Isaiah (12 page)

Bailey Bradford

73

but we are by no means animals. And maybe, we need to remember, that evolution will win out in the end.”

“It is extinction, not evolution, which we are trying to prevent, Isaiah. There simply are not many of us Amur shifters left in the world. Our females have a difficult time conceiving and carrying litters.” Chul steepled his fingers and propped his chin on the tips. “Snow leopards are endangered, are they not?”

Isaiah nodded. “Yeah, and I have no idea how many snow leopard shifters there are in the world, but apparently we’re a bit better off than our animal brethren and sisters. I’d never met a shifter I wasn’t related to until almost a year ago. Now it seems they’re popping up everywhere.” Including dark alleys.

Chul was like a cat with a mouse, refusing to leave the subject alone. “And are you not concerned then with the potential demise of your breed of shifters?”

Isaiah sighed and settled in more comfortably beside Bae. Obviously Chul wasn’t going to shut up until he either pissed Isaiah off or thought he had him brainwashed. Bae made a choked sound beside him.
“It’s brainwashing to me, sorry, honey. I don’t want to be an ass, but I
can’t agree with what happens in your lepe.”

“I wouldn’t want you to,”
Bae assured him.
“I just hadn’t seen it in the way you do until you
thought it. I’m afraid you’re right, even if they don’t intend it to be brainwashing.”

“Is it a private conversation, or will either of you share?”

Isaiah looked at Chul and gave him a lopsided grin. “With all due respect—” however little that might be, “if we’d wanted to share it, we’d have spoken out loud in the first place.”

Chul’s cheeks turned ruddy and his expression darkened, temper flaring over him. “It’s tantamount to whispering—”

“No, it’s using what feels like a sacred link, one only mates are gifted with. There’s a reason for that.” Isaiah spoke calmly, but let a hard edge creep into his voice. “As to your question, I don’t want any animal or shifter to become extinct, but I would never condone forcing humans to breed. Does it make someone less of a shifter if they’re not all Amur or all wolf or cougar or snow leopard? Granted, some of them pass the shifting ability down in different ways. For us it’s through the females—”

“So basically your males are useless,” Chul scoffed. “It figures.”

“Whatever, there’s still more of us than there are of you, ya know?” he replied lazily.

“So you figure out what that means. Seems to me, nature is trying to tell you something.

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

74

Your females aren’t as fertile as they were, and aren’t having many cubs. Maybe what you all need is an infusion of shifter blood from another species. Has anyone DNA mapped the Amurs to see if there’s too much, uh—” Isaiah glanced at Bae.
“Help!”

Bae cringed but went on. “How much inbreeding has there been, accidental or otherwise?”

Chul snarled and shoved up from his desk. “We are not some backwoods, inbred—”

“Calm down,” Isaiah snapped. “You have genealogical charts and all that? You know for sure who is related to who? What weak genes were passed to whom and all that?”

Chul ground his teeth so hard Isaiah could hear it. “No.”

Isaiah looked at Bae, more than a little stunned. “Seems like that would have been done a long time ago.”

Bae shook his head. “No. I’m the only Amur I know who’s out of the lepe. Dad fought for me to have some freedom as the lone gay person in our species—that we know of.

Otherwise, we’re very…insular. Taking care of our own, medically and”—Bae turned slightly green—“other ways?”

“Enough!” Chul slammed his fist down on the desk. “I did argue to allow you out in the world, but I had believed you’d come back in days. Instead you went to college and made a life outside of what you had known. Believe it or not, I respect that. But the others, they want only to be kept safe here with what they know.”

“Because they know nothing else! They’re kept like animals, bred and held captive! No wonder there’s been so few to ever find their mates—” Bae stood as well, pulling his hand from Isaiah’s and leaping forward, slamming his hands on the desk, so like his father in his anger. “They probably have mates out there in the world, just like I did—do. Can’t you see how cruel and…and wrong it is, what’s being done?”

“We will not agree on this,” Chul snarled. “The human world has warped your thinking. I’ve said so before, and am even more certain of it now. I don’t even know if our leader will have you participate—”

“He’s not participating in the fucked up breeding programme,” Isaiah said, the only calm one in the room. At least, he was calm for now, and deadly serious. “Bae is my mate, he belongs to me, not to you, not to his lepe. I will not have him being used. I will not share him.”

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

75

Chul reached across the desk and grabbed Bae’s collar, tearing his shirt open with a jerk that knocked Bae off balance. “You haven’t marked him, you haven’t claimed him. He still belongs to this lepe!”

“Fuck you,” Isaiah growled, losing his tenuous grasp on his control. “I don’t have to bite him to make him mine. Try and take him from me and see just how much I mean what I say.” Isaiah had never been so furious, so ready to shift and rend, to hurt and kill. No one would touch his mate, no one would take Bae from him. As painful as shifting could be for him, he’d do it a million times to protect Bae.

“I have claimed Isaiah,” Bae said, “it’s only my own cowardice that kept him from marking me. But if that’s what it takes to make you understand—” Bae tore his shirt off and clutched at Isaiah’s nape. “Do it.” His eyes burned bright, hot with the demand. “Mark me with him to witness it, since that’s the only way he will accept us being mates.”

“Bae—” Chul said at the same time Isaiah did. Isaiah cut his eyes to the man and roared, a sound his leopard couldn’t make but the man in him sure as hell could. Chul’s eyes bugged and he stumbled back.

“Bae, I wanted it to be—” he didn’t intend to share the rest of his thought with anyone other than Bae.
“I wanted it to be because you gave yourself to me, willingly, not because you’re
forced to do it. I wanted to hold you, to feel you around me, your body holding me, cradling me
inside—”

“Get out,” Bae snapped at his father. “Now.”

Arousal swamped the room, his and Bae’s, and Isaiah’s fingers ached, along with his gums. His leopard was already right under the surface, the promise of marking and claiming Bae too great a temptation to keep it suppressed.

“This is my study, my house—”

“Then we’ll leave, and you’ll stay out of the way.” Isaiah caught Bae’s hand but stopped when Chul refused to move from where he stood in front of the door. “I will hurt you if necessary.”

Chul scowled but didn’t move. “No, wait. Our leader, he’s going to be here soon. He would not accept Bae’s requests to be free of participating in—participating. If he arrives before you leave, and sees that there’s no mark, he might order Bae held no matter the cost.”

“All over a fucking bite?” Isaiah couldn’t quite grasp that.

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

76

Chul cocked his head to the side. “I do not have a mate. I am partnered with Bae’s mother, yes, and any other female I am sent to or is sent to me. But, we have all been raised up hearing stories about mates, and we’ve seen a few couples, yes. For us, the bite is a sacrifice on the part of the one bitten, and it is proof of the fidelity and the existence of the bond.” Chul rubbed at his shoulder. “No one would want that just for the hell of it.”

Isaiah pulled his shirt off, exposing the mark Bae had left on him. It was still tender, bruised, and yeah, kind of nappy looking, but it made his dick so hard his nuts hurt every time he saw that spot, or touched it.

Chul was staring open-mouthed, a shocked expression on his face. “That—that could have killed you!”

Isaiah snorted. “Don’t think so. I guess you really don’t understand the mate bond. It’s not just ESP and fucking, Chul. It’s protecting your mate at all costs. One would never truly endanger their mate.”

“O-okay.” Chul reached behind him for the doorknob. “I will keep Chung-Hee from entering, if I can.”

Isaiah looked at Bae, who smiled slightly, wickedly, then he spoke to Chul while never taking his eyes off Bae’s. “Or don’t. If he walks in, he might just be convinced that Bae will never be interested in what Chung-Hee wants.”

He was pretty sure Chul’s gulp could be heard throughout the house as Chul sprinted from the room.

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

77

It was past time for Bae to grow a pair. He had known the bite was important to his lepe, but not that it was integral. He must have slept through that part of story time. And Isaiah, his nails black claws and his incisors long and pointy and sharp, was hesitating, damn it, when Bae needed him to just
do.

Isaiah growled and pounced without warning, and Bae knew he was in for the rough ride he needed. If he’d had a moment to think, he’d worry that he was going to cry and pass out or piss himself from the pain of being bitten.

Isaiah didn’t give him the chance, lifting Bae off his feet and setting him down in front of the desk. One nudge, and Bae’s palms were on the cold surface. Isaiah kept a hand planted between his shoulders, applying pressure until Bae whined and lowered his chest to the wood.

“Mine, Bae, always,” Isaiah rasped out. He reached around Bae and jerked open his pants with enough force that Bae’s breath was knocked from him. His fingers cramped and he curled then, his claws protruding and scoring the desk.

“Yeah, honey.” Isaiah’s voice was broken, so low and rough his words were hardly coherent, but Bae could feel him inside his head, and soon, would feel him inside his body.

Bae clenched his ass against the impending penetration even as his cat leapt inside with glee. He arched his back, a purr slipping out as Isaiah tore at his pants, his claws catching Bae’s hips and thighs.

The bright shards of pain from the scratches fuelled Bae’s arousal and egged his cat on.

Bae rubbed against the desk, against Isaiah’s touch, against the damn air, he didn’t care, he just
needed
so badly his skin ached.

Isaiah got Bae’s pants down around his knees and stopped messing with them. Bae felt him push on his thighs, so he scooted his feet together, closing his legs. His stomach roiled, but in a good way, like the steep drop of a rollercoaster, a thrilling sensation. Isaiah was going to make sure Bae felt this mating, and Bae mewled as his ass cheeks were prised apart.

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

78

Isaiah spat, and rubbed, spat and rubbed, working to slick Bae’s hole with nothing more than saliva. When Isaiah inserted a finger into him, Bae relished the burn. Two fingers and he was close to coming, his cock pressed between his belly and the desk.

“Not yet,” Isaiah ordered, tugging on Bae’s balls. That pain brought him up on his toes even as he sought more of it. Isaiah rolled his sac, pushed it up then let it fall and Bae’s eyes crossed right before he closed them.

More spitting, then his ass was gripped and something large and wet was pushing at his entrance. Bae willed himself to relax. He pushed out, and Isaiah shouted as his sank his cock into Bae’s ass.

Bae yelped, fire stinging then burning hotly up his insides. It was the oddest thing, to hurt and like it, but he did. He liked knowing Isaiah was in him, making him feel things no one else ever had.

Then Isaiah pulled back, and a nervous tension filled Bae a split second before Isaiah thrust, seating himself fully, his hips slamming against Bae’s butt and shoving him at the edge of the desk. He’d have bruises was the last thought he had before Isaiah stripped him of the ability to do more than feel the ecstasy spiralling up from his ass.

Isaiah ploughed into him again and again, battering Bae’s ass and making his cock ache where it was trapped beneath his stomach. Isaiah grabbed his biceps and pulled Bae back into each thrust, fucking him with all his strength. Bae was jarred so hard his teeth clicked together, but he tried to arch up, push back, anything to show he needed more.

And Isaiah gave it to him without warning, a good thing, Bae would think later. One second Bae was flying high, needing and hungry, his ass taking everything Isaiah could give him, and the next Isaiah was right there, his breath hot on Bae’s skin for half a heartbeat.

Pain, white hot and tangled inexorably with pleasure, radiated out from the join of Bae’s neck and shoulder. His cock pulsed and hot seed shot from it as he screamed, clenching around Isaiah’s thick shaft.

He felt Isaiah rumble, felt him bite, suck, lick—Bae felt it all as a galaxy blossomed behind his eyelids. And Bae purred, vibrating with such intense joy he thought he’d burst with it.

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ISAIAH

Bailey Bradford

79

Isaiah rolled his hips several time, emptying his cum into Bae’s body. Bae was aware of the warm liquid hitting his inner walls, was aware of the scent of their releases, their sweat and need. Exquisite wasn’t a strong enough word for what had happened between them.

He thought he heard the door, but frankly, Bae was too fucked out to give a shit if Chung-Hee or anyone else had peeked in. His father would have made sure none of the kids were in the house, Bae trusted that. Anyone who looked in was going to be an adult, and likely a shocked, and possibly turned on one at that.

Isaiah withdrew his teeth, and it sent a delicious fissure of pain all the way down to Bae’s tailbone. Every flick of Isaiah’s tongue over his skin dragged whimpers from Bae, and when Isaiah suckled on the spot he’d bitten, Bae’s cock started filling again.

And Isaiah’s began to stiffen inside him, and that quickly, Bae was crying out, wanton and more cat than man as he took every bit of feeling Isaiah gave him, every searing thrust, the hot burn of friction as Bae slid his cock over the desk into his puddles of cum.