t need to strain. Good girl, just like that. There we go. We’ve got a shoulder. One more just like that, and she’ll slide right out. Breathe for me. You’re doing great. Yep. Atta girl. And another breath. Ellen? One breath at a time, love. Omega, take a slow breath.”

Ellen gasped with the pain and the exhaustion, the hormones and the fear. She didn’t feel like Dr. Grantiss could be talking to her. She wasn’t a good girl. She wasn’t doing great. She was falling apart, and she wasn’t following any of the alpha’s instructions. Ellen couldn’t breathe. Exhales kept getting in the way of inhales. She was certain that the tiny pup caught in her birth canal was suffocating along with her, but she couldn’t stop.

She couldn’t breathe.

She’d nearly succeeded before failing miserably. Almost there. The story of her life. Her vision began to cloud. She could feel involuntary spasms wracking her body torturously around the little life that she was terrified of losing.

“Alpha Harvelle, your mate’s hyperventilating. Get down there and let her scent you. Stroke her head if you can move either of your hands.”

The doctor’s voice remained calm and soothing. Ellen rode it like a boat drifting in a deep sea. The doctor didn’t seem to think the pup was near dying.

“Find your breath for me, Omega. You’re so close. You’ve done so well. She’s almost here, and she’s going to be strong and healthy. Talk to her, Bill.”

“Baby, I’m so proud of you,” he picked up as the doctor’s voice faded out. “I know you’re hurting, and you’re tired. I can feel it. I can feel how strong you are. Baby, Ellen, my love, you’ve got this. One more. Breathe. In….out…in…out. There you go. You back with us? You ready?”

Alpha Doctor Grantiss squeezed Ellen’s thigh to bring her back to task, and said, “All right, little Harvelle family, let’s make you a little bit bigger now. Listen to my voice, and don’t panic, Omega. I’ve got you. Your mate’s got you. Now, PUUUUSHHHH!”

“AAAAHHHHHHH….AAAHHHH….AAARRRGHGH!” Ellen sobbed into her muscles, clinging to her mate and trying her damnedest to keep herself focused.

“Good! Aaaaaand, she’s out! Great job, Ellen. Congratulations, it’s a beautiful baby girl! You did so good. Rest now, Omega. Good girl.”

Ellen slumped back in exhaustion, grinning in spite of the pain that still shot back and forth up and down her spine and across her belly. The nurses kicked into motion. Someone spread Ellen’s birthing gown open down her chest so the doctor could lay the slimy lizard-looking creature on Ellen’s bare skin. Bill wept into his mate’s neck and put one of his huge hands on the puppy’s back.

Neither of the new parents paid any attention to the rush of movement around them. The cord was cut, the placenta delivered, Ellen took a few stitches to close up the incidental tearing that her anus had experienced. All of her focus was on the tiny, mewling, pointy-eared puppy on her chest.

“Got a name picked out yet?” one of the nurses asked the exhausted couple as she rubbed the baby’s body vigorously with absorbent towels.

“Joanna Beth,” Bill responded through his tears with no hesitation.

NOW:

“Hit play again! April, dude! C’mere, you gotta see this. I thought you’d never get up. C’mere, look! Sammy got hitched…at the grocery store…in fr..frozen foods!” Dean was laughing too hard to get the words out easily, and his groggy mate-in-law was slow on the uptake. She shuffled over squinting in confusion, her hair a mess, and her bathrobe hanging open, revealing that she’d not bothered with pajamas or underwear again last night.

She focused on the screen mounted on the hotel suite’s wall. Michael pushed the play button again, and the scene showed their local grocery store. She knew the one. And yeah, that was Sam—Sam, fucking a blonde girl on the ground. April frowned trying to make heads or tails, moving closer, tilting her head.

Dean had his cell phone to his ear. “No, Charlie, I think it’s great. I really do. I’ll call him in a minute, but you gotta admit this is fucking hysterical—Mr. Vanilla-straight-lace-follow-all-the-rules-all-the-time-paddle-swinger dropping trou and gettin’ dirty next to the microwave pizzas. I’ve never wished so hard Sammy had Presented alpha before this. Just imagine if they tied, and he had to waddle her out of there with his ass hanging out and a chick on his cock.” Dean doubled over in laughter again. “Whew, Jesus! Hey, Michael, play it from the start again. Did you catch that crotchety old man in the corner threatening Sam with his umbrella? Gramps just went to the market to pick up some Toaster Strudel, but he can’t get his Toaster Strudel cause there’s a moose fucking a blonde in front of the Toaster Strudel case. Oh my god! Yeah, yeah that’s the one, you see him?”

Dean’s exuberance wafted from him in waves and set the other two chuckling as well. April and Michael found themselves giggling more at Dean than at Sam.

Poor Sam.

Michael stood and silently tied April’s bathrobe closed for her. She shuffled off to find a cup of coffee before her mate got up and switched her to juice or milk. Coffee wasn’t forbidden exactly, but he never seemed to pour her any, and since breakfast was a meal where she was expected to take only what she was given, she usually went without.

“Yeah, all right. Thanks Charles. Hey, by the way, grab Jo tonight and anybody else you want to and swing by my house. It’s been way too long, and we have another Mating to celebrate.”

Dean paused, accepting a mug from his young Packmate and kissing her cheek in thanks.

“Oh, he is? Even better. No, not Cas’ house—mine and Sam’s. Yeah, we land at two, so how about any time after five? Give us a chance to get unpacked and shit, rest a little. You got it. Love you, too Charlie. See you soon.”

Dean hung up and took the remote from his mate, pointing it at the screen and searching YouTube for another video with a better angle. There were several videos already uploaded, so he had options.

Wow, Jessica Moore.

Go figure.

That girl had some serious explaining to do when Dean could get her alone. She’d been too young to stop it when her parents moved her across the country years ago, but she hadn’t been too young to know how to work a fucking telephone, email, Skype, even licking a stamp and sending out paper by snail mail should’ve been well within her capabilities. Sammy hadn’t heard a single peep from her once she left though, and it had torn him apart.

Dean’s Big Brother mode went on full alert again. He intended to get some answers now that she was back. Nobody hurts the big, stupid, clumsy, pathetically emotional moose and gets away with it, not even said moose’s own True-Mate.

Michael calmly took the remote back from where Dean was tapping it against his own lips, no longer watching the screen, deep in thought. The Omega switched the television off and steered Dean to the kitchenette.

The Alpha joined them shortly after. Breakfast was a selection from the breakfast buffet downstairs, delivered on platters by room service. The fridge was stocked with a random variety of groceries, but no one felt like cooking.

“What happens to all the food in the fridge when we check out?” Michael asked with his mouth full.

Dean answered with his mouth full. “Gets donated to the women’s shelter a couple of blocks over.” He swallowed and lowered the front two feet of his chair back to the floor. “It’s part of the contract we keep with this place. They stock the fridge with food in case the Lupins staying here Trip into a cycle unexpectedly. Whatever they eat gets added to their bill and the extra expense of the uneaten food gets averaged over all the rooms. It’s basically a tax on everyone to feed the battered women downtown.”

“And that’s legal?”

“Well, yeah. It’s disclosed in the fee structure. No one has to stay here. If you don’t want to feed battered women and children, stay somewhere else.”

Returning to the table from fetching the coffee carafe, April found her knee pillow had been moved between Castiel’s feet. She poured for him with a small smile and then set the carafe where Dean could reach it. She crawled beneath the table and took her place before him. They’d worked on a new set of hand signals, but she didn’t need to see his gesture to understand what he wanted from her this morning. The pillow’s placement was enough.

April pushed his bathrobe out of the way and breathed in the heady aroma of Alpha as he spread his knees. She settled happily, stroking his firm hip with one hand. April sucked her Alpha’s flaccid cock into her mouth, breathed out easily, and held it heavy on her tongue, letting him feel as little movement from her once she’d taken up her position as she could. If he wanted more, he would take it. Cas’ hand stilled hers on his hip, but he didn’t chastise her for the motion. She was still learning.

Breakfast continued without comment about April. She was where she was meant to be, and the Pack felt balanced and settled.

For once, even Michael managed to be sarcasm- and snark-free. Cas knew about Sam. He’d been updated by text late last night by Benny. Benny evidently chose to withhold notification of anyone until late in the night to allow Sam and Jess a few hours of real privacy. The internet hadn’t waited though, and word began to leak out yesterday early in the evening.

The group in Boston didn’t know simply because they hadn’t been looking for it.

Dean told Castiel about the gathering at the house that was still in the planning stages. He didn’t want a huge crowd, but Dean missed his friends. He trusted Charlie to put together a guest list correctly and to get something for everyone to eat and drink. He trusted Charlie with anything.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll skip this one, Dean.” Cas reached for the platter of fruit and began to put April’s breakfast plate together. “I have a huge backlog at the office already. I could use a quiet evening at my desk to catch up. Would you mind keeping April with you? Watch over her, please.”

Dean snorted. “She’s not a puppy, Cas. She doesn’t need a babysitter at a party with my friends in my own house. Relax a little bit.”

Castiel turned his stoic face to Michael instead and tried again. “Michael, would you mind watching out for April this evening?”

“Of course not, Alpha. I’ll keep her safe.”

“Oh, please,” Dean interjected. “Seriously? Cas, don’t do that to her. Michael’s stick is so far up his ass, she’ll be lucky to be allowed to walk two feet to the bathroom to take a shit without him calling for duct tape.”

They heard a giggle from under the table. Castiel cleared his throat menacingly, scooted his chair back and looked into her wide, startled eyes. He raised one eyebrow and one finger.

That was a tally mark.

She nodded and took him back into her mouth as he moved back into place.

“Dean, just because you don’t see the inherent danger in having alcohol and Ozzies at the same party doesn’t mean there isn’t danger,” Michael lectured.

“Yes, Mother,” he sassed, winking at Cas.

They finished eating. Castiel excused himself, collected his Ozzie and her breakfast plate, and he fed her by hand while she relaxed in the suite’s enormous bathtub.

He was pleased with the trip, pleased with his Pack, pleased with his mate, and balanced. They weren’t perfect, but they were real. Cas was ready to go home.

He needed to see Gabriel. He needed to speak with Bobby. He wanted to meet Jessica and check on Sam. He was slightly annoyed with Benny for skipping protocol where Sam’s Mating was concerned, but at least the alpha had collected a Pelio reading before dropping the couple off at home, and he’d set up a routine to have them checked on regularly.

Dean declined the sedatives on the flight home, and that made him even more anxious. Castiel refused outright to allow the wayward couple to sit together. He wasn’t stupid. Michael didn’t care about rules unless they were his own, and Dean’s brat would benefit double from misbehaving during the flight, getting a chance to enjoy himself on the flight followed by a delicious reprimand for his misbehavior later.

Castiel sat beside Michael and put Dean in the aisle seat next to April just across the way. Cas could still touch and talk to Dean. He found that having an Ozzie to watch over helped keep Dean calmer than expected. All in all, it was a good solution, although no one seemed to want to chat much. Castiel reviewed emails and sipped his water. No one ever said being a responsible Pack Alpha was always going to be fun.

He thought about interpersonal dynamics as he scribbled out the new Pack rankings on a napkin with Michael looking on. He’d downloaded Jessica’s Keller chart from the Keller Foundation database this morning, and he tapped the pencil against his teeth as he thought it through.

“Jessica Moore Winchester—Het/F, 24, [X: 0], [Y: -11], [Z: 10],” he copied.

She was a Classic Sub with a positive Z-rating. That mix—having the Tertiary rating sit on the opposite side of the range from the Z-rating—sometimes led to some strange behaviors. It seemed an unlikely True-Mate pairing, and Castiel wished they’d had the opportunity to take a scent room reading before the couple sealed the deal. Ah well. He couldn’t get hung up on what was lost.

There was no way to get the readings now.

Michael’s voice broke him out of his reflections. “Where does that put Jessica in the Pack?”

“She’ll be fourth, overall. She’s second-ranked beta, just behind Sam. As a Sub and a beta, she won’t be expected to play a leadership role really, unless it happens organically. I don’t know her yet. We may need to adjust her role a few times before we know how she fits. I assume Sam still plans to live at his house and not move in with us. Jessica will live wherever he chooses, and she’ll take his name.”

Michael resisted rolling his eyes. He knew how mating dynamics worked between couples: The Top made the life choices, and the Bottom went along and complied. All he cared about at the moment was to know if he could expect to have to answer to this woman he hadn’t met. Castiel sensed his unanswered question, and he sighed.

“Michael, your role doesn’t change. You’re still Primary Omega, and you’re still a Pack Dominant. Defer to Sam where Jessica’s behavior is concerned unless you believe she’s done something that needs to be addressed immediately. Be sure you’re operating through your wolf if you need to call her down for something.

As a beta, she’ll receive the same instruction concerning you in your Omega mindset. She outranks you officially, but I think you’ll find that you and Jessica don’t need to have much of a disciplinary relationship. How about you just aim to be in-laws or siblings? Maybe you can be friends.”

Michael wasn’t sure he needed any more friends, but he didn’t protest. Alpha was right that they’d just have to wait and see how she fit.

It wasn’t a party really, more a gathering of family and friends.

So, a party.

Fine.

But there are parties and there are parties. This wasn’t that.

Dean had come home with Michael and let himself in through the locked front door with his key. He texted Sam on his way so the couple might have a chance to clean up a little before they had company. Betas don’t cycle the way Omegas and alphas do. The females menstruate roughly quarterly, and they are fertile when they ovulate, but they don’t go through Heat or Rut cycles.

Betas do, however, share a libido range that matches other Canids. Most betas don’t say no to opportunities for sex any more than their extreme spectrum Packmates do. And when they’ve just Mated less than twenty-four hours ago to an old flame they thought they’d never see again, they can be expected to display a rather heightened level of general randiness.

Clinically, that is.

The house reeked of sex when Dean and Michael dragged their luggage into the front hall. The two originators of all the odors themselves were clean and fresh, cooking quesadillas together in the kitchen. Sam couldn’t prevent his huge moose-face from breaking into a grin of pure joy. He presented his mate to Dean with a hand at her lower back.

“Dean, you remember Jess? She’s just moved back to Lawrence to work in the Public Defender’s office. She’s a lawyer now. We, uh, we ran into each other at the Hy-Vee on Sixth.”

“Yeah, we saw.” Dean’s eyes sparkled as he plucked a tortilla from the stack, halved it and handed half to Michael.

“You saw? Oh, shit, it’s on YouTube? Those assholes stood around and watched the whole thing. What happened to decency and privacy? Honestly!”

“If you want private, Sam, maybe don’t fuck the girl in frozen foods. I’m just sayin’,” Michael remarked.

“I couldn’t help it! It was a mating-drive. I’m not responsible for where it happened. Those voyeurs weren’t in an altered state of mind though. They could have fucked off when they saw what was happening.”

Dean guided Michael further in, rolling his luggage behind him. “Uh-huh. Remind me, little brother, what world do we live in?” He glanced back at Sam’s bitch-face and grinned. “Yeah, thought so. Just be glad you didn’t set off an orgy. They cite the instigator when that happens.”

Sam pulled Jessica in close and nuzzled into her hair, while Dean and Michael tried not to laugh out loud.

Dean turned his brat down a touch. “Just own it, Sam. You did good. I like this one. She’s cute. Way outta your league, what with being a hot shit lawyer and all, but she’s hooked now. No getting away, young lady.”

Dean stole her from Sam and gave her a welcoming hug.

“This one?” Jessica asked Sam over Dean’s shoulder.

Sam bitch-faced his brother and reclaimed custody of his mate. “Dean’s just being an ass. I told you, I never dated anyone seriously, after you.”

“Jessica, this is Michael, my mate.” Dean changed the subject smoothly. “Michael, Jessica Moore.”

“Jess Winchester,” she corrected as she reached for Michael’s hand. “It’s good to meet you. I saw you on TV a couple of nights ago. You guys clean up really well. You should consider wearing tuxes all the time.”

“Stop ogling my Omega,” Dean shooed her away, and she laughed.

“Sam, you heard I invited the gang to stop in tonight? We need to let everybody get to know everybody.”

“I did hear. Thanks for the warning, Dean. And thanks for giving us plenty of time to ourselves before you fill the house with people. I really appreciate it.” Sam’s bitch-face was back.

“Yeah, about that. I’m going to open the windows and get some fans going. This place reeks. Michael, grab the fans outta that closet there.” Dean directed his mate as Jess turned back to the griddle. They had party food to prepare. They had naps to take. Sex might be on the menu, but what’s a little more odor when it was already clinging to every surface in the house?

Sam attached himself to Jessica’s back and sucked messily on her neck while she cooked. She giggled at first and tried to shoo him off, eventually kicking him in the shin and directing him in no uncertain terms to sit at the table and leave her alone so she could finish without burning anyone or anything.

Dean and Michael’s barely suppressed snickers disappeared down the hallway, turning into raucous laughter that Dean’s closed bedroom door didn’t hide. Sam knew he’d face allegations of being whipped already, but he didn’t care about much of anything now that he had Jess back. He sat, and he waited. She’d always been bossy, and he’d always liked it. To find that she tested as a Submissive surprised him, but he’d also seen her respond to his touch in the bedroom in a way that was pure Sub.

Maybe the bossy part was just Jess.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her.

“You’re biased,” she responded, smiling at him over her shoulder.

They had a lot of logistics to work out, but Sam wasn’t worried. Her job was close to the courthouse, which was close to his home. She didn’t have much by way of possessions, having moved into a furnished starter apartment only four days ago. Her plan had been to get established in town, make a little money on the meager salary paid to junior lawyers in the PD’s office, and eventually buy a house of her own.

“You said Dean and Michael are honeymooning here right now. So, what does that mean for us? We just going to share the house?”

Sam scoffed. “No way. How about I take you somewhere for the month? I have vacation days built up and I have some money saved. You want to go to the Caribbean? How about Fiji?”

“Sam, I’m just about to start a new job. How would it look if I ask for a month off before I even work a day?”

“But we just Mated. They’ll understand.”

“I wish that were true, but I had to beat out a lot of other applicants for this job. They’ll be all kinds of happy for me that I found my True-Mate, and they’ll kindly tell me my services are no longer required and fill the position with whoever was next on the list behind me. Not every employer puts Lupin needs at the top of their priority list, even in Lawrence. Some of them really do have work that needs doing.”

“That’s uncalled for, Jess. My employer has some pretty significant work that needs to get done too, but we don’t sacrifice people to do it.”

“Your employer also has a private sector budget and lots of donors to pay for the headcount to cover people when they’re absent. The Public Defender barely has enough of a budget to keep the lights on. They need every pair of hands working full time or the people they serve fall through the cracks.”

They were both angry at the situation. Sam wanted his month with his mate, and he didn’t want to have to ask Dean and Michael to clear out.

Apparently, she wasn’t planning to ask for time off at all.

Great.

Sam hit on an epiphany. “Come work for us, Jess. We need good lawyers. I know Cas will find you a spot where you can help people. That’s what you want, right?”

“Sam Winchester, if you ever offer to slide me into anything on your coattails again, I will take this spatula to your ass until you can’t sit for a month! Let’s get one ground rule straight right now: You respect my career, and you stay out of it! Are we clear? I didn’t work as hard as I have just to have my mate—even though I love him dearly—sweep in and build my career for me. Don’t you ever do that again!”

Her eyes flashed, and she threw the spatula on the counter, swept out of the room, and slammed the bedroom door.

Sam sat still, in shock, staring after her. The smell of smoke knocked him to his senses. He grabbed for the griddle and tossed the blackened tortillas into the sink to cool. Sam Winchester held several certifications and a master’s degree covering Lupin development with a focus on Submissives—their behaviors, their care, their development. Sam had never known a Submissive to behave like that. It wasn’t provocative, like a brat would do. It was…dominant.

Sam’s wolf cocked his head in confusion. He thought a call to Benny was probably in order. In the meantime, he owed an apology to his mate. Submissive or not, she deserved the respect of having her own career path in her own hands. Geez, it had only been a suggestion. Sam dropped a slab of butter onto the griddle and prepped another quesadilla.

So, it wasn’t really a party, more a gathering of family and friends. Charlie and Jo arrived first with supplies. They set up a mixed-drinks station and arranged snacks along the kitchen counters where everyone could graze. Music filtered through the speakers that Dean installed a couple of years ago linking all of the rooms together on one sound system.

Dean and Michael were refreshed. They’d napped. Then Michael fucked his alpha, then they showered and napped again. The house was still a little stinky, but no one cared really. With this group, someone at some point during the evening was sure to add to the layers of sex fumes. Both Dean and Sam put clean linens on their beds and placed another clean folded set close by. They knew their crowd of friends well.

“You and Jess okay?” Dean asked his little brother with concern. Jess had never tempered her volume when she was angry. Dean had, of course, heard the shouting. He and Sam lugged cases of beer from Garth’s trunk to the back porch where they’d placed ice-filled coolers.

“Yeah, I think. We’ll work it out. I kinda stepped in it pretty deep, though. She’s still pissed at me.”

“You may have broken a world record for first spats. What’d you do, Sammy?” Dean filled the coolers as Sam handed him beer bottles.

“I, um, I offered to arrange a job for her as a lawyer for The Facility so we could have our honeymoon.” Sam looked sheepish.

“Oh, fuck,” Dean chortled. “Yeah, you’re sleeping on the couch tonight, buddy. Good job, Sam. You almost made it a whole day.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” he protested, following Dean back around the side of the house to get the rest of the beer. “She can’t ask for time off yet because they just hired her. I wanted to figure out a way to have the time we deserve as a new couple. I want my honeymoon, Dean. I just got her back.”

“Welcome to the world of grownup responsibilities, my brother,” Dean chirped.

“You’re one to talk,” Sam protested. “You avoid responsibility every chance you get. Don’t lecture me on being a grownup. You’re twelve.”

Dean stuck his tongue out at his brother, hefted two cases into Sam’s arms at once and finished up with, “I know you are, but what am I?” Sam closed his eyes, breathed through his nose, worked his jaw, and counted slowly in his head.

“Look, Sam. You lectured me and Michael when we were moving too fast to slow it down. Same goes for you and Jess. Give it some time before you stick your foot in your mouth again. Get to know her. Find out what she wants, what she’s accomplished, where she’s headed, and then hold her steady while she gets there. That’s all you have to do. And for god’s sake, don’t try to do shit for her that she can do for herself. You hate it when people do that to you, right? Well, so does she. So do most of us.”

“And what about our honeymoon? She’s scheduled to start work on Monday.”

“That gives you six days. Use ‘em well. I’ll pick up and move Michael into the fucking pool house or something—it’s not like we’re really spending that much time alone anyway. Plan a big vacation with her when she’s put her time in at work and she earns it. Tell her you’re proud of her, and then back her up and prove it.” Dean led the way around the house to the back once more, and Sam followed like a kicked puppy. His disappointment poured off him in sheets. “She’s not going anywhere, man. Whether you do it now or later, you’ve got time.”

“Tell that to Gabriel.” Sam didn’t mean it, and he regretted the words as soon as he’d said it. He was just unhappy that the world had to work this way, and he was cranky. Dean didn’t bother saying anything. He let his hard look put Sam in his place. After a minute, they wordlessly went back to work. There was more than enough beer. Dean left what was left in his wallet tucked out of sight in Garth’s car to cover the cost.

Dean giggled on the couch, buried beneath the puppy pile. He’d missed Jo. Her quirky sense of humor and her take-no-bullshit demeanor were the perfect antidote for Sam’s sour disposition and Dean’s lingering malaise. Jess emerged to meet the gang in a much better mood than when she shut herself away.

Castiel dropped April off, staying just long enough to eat one plate of finger-food, drink one beer, and introduce himself to Jessica. He clapped Sam’s back and congratulated him on his good fortune. Cas also quietly asked for Sam’s citation. As Pack Alpha, he would take care of it as a matter of pack business. Sam handed it over guiltily. “Sorry, Alpha. I should have behaved better. I feel like I represented the Pack poorly, and I apologize.”

“Nonsense, Sam. These things happen. If you’ll recall, my behavior was considerably worse when I Triggered. I believe I threatened to bite you if you didn’t unlock the door. Something like that. It’s hazy. I’m just happy that you and Jess Mated with no complications. I’ll accept her oaths whenever she’s ready. Come by my office with her sometime this week so we can get the paperwork filled out. There’s no rush.” Cas leaned over the back of the couch to drop a farewell kiss on his mate’s lips and touch Dean’s shoulder.

“Yes, Alpha. I will. Thank you,” Sam said with his arm around his mate’s waist. He kept her close as the house filled up, constantly touching her in one way or another, kissing her repeatedly. Jo made a puking gesture with her finger. April laughed out loud. Jess bitch-faced the young alpha for it, and a quick and decidedly unfriendly conversation involving nothing but their eyes and facial expressions ensued.

Cas calmly cuffed Jo upside her head as he left, and she giggled, unperturbed.

Dean watched the interactions with interest, and so did April. April leaned into Jo’s side, with her feet draped over Michael’s lap. She claimed Jo’s space and thereby voted her position as a supporter of Jo’s over Jess’, you know, just in case it ever turned out to matter where her loyalties were. She grinned up at the alpha conspiratorially.

Dean frowned. It was unlike April to choose non-Pack over Pack, but maybe she just didn’t have Jess filed as Pack yet, and Jo had been there for April on numerous occasions.

Dean decided Jess needed a friend. As he’d told Sam, she wasn’t going anywhere, and she needed a tribe of her own. “Hey Garth! Show Jess how to play Euchre. Just don’t let Meg play. She cheats.”

“Hey! Fuck you, Dean! I don’t cheat. Deal the damn cards, Garth. C’mon, Charlie. You’re playing too.” Meg appeared out of nowhere and took over as Dean had known she would.

Jess smiled her thanks at Dean as Charlie and Garth led her to the kitchen table. Dean nodded back.

Some things were always going to be easy.

“You suck, Jo,” Dean whispered to his best friend.

“Can it, Winchester. They’re nauseating. Everyone’s thinking it,” Jo retorted. April laughed again.

“Number one: they’ve only been Mated for twenty-four hours. Number two: you’ll be just as disgusting when it happens to you. And Number three:” he moved his finger from Jo’s face to April’s. “For as sweet a kid as I know you can be, you sometimes act like a real bitch. Knock it off. She’s Pack, and that means we treat her with respect and kindness.”

April blanched, but Jo just pulled a bored face and drolled, “I’m going to be nice to her. Eventually. But she’s not my Pack. April, you want another cheese puff? I’m going to the kitchen.”

“Yes, please.” She stood to let Jo up, and Dean took advantage of the change in position to take hold of the Omega’s arm and give her four quick hard swats to the center of her ass.

April’s brow wrinkled in distress, and she gasped, not at the pain.

He’d struck her over some bruises she had in layers, but it was disappointing Dean that she found upsetting. He had never spanked her before outside of their Claim-fuck, and she found she hated it. Tears sprung up in her eyes, and she bit her lip. Dean didn’t soften. He held her by the arm and kept his eyes hard.

“Message received, Omega?” he asked her.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Dean, um, alpha.”

Dean smiled then, letting the smile put crinkles at the edges of his eyes. He pulled her into his lap and snuggled her close. “I don’t like seeing you be mean, April. I don’t think that’s who you really are. Why do you do that?”

“I don’t know,” she sniffled, scenting the alpha. “Are you mad at me?”

“No, sweetheart, I’m not mad. It disappoints me to see you be less than you are.”

Michael piped up from the other end of the couch, “If he was any less mad at you, kid, he’d be fucking you right now.”

“Now see,” Dean spoke to April. “Michael really is an asshole. I’m not going to spank his ass for that uncalled-for swipe at us because it’s his nature. You get it? You are a sweet, gentle person who sometimes needs to be reminded of that fact. He’s a genuine dick who can’t help himself.”

She giggled into his throat. Michael sighed and removed himself from the couch. Becky took his place, and Michael’s pace toward the back porch quickened when he heard Becky’s voice. April perked back up, slid off Dean’s lap, and picked up with Becky a conversation they’d begun some time ago. Jo deposited a small plate on April’s lap, and Dean gave her his spot on the couch.

“You not crazy about my friends?” Dean found Michael alone on the back porch, leaning on the rail.

“I don’t know what you mean, alpha. Your friends are delightful.” Michael’s face was flat. His emotions through the bond were still.

“I thought you’d moved past this kind of thing, babe. Is it just too many people? What do you need right now?”

“I, uh, I…hell if I know, Dean. I’m just pissy. Ignore me. Go back and hang with your friends.”

“Nuh-uh. Talk to me first.” Dean pulled his butt up to sit on the railing beside his mate and waited.

“I’m nervous about trying to talk to Castiel tomorrow. Even if we convince him, and we get the go-ahead to try for a pup, we still have to fess up that we went ahead and took a shortcut with our meds. Shit’s going to hit the fan one way or another.”

“Well, yeah. We already knew that. Baby, are you getting cold feet? You having doubts? Just say the word, and we cancel the whole plan.”

“Dean, what do you want? Do you want a baby right now, or are you just following me?” Michael wrapped an arm around Dean’s dangling calf and leaned in, not meeting the alpha’s eyes.

Dean looked at the top of Michael’s downturned head. “Man, I want this. Didn’t I make that clear? I’ve always wanted to be someone’s dad. Us doing this now makes me happier than I can tell you. But yeah, I’m nervous about the consequences too.”

Dean was glad Michael couldn’t see his eyes as he said it. A quick flash of the misery the next few months would bring crossed his mind before he could tamp it down.

“There! Right there!” Michael shot upright and stared hard into Dean’s wide shocked eyes. “What the hell was that, Dean? Don’t tell me it’s nothing. I’ve been feeling that from you for days now. What is that? Regret? Longing? Loss? You think you’re losing something…or someone, and I don’t know what’s got you feeling like that. Talk to me. Please!”

Dean fell still and speechless until Michael took hold of his shoulders and pulled him off the railing, shaking him. “Talk to me, damnit!”

“Michael, I…”

“There you two are!” Ellen poked her head out onto the porch and then joined them. “Thanks for inviting us over, Dean. It’s been too long.”

“No problem, Ellen.” Dean slid off the railing and hugged her. “Thanks for coming.”

“Everything okay? Oh, Dean, I wanted to talk to you about Michael’s Keller. You understand why I can’t use you in the test, don’t you? It’s nothing personal. I know you aren’t really a possessive guy, so I didn’t anticipate you taking it so hard. I’m sorry. That’s my fault. People always get possessive about their mates. I should have talked to you before the meeting instead of throwing it at you in public like that. You know I can’t put Cas in as Anchor either. The testers can’t have any kind of bond or Claim on the subject.” She seemed genuinely remorseful.

Dean sighed and looked at Michael. “Yeah, I get it Ellen. I overreacted. I’ve been meaning to come by and apologize more personally than I did that day. Do you mind if I ask who’s on the panel? Is it okay if Michael knows ahead of time?”

“I don’t see why it would matter as long as he doesn’t go get himself bonded to any of them before the test. Let’s see, it’s a standard, full-spread panel. I’ve got Adam doing the Lead-off leg, Jody’s the Bridge, and um, Rafael is going to be his Anchor.”

“You sure you want a standard spread?” Dean was quick to interject when a long-suffering look crossed the Omega’s face. She’d obviously argued this already. He put his hands up. “I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, but you have to know he’s going to fall in a weird place.”

“That’s what we suspect,” Ellen admitted, glancing at Michael who was looking out at the back lawn instead of at either of the two wolves discussing him. “But we don’t know anything. As long as the data’s clean, we’ll be able to triangulate his ratings from the spread on the slate. Is this really you asking, Dean, as a professional? Or is it you asking as his mate?”

“Beats me, Ellen. I’m just uneasy about it for some reason.”

“That makes two of us,” Michael said quietly.

Ellen patted his arm. “You’ll be fine, Michael. We’ve done this thousands of times. We’re not going to let anything bad happen to you.” Ellen’s professional voice was so soothing that Michael closed his eyes and let the comfort ease him. “Everyone in that house there,” Ellen continued, “has been through this process. Ask any of them about their experience if you want to. We’re all here to help you.”

“Can we move it up?” Michael asked her. “The anticipation is killing me.”

“I’ll see what I can do for you, Michael. The schedule gets fixed pretty far out, and changing it knocks people sideways in a lot of ways. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll check, okay?”

Ellen left them with a hug for each.

“That was the smoothest fucking thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Dean told his mate. Michael smirked at him.

“We’re not through talking, Winchester. You still owe me an explanation.” Michael stole a quick kiss, plunging his tongue briefly into Dean’s mouth before popping his ass with a swat and leaving him standing on the porch.

Dean re-entered the house to a barrage of sound. It was like an auction, and it took him a minute to realize what he was hearing. They were laying bets on Michael’s test scores. Michael stood by the food, leaning a hip into the counter and crunching through a carrot that he swiped through the dip after each bite. He had his resigned face on, and he was shaking his head slowly, practically muttering under his breath.

Dean tried not to laugh, but it was hard. He bit his cheek and went to stand next to his mate.

“What’s the running average?” Dean asked Jo.

“Most popular guesses are about negative seventeen, positive eight, positive twenty.”

Dean choked. “They know me, right? How does that make any sense? I’m ashamed that these people consider themselves professionals.”

“Shh, don’t talk too loud. I’ve got a hundred dollars riding on this, so I need the masses to stay ignorant.”

“What’s your guess, then?” Michael asked Jo.

Jo looked him up and down like she was just coming up with a rating right there on the spot. “I still say you’re a Central-O. Negative eleven, maybe. Barely Omega at all.”

“And the other ratings?” Michael had his own ideas too, but he wasn’t sharing.

“You two can’t bet, you know,” Jo pointed at Dean and Michael. “That would be cheating.”

“Says who?” Dean protested.

“We’re not letting any of the leadership team put money in, except for Meg because she threatened to break Charlie’s arm if we didn’t let her in the pot, and Charlie has a skiing trip coming up.”

“I’m not on the leadership team,” Michael pointed out.

“No way,” Jo insisted. “You still have way too much inside info, both of you.”

Michael cleared his throat. “You still haven’t told us what your full guess is.”

Jo considered him. “I guessed straight elevens across the board,” she admitted.

Dean shook his head at her and patted her on the back as he guided Michael back into the living room. “Better luck next time, Harvelle.”

“What? Wait, come back! What do you know? Dean!”

It was a great par… uh, get together. As it turned out, Garth hadn’t overbought on the beer, and Sam and Jess hadn’t overcounted the quesadillas.

Jody and Donna stopped by very briefly. They couldn’t leave the dorms unsupervised during the evening. Sonny made it clear he couldn’t babysit for more than an hour.

Dean accepted Jody’s hug in the full knowledge that the tightness he felt in his gut was his problem and not hers. She would Bridge for Michael because it was the job she’d been assigned to do. Dean took a deep breath and let the tension go as Sam stepped into Jody’s embrace in his stead.

“I thought you two were both lost causes but look at you now. I’m proud of you boys,” Jody gushed while Donna fetched them drinks from the porch. “Thanks,” Jody said, taking a beer from her Omega.

“Where’s the lucky girl, Sam?” Donna asked him.

“Oh, she’s over at the Euchre table. I tried to get her to circulate, but I think she’s hooked now. Come here, I’ll introduce you.” Sam dragged the two women in his wake and Jody smiled a goodbye to Dean.

Dean’s phone dinged with a text. It was from Cas.

“Exhausted. Going home. Can you have someone bring April? Don’t let anyone drive drunk.”

Dean hit the speed dial button and let himself into his bedroom.

“Dean.”

“She can just stay here tonight, Cas. You could drive over and stay too.”

“I need my own bed, Dean. I’m wiped out. If there’s no one sober enough to drive, I’ll swing by and pick her up myself.”

“S’okay. Jody and Donna are fine to drive, and they can’t stay long anyway. Your house is on the way back to The Facility, so I’ll ask Jody. Are you all right? You sound more than just tired.”

“I’ll be fine. There’s a lot happening all at once, and I’m stretched thinner than usual. My mother’s awful bill isn’t going away as fast as I thought it would, and it looks like the investigation into the Oklahoma explosion is going to dig into every competitor of Gordon’s, including us. It’s a lot of extra work on top of our usual.”

“Talk to me, Cas. What do you need?”

“I need my bed, a bowl of soup, and my mate. Not necessarily in that order.”

“You got it. I’ll send her home. Take care of yourself. I love you.”

“Love you too, Dean. I’ll be very happy when your month with Michael is over. This is turning into the longest four weeks of my life.” Cas sighed. “Not that I resent your time with him or anything. Please don’t go getting all self-sacrificing for me. Michael deserves your attention right now. I’m just…shit.”

Dean laughed. Castiel really was wiped if that’s where his head had gone. Dean usually knew he was thinking those thoughts, but the Alpha rarely let them slip out his mouth. “It’s okay, babe. I got it. I’m to stay here; April’s gotta go home. You get some soup and some sleep. No sex, no talking, straight to sleep, you hear me?” Dean teased.

“I hear you. Thanks, Dean.”

“G’night, Cas.” Dean hung up and pulled the soiled sheets off his bed.

Frikken’ animals.

He went back out to catch Jody and beg a ride for April. She agreed easily as he had known she would. Despite Michael’s assessment, Dean’s friends were good people.

Chapter Text

NOW:

Cas had just sat down with his hot bowl of soup and a slice of cornbread when April let herself and Jody in through the garage door.

“Thank you, Jody, he’s here,” April called back over her shoulder, coming into the kitchen.

Castiel stood and greeted the beta and his own mate. “Thank you for bringing her home, Jody. I appreciate it. Would you like a bowl of soup?”

“No, thank you, Sir. I need to get back to the dorm. Donna’s waiting for me in the car. I just wanted to make sure April got in all right.”

“Thanks again. Good night.”

“Night Cas. Good night, April.” Jody smiled warmly and closed the door behind her. Cas led his mate back to the kitchen.

“You’re tired, Alpha,” she accused. “And cranky. And you’ve bruised your hand. Is it anything you can tell me about?” April filled a wineglass for her mate and a water glass for herself before settling into a chair next to him and taking his hand to check his darkening knuckles. He pulled his hand back wordlessly and dove back into his meal. She thought he pushed himself too hard, and his many reminders that it wasn’t hers to manage did nothing to stop her from prodding him to slow down.

It would be pointless to pretend she wasn’t right. She could feel his emotions.

“I’m okay. Thanks for the wine. Are you hungry? Grab a bowl and join me.” She did so because he told her to, but she didn’t plan to eat much. Cheese puffs were more filling than she’d realized. The travel and the party had worn her out.

“Alpha, I hate to bring it up when I know you’re so tired, but I have to tell you…Dean spanked me tonight.” She made an anxious face at him as she confessed, more to do with the fact that she was laying another burden upon his tired shoulders than out of fear for herself. “I’m sorry, Sir. I shouldn’t have needed his correction, and I’m really embarrassed.”

“Tell me what happened, please.”

“Um…” This one was harder to confess to him because there wasn’t any way to say it that didn’t make her look petty and childish. “Jo and Jessica are maybe not going to be good friends. They sort of seemed to be at odds, a little bit, not that they were fighting, but well…”

“April, I’m not in the mood for a rambling narrative about Jessica and Jo. Does this have to do with what I witnessed before I left? Jo was rudely provoking Jessica and teasing Sam?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Well, then tell me what I missed. Please keep it brief.”

“I laughed at Jess, too, and I sort of took Jo’s side. I think I hurt Jessica’s feelings. Dean told me to stop being mean and to be respectful because she’s Pack.”

“And he spanked you? How many swats?” Cas rebuked himself for having missed it. He hadn’t been standing where he would have seen April’s face, but he had no excuse for not feeling her derision if it was there at the time. Evidently, Dean saw what Cas had missed.

“Just four.”

“Did he bare your bottom?”

“No, Sir.”

“Pssshh, that wasn’t a spanking. That was a shot across your bow. He’s right though. I’d have given you a real one right there if I’d seen it. April, you remember that I made you write out your pack oaths and give me an essay on what each one means?”

She nodded guiltily.

“You wrote beautifully about love and devotion and always putting the Pack first. You made me that oath, but I think you’ve forgotten it already.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.”

“I’m too tired to handle this tonight, Kitten. I’m sorry to leave you hanging, but I need to get some sleep first. We’ll clear your tally board tomorrow morning, and I’ll add whatever I need to to help you remember that Pack always has each other’s backs, even over good friends. You know, you didn’t need to choose sides at all.”

“I’m sorry, Sir.” She hoped saying it again would help drive it home. She saw it in a different light now, and it made her wonder what Jo’s problem was.

April really was sorry.

Cas nodded and went back to his soup. April took small sips of hers.

“Alpha?” she said into the near silence after a while.

“Yes, Kitten?”

“Is Dean okay? He doesn’t seem like himself. Do you think he’s upset about Sam and Jess Mating?”

“I think he’s ecstatic about his brother finding his mate, but…” Cas put down his spoon and sighed deeply. “No, sweetheart, he’s not okay. He’s going through something very scary right now.”

“Is it something I can help with?”

“No, it’s not. And in fact, you’re to stay out of it. Far out. If I get a whiff that you’ve been meddling in Dean’s affairs, you and I will have morning meetings with your favorite morning ritual and in your favorite position for two weeks.”

“Sir? I don’t understand. Didn’t you just tell me to always have my Pack’s back?”

“This is different. You’re not stupid, April. You see more that goes on around this Pack than anyone realizes. God knows what you see from me, but you always know what I need before I do. I’m talking about Dean’s deepest insecurities, and you can’t help him. He has to face this himself. He’s the only one who can make a difference in the end.”

“Are you still getting married?” she asked him in a small, frightened voice. Castiel wanted to comfort her, but he knew how vulnerable they all were right now to the tides of Dean’s waxing fears.

“I hope so, April, but it’s really up to Dean. I can’t help him either. All I can do is try to be there to give him what he needs. I can’t make him take it.”

“But what will happen to the Pack if he leaves you? What will happen to Michael? Why would he do that? He loves you!”

“Shhh. We’re a long way from any of that happening. It’s not something to worry too much about. He loves me, and he loves you. You just keep being you. I need you to know that no matter what happens, it has nothing to do with you or me or Michael or Sam. This is Dean fighting the demons in his own head. You can’t do anything to make it better, so just try to stay out of the way when you sense…whatever it is you’re sensing. I swear you have a sixth sense about people.” Castiel pulled her in and cuddled her, holding her close while he finished eating. He noticed hers was still virtually untouched.

“You didn’t have to serve yourself a bowl that you didn’t want. It was just a suggestion.”

“I wanted to share a meal with you.”

“Go on up to bed. I’ll be up in a minute.”

“I’d like to help you clean up, sir.”

“Nope. Bed. Right now.”

She kissed him and disappeared before he decided she was dawdling.

Castiel buried his face in his hands and fought the urge to cry. Dean couldn’t be strong right now, he reminded himself. Cas needed to be strong for him.

God bless Michael.

At least the Omega was holding himself together. Michael had to know something was brewing behind those sun-dappled freckles, but he was standing fast, manning the rigging, or the wheel, or … something nautical. God, Cas was tired.

His row with Bobby had been brief but epic, although by tomorrow the drywall would be repaired. Thankfully, aside from Bobby, there had been no witnesses. Cas and Bobby would behave professionally as if nothing had happened.

Castiel blamed it on his fatigue that he considered throwing in the towel, selling out his shares and walking away with his family to somewhere he could give them all the attention they deserved.

Sleep. That’s what he needed.

Cas dumped his bowl with April’s in the sink and rinsed them out. Then he picked up the rest of the ware from the table but left it all on the counter. Fred would find it, and it would all be gone by the time Cas came down in the morning. He heard his mother’s cold voice over his own objections, saying, Don’t be stupid, Castiel, that’s what we pay the staff for. It’s not for the better classes to wallow in the filthy sink.

He felt dizzy, holding on to the edge of the counter, trying to decide whether to wash the dishes just to piss off his mother or go to bed.

Bed won.

Castiel lost himself in the warm, comforting scent of Omega. Of mate. His hips rutted sleepily into her as he spooned her close and drifted away. His body and his mind sought fulfillment in the hazy moments before sleep enveloped him, in the brief interlude when he dropped all of his walls.

Pups.

She could carry several at once. Castiel was already floating on the delta waves, but his hand swiped low across her belly which would expand to an almost unbelievable size as she waddled about, growing his pups within her beautiful body. “Mmm,” he hummed.

“Shhh, you’re doing it again, Alpha. Go to sleep, now. I’m right here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered drowsily back at her.

“Have you ever been whipped, April?” Castiel asked his mate calmly in the morning. She had fifteen tally marks for the week, which meant seventy-five hard swats, but he’d thought about how to address that she deliberately chose to side against her own Pack in a senseless minor squabble. No matter how petty, nor how close the friend she’d sided with, that couldn’t happen again.

Pack must always come first.

He’d switched her and she’d responded beautifully to that, but he thought her progress through his training sessions was going well, and it was time to take another step upward.

“No, Sir. Never. You mean, like with a real whip? Like Indiana Jones?” She knelt on the padded floor of Castiel’s playroom early this morning. He hadn’t called in to work yet, but he was strongly considering doing just that. He’d already made her wait overnight. He wasn’t going to put it off any longer. That wasn’t fair to the Omega. She needed what she needed when she needed it, and it was his job to provide.

Work might have to wait. I shoved it to the back of his mind. She needed his full attention.

“Well, not as long as that, but essentially, yes. Here’s mine. Take it. Feel it. See what it smells like. I am going to use this whip on your back today, Omega. This is to address the matter you told me about yesterday. Do I need to explain why I’m going to this length over such a petty squabble? After all, your second-ranked alpha did not even see fit to chastise you properly at the time.”

“No, Sir. I understand.” She handed the short whip back to him. It looked…deadly, to April.

“Then tell me.”

April was naked in her kneeling position. She kept her eyes on his. She put her palms flat on her thighs. Her toes were poised beneath her, helping her to stay off-balance enough that she needed to focus constantly.

“I promised you and the Pack to never forsake the members of Pack Winchester under any circumstances. Sir, I broke that oath for no good reason at all.”

“I agree. Aside from the split infinitive, well said. I’m pleased that you remember your oath so well. Rise and lay over the bench as I’ve shown you.”

She put herself in place. Castiel didn’t say anything further. Her spankings had become routine. He began with his hand. These warmup strikes hurt, and they added to the sting, but they didn’t count toward her total from the tally board. They were purely for prep, and he would continue until he felt she was thoroughly prepared physically, emotionally, mentally for the next step.

Often this stage was the longest of all.

He let the sound echo from the corners of the room without additional commentary. Castiel had awakened much more refreshed. He was up to this, and he intended to do it right. He still needed to hunt Gabriel up before he left. He knew his brother was in the house somewhere, he could feel his presence through their waning Claim. But the Omega was in hiding.

April’s butt was a beautiful pink above the lasting bruises that never faded completely. She was learning to hold position without flinching through the harshest strikes, but she still struggled to get her breathing patterns as fluid as he wanted them.

She was improving rapidly.

Today’s routine was going to challenge her. He intended to push no further than she could handle, but a part of him thrilled in anticipation.

What if she took it all? Dared he to hope?

What she lacked in practiced technique, April made up for in raw stamina and willpower. Castiel struck her ass again and again until alphas or even betas would be wailing and begging. She huffed. And that one foot just wouldn’t stop twitching like it still wanted to kick up, even after months of rigorous training. But she didn’t break, and she didn’t cry, not from a hand spanking.

Not anymore.

It had all gelled nicely over the last couple of weeks; that last intense round in the hotel suite with his belt buckle cinched it, and she was his now in more ways than he knew how to count. It wasn’t that she had become immune to the pain, it was that she had learned how to funnel it through her body and feed her psyche on the energy of each strike, like a form of photosynthesis, like a coalescing of wills.

At last, Castiel stopped and rubbed his palm with his other hand. It never failed to hurt him too.

“How many tally marks did you count this morning, Omega?”

“Fifteen, Sir.” Her voice was foggy and distant. That was fine. He didn’t mind if she was floating in subspace. His message would reach her there. He had his bond-connection with her to help him break through.

“And how many strikes with your slipper does that mean?”

“Seventy-five, Sir. I take five for each mark.”

“All right, then. I’m prepared to deliver all of them to you right now so that you may be forgiven.” Castiel modulated his tone to cast it into a meaningful range that would speak to all of her designations. “April. Omega,” he intoned. “I am quite displeased with you. You’ve broken my Rules, and I am betrayed by your behavior. I would very much like to forgive you for your misdeeds, but I cannot until you’ve atoned to me for all of them.” His voice was loud and stern.

She cringed and squeezed the sudden moisture from her eyes. It was a ruse to trick her body into Releasing. She knew it was, but it hurt as if it was real. Her Alpha made it real, and she cried out when the first slap of her own house slipper cracked across her backside on top of the red, stinging marks he’d left with his hand.

Tears came instantly.

This was so much worse. April let herself yelp into the strokes as they fell, one on top of the other in rapid succession. The pain was an illusion. It was like those tricks on the computer where one region looked darker than the other but in reality they were all the same color. April’s ass could take so much more than this, but knowing that her Alpha was disappointed, knowing she was in a state of forced atonement, April lost it like always.

The heat built. The pain built. The intensity pouring off her Alpha built until it exploded through her body. She Released with a loud, shrill wail, and her punishment went on until the Alpha reached seventy-five. A ruse it might be, but if he promised her seventy-five, she would get seventy-five, even if she Released after four.

April lay out on the bench, letting the hard structure hold her weight. Castiel regarded her with a cold visage. He had more work to do. It would be new and challenging, but he had no intention of making her face it alone. He maintained the mien she needed from him to make it through. He let her catch her breath.

“All right. On your feet, Omega. You need to stand for this next part. If I thought you weaker than I do, I would bind you to the St. Andrew’s so that you didn’t need to stand on your own, but I believe in you, April Renée. Place yourself just there. Face the boards. Put your hands up on the handles out to either side. Take your time.”

April stood slowly. He believed in her. She’d atoned for her minor misdeeds for the week. She’d felt the fuzzy tension rush out of her body. Her head felt clear and right again. Now she only needed to pay him for breaking her oath. It was all she had left. She could do this.

April held his eye as she moved into position until she broke contact with him to lean in against the sleek wooden cross, face forward into the smooth-sanded boards. The cross stood at a tilt which she used to help her support herself. Her legs shook. But he believed in her. He hadn’t told her a count yet. She knew he would. This was new. He had a certain routine whenever he introduced something new.

“April Renée?”

“I can do it, Sir.”

She felt him filter through her head again and brush a mental touch across her flank. He was assessing the truth of her claim. If she was overstating her capacity, he would be displeased, but he wouldn’t punish her. He would stop the scene and cuddle her close, giving affection as freely as he did pain. She didn’t want his affection yet though.

She wanted to fly.

“You’re getting four, Omega, and it’s going to hurt a bit like when I used the buckle-end of my belt…a bit worse perhaps. You will bleed, but you can do this. Breathe out for me. And in. Good girl. Out….and in. Here we go. Do not move.”

Cas took a deep breath of his own. He needed to swing true, or he could hurt her. The irony of fearing one type of injury while deliberately causing another was never lost on Castiel Novak. His life was irony. He routinely traversed the razor-thin edge between abuse and care, and he never did it without both eyes and all of his focus homed in on all the ways it could go wrong.

Castiel swung and popped the whip exactly where he meant it to land square in the middle of her beautiful, supple young back with a loud SNAP! She gripped the handles and flung her head back, screaming in pain as a deep stripe welled up with a red line across her back.

Castiel went deep into his bond with her and checked every corner and every crevice. If she was hiding anything at all, he would find it. But she was glorying in the white-hot streak of divine agony.

Good god, she was incredible!

Castiel re-set his stance and he swung again, laying a second stripe lower than the first.

She screamed again, and her legs wobbled, but then they steadied and held her.

Castiel didn’t talk about it much, but inside him, a true sadist lurked in the dark, moist confines of his mind. Watching someone take the pain he doled out and then steady themselves and wait for more brought color high on his cheeks and filled his cock with deep, strong, base arousal.

Good, glorious god, she was beautiful. He’d worried she would break under the whip, her body weaker perhaps than her will.

But she was taking it.

And she wasn’t running away.

Castiel maintained his control. As heady a feeling as this was, a Top could never give over to the sensations the way the Bottom could. It was a luxury the Alpha was denied. He had to hold her safe through the ordeal. He had to watch over her. Soon she would be able to take more. Soon he would set her free to fly away on a river of white-hot pain that melted her mind and let her free of her body, but not yet.

She wasn’t flying just yet.

Castiel re-set his stance again. Her shoulders shuddered. He aimed, and he struck. Like swatting a fly, the new stripe appeared right where a ripple of muscle had just worked across her shoulders. The beginning of her scream was silent before slowly lowering into audible range and echoing from the high rafters. She shook her body against the hold of her hands, but she didn’t flee, and she didn’t fall.

She didn’t beg out loud, but there was a keening plea inside his head.

Castiel wasn’t going in to work today. He would work from home. He could take his laptop with him into bed and stay with his Omega all day, petting her, feeding her, keeping her warm and safe, listening to her mumble in her sleep.

“One more, my beautiful Omega. You are exquisite in your strength and your pain. You are lovely in your agony. You are more than absolved, my love. You are more than forgiven.” The words tumbled out of him, another touch of reality for her to cling to, as tangible as the steel in her grip. “You put me and all of my ilk to shame in your sublime perfection, and I am humbled by you. Hold fast now, and give me… Just. One. More.”

Castiel swung and struck between his first blow and his third. She screamed a fourth time and shuddered against her hold before losing her battle to stay upright and sinking like a fluid to the floor. The Alpha dropped the whip and caught her as she fell. He carried her to the big bed in the middle of the room, laying her out on her belly.

He held her close for long, wistful minutes. They were too fleeting, and the price to get to this place too dear to make it a frequent excursion. He watched her through their link as she flew above his head, lost in the clouds, no longer on Earth at all, and he longed to fly beside her. That flight wasn’t for him though. He hadn’t paid the fare. He didn’t have it in him to pay that fare.

All he could do was witness. And marvel.

She came back slowly, blinking and flinching, twitching. He helped her drink some juice, and he let her suck on an ice cube.

He bandaged her wounds, but he snapped a picture with his phone first.

He knew she would ask to see when she was back on the ground again. She always wanted to see.

She murmured too softly for him to hear, so he leaned in close to her face, smelling the sweet dankness of her sweat. “Knot me, please. Please, Alpha,” she whispered. “Knot….me….” she seemed to have passed out, but he found her awake through the bond, poised in a state of waiting, not asleep or unconscious.

Castiel’s erection hadn’t flagged.

As much as it pained his mother, this is what Alpha Novak truly was, had always been since his wolf emerged—a bestial monster who fucked bleeding, broken young Omegas and loved it. He bared himself, knelt above her, fell forward onto his hands and worked his cock into her wet channel. The beast kept himself well clear of her bandaged back. He could see bruises spreading from under the bandages, and he refused to touch them.

They were sacred.

Her ass was a deep purple already, the slipper used to good effect, and his movements into and out of her channel in a circular grind lit her ass up from the inside and the outside both. The Omega moaned obscenely, shamelessly. Without asking permission, working on credit that was hers to pull from, she pushed against him and sought pleasure for herself. He rocked into her, copying her moans and grunts point-for-point. Their Mating-bond fed them an endless feedback loop. Castiel reached a hand beneath her and placed his fingers in firm position for her to rut against and rut she did. She pulled up on wide knees and ground against his hand, working sparks and waves of pleasure from her clit, up her spine, behind her closed eyes, back down to her Omega gland, through the Mating-bond and into her mate’s head.

He keened high and long, and he picked up the pace, knowing he wouldn’t last long. Neither would she, and she needed to rest and heal. The Alpha was in an awkward, tripod position with one hand too centered to hold his weight well letting her work herself against his fingers, and the rest of his weight on his very tired right arm, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through.

His knot popped into position, so he was reduced to grinding circles instead of deep thrusts. His groin pulled with a pulsing pleasure, his balls tightened, and all too soon the Alpha was coming with a gravelly grunt that developed into a yell as he emptied.

His Omega never stilled against his fingers until she too, let go with a powerful climax. She whimpered into it, stopping against his hand, but keeping pressure on the spot until the last of the waves faded away. Then she melted into the soft bedding and went elsewhere.

Castiel sent a prayer of thanks up into the Universe, an ironic rarity for him. He rolled his beautiful mate to her side, and he wrapped her up in his strong body, holding her, protecting her while she slept, careful not to touch her upper back with any pressure.

He kept one arm across her belly and stroked her down low on the abdomen.

He froze.

He was doing it again.

Castiel wanted to fill her with his fertile seed so badly he could taste it, but it wasn’t time yet. Adult responsibilities, he reminded himself like a mantrum. Adult responsibilities. April would look ravishing with his litter in her belly. Her face would glow with health and youth. Her strong supple body could take anything.

Well, almost anything.

There were still things he’d done with Dean’s body that he would never dare do to April, but she’d proven this morning that she held a power within her that rivalled and could humble the strongest Dominant. Those who thought Omegas weak didn’t know what Castiel knew. They’d never received the gift of deep Submission and unfailing trust.

Omegas weren’t weak.

Submissives weren’t weak.

They were strong. So very strong.

Castiel buried his nose in the hair at the nape of his mate’s neck and he scented her until he followed her back to sleep. He wouldn’t be going to work today.

“God, fuck! Rachel, sweetie, yeah, I miss you, but I’m not coming back. You’ll be fine. Just tell him I’m okay. Where does he get these crazy ideas?”

Michael paused as his sister spoke through the phone he held to his ear on the back porch.

He picked up when she paused, “I know. Too much fucking television. You know, I wouldn’t put it past him to be secretly reading trash novels about abused Omegas.” Michael ran a hand into his hair and then held it there, gripping his hair between his fingers. He sighed deeply. “Look, if you want me to, I’ll come get you. There’s room here. I know my new Alpha would help us out. You could go to school up here, get a job.”

She had something to say that Michael didn’t especially like, and he deflated, sinking onto a plastic chair on Dean’s back porch, the early morning sunlight much gentler than it would be later in the day.

“All right. It’s up to you, just remember, the offer stands. Any time, Rachel. Any time at all, if you change your mind, I’m there. Just think about it. What he’s doing to you, what he did to us? There’s another way. You don’t have to… Yeah, okay. Take care of yourself. Take care of Mommy. I miss you.” Michael leaned back and let his head crane back uncomfortably. “I love you, too.”

And then the phone clicked, and she was gone.

Dean was up and showering when Michael returned, so he joined his mate in the shower. The image the alpha presented, with soap running in foaming clusters down his broad wet back, over his beautiful ass, down and around the curves of his thighs, knees, lovely perfectly turned calves. brought Michael to full mast in an instant. He growled, stepping through the glass door, and pulling it closed.

Dean didn’t turn around. He knew Michael was behind him before he felt the cold rush of invading air or heard him vocalize his arousal, and Dean smirked. Sometimes Dean bratted to get a reaction, but sometimes, like right now, he just craved the simplicity of a straightforward fuck.

Shower sex was easy. Everyone’s already naked, and there are plenty of ways to get a good angle. The only real tricks were not slipping, getting the lube to stay in place, and keeping your knees from bruising if you needed to get down there.

Dean used the corner of the shower to support his weight. He leaned in on his elbows and presented his ass to his Dominant. It helped that Dean’s libido insisted on a two-person shower with separate shower heads and handholds at varying heights along that corner. Planning ahead was key to playing safely, planning ahead and good strong wall anchors.

Lubricant was a different matter. Omegas didn’t need to worry. They produced a constantly replenished store from the inside, so no matter how much got washed away by the flowing water, they stayed fuckable. Dean was not Omega. Neither was Dean averse to pain, but that didn’t mean he could afford the damage of a lubeless fuck. If their play led to tearing, Cas was going to bench Dean until the rips healed, and he didn’t want that.

No one wanted that.

Michael leaned in and ran his hands over Dean’s back, butt, thighs, between them and back up to tighten a hold on his balls, making Dean suck in a breath and drop his head against the corner tiles.

Dean widened his stance and bit his lip in anticipation.

Michael sucked another bruise into the back of Dean’s neck where bruises are hard to pull. He used his teeth to grind out a good reaction beneath the surface. If the Dom wanted to lodge a mark there, by god, there’d be a mark there. He examined his work and kissed over it with gentle lips, continuing to knead Dean’s heavy sack with one hand. He worshiped his mate’s body with his mouth and his breath long enough to have Dean whining into his corner, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Be still, baby. I’ve got you. Trust me. I’m gonna make you feel so good.” Michael’s whispers straight into Dean’s ear tickled the little hairs and sent a shudder all the way down to his feet. Dean stilled, letting a long slow breath out to fog the tiles in front of his face.

Michael adjusted the spray from the two heads so that one was directed down Dean’s chest, and the other would cascade across Michael’s back when he…

Michael sank down Dean’s body to rest on his knees, using his alpha’s strong thighs for support. He massaged the glorious meat of his mate’s ass between his hands, and then separated those perfect cheeks and ran his flat tongue in one long motion from behind Dean’s balls, up the taint, over his fluttering rim, and then past to end the swipe at the divot at the top of Dean’s ass. Dean whimpered, widened his stance, and bent his knees outward.

“Oh, you like that?” Michael teased. Dean nodded vigorously. He wanted to say Yes, Sir as he knew he should, but the words didn’t want to come out.

“Want me to do it again?” Michael’s firm grip on Dean’s butt tightened in preparation, and his mate responded by angling his hips back just a little bit more.

He was so beautifully presenting to his Dom that Michael had to let go of one cheek and press a flat palm to his own need.

“Jesus, fuck! Me, too,” Michael told him. He went back in for another swipe. The water running down Dean’s chest kept him warm, teased his cock, and gave Michael just a bit of a challenge when it tried to fill his mouth at the initial contact way up front, but he soldiered through. He licked Dean just like that over and over again. Dean was practically vibrating in place with impatience, but he didn’t beg.

Michael watched his inner turmoil with amusement through their bond. His Sub was so well trained that none of the fight to maintain control that went on inside the Sub’s mind was visible from the outside.

And while it hadn’t been Michael who taught Dean to behave like this, he would take it. As good as the Sub was being for him, Michael loved the fact that only he would ever get the chance to see both the struggle and the result.

He decided it was time to move on, so he pointed his tongue and drove it deep into his mate’s hole, pushing against the tight ring of muscles there, ignoring the pain in his knees. Dean whined and shoved back against him. Michael halted his motion with a warning through the bond, and Dean responded by going lax and thumping his head into the corner.

Ouch. That had to hurt.

Michael was feeling generous, so he tongue-fucked his mate with power and aggression, delving deep, pulling Dean’s hips into his thrusts to get more depth. Dean opened up for him willingly. With each pass of the Omega’s tongue, the muscles relaxed and welcomed him in.

Michael was in heaven. If there was a heaven, the only things that would be different there from here would be the hardness of the tiles beneath his knees and the stamina of the muscles in his tongue. He wore out before he felt finished, and he released Dean with regret and longing that Dean mirrored.

The alpha wasn’t fully prepped yet. Michael wanted to take him hard, but he didn’t want to hurt his mate. Dean’s body was young and elastic enough that tearing wasn’t likely, but he wasn’t built for intrusion without a burning stretch and an ache. Michael wanted to avoid that. He reached behind his own hard cock and carefully collected the copious slick before it mixed with shower water and became too diluted to use. Then he stood behind his mate, draped himself over Dean’s back and pushed two slick fingers slowly into his ass.

The sound that came out of Dean’s mouth really didn’t have a name. It was raw pure lust. Was it a moan or a whine? A whimper? Michael pulled out and pushed in to see if he could hear it again.

No, this one was different. This one was higher, definitely a whine. Michael resolved to hear them all, so he fucked his mate over and over again on his fingers and listened to him sing. Still Dean didn’t beg, although Michael could tell he wanted to.

Michael had learned his mate’s real affinities through practice and play. He knew what Dean liked—what Dean really liked. And alpha Dean Winchester liked to be fucked. Michael didn’t know if it was because he was also a Sub, but as they played, as they learned each other, he came to realize that Dean’s propensity to Bottom wasn’t only something that came up when he Subbed for Michael.

Even when he lay with Michael as an alpha, or as a simple, human man, unless sparked to Claim or please his partner’s wishes, Dean preferred to have a cock thrumming away inside him over thrusting his own into anyone or anything.

Yeah, that’s enough prep.

Michael shook himself out of his reverie. He collected more slick and doused Dean’s relaxed, widened rim with it, then he spread it over his own flesh, giving himself a couple of completely unnecessary pumps. Michael held Dean’s hip and his own cock and pressed forward into the delicious tight warmth of his mate’s hole, letting the rhythm of Dean’s clenching pull him deeper and welcome him home.

He held for a few breaths after he bottomed out, and he re-greased the base of his cock where he could get to it. It wasn’t going to be enough lube. The shower was too damp, too humid to keep the slick in place, but he snickered when he felt Dean warning him through the bond not to stop over a simple thing like chafing.

“Or what?” he whispered into Dean’s ear, and Dean smirked over his shoulder, not meeting his eye.

Then Michael fucked him.

Fingers went white around the shower’s handholds. Elbows ground into the tiles for purchase and turned red and sore. A foot slipped precariously and had to be quickly set right before they lost their balance. Michael dug finger-bruises, five of them on each hip, into Dean’s flesh as he pounded into his mate in a hot, wet, steaming rhythm of slapping skin and flinging water. The friction pulled at Michael’s flesh, and it dragged at Dean’s rim.

They should stop.

They needed to re-lube.

They should move this somewhere else.

But it felt. So. Fucking. Good.

Dean surprised Michael by coming untouched and unexpected. He doused the corner with long streams of white, sticky come, his hips thrusting involuntarily into the motions of Michael’s fucking. His asshole clenched rhythmically around Michael’s cock, and the pull, the friction, the heat, the sounds from Dean’s throat as he lost it drove Michael crazy.

The Dom jerked Dean hard against himself, driving in as far as he could go. It was a knotting without the knot. It was a Claim-fuck in miniature right there at the end, and Dean felt his body respond to the Claim renewal with a burst of warmth and a crackly tightening across his skin.

He made a noise like a sob, but it was built from unadulterated, unrestrained, unleashed joy.

Michael came into Dean’s sore ass, at last providing an injection of the lubrication they’d needed now that it was no longer needed. He rested his chin on Dean’s shoulder and panted as his hips twitched through their last involuntary thrusts.

“I wish you had a channel for me to fill, my love,” Michael whispered as he registered that the water was cooling rapidly. “I want to fill you up with pups.” Dean huffed and leaned the side of his head against his mate’s. Michael’s cock softened and slipped out, followed by a slimy flow of come that ran down Dean’s legs to be washed away by the cooling water.

They finished up quickly, motivated by the loss of warmth and Sam’s pounding on the bathroom door, pissed that there was no hot water left in the house.

“Go back to bed, Sam! Fuck her again, and then shower in a couple of hours!” Dean hollered at him through the locked door.

They’d made it through the morning. Dean made sandwiches in the kitchen. He and Michael had worked hard all morning packing up Dean’s household belongings and getting their suitcases ready to make the permanent switch to Alpha’s house.

They still hadn’t broached the subject of Dean’s recurring unease again. It was an elephant in the room. The damned elephant wouldn’t leave Dean alone. It followed him wherever he went with its lumbering trunk and wide, swaying steps.

Michael accepted a plate from his mate with a hard look. He knew Dean didn’t want to talk about it, but the alpha hadn’t denied there was something eating at him either. Dean met his eye, and Michael felt an acknowledgement stroke his irritation, but neither of them said anything out loud.

Sam and Jess stayed out of the way. They kept mostly to Sam’s room, although they both emerged for breakfast and lunch. Sam’s halfhearted offer to help Dean pack earned him a pointed look over his shoulder into the bedroom where his beta mate lay awaiting his return and a roll of Dean’s eyes. Sam didn’t argue the point.

At lunchtime, Dean broke out the electrolyte-laced sports drinks. Constant fucking burns a lot of calories and depletes a wolf’s body of important fluids and minerals. Sam accepted a flat of Gator-aide and took it back to his room with him while Jess carried the sandwiches behind him. They looked tired, Dean thought.

And they both needed a shower. He snickered about that.

Dean and Michael ate in silence at the kitchen table. Dean was wistful. He was going to miss this house. It was Sam’s now. They’d drawn up the papers, and Dean had grudgingly accepted a sales price from his brother of about one-quarter what the house was worth. Sam wanted to pay full price, but Dean insisted it had always been half Sam’s, and he didn’t owe anything because Dean was moving to a bigger place cost-free.

Plus, Dean had never paid a dime for the house either. It had been a gift. Somehow, somewhere in their arguments, they’d settled on one-fourth of the value and a deed exchange to clear the legal aspect of probate’s assumption that the alpha in the family inherited all property by default. It didn’t make any sense to either of them, but it was the only number they could agree to, and the only way to get Sam to shut the fuck up and sign the damned papers.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, exactly, but Dean could feel Michael working himself up to break it, and Dean wasn’t ready for that.

He put his hand on Michael’s on the table. “Let’s just get through our talk with Cas and then go from there. Okay? Please? Michael, I need you to trust me. I know I’m confusing you. If you’re wondering if I’m having second thoughts, I’m not. I’m really not. Okay?”

Michael knew he was being dismissed, and he didn’t like it. “This isn’t what we agreed to, alpha. You told me to tell you everything, and I know you’re hiding something from me. Something’s tearing you up, and you won’t tell me what it is. How can I help you if I don’t know what you’re thinking?” The Omega turned his hand over beneath Dean’s and clutched it.

Dean’s expression said everything. He was close to panicking, close to breaking. He clutched Michael back and looked at his beloved mate’s face, pain written clearly in his eyes.

Dean looked away.

“Hey! Look at me!” Michael shook their joined hands.

“I can’t, Michael. I’m not ready to talk about it. I will be, but not yet. I’m not leaving you. I can feel how I’m scaring you, and I’m so, so sorry. Michael, listen! I’m not leaving you. Not ever. I will always be here for you. I’m going to give you all the pups you want. I’ll give you everything. Baby, please don’t be afraid.”

“I want to trust you, Dean, but everything you’re saying feels wrong.”

“Please trust me. I’ll explain everything, but let’s just get through today. I have to know what he’s going to say. Maybe I’m all worked up for nothing.”

“This is about asking Castiel to allow us to try for pups?”

“Sort of.” Dean met Michael’s eyes tentatively. “And I’m not asking him for permission, damnit. Damnit!”

Michael watched his mate as Dean calmed himself back down. He couldn’t make heads or tails of Dean’s emotions. He was everywhere. What did Dean need from him right now? His mate wasn’t in a Sub mentality. He seemed front-brain and stable there, but he was in so much turmoil, there was pain a layer or two down that just seemed bottomless, and it showed through his eyes.

Michael didn’t know what to do.

Should he press his mate, or would that just send him deeper?

“Do you need me to spank you, baby?” he tried. “Would that help?”

Dean scoffed through his nose, leaned back and fitted the inside of his elbow across his eyes. “No. That’s not gonna help this time, but thanks for the offer.” It could’ve been interpreted from the outside as snarky backtalk, but Michael felt Dean’s authenticity. He meant it.

Michael sighed and gave in. “I don’t know how to help you, and you’re not making it any easier. I don’t really have much of a choice but to trust you, do I? I’m just the Omega here. All the real choices are yours.”

Dean’s bitch-face would’ve made his brother proud had he been there to see it. When had the alpha ever treated his mate like he held no power between them?

“Come on, Michael. Let’s get lunch cleaned up and pack up the car. Sam and Jess are back at it again, and I’ve about smelled all the estrogen I can stand.”

In the back room, a rhythmic, harmonic grunting matched the thumping of the headboard on the wall, and Dean was glad it would no longer be his responsibility to touch up the wallboard and paint.

Someone had once told him that betas don’t go into Heat, but that someone had obviously not met Samuel and Jessica Winchester.

Dean and Michael pulled into the garage with their luggage in Baby’s trunk at just after four that afternoon. Dean led his Omega back into the house they kept trying to avoid. “I guess we’re home to stay now, babe,” said Dean to his surly mate. With predictable inevitability, Michael had grumbled about being the ones to have to leave the house they’d been granted refuge in. It was supposed to be for the month, but who could’ve predicted that Sam would fall only a couple of weeks after Dean did.

Dean planned to ignore Michael’s selfishness unless it raised its head as more than a general, grumbling irritation. He could bring his mate around with a good blowjob. That always put a smile on Michael’s face. Plus, this house had the benefit of not requiring as much upkeep.

The grocery shopping mostly did itself, for example. Loose socks accidentally left on the landing washed and dried themselves, folded themselves, and tucked themselves tidily back into their drawer. It was a magic house. Not that Dean planned to take advantage of that fact. There was plenty of work for the small staff to do without needing to collect his dirty whites and wash his dishes.

But still.

They didn’t expect to find anyone at home on a Wednesday at four in the afternoon. April still had class. Castiel always had work. So, it was a surprise to discover the couple in the playroom, talking through a scene. Cas had April up in the swing. She was dressed. They weren’t doing anything but talking it through, but Michael blushed anyway.

Dean laughed at him and shoved his shoulder in a good-natured tease.

“I think you’re taking this sister thing too far, man. You need to get used to it. I know that Alpha, and he’s not gonna keep it behind closed doors.”

“He always did for you, didn’t he, Dean?”

“Well, yeah, but that’s because of my hang-up. He’s not an asshole. Much.” Dean added that last as he embraced his welcoming Alpha just to get the swat on his ass he wanted. Castiel obliged him with a smile.

“What are you doing home, Cas? Thought you were so buried in work you couldn’t take an evening off, much less the day.” Dean leaned in and kissed him then released him to help April down. She squeaked when he touched her back, and Dean’s brows shot up.

“I worked from home today, Dean. I got a lot accomplished, and we’re taking a break. I still have several hours to put in to get caught up.”

Dean worked April’s top up to her shoulders while Castiel talked, and he whistled at the extensive bandaging that didn’t hide her bruises. “This have anything to do with you staying home today?” he asked.

“Yes. April needed me close.”

“You okay?” Dean asked her. He trusted Cas with his own body, but he worried about the Omega. Cas never lost control entirely, but sometimes the wolf needed a meal, and he let his wolf go when he felt it was safe enough to do so. Dean knew he could take it himself—wanted to take it—but he didn’t yet know about April.

What if Cas and his wolf misjudged her capacity?

She radiated joy back at him, so he smiled and chucked her gently on the chin. “You be careful in there, okay? Promise?”

“I promise. We experimented with the whip today. You should’ve seen me, Dean. It was glorious.” April wrapped an arm around his waist and snuggled. Dean didn’t know where to put his arm. Her back was a mess, so he settled for placing a hand on the back of her neck instead.

“Since you’re home,” Michael introduced awkwardly. “We’re moving in today for good. Dean’s given up our space so Sam and his new mate can have it.”

“Her name’s Jess,” Dean reminded him.

“Right. Jess. Jessica. Whatever. Alpha, can we please speak to you before you go back to work? Do you have a few minutes? No rush. Finish whatever you’re doing here, of course. I mean…that is…of course you’ll finish here first. I wasn’t trying to tell you what to do, Sir. I just meant, when you have time. I, um…” Michael blushed crimson as he slowed to a stop and realized they were all laughing at him.

“I’ll be in the living room,” he groused and slunk out.

Castiel turned to his fiancé. “Dean?”

“Yeah, Cas. We want to go back over what we brought up before the trip. You know, about pups. Can you spare us a few minutes?”

“Of course. My office?”

“Wherever. Lead the way. Let’s get Michael.”

“April, please stay here and do your afternoon exercises. You can skip seven through ten because of your back. I want it healed before it takes any pressure.”