by Reine, SM
“Watch your head,” he said, pushing open the door.
There was a large cave on the other side, which seemed to have been converted into some kind of weird office space. A generator in the corner powered a row of computers. The image of a door was carved into the far wall, although there were no hinges or handle. Just an archway with swirling symbols, almost prehistoric in appearance. Caveman drawings.
“What is this place?” Seth asked. “What does this have to do with Heaven and Hell?”
“Nothing. Everything.” James closed the door behind them, sat down at one of the terminals, and began to type. “Here’s what you need to know: Hell is real. Heaven is real, too. There are at least seven levels of each that we know about, and we call them dimensions. The Union has trade routes between them.”
“You said ‘levels.’ Does that mean Hell’s below us? Like, really underneath?”
James shook his head. “No, they’re parallel dimensions.” He glanced up at Seth as he continued to type. “This is common knowledge. All kopides know this.”
“I’m a kopis, and I’ve never heard of this before.”
“I suppose you haven’t spent enough time around other kopides, then,” James said. He flipped a switch on the desk. The generator hummed and shook the floor beneath Seth’s feet. “But while most people know about Heaven and Hell, most people only know about the one mortal plane that we’re on. They don’t realize that there are others. Parallel Earths.”
The cables leading from the desk to the walls began to hum, and an instant later, the primitive symbols on the wall began to glow. Seth only realized that they were meant to depict humans when the symbols walked up the doorway to hunt blocky, pictographic animals.
He rubbed his eyes, convinced that he had to be imagining it. But when he looked again, they were still walking, still hunting.
A line of warm light appeared within the carved frame. The rock shimmered.
“What’s happening?” Seth asked.
James had to raise his voice to be heard over the humming. “You’ll see.”
Light flared, and when it faded, there was nothing on the other side but another cave, just like the one Seth was standing in, although the computers were absent. The generator’s whirring dropped to normal levels. The gold light faded. The pictographic hunters stopped mid-motion.
“Is that it?” Seth asked, creeping toward the new path between the caves. They weren’t quite a mirror image of each other. The other cave was narrower and longer, and no door blocked the path leading out on the other side.
He glanced back at James, who gave him an encouraging nod.
Taking a deep breath, Seth stepped over the threshold.
He had half-expected something weird to happen when he reached the other side, but he felt nothing weirder than when he stepped between rooms at the Gresham ranch. The air was cool and dry. It was equally quiet. After James’s talk of parallel Earths and that glowing light, he had expected something momentous—but it was just an extension of the other cave.
“That’s a long way to go for a prank,” Seth said as James typed at one of the terminals.
“Just a moment. I’m going to make sure the door stays open before I follow you.”
Seth gave a skeptical look at the pictograms. He must have imagined them moving. “Other dimensions,” he muttered. Crazy talk.
James hit a key and followed Seth to the other side. They walked up the path leading out of the cave. Seth smelled the sweet perfume of pollen, and birdsong echoed off of the slanted walls. When they got far enough along to see light, he spotted a few nests built into the nooks and crannies of the rock.
But as they got farther, the light kept getting brighter. Too bright, for the middle of the night.
They turned a corner and the late afternoon sun splashed on Seth’s face.
He shielded his eyes as he emerged from the cave. He expected to see more threatening signs and cameras—but there was nothing. Just trees and the cheery chirping of birds.
The sky was filled with puffy clouds drifting on a warm breeze. Lush grass carpeted the hillside. Even the trees were unlike those that he had left behind back home—they were deciduous trees in the full bloom of spring, not evergreens. And there was no hint of snow.
It was like stepping a few months into the future after all the ice thawed. Or, maybe, a few centuries into the past. The air smelled bizarrely fresh, there was no hint of pollution, and everything was silent. The forest spread for miles in front of him without any roads…or anything else humans used to mark their presence.
“Where are we?” Seth asked.
“This is a Haven,” James said. “It’s a mortal world without werewolves, without demons, without magic. There’s nothing here but man and beast. Even the Union hasn’t managed to explore it yet because none of their equipment works here.”
Seth sat down very, very hard on the grass. An insect leaped away from him with a buzz of wings.
“This is unreal,” he said. “I’m dreaming.”
James clapped a hand on his shoulder. “No, Seth. This isn’t unreal. This is where Rylie, your children, and the entire pack are going to be safe.”
THIRTEEN
Negotiations
The last time that Levi had hooked up with Tate, they had been celebrating Levi’s eighteenth birthday in Commissioner Peterson’s hot tub. It had been an active attempt by Tate to defile his parent’s property, and the security cameras probably caught all of it, which seemed to please Tate. Levi didn’t enjoy showing off, but he had been too horny to care at the time.
Not long after that, Tate’s mom had died. And then Levi had been forced to take the murderer—Rylie—back to his house in California so that she wouldn’t go crazy and kill anyone else.
It wasn’t just the last time that Levi had slept with Tate. It was the last time he had gotten any action.
Part of him thought that celibacy was probably better than having sex with someone supporting that bullshit legislation, but a much larger part of him was really feeling the dry spell.
So when Tate sent him a text message saying, “Meet me at the old place?”, Levi was not in a state of mind to resist.
The “old place” was by the sign in front of the former high school. The letters had been stripped off, a few of the windows on the main building were broken, and the lone tree in the courtyard looked like it was dying. The population of the town had gotten too small to support a dedicated high school. All of the kids, from kindergarten to twelfth grade, now went to a one building school six blocks away—which was considered to be on the “opposite side of town.”
Tate was lurking in the shadows behind it, just as Levi knew he would be, and he was wearing a suit that made him look all kinds of delicious. He had lost all of his baby fat and started working out. Now he had a chiseled jaw, perfect hair that had probably been maintained by the White House’s best stylists, and a guilty expression.
“I’m surprised to hear from you again,” Levi said. “I’m especially surprised to see that you detoured here when the second lap of your tour’s supposed to be going to Tampa.”
Tate just shook his head and pulled Levi behind the sign. “Shut up.”
He shoved Levi against the stucco and crushed their lips together.
There were hands all over Levi—sliding up his shirt, gripping his shoulders, cupping the back of his neck. He could barely breathe.
Tate’s hand had just slipped down Levi’s jeans when they heard someone approaching.
They froze and listened to the feet crossing on the sidewalk behind them. The smell of fear poured off of Tate, which only made him smell even more delicious to Levi’s wolf. He pressed his nose against Tate’s throat and inhaled. Delicious.
His ex-boyfriend didn’t move until the footsteps had faded, even though Levi could hear that there were more people coming.
“I can’t be seen with you,” Tate whispered.
Levi quashed a surge of anger. “You sure kno
w how to talk dirty.”
He fisted Tate’s lapel and dragged him through the parking lot. He had a brand new BMW now—a shining silver beast that didn’t smell at all like a rolling bong. It unlocked when Tate approached, and Levi tossed him in the driver’s seat.
“You used to like being seen with me,” Levi said, climbing into his lap and slamming the door shut. There was plenty of room for the both of them in the front seat.
“That was…before,” Tate said. Levi was sure that he would have an excuse for why “before” was different from “now,” but he didn’t really care to hear it, so he plastered himself to his ex-boyfriend, tangled his fingers in his hair, and kissed him hard.
At some point, they somehow made it back to a motel—the only motel in town, actually. They also managed to get inside Tate’s room without being seen.
Tate slammed Levi’s back against the door as soon as it was shut. Buttons popped as Tate ripped his shirt open. “I thought you said something about the evils of homosexuality in your speech,” Levi said, laving his tongue down Tate’s throat and onto his chest.
Tate drew back, hands balled up in the remains of Levi’s shirt. “Do you have a problem?”
“Yeah. I have a pretty big freaking problem with hypocrites.” But even as he said it, Levi was undoing Tate’s belt, popping open the fly, and lowering the zipper.
“I’m really not gay,” Tate said.
Levi rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
That was the last time they talked for several minutes. Almost an hour, actually. Which was completely fine with Levi.
Three year dry spell? Over.
They lounged in bed for a long time after rediscovering one another with lips and hands. Levi wasn’t any less annoyed at Tate, but it was easy to forget about Tate’s speeches in the post-orgasmic haze.
Levi circled Tate’s navel with a fingertip and contemplated the beads of sweat. Tate was still wearing his tie and button-down shirt, although it hung open in the front. That was all he was wearing now. Watching his speeches was going to be a lot more fun in the future.
“So what’s up with you and this Office of Preternatural Affairs?” Levi asked, finally breaking the silence. “You’re not old enough to get into politics. And you can’t tell me that the Union has any interest in you, either. You’re as boring and human as they come.”
Tate looked offended. “Boring? Boring?”
“Yeah. Boring. You used to be fun. I only hooked up with you because you were wild and weird and totally irreverent, and I needed that.”
“I thought you hooked up with me because you wanted me to give you free weed.”
Levi shrugged. “It was a bonus. But now you’re just some government shill that’s trying to ruin my life.”
“That wasn’t a problem five minutes ago.”
“Just like it’s not a problem for you to screw a gay werewolf?”
“You’re not like the rest of them,” Tate started to say, but Levi kissed him to shut him up.
“You can keep saying that,” he murmured against Tate’s lips, “but you’re still a hypocrite.”
Tate rolled his eyes and pushed him away. “I’m going to take a shower.”
He kicked off the sheets and vanished into the bathroom, leaving Levi alone in bed. He leaned back with his arms propping up his head and watched Tate finish undressing through the crack in the door. He dropped his shirt, turned on the shower, and got in.
Levi momentarily contemplated joining him, until he heard buzzing—a cell phone.
He scooped Tate’s pants off of the floor and found the source of the buzz. There was a missed call, and a voice mail. He dragged Tate’s old password out of memory, punched in the numbers, and brought up the message.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Peterson,” said a voice that Levi didn’t recognize. “We checked out your lead. She is a werewolf. Thanks for verifying her location—she’s been on our internal registry for months, but we haven’t been able to pin her down. Our team’s planning to secure her soon. Don’t worry about it.”
Secure her?
His mind whirled with questions. Levi scrolled through the sent text messages to see if there was anything else, but there was nothing interesting; it looked like he mostly used the phone for keeping in contact with his tour team.
He climbed out of bed and went into the foggy bathroom.
“You missed a call,” Levi said.
Tate stuck his head around the curtain. “Don’t touch my phone.”
“Too late. Which werewolf did you report to the OPA? Who’s going to get ‘secured’?”
“I can’t believe you listened to my messages.”
Levi slammed the phone down on the counter. “Was it Bekah? Were you reporting my sister?”
“No,” Tate said, ducking back into the shower again. Water splashed as his silhouette went through the motions of rinsing out his hair. “I was reporting Rylie.”
“Why would you do that?”
“You know that she’s pregnant, right? And she’s a werewolf. I was just asking the OPA to send child protective services to check on her.”
“You seriously think that they’re not going to seize her? You’re a hypocrite and a moron,” Levi said.
Tate’s voice echoed in the shower. “Relax. You’re just paranoid.”
Levi stormed out of the bathroom. If the Union knew where she was, then they surely wouldn’t wait long to pick her up. And a team moving in to “secure her” could only be bad for everyone there—including Bekah.
He pulled his pants on and grabbed his shoes.
“Hey,” Tate said, bursting out of the bathroom. He was already wearing his shirt again. “Where are you going?”
“The Union was just checking out my pack. They were threatening us. And now you’ve sent them straight back there. I have to get to my wolves before something bad happens.”
“You said that you’re the Alpha, right? You’re in charge,” Tate said, pulling on his white briefs. “The best thing you can do for them—the safest thing—is to get them all to sign up with the Union.”
Levi shook his head as he laced up his shoes. “You’re crazy.”
“No, man, hear me out. This legislation’s going to blow the lid off of everything. I don’t think it’s going to be safe for werewolves like you guys to be wandering around, if you catch my drift.”
He jerked his shirt over his head. “I’ve got your drift all right.”
“The Union doesn’t want to hurt any of you. It just wants to put you somewhere safe.”
“Like a concentration camp?” Levi asked.
Tate gave a disbelieving laugh. “Why do you have to be so paranoid?”
“Because you just told the entire world that we exist!”
“It was going to happen either way,” Tate said. “At least the Union has a plan for protecting you guys during the backlash. Do you care about your pack, or what?”
Levi grabbed his jacket off the floor, but hesitated to put it back on.
Rylie had failed to protect the pack so far, but everyone still looked to her like she was some kind of great leader, which was not even remotely the truth—she was nothing more than a pathetic, scared little rich girl who couldn’t keep her legs closed.
Maybe if Levi could secure the pack’s safety once and for all…maybe they’d stop looking to the wrong people as their leader.
He slowly pulled the jacket over his shoulders as he considered. “What’s the Union’s plan?”
“They just want to give werewolves jobs,” Tate said. “Put all the anger and power to good use. That’s all. Don’t you think that’s best?”
Levi clenched his jaw. His fists trembled. He couldn’t think of an answer.
What was “best” for the wolves? Would it really be the Union?
Tate followed him to the door, but he put his hand on it before Levi could exit. “So…uh…you’re not going to tell anyone about this, right?” Tate asked. “You and me.”
> Disgust welled inside of Levi, and he used his super-strength to rip the door open. He almost pulled the door straight off its hinges. “I can’t believe that I used to think I was in love with you,” Levi said, jerking his jacket closed over his chest.
“Wait! Don’t just—”
Levi lifted his hand over his head, flipped his middle finger at Tate, and then launched into a run.
Levi returned to his car and drove blindly through the streets of the town. He wanted to get back to the ranch and his sister as soon as possible, but he couldn’t seem to focus on anything long enough to find the highway again.
He had known whose side Tate was on, so there was no reason to feel so betrayed. It was ridiculous. Irrational. Yet Levi had kind of believed that Tate’s text message had been precursor to getting back together…and away from the OPA.
After three laps around the town, he realized that he was wandering and going nowhere.
There was the highway. Levi turned onto it and accelerated to fifty-five.
“I have to warn Rylie,” he said aloud, tightening his hands on the wheel. There was no way around it. Whatever he thought about her, whatever he wanted to get from the pack—she didn’t deserve this.
A pair of headlights approached him, cutting through the foggy day.
He saw the SUV swerve an instant before it struck.
Levi’s head smacked into his window, and his ears erupted with a ringing noise. Metal crunched and groaned. The seat belt snapped tight over his collarbone. The view outside the cracked windshield spun wildly.
He lost all sense of gravity as the horizon flipped once, twice.
The car came to a jolting stop at the bottom of the embankment.
Levi flopped back against his chair, hands frozen on the steering wheel. His vehicle had rotated forty-five degrees to face the road, and came to a stop staring up the hill. It took all of his strength to peel his fingers off of the wheel.
“Ugh,” he groaned, cradling his head in his aching hands.
Some SUV had just hit him in the side and knocked him off the highway. Any human might have been killed by that kind of impact, but the healing fever had already begun to sweep over him. He shuddered as the heat grew until he felt like he had stepped inside a furnace. The red stripes across his fingers faded. His forehead burned, and when he touched it, the lesion on his temple had vanished, leaving behind nothing but sticky blood.