Chapter 29
“My bark is worse than my bite,” Rémy said. “I do have a temper, but I blow and get over it quickly. My Ian knows enough to yell back. I don’t hold grudges unless someone hurts my Ian.”
At that point Alexei finally left his old life behind. He knew then he would gladly follow these wolves, and he’d be a better loup garou for the experience.
“This I can understand. I don’t want Donal hurt again. That’s the reason for the drama. I’m sorry to have dragged you all from your beds, but he was going to leave me for the street. I couldn’t let that happen.”
* * * *
“No, you couldn’t,” Sean said in a firm voice. “Let us take him up to your suite and talk to him. Have Katya bring up some real food for him and some pastries for us. He’s too thin and it’s not a good idea to postpone the mating.”
Sean and the others left the dining room and went up to the study. They found Donal sitting on the couch, his eyes vacant.
“Donal, please come down to the suite with us. You promised Alexei you would listen.” Kane subtly guided him down the stairs.
“I won’t let you talk me into hurting him,” he mumbled. “I love him too much to let you do that.” Sean smiled. Even intellectually knowing that wolves had superior hearing, they all mumbled.
* * * *
When they got down to the suite, Katya was waiting with some American Stew for Donal and pastries for the Mates. “James Beard,” she said proudly. “Boris bought book. I read the English.” Sean didn’t have the heart to tell her Beard cooked in the French style and that she had made beef bouringnon.
Katya took the elevator back downstairs, and the Mates and Donal gathered around the breakfast table.
“So you think you’re unworthy?” Kane asked as he cut a Napoléon in half and put it on his plate.
Donal shrugged. “Even before I became a prostitute, I was ordinary, scared all of the time…I’m not brave, not special…”
“What do you know about me?” Kane demanded.
Donal looked up at him. “You belong to Gabriel. He comes before Alexei, and you’re a teacher.” Donal’s eyes narrowed. “What does that have to do with me and Alexei?”
“Back in December, I was gang raped by five of my students. That was how Gabriel found me, bleeding on a pile of construction debris. I am like you, a Human Omega. The gods give us gifts. I bring mental health and clarity.” Kane sat next to Donal and grabbed his hand.
Sean stepped closer to Donal next. “When I met Armand I hadn’t eaten in two days and was about to prostitute myself to get money to go to my friend Tony and his wife. An acquaintance, Leroy, tried to help. For his trouble, he was killed by a rogue Russian wolf who decided he wanted me. I was kidnapped, and Armand had to go to into the pit to fight to the death. Yet the gods stopped the fight. I was chosen by the gods to be The Omega mated to The Alpha. I have two special gifts, the first is empathy and the second is The Voice, which I use to help the she-wolves in childbirth and to ease the physical suffering of the sick. I used The Voice on you to get you through detox safely.”
“There is a reason you were up and about after only a day. Yet before I met Armand, I was about to willingly sell myself into prostitution because I couldn’t go two days without food. Think of what you endured in comparison. I didn’t suffer as much as you did and I was about to prostitute myself. Yet the gods favored me with gifts despite my actions.”
“Thaank…Thank you for my life,” Donal stammered.
Ian stepped up He said softly, “I bear no special gifts, but I bring joy to my Rémy and that’s all that matters to me. I was a blue-collar boy from Queens living in appalling conditions, even though I worked for my father every day. He paid me practically nothing and demanded rent for a one-room unheated apartment over the garage that had a shower curtain to separate the bathroom from the bedroom and a hot plate and toaster oven, which I bought myself, for a kitchen. I couldn’t live in the house with him and my brother because I was gay. I have no aristocratic lineage. In fact, my brother was a gambler who was in trouble with the mob because he owed them money and when he died, his trouble became my trouble. You’re not the cause of Armand’s first trip to Don Ferone on behalf of a mate, I am, and the man involved was Don Ferone’s own nephew, not some piece of trash like Apuso,” Ian stated in a matter-of-fact tone. “You brought much less trouble than I did. The police were even involved.”
Colin approached Donal putting his arm around Donal’s shoulder and gave him a brief squeeze. “I was scarred by a fire. I couldn’t believe Marc would want me and pitched a fit when he told me he did. I practically called my Marc a liar. Yet he loved me, scar and all. Even though it didn’t matter to him, he got it fixed because it meant something to me. Armand says I’m the chronicler for this age. Yet I was the kid writing what I was told were lurid gay novels about something I thought I made up. I almost refused Marc, because I was vain, which would have caused him immense physical and mental distress.” Colin sat down at the table next to Donal. “You aren’t the only one who had a hard time accepting the truth.”
“Now it’s time to tell you about Alexei,” Sean said, meeting Donal’s gaze directly. “You know Alexei was imprisoned in Russia. He protested the gay bashing, which caused the death of his Beta and by extension, his Beta’s Mate. It took the Russian Council three years of negotiation with the government to obtain Alexei’s release, and the terms included exile and large cash payments that would have broken another man. Luckily Alexei had friends who were able to hide his money.”
Kane continued, “For three years they caged him like an animal, beat him and raped him daily, and did other unspeakable things to his person. When he finally got out of the gulag, he wasn’t well enough to shift. It took nine months before he could shift again. After he shifted, his scars went away, but some scars aren’t visible. Alexei has a good idea of what happened to you because of his imprisonment. Do you think what happened to him in gulag was his fault?” Kane asked, his eyes hardening.