Arren Read online

  Arren had expected Cole to wait outside for him to get ready. But apparently that wasn’t Cole’s style. He barged in and sat down on the couch. He’d had to move some of Bastian’s clean clothes to sit there, too. Arren gave him a dark look, then shrugged. If Cole wanted to sit there, that was his problem. “I’ll be ready to go in a bit.”

  “Get your ass in here right now.”

  Cole’s angry tone gave him pause. Arren came back to the doorway. “I’m getting a shower. I can’t hurry any faster than that.”

  Cole shook his head. “You had a responsibility to be there on time. It was your choice to let your phone die. There are consequences to your actions.”

  Arren was seeing the consequence of that right now. Cole was in his house waking him up, for starters. “Yeah. And if you let me go get a shower, I’ll go get in the kitchen. I’ll do dishes or something. Jeez. It was one little mistake.”

  Cole didn’t look impressed, though. He didn’t seem to care about his excuses either, as he crooked his finger and motioned Arren closer. With a loud sigh Arren obeyed. When he was within arm’s reach Cole grabbed his arm and, without warning, had Arren over his knees in a motion so fast it had him reeling. Cole had his shorts down a second later, and his arms pinned behind his back.

  Arren knew arguing wasn’t going to do any good. If Cole wanted to spank him for being late like he was some damn child, then so be it. Arren’s face was hot as Cole brought his hand down against his ass cheek. He didn’t cry out. He didn’t give Cole that satisfaction. But it still hurt. Each sharp slap to his cheeks hurt just a bit more until Cole was apparently done with him. He didn’t shove Arren off his lap, but he did pull his shorts up.

  “Go shower, get dressed, and be back in this room in twenty minutes.”

  Arren didn’t look at him as he got off Cole’s lap. He was too pissed for that. He hurried up as he heard Cole set a timer on his phone.

  He went as fast as he could, and he must have even had a few minutes left as he came back to Cole, because Cole turned off the timer. Still, Arren wanted to hear him say it. “How much time did I have left?” He’d rushed and his hair was still wet.

  “Two minutes. You cut it close, but you still made it.”

  For not having a way to tell time since his phone was dead, he was pretty happy about that, anyway. “Did you have fun spanking me?” Arren challenged him. He’d had a whole eighteen minutes to calm down. He was still pissed, though. No one had spanked him in years. Sure, his dad had given Cole permission to do it, but that didn’t mean that Arren had to be okay with it.

  Cole sat back as he looked up at him. “You did something wrong, you needed to be punished. It’s as simple as that. Don’t make it out to be more than it was. The kitchen doesn’t need your help anymore. I’m putting you on chicken duty for the next few hours. You can work in the kitchen tomorrow.”

  Arren would have rather scrubbed dishes than work with the chickens, but he figured he probably didn’t have much of a choice either way. “Fine. What do the chickens need?

  Cole got up and led the way to the coop. “You’ll feed and water them, change out their bedding, and put new straw down. You’ll take the dirty bedding to the compost pile. You’ll collect their eggs and take them to the kitchen. There you’ll wash the eggs and put them in the fridge for tomorrow’s breakfast.” They stopped at the chicken house.

  The pack had a lot more chickens now than Arren remembered there being. There had to be at least fifty birds staring up at him.

  “Any questions?”

  He was pretty sure that arguing with Cole wouldn’t do any good, so he just shook his head. He sighed and waited for Cole to leave before he got started, but Cole didn’t walk away. He just stood there as Arren glared at him. “What?”

  “Get started.” Cole waved a hand toward the coop.

  Arren showed his teeth. “I will once you leave. I’m not cleaning them out with an audience.”

  “And I’m not leaving so that you can run home and return to your bed the second my back is turned. Get started.” Arren didn’t move. “Here. I’ll make it clearer for you. Get started or I’ll spank you again, and this time it won’t be inside your house. I’ll do it right here, so that everyone can hear your cries.”

  Arren hadn’t made a sound last time, and he wouldn’t any other time. But he also didn’t want his ass on display for everyone to see, either. So he went to the shed where the chicken feed was kept, along with the wheelbarrow and the garden tools, and he got busy.

  He knew that his father wouldn’t do anything about it if Cole spanked him again. He might even laugh in Arren’s face for coming to him with his complaint. But Bastian would listen to him tonight. His best friend always listened to him complain about the different guys he knew, especially those he’d been with. While Arren hadn’t had sex with Cole, Cole had seen, and touched, his ass. So maybe it was kind of in the same realm.

  “Your face is all twisted up with anger. Relax. Enjoy being outside and working with the animals. They provide your breakfast. They deserve better than your hostility.”

  Arren bit back what he wanted to say to Cole. The chickens hadn’t, in fact, provided his breakfast, because he’d had to skip breakfast that morning because of Cole. And he would have been outside anyway. He could have been at the lake or running through the woods with Bastian. And he wasn’t angry at the damn chickens, either. He was angry at Cole. There was a huge difference.

  He fed them, he watered them, he even got into the coop to shovel all their dirty bedding out and into the wheelbarrow. And he kept his mouth shut the whole time. When he was dumping it into the compost bin though, that was when he started cussing, as the dust covered his arms and got into his hair and made him feel as if he couldn’t breathe.

  But he still got it done. And when he came back to the coop, Cole had put a big tote of clean shavings out for him. He spread them out, gave the chickens a little more food, and then put everything away. He wasn’t going to give Cole another excuse to see his ass as long as he could help it. “Am I done now?”

  Cole was leaning against a tree. He pulled out his phone, looked at it, then nodded. “I guess you are. Be at the kitchen on time tomorrow or come back out here and work on tilling a new garden plot. That’s your call.”

  Arren definitely didn’t want to be tilling. The ground was full of rocks and he wasn’t in any mood to sit there digging them up all morning. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

  “Then be on time tomorrow. And go get a shower in the meantime. You reek.”

  How he smelled wasn’t his fault. “Bye.”

  Cole nodded, and Arren took off toward the lake. He needed to calm down, and the lake was the place to do it. His anger had taken even his hunger away. Right then, he just needed to swim. And besides, even if he hadn’t been as upset as he was, the lake was where everyone hung out, and there were plenty of people he wanted to say hi to that he hadn’t seen yet since being back.

  He’d been in the cool water for an hour when he looked at the shore and saw Cole getting into the lake as well. Arren was a dozen yards from shore, so he ignored Cole. There was plenty of room for them both to swim.

  Arren wasn’t above watching Cole. Too bad he’d turned into a big bear to go swimming instead of staying naked like Arren was. Cole was muscular and looked rough, like the kind of guy Arren expected would hold his own in a fight. Not that Arren was helpless either, but he didn’t have Cole’s bulk. The bear probably couldn’t hope to keep up with him in a flat-out race though. As fast as bears were, Arren was pretty sure coyotes were faster.

  He licked his lips just thinking about Cole. Sure, Cole was an asshole, but that didn’t mean Arren couldn’t enjoy looking at him.

  All that changed when Cole finished shifting into a bear. Arren quickly lost interest as Cole came into the water. Arren headed for the shore. He was a good swimmer, and it didn’t take him long to get back on land. He was cleaner, and he felt better
. His mood was especially lifted when he caught Cole staring at him. He knew he looked good. Too bad for Cole the only way he’d be able to touch Arren again was if he got another punishment. Arren wasn’t about to let that happen.

  He shifted, then picked up his dirty clothes between his teeth. Bastian worked mornings too, so he was home when Arren got there. He scratched at the door to let him know he was waiting, and Bastian let him in. Arren was quick to spit out his dirty clothes, then shifted to be able to give his friend a hug.

  “Missed you,” Bastian said.

  To Arren, it sounded distant, like Bastian was just saying it because that was what he thought Arren expected. Maybe he was just tired. Arren didn’t dwell on it.

  “Missed you, too.” Arren gave him one more squeeze before he headed to his room to get dressed.

  “You know Cole? I think I hate him,” Arren said as he came back out with fresh shorts and a clean t-shirt on. He tossed his dirty clothes into their shared hamper.

  “Did he turn you down for sex too?” Bastian made room for him on their couch. He had to move a lot of his stuff. Books, clothes, and dirty dishes were strewn about the normally clean house. Arren wondered if this was how Bastian had really been living in the year that he’d been away. He’d noticed some of it the night before, but he’d been tired and had mostly rested. Now he was definitely paying attention.

  He’d talk to Bastian about keeping their shared spaces clean later. Right now he just wanted to be lazy. “No. He made me clean the chicken coop. But he did spank me earlier, and you know what? Next time he spanks me he’s going to get a surprise. I’ll be wearing a butt plug. Hopefully when he sees it, he’ll be so shocked that he decides to never lay another hand on me again.” He was pretty proud of himself for thinking up this new strategy to get out of being spanked again.

  Bastian though didn’t look quite so enthused. “So you’ll just always wear one then? I mean, you can’t really plan it, right?”

  Bastian had a point, but Arren was undeterred. “I’ll figure it out.”

  “You don’t think he’s kind of hot?”

  Arren shrugged. “Yeah, sure, he looks good. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s an ass who made me shovel chicken shit today because I didn’t wake up in time to work in the kitchen.”

  “The kitchen isn’t too bad. I liked working there. I prefer doing laundry, though. I’m outside hanging clothes and it’s quiet. Sometimes there’s other people with me, but generally not. Other people run the washers and I go get the baskets of damp clothes and hang them up.” Bastian settled in beside Arren, leaning his head against Arren’s shoulder.

  While he was glad that his friend liked doing laundry, Arren was sure that job would drive him nuts. He hadn’t been given a job when he’d been in the pack before. He was the alpha’s son. That was supposed to mean something. “I’m not supposed to have to get a job. I want my dad to get me out of it, but he won’t. Think Cole would make a trade for sex?” That was something Arren could probably get behind.

  “I’m pretty sure Cole can be with whoever he wants, so nope, probably wouldn’t work.”

  Arren was sure Bastian was right. Still, it sucked that there was no easy way out of working that he could see.

  * * * *

  When Cole came up to the house Bastian and Arren shared, he was already in a bad mood. Three of the pack were sick, not that he believed them since none of them looked sick, and he’d had to figure out how to move people around so that all the work still got done during the day. And here were these two. Not betas. Not even dominant shifters in any way. As far as Cole could tell, Arren and Bastian only had their own house because Arren was Leo’s son, and Bastian because he was a close friend of Arren’s. Neither of those reasons should have given them the luxury of having a house of their own.

  They should have been sharing the barrack-style living quarters like all the other low-ranking shifters in the pack did before they started families. He didn’t think Arren’s status as the alpha’s son should give him special privileges, and their house could have been used for a family just starting out. Not that the pack was hurting for homes, but still, their privilege just because of who Arren’s father was annoyed Cole.

  What didn’t annoy him, though, was finding Arren standing at the front door waiting for him. “You’re late,” Arren said, sounding smug and obviously trying to hide his grin.

  Cole really wasn’t. “Get to the kitchen. I’ll escort you this time. Next time I won’t bother, and if you don’t show up, they’ll know to call me.” And then Cole would be spanking him. He shouldn’t have thought about getting his hands on Arren again. He realized that almost immediately as his brain started replaying having Arren over his thighs, the weight of him against his legs, the softness of his ass against Cole’s palm. The sharp cries Arren probably hadn’t even realized he’d been making each time Cole had brought his hand down over those round cheeks.

  Arren walked ahead of him, and thankfully he was wearing loose sweats. It was a blessing, because Cole didn’t need the reminder of what Arren looked like under those clothes. He was slim, and muscular. Every shifter Cole knew had grace to spare, but Arren walked like he knew how good he looked and welcomed stares. He was tempting, and Cole couldn’t be tempted like that. Not by the alpha’s son, at least.

  There were ten people working in the large kitchen when they arrived, and Cole nodded to them. “Arren will be joining you. Give him whatever task you want. Give him no special treatment. Anyone who treats him as anything other than a low-ranking member of this pack will answer to me.”

  He caught Arren’s glare, but it was the uncertain looks of the people facing him he was more concerned with. That was until Sasha stepped forward. She was younger than Cole but a few years older than Arren and pregnant with her second child. “He’ll make scrambled eggs. Good enough?”

  Cole would have rather seen him bent over buckets of potatoes and peeling them for soup, but eggs were good enough. “Sure. If he gives you trouble, you call me.”

  Sasha smirked at him.

  Maybe this wouldn’t be too hard for them after all. Maybe they, like he, thought Arren was given far too much privilege in the pack for his own good. It would do the boy some good to learn some humility.

  “Arren, when you’re done with whatever tasks they have for you, you’ll be free for the rest of the day. You won’t be expected to work past eleven at the very latest. The next shift comes in then.”

  Arren’s glare softened, but Cole still caught the young coyote’s look of annoyance, not that he was surprised by it. It didn’t t matter either. Arren could be mad all he wanted. He’d still have to work in the kitchens.

  Cole left them to it and headed to Leo’s house. The alpha met Cole outside as he collected the day’s mail that needed to go to the post office. They rarely had a small enough amount to fit in their mailbox way up the driveway. Two shifters shared the responsibility of driving into town and getting the mail dropped off and Cole waited until Leo was talking to them before approaching him.

  “Arren has successfully made it to his first day of work in the kitchen,” Cole let him know.

  Leo looked impressed. “I never thought you’d be able to get him to actually do it. He’s so very anti-anything that even resembles work. You must tell me your secret.”

  Cole didn’t think there was any really trick to it. “The first day I spanked him for not being up on time, and then I had him clean out the coop and take care of the chickens. Today he was on time.”

  Leo’s smile grew. “You spanked him? Oh, I’m sure he hated that. I don’t think anyone has ever spanked him in his life. Maybe if he had been, you wouldn’t have to resort to that hardship now.”

  “It wasn’t a hardship. He handled it well.”

  Leo nodded. “Good. He needs to learn some responsibility in this pack. I’m trying to figure out which of my children would be good to take my place in the future.”

>   “Arren isn’t the one.” Cole had no trouble telling Leo that. He was sure that Leo already knew that too.

  Leo laughed and shook his head. “No, Arren definitely isn’t the next alpha of this pack. But giving him more of a place in it will be good for him. He’s too young, too inexperienced. He needs responsibility and boundaries. You have my full permission to spank him whenever you want to, as long as his actions warrant it. I never thought a good spanking would get him to do something for the pack, but if it works, I’m not one to judge.”

  Cole was glad to know that they were on the same page with that, at least.

  “Do you like him?” Leo asked unexpectedly.

  Cole was caught off guard. He shrugged, trying to buy himself some time. “Honestly?” he hedged.

  “Yes, please. I’m curious.”

  Well, in that case... “I think he’s an entitled brat, but I still respect him as a member of this pack and as your son.” He hoped his phrasing could help soften the blow of what he’d said about Arren. It certainly was the truth, but it also wasn’t a very nice thing to say about someone else’s son.

  “What about as a mate?” Leo pressed him.

  “I’m sure someone will mate with him someday,” Cole said vaguely. He had no idea what Leo meant by his question. Certainly, someone probably would find Arren appealing. He had everything physical going for him. It was just his personality that was severely lacking.

  Leo smiled blandly, as if he really wasn’t all that interested in their discussion of his son after all, even though he’d brought it up. “Keep an eye out for a prospective mate for him, but don’t mention it to Arren. Before I step down into retirement, I want to see each of my children mated off and happy. Arren is one of the youngest of them and, I know, the one that will likely be the most difficult to mate off. He’s too...well, entitled works just as well as any other word I imagine. Yes, I did raise an entitled brat, and before I retire, I want to make sure that he’s settled down and happy. Or as happy as he can be in a mating arranged by his father. So keep your eyes out for someone like that, please. Someone who would be good for him, and not just enable him like every partner he’s ever had up to this point.”