Beta Bully (M/M) Winter Patreon Exclusive (Patreon)

A thin smattering of snow had managed to survive the night at The Pearl Claw. Whenever they’d had a sprinkling of snow before it never settled, much to Darcy’s disappointment. This morning, a tiny layer remained.

His breath fogged the glass of his and Luca’s bedroom window as he stared out at the patchy whiteness.

“Luca!” he called over his shoulder for the third time.

Finally, his mate groaned back in response. His naked top half rose from the duvet, the muscles of his back flexing in the bright light reflected off the snowy blanket outside, but only to slump back face-first into his pillow and fall still again. Darcy ran to his side on excitable tip-toes.

“The snow settled!”

“Mmm.”

Darcy shook his shoulder. “We can have a snowball fight! With very small snowballs…” That would come to his advantage against the other titled members, since he was the only one with very small hands…

“Mmm.”

“Do you think we’ll get a white Christmas?” he whispered against Luca’s pillow-fuzzy curls.

“Not a chance,” he grumbled, never cracking an eye.

Darcy pouted.

“Luca!” he whined. “We can sleep after the snow melts, we don’t have time to lay around.”

Luca grumbled something into the pillow that Darcy didn’t catch. But his biceps clenched, and his hands braced against the mattress to push himself up again. This time he slouched back onto his knees. His cute, puffy morning face didn’t match his chiselled physique at all, but this version of Luca was Darcy’s favourite. Darcy ruffled his hair and scurried away to find his warmest clothes.

“Just think,” he called to him from the wardrobe, “once we’ve played in the snow and it’s melted and we’re all chilly…” He blushed, despite knowing Luca couldn’t see his face. “…We have the perfect excuse to take a long, hot shower together.”

“I didn’t know we needed an excuse to do that,” Luca chuckled, still sat with their duvet wrapped around his waist.

Darcy tossed a white t-shirt and a chunky forest green jumper over his shoulder. The grunts Luca made told him they’d hit their target perfectly. Darcy pulled on as many layers as would fit over his head and then snatched the brand new waterproof jacket from the very end of the rail. A gift from Nico when it had rained for a whole hour straight at the start of Autumn. Darcy smiled at the memory, of his overprotective alpha. He was just glad Oli had managed to keep him from ordering the matching pants, hat, gloves and boots. They were wolves, Oli had cooed gently, even omegas were built to survive a bit of rain.

Darcy decided not to mention, since the jacket had already been ordered by this point, that when it rained he simply stayed indoors.

Now, he finally had a use for it.

“You want my most important parts exposed to the snow?” Luca asked incredulously.

“Hm?” Darcy turned back from the wardrobe and yelped, covering his face with the jacket as though he had never before seen a penis. “Why are you half naked?!”

“You only gave me clothes for my top half,” Luca chuckled. “I wasn’t sure if this was a tactic for winning the snowball fight?”

Darcy’s face burned all the way to his ears. “I think the only person who would be distracted by that is me,” he mumbled into the crinkly jacket.

“Wanna toss me some underpants and jeans?”

Begrudgingly, he did.

Layered up and washed up, they hurried from Alder suite and down to the ground floor of the main pack house. Every few steps, Luca yawned and Darcy tried not to laugh at him.

They headed to the grassy acres that separated the communal areas of the pack from their forest, where the snow was thicker and less likely to have been touched, yet. The crunch under his boots brought little shivers of satisfaction to the base of Darcy’s skull. At his side, Luca suddenly raised a hand, waving into the distance. Darcy followed the length of it with his eyes.

Summer trudged through the ankle-high snow, Melody cackling over one shoulder and her little brother giggling over the other. The bright red tresses of her hair had come loose from her braids and were clumped with slush. It seemed the guard-in-training had been ganged-up on by her mate and sibling. Darcy grinned despite himself. Summer smiled wearily back and gave him a nod, continuing on her way back towards the houses that clustered in the centre of the pack lands.

A surprised yell, and Luca kicked a spray of snow as he was lifted into the air. Oli laughed heartily against Luca’s fight to be released, squeezing him harder to his chest. With a sharp twist of his hips, Luca knocked Oli back with a knee to his side and the pair tumbled onto the cold ground.

It was a quiet sigh that announced Nico’s arrival behind them. Alpha and omega locked eyes and gave each other identical looks of exasperation. Nico stepped around the scrapping betas and leant over to thread his arm through Darcy’s.

“Nice coat,” he said quietly. The alpha wasn’t wearing any coat, or hat or scarf. Just jeans and a jumper, like his giant mate. Watching the pair rolling around in the snow, Darcy wondered if he had put Luca at a disadvantage by forcing him to wear his coat buttoned all the way up to his chin. He wasn’t getting his ass totally handed to him, so it was probably fine.

Darcy beamed up at Nico. “Thank you! A friend gave it to me.”

Nico returned his smile at a slightly lower wattage. “Shall we let the puppies wrestle and take a walk?”

“Best to let them get their energy out now,” Darcy agreed.

“They’ll sleep better,” Nico added with a sage nod.

Arm-in-arm, Nico slightly hunched over Darcy’s smaller stature, they enjoyed the crispness of the fresh snow they trod around the edge of the forest’s boundary line. It was still early, but the slow rising of the rest of the pack could be seen in smoke and steam trickling from chimneys. The peace of a chilly winter morning with nothing of urgency at their backs.

By the time Nico and Darcy looped back to collect their soul-mates from the sweaty puddle they were laid in, they’d collected a few muddy snowballs in the cradles of their arms. They crept closer, peeking at each other with childish grins of excitement. Panting breaths puffed into clouds above Luca and Oli’s heads. The aftermath of their wrestling match left the grass around them exposed, the snowy blanket ripped away.

With a battle cry, Darcy launched the first attack, slinging his snowballs as fast as his frozen fingers could handle them. Nico followed his lead, although he aimed solely at Oli, pelting him with the misshapen balls. The boys groaned, scrabbling to their feet and scraping the floor for any leftover snow.

Using Nico as his shield, Darcy continued to launch every chunk of ice and snow he could find.

Oli broke through his defences, tackling Nico to the ground and leaving Darcy open to be snatched up by Luca. Hot breath tickled beneath his chin, minty fresh. Luca was laughing into his throat as he clutched him close. The temptation to wriggle free and continue the battle quickly dwindled as the cold of Luca’s fingers transferred to Darcy's waist where he gripped him beneath his layers.

Darcy wrapped his arms around Luca’s neck as a makeshift scarf and kissed his pink nose. “Time for hot chocolate?” he called to the alpha and beta still writhing on the ground.

Oli’s bun was hanging at a strange angle, light brown hairs slicked in different directions, and he was panting raggedly, but he still put his full force behind attempting to restrain his alpha. Nico flipped them over again and slammed Oli’s wrists either side of his head. There was something in Oli’s eyes as he grinned up at Nico that told Darcy the cold wouldn’t be a deterrent if they were given the opportunity to roll in the icy mud all day long.

Nico lifted his gaze and blew the dark hair from his forehead. “I wouldn’t say no to a coffee.”

“You clearly don’t need the extra energy,” Oli laughed. Nico rolled his eyes and pushed up onto his knees, then feet, and offered Oli his hand.

The four of them huddled in the kitchen under thick blankets and the fire crackled loudly, ensuring they knew just how hard it was working to fill the room with dry heat. They cradled their hot mugs close and discussed what kind of soup Darcy would make for lunch.

The peaceful, chilly coating held for the rest of the day.