Mark watched Damon's expression carefully, clearly waiting for Damon to freak out.

And somewhere, deep inside, Damon was, indeed, freaking out. But he pushed it down, reminding himself that in all likelihood, Mark was just repeating something completely made up. The chances of Jun being the future Venus pack Alpha, undercover in Ganymede pack and in a courtship with someone random when he had a perfectly good betrothed waiting for him – were astronomically small. Not only would Peter and Hailey definitely have known and told him about it when he saw them the other day, the Venus pack would have probably sent out a notice about their heir galivanting across the country willy-nilly.

So though Damon's hands were shaking like he'd had three too many cups of coffee, Damon found it within himself to roll his eyes. "Sure, Mark. Where did you hear that from anyway?"

Mark pouted. "Hey! All my information is one hundred percent reliable. Ava told me, if you have to know."

"Oh? And where did Ava hear it from?"

Damon relaxed when Mark avoided his gaze guiltily. The chances of the rumor being at all true just plummeted – Mark had no idea where the information had come from. Damon shook his head softly, forcing that small voice in the back of his head to quiet itself. Jun might not speak when he was asked certain questions, but he wouldn't be able to keep something that big from Damon either. Plus, Damon knew in his heart Jun was a good boy. He would never do something so irresponsible as entering a courtship with someone in another pack if he had a betrothed and a future as a pack leader.

Seeming somewhat offended over Damon's clear dismissal of the rumor, Mark pointed at his nose. "Ask Jun yourself. That's all I ask. If it's really as outlandish as you seem to think, then if you ask him, he'll tell you it's not true."

Damon thought this was reasonable. He nodded in agreement. But Mark wasn't done.

"But," he continued sternly, staring insistently at Damon, "if he does that thing where he goes silent, stop seeing him. I'm serious Damon. He could really hurt you if any of that rumor is true. I don't know why he would be in Ganymede pack courting you if he was really the son of Venus pack's Alpha, but his reasons can't be anything good. So promise me, if that happens, that you'll stop seeing him until the end of the courting period."

Damon hesitated. He couldn't help it. He thought about himself asking Jun about it, and receiving silence – what if Jun didn't want to answer for some other reason, a reason that would in no way hurt Damon? Then he'd be ignoring Jun for nothing, and hurting him in the process. He definitely couldn't imagine having the willpower to really ignore Jun if it came to that. The minute Jun showed up and whispered pleadingly outside Damon's door he would break and let him in.

"Damon," Mark said warningly, real concern crinkling the space between his eyebrows, and Damon sighed.

"...I promise."

Mark sat back, satisfied, and Damon went upstairs to get his own bag for his clothes. He had briefly forgotten that he was going to see Jun in just a few minutes and felt his stomach flutter in anxiety. Mark didn't expect him to ask right away, right? What if Jun really couldn't answer? He would have to ruin their date.

...Better to wait until after. This wasn't something he could just blurt out indelicately. What if the rumor was so completely untrue that it actually offended Jun? Then their date would be ruined for a whole different reason. Damon also felt that this was something he had to bring up in private. Bless Mark's well-meaning heart, but if he were there, he would probably make everything worse.

Damon came back downstairs, and he and Mark left for the woods in silence, Damon lost in his thoughts, Mark respecting his need to work through it on his own.

Jun was waiting just at the boundary of the forest, his own bag over his shoulder, posture relaxed and light. When he spotted Damon walking towards him, his expression softened. It wasn't quite a smile. Jun didn't smile very often. But his pleasure at seeing Damon was more than obvious. Mark huffed quietly next to Damon, on guard, but not openly hostile.

Mark conscientiously kept some distance between himself and them, used to his role as chaperone. He was present, but not intrusive. There to break them up if something went a little past the bounds of propriety, but not hovering. He nodded briskly at Jun and disappeared into the shadows between the trees to start his own shift before them.

Damon came to a stop in front of Jun and looked up at him wordlessly. Jun didn't seem to expect a greeting and instead leaned down to rub his cheek over the top of Damon's head as a hello, his preheat pheromones a pleasant musk surrounding him. Just like that, Damon's shoulders loosened, and he was able to push his concerns to the back of his mind. This was Jun they were talking about. Whatever he was keeping from Damon, it wasn't what Mark had told him.

Now Damon could focus on more present matters. Like, how he was going to remove his clothes and shift without Jun seeing him. He took a step towards the trees, and sure enough, Jun stuck to him like glue, mirroring his every step.

Well, alright then. Damon bit his lip, but he wasn't sure what he was so embarrassed about all of a sudden. This man had his tongue in Damon's ass just yesterday, drinking his slick like Gatorade. Reasonably speaking, there was very little to be embarrassed about after that.

He knew he could ask Jun to turn his back and give him some privacy and Jun would do it, but Damon found the words getting stuck in his throat. Why should he care? What use did he have with modesty at this point?

He sighed. That was the real problem with Jun's mysteriousness. Damon was twenty-six. This courtship was the only offer he'd received in his entire life. Malachi had never instigated a real, legal courtship with Damon. It was just dating, sex, and heartbreak. No promises.

And if his and Jun's courtship ended in heartbreak as well, then Malachi had promised to formally offer a courtship this time. And Damon, lonely, having lost the perfect partner that Jun seemed to be, would probably accept, and later be pressured into mating with Malachi by Malachi, Malachi's parents, and his own parents, who had been extremely disappointed when he broke up with Malachi the first time.

If, by the force of his own will, Damon managed to continually refuse Malachi, but still lost Jun – how many more courtship offers was he likely to receive? If his life experience up to now said anything, probably very few, if any.

And then soon enough he would be thirty. And then forty. An aging, plain omega who had never been able to keep a relationship. Maybe this line of thinking was a little extreme – he was certainly still young, in his prime, but Damon knew himself. Low libido plus his generally subdued personality equaled a boring partner.

That, Damon admitted to himself, is why he'd been so scared to rush headlong into loving Jun. Because if he really was hiding something, something that Damon wouldn't be able to handle, Damon's future love life had nowhere to go but down.

So maybe when Damon started whipping his clothes off, heedless of Jun's eyes on him, it was in defiance of his embarrassment.

Or maybe, it was because he knew that if he wasn't reckless now, he would never get the chance to be reckless again.