Instinctual

The first thing that Marcus realized was that he couldn’t afford to move. That realization hit him like a wrecking ball, crushing his chest in and leaving him silent and breathless. He could always just skip town, of course, but he already had enough trouble tiptoeing around the Werewolf community – he didn’t need more trouble with the judicial one as well, if he just decided to leave unpaid rent and bills. His next check from work wouldn’t come for another whole week, and even that wasn’t much, considering he had to eat between now and then. If he made sure to pick it up promptly, and didn’t use up too much of the remaining money he had from his last one… Marcus forced himself to nod, dragging in deep breaths and telling himself that it would be okay. He could do it, he could wait out the week and put all of his focus and savings into leaving at the end of it. He usually lived pretty much from pay-

Declan was feeling something akin to relief as he sat and talked with Liz and Kobi, and Liz and Kobi (mostly Liz, because Kobi was the taciturn type) talked about Marcus Rushton. They’d been seeing the lone Omega on a regular basis now, usually over his lunch-break, although apparently he’d accepted their company while walking to work in the morning, too. Kobi was a damnably early riser, and while Liz most certainly wasn’t, the two of them seemed happy to get up early just to troop over to Rushton’s rundown little place and then go with him to work from there. Of course, Liz was usually too sleepy to recall most of the morning conversations, but on those occasions, Kobi made up for his girlfriend’s quiescence a bit. Declan himself was an early bird, and had long-since gotten used to the friendly, easy way that Kobi talked over a cup of coffee in the morning – he always used words conservatively, but in the hush of the starting day, he talked a bit

Rushton’s paws skidded out on the tiled kitchen floor as soon as Declan put him down, partially because two of the four were slicked with blood, partially because the Omega had to be on his last dregs of strength anyway. The battered little white wolf looked with panic around the room, skittering and cowering away when his blue eyes eventually came to rest on Declan himself, a towering giant as a human right now. When Marcus’s retreat brought him up sharply against the kitchen cabinets, he smeared blood on them, but also lost his footing and fell with a pained yelp.  Declan could see that Marcus was trying to back down, as if this were a fight and he wanted nothing to do with it. That was probably why the territorial temper was only grumbling softly at the back of Declan’s head instead of trying to overwhelm him like it usually was around the Omega – from the moment he’d seen Marcus standing there, head down and tail tucked rig

Earlier that day, probably at about the same time that Liz and Kobi had been trying to get Marcus to eat something and Declan had been taking an exhausted, troubled nap, Rob had padded quietly through the house. He’d stopped at Clarissa’s door, pitching his voice so that only she would hear him, “Open up, unless you’ve suddenly changed sides and decided to go all cuddly on that Omega brat like the others.” His careless, blunt remark had footsteps shuffling inside, and soon the door was opened. Clarissa, looking more unkempt than she would have liked, with dark circles under her eyes, glared warily at Rob through the crack in the door. He grinned back. Rolling her eyes and sighing resignedly, the older woman backed off but left the door open for him to slip inside, closing it behind him. “Why are you here, Rob?” she asked wearily. “To see if you’ll help me with something,” he asked w

It was a bit of a risk, but by now, Declan trusted that Marcus wasn’t going to attack him – if he needed any more proof that the Omega preferred peace immensely to violence, this would be it. Flat down on his stomach now, Declan ended up grabbing Marcus’s forepaws to drag him out from under the bed. A regular wolf’s paws would have felt different from a Werewolf’s. Instead of the stiff, hard bones of canine paws, Declan felt the more catlike flex of Marcus’s paws against his hands, even as his grip got some of the other’s retracted claws to extend. They were pearly and sharp, but with the exception of a bit of halfhearted whining and wriggling, Marcus didn’t fight the slow drag forward. With nary a nip or a nick, Declan had Marcus back out from under the bed.  Not wanting to have to explain how he’d known what Marcus was thinking (especially since Declan didn’t understand that fluke of telepathy hi