There was an immense companionability one missed, and eventually forgot to miss, in Lord Akeldama's bed. A suddenly coupling brought on by a particularly exhausting day was never an issue with Biffy's last lover. In fact, exertion in particular was never encouraged or generally allowed to begin with...

Sweat stale from the day, bedraggled from too small a bed, and sweet, unadministered breath from hours beyond a last toilette would have once made Biffy scoff at the idea of intimacy, but no longer. No state Lyall was capable of possessing could dissuade Biffy's interest.

In the position they were in now, Biffy deeply seated between Professor Lyall's firm, sinewy thighs, nothing imaginable could dampen his passion either.

That was, until the halting breath in his ear became panicked and the richly deep moan from Lyall's chest became reed thin and emanated from the back of his throat.

In an instinctual impulse, Biffy immediately stilled and bit down firmly between Lyall's neck and shoulder. As a human, Biffy would have interpreted the action as aggressive, bordering on threatening, but as wolves both he and the Professor knew differently. It was meant to assure the safety of his embrace and the protection that was beyond the need to imply.

Slowly, the body beneath his relaxed but was still far from prepared to continue at the pace they had risen to only moments before.

"I'm sorry," Lyall's voice was almost inaudible under the weight of shame he obviously felt.

Biffy hushed him and languidly licked and kissed at the indentations his teeth had made in his lovers neck. He wished he could sit back, look into the pain he was trying to chase away, and be as brave as Lyall had shown to be, but he couldn't. He couldn't see the connection, albeit an unconscious one, Lyall's mind had made to the other alpha that had hurt him so badly. Biffy wasn't yet prepared to accept that one day it might not be an unconscious, traumatic reaction that related him and that monster, but that he one day might loose his mind and put Lyall or another in that situation.

The thought made it all too easy to ease his hips back and slide free of the addictive grip of Lyall's body.

In protest, Lyall caught his hips before he was yet fully released but Biffy wouldn't be restrained, not in this matter.

"No need to rush," Biffy nuzzled into Lyall's ear in an extremely wolfish manner, "no mayhem or children to see to just yet, we might as well take advantage of every moment awarded to us."

Neither volunteered to address the deeper issues at hand but with little petting and coaxing neither needed anymore convincing to put the past behind them once more and concentrate on the present.