Alpha Assignment (BL) Chapter 31 (Early Access) (Patreon)

The next day, Jordan asked Quinn to lunch. It was casual, normal for them, but Quinn could feel something coming. He hoped the whole walk to the restaurant that this wouldn’t be a second attempt at a love confession. They returned to the same little place they had first gone to discuss ‘the cult.’

“I wanted to talk away from the office,” was Jordan’s opener once they had ordered.

“I figured.”

Jordan winced. “Okay, then I’ll just jump right into it.” He took a breath. “Did I make you uncomfortable last week? That really wasn’t what I wanted- in fact, that was what I was dreading, but-”

“No!” Quinn jumped in. “Not at all. It’s not you, I promise. I… also was hoping we could go back to being friends and nothing would change.” He felt a little warmer all of a sudden. “Not that I wasn’t flattered, and you’re great, it was just-”

“Things had changed between you and Remi.”

“Yeah.”

“If it wasn’t me, then why’ve you been moody all week?”

Quinn sighed. “That day, after the painting class, there was an incident.”

Jordan’s gossip radar picked up a signal and he perked in his seat. “What kind of incident?”

The ‘cult’ of the Assembly had already been discussed… and that had made him feel better… Jordan probably wouldn’t let it go if he didn’t talk about it anyway…

“We stopped for petrol-”

“You and Remi?”

“Yeah. And he went inside to find a windshield scraper while I filled up-”

“Oh no, did he get his first crack head interaction?”

“No.”

“Sorry, I’ll stop interrupting.” He mimed zipping his lips closed. “Promith,” he mouthed.

“I went inside to find him and pay, and there were two current cult members inside.” Jordan gasped but didn’t interrupt, as promithed. “And they were bullying him.” A second gasp, this time Jordan let his mouth hang open afterwards, eyes furious. “And I just-” Quinn almost said ‘snapped’, but that wasn’t what happened, was it? “-I grabbed them by their necks.”

“Quinn!” Jordan sucked his name in through his teeth. “Are they pressing charges?”

Quinn scoffed. “No, they don’t interact with the police. Never.”

“You could still be in trouble!” He added in a hiss, “What if the cult comes after you?”

“They were-” How to call normal, non-titled werewolves? “-lower ranked than me, and there are very few people at my level or above, so nothing will happen in that sense.”

“Even out of the cult your inside rank applies?”

Quinn nodded.

“And they were higher rank than Remi?”

Everyone is a higher rank than Remi. Only his fellow omegas stood at his level as far as the Assembly viewed things. And Jordan, if you counted his handshake gesture as an announcement of rank. “Remi’s rank is the lowest you can get, but obviously I don’t believe in the stupid hierarchy.”

“So, bottom of the pack?”

“The what?” Quinn breathed.

Their waitress returned with a plate in each hand and Jordan turned away to thank her with a big smile. Matching pasta dishes oozed steam between them.

“Bottom of the pack,” Jordan repeated, picking up his fork and twiddling it through his food. “It’s an expression, like a wolf pack. Have you ever seen a wolf on TV?”

Quinn bit back a nervous laugh. “No, but I’ve seen them in real life, so I get the meaning.” He picked up his own fork and hoped Jordan didn’t notice the slight tremor running down it.

Jordan squinted at him for a moment. “In real life? What, like, at the zoo?”

“Um, yeah.”

Jordan watched him for a few suspicious seconds before returning to the more important topic. “It sounds like you had them handled then, and got to be Remi’s knight in shining armour, so what’s the problem?”

“I’m just… still so angry.” Quinn’s fork lowered again, tapping the side of the white plate. “I got details off them of the people that picked on him in his old p-” He stuttered for a moment. “-his division. And I feel like that list is all that’s keeping me from going crazy thinking about them ever being mean to him.”

“How does Remi feel about it?”

“He doesn’t seem to mind, or at least doesn’t want to dwell on it. But I can’t seem to do anything but dwell on it. All I can think about is what I’m going to do to the people on that list.”

“I think Remi’s right,” Jordan said with a wince. “You can’t be riding around playing vigilante - you could get really hurt!”

“Hurt?” Now it was really hard not to laugh.

“By all these people you want to hunt down.”

He tried not to appear too incredulous. “They can’t do anything to me, I’m an-” He stumbled again. “I’m a top rank, they can’t touch me.”

“So, the hierarchy is bullshit until you have a reason to use it for your advantage?” Jordan asked with one very high and accusatory eyebrow.

“It’s not an advantage… it’s revenge.”

“Revenge for bullying?”

“You don’t know how bad it was.” Quinn stabbed at his food angrily. “I don’t even know how bad it was because Remi won’t tell me. And him hiding it tells me it’s probably worse than what I’m imagining, and what I’m imagining makes me want to hurt people.”

“Until you know for sure, don’t do anything rash.”

Quinn grumbled at his plate.

“I mean it, Quinn. Think of Remi-”

“I am thinking of Remi!” Quinn huffed.

“Think of how scared he’ll be if something happened to you,” Jordan said, deliberately slowly. “If the police did get involved. If there was an accident, god forbid.” He tapped the tabletop with his knuckles twice. “For now, just be patient.”

Quinn pursed his lips and nodded. For now.

They finished up their lunch with office gossip and a recap of a TV show Jordan was enjoying despite severe second-hand embarrassment. As they walked back into their building, Jordan’s eyes lingered on Quinn’s face a few extra seconds, and they held concern. Quinn ignored it.

Watching Remi slowly carve out small pits in the soil was infinitely more entertaining than the reports Quinn was supposed to be analysing. Working from home had so many more benefits than he had ever realised pre-Remi. The only point that he could drag his eyes away from the pottering omega was to browse dungarees online. He added a couple to his cart that had bees and flowers embroidered on them. Somehow, his card details ended up filled in. And his address. And now he had a confirmation email letting him know that the extra small garments would be arriving in three to five business days.

Remi took a break from his potting to press his pert nose against the sliding glass doors Quinn had been watching him through. Quinn pretended to flick at it. Remi laughed and ran back to his planters. He was bundled up four layers deep on Quinn’s orders, but still, his pink nose made him worry.

October was making itself known with chilly winds and sleeting rain, and they wouldn’t have much more time before the soil froze and no more improvements to the garden could be made. The sweet old man at the garden centre had kindly advised them on plants that would survive the winter, as long as they could get them in the ground immediately. They could begin vegetable prepping, too, apparently now was the best time to get the root varieties buried in wait of Spring. One day, they could have a mini farm to tend. Quinn smiled to himself and fought not to daydream while he forced his attention back to work.

When the sky turned grey, Quinn knocked on the glass and beckoned Remi inside. A fast waddle brought the bundled man back. He began stripping off sweaty woollen layers as he passed through the living room and up to the stairs, Quinn called after him with a promise of bringing up a light lunch.

Spaghetti emoji set for work, Quinn set to making bagels with salad on the side. Remi’s plate got a mini chocolate thing added to it, and Quinn’s had hard-boiled eggs. The light patter of rain on the kitchen windows offered the only sound in the house.

He brought Remi’s food to his door and found it slightly open, so he knocked it the rest of the way with a tap of his foot.

“I picked up this chocolate thing when I wa-”

Remi was naked from the hips up. And the parts of his body that Quinn had never seen before were vastly different from those he bared all the time out of his shorts and t-shirts. His back, upper arms, bum and stomach were tiger striped, as though he’d had a horizontal growth spurt, but Quinn knew what the marks were really. He couldn’t force himself not to. They curled around his waist, some even cut into the skin just below his nipples. Careful torture of the unseen areas. The detail of the handiwork made it all the more brutal. Someone had gone to serious effort to leave Remi in ribbons in all the places he regularly covered.

Something Remi had said in Sanctuary echoed back like a gut punch.

“I learnt my lessons a long time ago and now they’re stuck on me.”

The sight winded him. Salad leaves shuddered as he lowered the shaking plate to the top of the dresser, if he didn’t, he’d drop it.

Remi was frozen, final sweater in hands, dungarees falling down his hips and exposing more scars.

Quinn should have turned and left, let Remi get himself decent. “Are those your… lessons?” he managed to ask through his nausea.

Remi nodded.

“Do they cause you pain?” He didn’t know what he’d do if they did. Combust, probably.

Remi shook his head and reached for Quinn’s trembling hands. It took him a moment to lift them, but he allowed his fingers to be brought to Remi’s pale skin and dragged over the shallow scars. There was no wince or flinch, and the grooves under his finger pads were incredibly light. Wolves healed well, and quickly, to make a scar permanent-

Quinn swallowed past another wave of sickly horror. “This is what you expected from me?” he croaked.

Remi nodded again. “Do… do you remember the first painting class?”

“Of course, you cried so much it almost made me cry.”

“I thought…” He scrunched his face and looked away as if the thought were too awful. His hands continued to guide Quinn’s over his body, feeling every line. Despite the remnants of torn flesh, he was smooth all over.

“You were waiting for me to punish you,” Quinn remembered. His jaw felt tight. “For a bit of spilt paint.”

“Yes.” A gasping whisper. “When you took my shoes off for me… I thought you were going to-” Remi swallowed and Quinn urged him with a concerned look to continue. He had no idea where this was going. “I thought- the bottoms of my feet- I thought you were going to whip my feet.”

Quinn rocked back a step, his breath catching in his chest. His hands disconnected and Remi snatched them back as though they were all that was keeping him warm. “Remi,” Quinn called his name like it pained him. Maybe that was accurate. “I don’t- I would never- I don’t even know how-”

“With a stick, or charging wires, or a ruler,” Remi informed him in a ramble. The words seemed to fall out too fast for him to stop them. He was clutching Quinn’s hands to his chest like a life preserver.

“We don’t use sticks, or charging wires, or rulers for anything than what their manufacturers intended in this house, Remi,” Quinn promised.

“Sticks are manufactured?” Remi asked, a light teasing lilt to his voice.

“Some say it’s a conspiracy theory, but I’m a believer,” Quinn managed to joke, although he still felt breathless, almost motion sick, at the revelations of the last few minutes.

For a few moments, Remi stared up at him. All dark eyes and slight curls and… pleading for something. Slowly, uncertainly, Quinn dragged his hands down over Remi’s chest and he shuddered, then tickled along his tummy and watched his own hands drop to his sides and his fingers flex. He wanted to touch, too. Quinn decided to make him wait a little longer.

He dropped to his knees and brought his mouth to a long, jagged mark that arced over Remi’s belly button. Where Remi was scarred, Quinn’s kisses followed. His hands roamed ahead, tracing and touching while Remi did his best not to squirm. When his fingers rounded Remi’s hips, it knocked the dungarees out of their precarious balancing act.