Kiss him. But Devan’s phone rang, once again interrupting them. He fished it from his pocket and checked the screen. “It’s a Bratislava number,” he said. “I have to take it. Go on with your work. I’ll find you at home before it’s time to leave.”
Home. “Leave?”
“For the border mission.”
“How do you know about that? It was only planned an hour ago.”
“Wolves talk. I listen.”
Devan’s impish grin returned, and he backed away from Zio, gone as suddenly and silently as he’d appeared, leaving Zio to contemplate the notion that home was a state of mind they shared.
I like that.
Chapter Thirteen
Devan perched on the branch of the weeping willow tree, surveying the efficient activity on the ground. With Zio in charge, the defence force deployed by Varian to protect the border had wasted little time setting up camp. The operation was different to the last—less guerrilla and far bigger. Fifty northern wolves had accompanied Zio’s unit to the border, soldiers, apparently, though they lacked the edge of Zio’s fearsome crew.
The base was imposing and well equipped. Sleeping quarters and a makeshift medical tent were set up.
“What about the human authorities?” Devan asked. “They won’t object to a military camp like this?”
Danielo shook his head from his position at the foot of the tree, using his gift to seek out a fresh-water source in case the enemy cut the current supply. “They don’t know where the border is. As far as they know, this is a training camp. We’re allowed those.”
“To what end?”
“To keep our protection forces viable. Not even humans can deny our right to defend ourselves.”
Devan absorbed the information. Coexisting with English humans seemed far more complicated than it was in Slovakia, where Dash’s healer’s commune was nestled deep within the densely populated capital city. In Bratislava, humans were openly fascinated by shifters. Not so afraid of them that they imposed draconian rules to control them. This is war, though, remember? And war breeds fear.
Fear that had been worryingly absent in Zio as they’d prepared to head south. They hadn’t had much time before the mission had called them away, but they’d managed to eat—more pizza—and Devan had slept on the couch while Zio had packed.
He’d woken to Zio’s hand on his shoulder, his whisper that of a dream: “It’s time to go.” Staring down at the operation below, it seemed to belong to a different lifetime. Zio was in his element here, shouting orders, directing wolves, demanding respect without ever expecting that it wouldn’t be there. Devan thought back to the blissful half hour they’d spent in Zio’s bed before Devan’s duty had interrupted them. Zio had been in his element then too. Was that what he’d needed all along? To take what he desired rather than Devan simply giving it to him?
As though he’d heard Devan’s thoughts, Zio glanced up. Devan was hidden by the sweeping leaves of the willow tree, and the frown creasing Zio’s forehead bothered him. Does he need me?
The possibility that he did, and Devan was nowhere in sight, was enough to drive Devan out of his treetop sanctuary.
He dropped to the ground, startling Danielo.
“Fuckin’ A. Stop doing that shit.”
Devan grinned back. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
Devan turned. Zio was behind him, an unfathomable glint in his dark gaze. “How can you tell?”
“Just can. Where do you want to sleep?”
“Huh?”
“Sleep, Devan. That thing we do when we’re tired, unless you were planning on staying awake for however long we’re stuck in this crap hole.”
“I don’t need much sleep.”
“That’s not the same as no sleep. Answer the question.”
Danielo whistled. “Damn, you’re like an old married couple. Maybe you should share a tent while the rest of us bunk in together.”
Zio glowered at him. “Don’t be thinking what you’re thinking already. We’ve only been here ten minutes, and we haven’t got time for that.”
Devan sampled Zio’s emotions. Irritation was his baseline, impatience, frustration, but there was heat there too, a different kind to the inferno Devan felt when they were together, but still. “Am I missing something?”
“No,” Zio snapped in synchro with Danielo’s deepening smirk. “Just this clown can never be dissuaded from getting his dick wet. Doesn’t seem to matter where we are or what’s at stake.”
He turned on his heel and stormed away. Devan shifted his curiosity to Danielo.
The young wolf shrugged. “Zio needs to chill out. Before Emma died, he had no issue cutting loose when we had the chance. Needed it as much as the rest of us. We’ve been fighting a long time.”
Comprehension clicked in Devan’s brain. “You’re lonely and jacked up by war, so you find comfort in each other.”
It wasn’t a question, but Danielo nodded. “Something like that. I’m not saying we have non-stop orgies when we should be working, but there isn’t exactly much to do around here.”
“And being together is safe, yes?”
“Yes.”
It made sense. Devan had heard of such things in shifter packs before and always envied the sexual freedom—the ability to take pleasure without consequence. He imagined what it would be like with Zio, if Devan was as Danielo seemed to be to him—a pack mate who’d always be there, no matter what. A friend he could explore and enjoy without complication or fear. Devan pictured them in Zio’s bed, no stress or hard limits. Zio open and relaxed, uplifted by his desire for Devan, not rigid with ingrained distrust. He pushed Zio onto his back and spread his legs, trailing fingertips through the sweat beaded on Zio’s heated skin as he brought his length to where Zio wanted him most. Zio—
Danielo chuckled, drawing Devan from his fantasies. “You should definitely try it while we’re here, if you find yourself in need of a distraction.”
“A distraction from what?”
“From whatever’s putting that look on your face.”
Another day, another treetop hideout. But this time for strategic importance rather than Devan’s natural instinct to sit back and watch.
He tracked the team of northern soldiers as Zio led them through the undergrowth towards the enemy group approaching from the east.
The attack had been expected and was predictable in its nature. Devan had learned that about the southern packs—that what they gained by their greater numbers, they lacked in imagination. It was one of many reasons Varian’s pack had resisted them for so long. Another was undeniably the superior abilities of the elite combat squad.
Devan climbed higher in the mighty oak. The two groups were out of sight of each other, but close—thirty feet, if that. A gentle rumble shook the ground. At first, Devan thought he’d imagined it; then the lead wolves of the enemy disappeared, swallowed by the earth as a sinkhole opened beneath them.
Gods. But there was no spare heartbeats for shock and awe. In the time it had taken Zio to destroy the southern scouts, the northern forces had converged, breaking through the hedge barriers separating them, using the advantage of their downwind position. A flash of light. A shout. Growls filled the air as every wolf that was able shifted and charged into the fray.
The fighting was fierce. Blood scented the wind, filling Devan’s senses as a dozen shifters fought for survival. Zio’s team were outnumbered, but they had skill on their side. And Devan. He skirted the battle from his aerial position, leaping from tree to tree as he fought the urge to shift. Another enemy shifter fell, throat ripped out by a northern wolf Devan didn’t recognise in its animal form. Where’s their healer? Devan scented the air and reached out with the contact only another healer would notice but found nothing.
A northern wolf died, succumbing to catastrophic injuries before Devan could reach them. Who is it? Who is it? Who is it? It wasn’t Zio. But was it Bomber? Or Michael? Fuck this. I need to see them in thei
r wolf form before they go out again.
Devan dropped to the ground. The fighting was fading. A northern wolf rolled in front of him, a deep gash to its neck. Devan healed it and moved on, trusting his abilities to keep the wolf safe from further attack.
A southern wolf fell at his feet. Instinct warred with pack, but a tortured howl pierced the air before either urge won.
Devan spun around. Four feet away, a brown wolf writhed on the ground, northern by scent. A southern wolf moved in to finish it off, but Zio’s black wolf, enhanced with his beta strength, appeared from nowhere. He pounced. The enemy wolf yelped, but the sound cut off, the wolf killed by a flick of Zio’s powerful jaws.
Silence hit the clearing, save the pained moans of the injured. The battle was over.
The sudden calm was oppressive. Devan moved through the aftermath, healing wolves with the northern scent, thankful every enemy wolf he came across had died of their wounds. Human footsteps replaced the tread of huge paws. Michael appeared, Danielo, and finally Bomber. All of them drawn to Devan, even as men, their wolves recognising Devan as their healer.
Other northern wolves drifted closer too, but before Devan could absorb that more of the pack—his pack—had accepted him as one of their own, a waft of blood hit him. Of torn flesh and mangled bone. He spun again. Two wolves were on the ground. Southern wolves. The enemy had left their injured behind.
Devan stepped forward.
Bomber caught his arm. “No.”
“They’ll die.”
“So? You think their healer is running around looking for our brothers and sisters to heal?”
“Who they are doesn’t change who I am. Who we are. Besides, if I heal them, you can take them prisoner, no?”
“We don’t take prisoners.”
Devan shrugged out of Bomber’s grip and continued forwards. He crouched by the closest enemy wolf, a young female. “You didn’t have non-wolves in your pack either until recently. Things change.”
“Don’t touch that fucking wolf.”
Zio’s voice sent shivers down Devan’s spine. Somehow, Devan had missed him returning to the scene of the battle in his human form, but even with his back to him, he knew he was naked, sinewy muscles bunched with tension, fists clenched, dark gaze fiercer than ever.
Devan sat back on his heels. It had been easier to disobey Bomber. Technically, Zio was his superior, his beta, though Devan didn’t belong to his unit. “I can’t leave them to die.”
“Why not? They’d rip your throat out if they were capable.”
“I don’t doubt it, but the fight is over. Let me heal them.”
“No.”
“Zio.”
“Fucking leave it, Devan. It’s not your call.”
Devan didn’t need to hear Zio’s departing footsteps to know he was walking away.
Chapter Fourteen
“He’s still there, you know. Devan. He’s still sitting with them.”
Zio glowered. He didn’t need specifics from Michael to know what he was talking about. He knew Devan was still guarding the dying enemy wolves because his every sense was tuned to Devan whether he wanted it to be or not. And right now, he could’ve done without the mental image of the raw pain he’d seen in Devan when he’d refused him permission to be the shifter he’d been reborn to be. “He can sit there all night. Won’t do him any good.”
Michael said nothing, which was often his loudest voice.
Zio sighed and pulled his hands from the river. “Whatever it is, just say it. I’ve better shit to be doing than dealing with you silently judging my every move.”
Michael stretched his legs out in front of him, turning his face to the night sky. “I’m not judging anything, but I don’t think you’re being fair.”
“Fair to who? The hordes of southern wolves that were sent to kill us, or Devan?”
“Both. We were trying to kill them as much as they were us, and you’ve ordered Devan to go against everything he is, despite him offering a sensible alternative.”
“Taking prisoners?”
Michael shrugged. “We’ve never done it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t. We don’t know who those wolves are—they could be grunts, or conscripts, or maybe even betas. Given our current situation, we’d be fools to let that kind of intelligence die.”
“Our current situation?”
“We’re against the ropes, man,” Michael said. “And we only came out on top today because Devan was with us. Even if you don’t agree with him, at least hear him out and check in with Varian before you make an enemy of the only healer we’ve got.”
“We don’t take prisoners.”
“Uh-huh.”
Michael lay back on the riverbank and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to Zio’s deepening glare. He was the most perceptive of Zio’s unit. The only subordinate wolf who would ever challenge him so freely . . . and so damn reasonably that Zio wanted to throttle him.
He huffed out another sigh and got to his feet. In the distance, northern campfires burnt, overtly defending the weakest points in the border, the message to the enemy clear—we’re here, come and get us. The fires were guarded, the sleeping areas too, watch teams changing every few hours. Zio’s gaze didn’t linger on them, instead drawn to the dimly lit area where northern wolves were burying both their own dead and those from the other side, as human public health laws dictated. To the side of the death circle, a lone figure sat where Zio had left him, keeping vigil over the dying wolves of the enemy pack.
Devan.
The tug in Zio’s chest was impossible to ignore. He threw Michael a last scowl and jogged to the scene he’d been hoping to leave behind until morning.
Devan heard him coming, naturally, but didn’t turn around. “The male died an hour ago. Your clean-up crew is coming back for him.”
“They’re not my clean-up crew. They’re burying their family.”
“And someone else’s. Is this how you’d want your brothers to be treated?”
“The southern packs have done far worse to my brothers,” Zio snapped. “And my sisters.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
“Never said it did.”
Devan turned to face Zio, shadows obscuring most of his face. “What if the enemy had found Emma injured and let her live?”
“They didn’t find her. I did, and she died in my arms.”
“Because you couldn’t heal her.”
“No one could’ve healed her, Devan. She was . . . fuck, there was nothing left to fix.”
“Shadow Clan nurtures the most powerful healers in the world,” Devan said. “Whatever side I’d been on, I might’ve been able to save her.”
Rage, fresh and bright, flared in Zio’s gut, merging with the pain of old wounds. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to. Just try and see past your anger and grief. There are strategic reasons to keep this wolf alive, but you have to be more than a soldier, Zio. You have to be a man.”
“I don’t have to be anything you tell me to be. My responsibility is to my pack, and that means eradicating any fucker that’s trying to kill us.”
Devan laughed without humour. “She’s not killing anyone right now.”
“And she won’t ever again. Fuck you and your strategic bullshit. If you want to be a healer in a war, you have to pick a side.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’re no good to us.”
For the second time in as many hours, Zio walked away from Devan. He felt sick, but he blamed it on the heavy use of his gift in the fight. Exerting his supernatural abilities often left him with a headache, something Devan could’ve helped him with if he hadn’t been hellbent on saving the enemy. Why does he have to be so fucking difficult?
With no answer forthcoming from Zio’s subconscious, he repeated the question to Varian when he tracked down the satellite phone a little while later.
Varian sighed. “He’s not being difficult; he’s showing us an alternate path, jus
t as we have shown him one in drawing him onto the battlefield. I’ll admit, my own desire to destroy as much of the southern packs as we can has left me merciless. Perhaps it’s time we tried something different.”
“You’re seriously considering saving a southern rat?”
“A wolf, Zio. Whatever they have become to us, they are still our own kind.”
Zio growled loud enough for a nearby soldier to shoot him an alarmed glance. Reining himself in, Zio ducked into a tent, letting solitude embrace him. Calm him. “Whatever. I still think it’s madness to waste our resources keeping them alive.”
“If Devan can heal the surviving wolf with his powers alone, we haven’t lost anything.”
“And then what, though? What if the enemy comes looking for her?”
“I’d imagine they won’t if they were happy to leave her behind in the first place. In any case, I will send an intelligence unit to your position to retrieve her. That way, no nearby enemy will sense that she’s still alive.”
Disquiet coursed through Zio’s veins. “But what if she doesn’t know anything? What do we do with her then? Kill her anyway?”
“If she’s away from your base, Zio, it won’t be your concern. Pass my orders onto Devan, and consider the matter closed.”
The discussion was over. The soldier in Zio regretted mentioning the injured southern wolf at all, but as Zio sent a messenger to Devan with Varian’s orders, the man Devan apparently wanted him to be felt nothing but relief. I can’t live with him being unhappy.
Devan drifted back to base, weary. Emotions that weren’t his own bombarded him from every direction, and he longed for his quiet couch in Zio’s bungalow.
He longed for Zio too, but if today had taught him anything, it was that whatever mythical connection they shared was nowhere near enough to bridge the gaps where they were worlds apart. If not for Varian’s eleventh-hour intervention, the female wolf would’ve died.
As it was, Devan had passed her over to northern intelligence. Who knew what would become of her now?
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