Gregor doesn’t wake once the whole time, although his breathing quickens and he flinches whenever Aaron’s fingers touch his skin.
The sun is fully risen by the time Aaron leaves the cave again. He’d prefer to stay inside, close to Gregor so he can watch him sleep and be there the moment that the alpha wakes up or gets worse.
He can’t do that. He needs as much warning of any alphas approaching as he can, even as he has no idea what he will do if they did. All he’ll be able to do is throw rocks at them and hope that they land somewhere that it hurts.
Aaron gazes out over the expanse of the valley again, and squints over the narrow channel leading up to the cave. Still no alphas and still no scent of them.
He checks the plastic bags again to make sure they’re still in place and they’re not leaking, then helps himself to one of the dull tubers.
He sits with his back against the rock by the entrance to the cave to keep watch.
Aaron spends the morning following the shadows as the sun makes its way across the sky.
Halfway through the morning, he spots a couple of wolves making their way across the valley although they come nowhere near the peak, and around noon, a small pack appears briefly in the distance and then fades from view again.
The sun beats down hard: a contributing factor, he thinks. No one is going to make the journey across the valley to the peak unless they have a really good reason. Everyone else is going stay close to the river.
For the thousandth time, Aaron sends up a small prayer of thanks to the omega who not only managed to gather the bottles and hide them in the cave, but also had the generosity to share their location online.
As soon as they get out of here, Aaron intends to find them and thank them in person. If he can.
He feeds Gregor water and reapplies the leaf mixture throughout the day.
By late afternoon, he thinks it’s working, even as Gregor continues to sleep.
He’s not tried to wake him, but the alpha’s breathing is steadier and he’s not sweating as much as he had been earlier.
At sundown, he checks the bags again. This time, there’s a solid pool of water at the bottom of each.
It worked! Exhilaration crashes over him. Everything else has gone wrong, but not this. They have water.
He removes the leaves carefully, then tips the water from each bag in turn into the emptiest bottle. It fills it to the top.
Aaron takes a tentative sip. It tastes slightly odd but it seems fine.
Yes! He punches the air in the cooling twilight. Something has finally gone right.
That’s when he picks up the scent of alphas below.
GREGOR
damp noodles and bad smells
Gregor wakes with a start. Something smells wrong. He shudders.
More than wrong. It smells like the world has been turned upside-down.
He blinks bleary eyes and forces himself to a sitting position. It’s hard work: his body is as weak and useless as a damp noodle.
More useless in fact, he thinks. At least they could eat a noodle.
It’s pitch dark in the cave and Aaron is nowhere to be seen.
Aaron. The wrongness is something to with Aaron.
Gregor flares his nostrils. Aaron’s scent, mixed with the coppery tang of blood, rushes in and overwhelms his brain. A flush of panic rises.
The scent is wrong. Something’s happened.
Gregor forces himself to his feet, then sways in place as a wave of dizziness hits.
What the hell? He remembers not feeling well, and then...
There’s the soft sound of feet scuffing sand outside. The terrible wrong scent returns, sending a razor-sharp complaint deep into the depths of his brain. A shudder wracks his body.
He forces tired muscles to the entrance of the cave. There’s a bright wide moon hanging overhead. A small dark figure is slumped against the rock opposite.
There’s another scent now amongst the horror of the wrong one: alphas. There are at least three of them and they’re getting closer.
Gregor shakes his head, desperately trying to clear it and work out what is going on. He breathes in deep and immediately wishes he hadn’t.
The night air reeks of wrongness.
The alphas. Where are the alphas? He forces himself to breath in deep again and pick out their scent among the horror.
Not here. Not yet.
They’re somewhere below in the dark. He picks up the stones by the sheer drop and throws them one by one in the direction of the scent.
There’s the sound of a yelp, then another and then the scents fade.
For a split second, he wonders if he’s having a nightmare.
The darkness and the scents and the dull heaviness of his legs would certainly point to it, but in his heart he knows it’s real.
“Aaron,” he whispers, approaching the slumped figure. “Are you okay?”
The omega’s dark head is bent onto his chest and he’s breathing heavily. The scent of blood returns. Gregor can see it now: a long streak of dark liquid that runs down his neck and trickles down his chest.
Aaron raises his head slowly, as if it’s too heavy for his neck.
Gregor’s knees give way. He falls, his knees cracking as he hits the sand, even as his hands reach for Aaron.
His fingertips graze cool, clammy skin smeared with blood.
Rage rises: a pure hot anger that burns through his veins and sears into his heart.
They destroyed his scent glands. Who would do that?
“It’s okay,” Gregor murmurs, even as the stink of it turns his stomach. “I’m here. I’m not going to leave you. We’ll fix this.”
And he is going to start with pure murder. Every single one of those assholes is going down. And Corrigan. And the blood wolves. And every single alpha who let this happen. They are all going to pay.
“Who was it? Which one of them did this?” He needs to know where to start.
Aaron blinks slowly, then he grins widely. His teeth flash white under the yellow moon. “No. Not them. It was me. They can’t claim me now.” He’s slurring. The words all run into each other: a torrent of nonsense. “You don’t have to fight them. You don’t have to fight anyone. They won’t want me now. Not forever at least.”
“What?” Gregor asks, confused. He runs the words through his head slower. It still doesn’t make any sense.
Aaron leans forward conspiratorially, still grinning wildly.
He’s drunk, Gregor thinks. Pain pulses at his temples. He’s still hot, thirsty and confused. He’s not thinking clearly. He can’t be drunk. It’s not possible.
“I did it,” Aaron whispers. His breath is hot against Gregor’s cheek. “Now they won’t want me. At least not enough to fight you. We’re safe now.”
Energy drains from Gregor’s limbs. He slumps beside Aaron, his back against hard rock.
Thoughts race through his mind, even as his body stills.
Aaron stinks. The hormones trickling down his chest with the red blood aren’t meant to be exposed to air. They’re meant for tasting: to be mixed with alpha saliva, mating them together for life.
Soon they’ll have disintegrated completely into the air, and Aaron will be left with nothing. He’ll never be able to be properly mated.
“You’ll never have an alpha,” Gregor says, hearing the shock in his own voice even as he says the words out loud.
Aaron turns his head to look at him. The movement sends a fresh wave of hormones wafting off of him. The reek hits Gregor right in the back of his throat. Nausea rises, twisting his stomach.
He stumbles away just in time, and empties his stomach over the edge of the precipice.
AARON
brothers and ear worms
You’ll never have an alpha.
Aaron squats on the red sand as the sun sets, inspecting the water traps. Gregor’s words run through his head like the world’s worst earworm.
You’ll never have an alpha. Never ever ever. An
d you’ll definitely not have me.
Okay, maybe Gregor didn’t say the last part, but Aaron’s thinking it. Gregor’s probably thinking it too.
He saw the look of horror on Gregor’s face when he saw the injury. It can’t be unseen, no matter how much the big alpha tells him it is going to be okay.
Water has pooled again at the bottom of the traps. Aaron lets himself feel a moment of smug satisfaction. The traps were his idea.
They’re not going to have to leave the cave until the end of the run.
“I think they’re definitely gone,” Gregor says from behind him. He’s been patrolling constantly since last night, heading up and down the incline and sniffing the air as if the scents are going to change at any moment.
“Good,” Aaron replies without looking up. “You should get some rest. I’ll empty the water traps.”
“I think it’s your turn. Let me have a look at your neck.”
The big alpha gets down on his knees beside him and puts a gentle hand on Aaron’s shoulder. Aaron does his best not to stiffen.
Unexpectedly soft fingers touch at the skin at the side of the wound. “When did you last wash it?”
“This morning. It’s fine.”
Gregor grunts. “I’m going to put some of that antiseptic on it. It worked for me.”
“It’ll be fine,” Aaron says again through gritted teeth.
“No. It won’t be,” Gregor replies firmly, but this time the alpha authority just sticks in Aaron’s craw. “This is a serious injury. Your scent glands are almost completely destroyed. I can smell it.”
“Well done,” Aaron says.
“Okay, Mr Sarcastic. Look, I’m not going to coddle you but you need to take this seriously.”
“I am. I did it myself, didn’t I? Just leave me alone.” Aaron gets to his feet and runs into the cave, feeling like the world’s moodiest teenager.
Gregor doesn’t follow him.
Aaron lies down on the sand on his back and puts his hands behind his head. It makes the skin at the wound stretch and itch. He ignores it.
What choice did he have? Gregor was unconscious. Or he thought he was, and three alphas started up the incline towards him.
He only had so many rocks to throw.
He hardly even remembers making the decision to destroy the glands. All he remembers is blind panic so overwhelming that the memory of it makes him want to throw up.
It’s not just his neck that hurts. His wrist is sprained too and his hand aches. He’d gripped the stone so hard and scraped it against his neck so deeply that his entire arm throbs with every movement.
Aaron turns over onto his side and starts doodling in the sand with a single finger. He likes it better inside than out. The amazing view was of interest for all of a day, but now he’s struggling with it.
He’s not used to so much sky. For the majority of his life, the world has ended at the pale ceiling of his bedroom. Now, there’s miles and miles of blueness above him.
It doesn’t help that the color is the exact same shade as Gregor’s eyes.
You’ll never have an alpha.
“Hey,” the soft rumbling tones of Gregor’s voice sound from the cave entrance. “How about a truce? I promise not to baby you over your neck, and you don’t coddle me about the poison. We can be stoic together. Besides,” Gregor says. “I have some tombstone tubers out here. I know how much you love them.”
Aaron closes his eyes tight. Pull yourself together, idiot. You didn’t even know this guy a week ago. It doesn’t matter that he won’t want you.
“Sure,” he says.
He takes a couple of deep breathes before he sits up. Gregor is gone from the entrance but he can hear him outside pottering around.
The big alpha looks up when Aaron appears. His lips curve up in a smile that reaches his bright blue eyes.
Aaron sits down cross-legged on the sand and shades his hand as he looks out over the horizon.
Say something, he thinks, but he has no idea what. What can he say?
Thank you for fucking me through my heat. I appreciate the favor. Too weird.
Thank you for making an impulse decision to rescue a total stranger from the Red Run even though you almost certainly regret it and it could have killed you. Not going to touch that one with a barge pole.
“How’s Ben?” he says finally.
Gregor takes the change of subject gratefully. “He’s okay,” he says. “He’s had a lot of adjustment to do, but he’s miles better than when we first took him in. Bet you’re looking forward to seeing him.”
“Yeah,” Aaron says. It’s been years since he last saw his brother. It’s impossible to convey all that in a single sentence. “I really am.”
Suddenly, he wants to talk about it.
He wants to tell Gregor what it was like to suddenly have his big brother disappear on his twenty-first birthday and have no idea what even happened to him or if he was still alive for years.
And what it was like when Ben got in touch again as if he were back from the dead.
Or what happened when their mother died and Gary became their sole guardian.
He wants to tell him how terrified he’s been and how it’s driven everything he’s done for years: all the poring over satellite images and run forums.
He wants to tell Gregor that he knows what Gregor’s home looks like because he’s seen it on online street maps a thousand times, and he knows what Gregor’s garden looks like too.
He’d always thought it was pretty and now he knows who was responsible for it.
He opens his mouth to say all of those things, but Gregor’s eyes have drifted back to the wound on Aaron’s neck and they have that look in them again: the one that looks like he thinks Aaron’s lack of scent glands is the worst thing in the world.
Aaron snaps his mouth closed with a snap.
“You know, what?” he says. “I am kind of tired and not that hungry. I think I’m going to get some sleep. Night.”
He gets up and goes back into the cave before he changes his mind, even as Gregor’s surprised ‘Night’ follows him in.
He pretends to be asleep when Gregor enters later.
Lie next to me. Put your arm around me. He wants to sleep cuddled up to him again, his nose against Gregor’s chest.
Gregor lies down on the sand beside him close enough that his scent threatens to drown Aaron in its intensity, but not close enough that he’s going to risk touching Aaron in his sleep.
The heat is done, it seems and so are they.
Aaron lies awake for a long time before he finally drifts off. When he does, he dreams of Gregor watching over him in the night.
Gregor’s gone when he wakes up.
GREGOR
consequences and utter savagery
Something changed. He’s not sure what it is. He doesn’t think it’s just about the scent glands, but every time he tries to talk to Aaron about it, the omega just shuts down.
I’ve screwed this up, Gregor thinks as he pours water from the condensation traps into the bottles on the final morning. They don’t need the water.
They still have three full bottles: more than enough for the rest of the day, but it gives him something to do and takes his mind off the way Aaron glares at him whenever he thinks Gregor isn’t looking.
Aaron’s hardly spoken to him at all since the night of the alphas even though he’s tried to apologize. Perhaps if he knew what he was apologizing for, it would help.
Don’t be an idiot, he tells himself. He knows. The young omega has been ripped from his home, sent on an insane and brutal run and then forced to go through an unwanted heat with an alpha he barely knows.
If that’s not a recipe for trauma, Gregor doesn’t know what is.
Aaron is still sleeping, or at least Gregor thinks he is. He’s barely left the cave in days and eaten nothing at all.
He’ll have to leave now, Gregor thinks. It’s the last day. From sunrise, pairs of wolves have been visible on the h
orizon across the Red Run as they make their way back to the registration center.
Sometime today, that’s going to be them. Preferably sooner rather than later. Time to get this over with and go home.
Aaron appears just as the sun hits the sky directly overhead. The slow trickle of wolves towards the registration center has grown to a stream.
Gregor puts a smile on his face, “Morning! Hope you’re looking forward to getting out of this hellhole.”
Aaron meets his eyes and then looks away.
“I thought we’d get an early start,” he glances at the position of the sun in the sky above. “Okay, an earlyish start. The sooner we get going, the sooner we’re out of here. We made it. Hooray.”
To his surprise, Aaron’s shoulders slump and he gives Gregor that same disappointed look that he got when Gregor admitted he’d just turned up at the Red Run.
“Okay. What am I missing?”
Aaron takes a seat on the red sand. He reaches over for one of the remaining tiny-leafed branches and starts stripping the leaves from it, almost absent-mindedly.
“We have to wait until the end of the day,” Aaron says. “Until the horn goes. They don’t let anyone in until the horn blows, mated or not. A lot of the pairs don’t know that. The last day is the biggest bloodbath of all.”
“Okay. Good to know. We wait then. Another few hours won’t hurt. We leave last and we miss the frenzy.”
Aaron is silent. He stares at the twigs in his hands as if they’re the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.
“And?” Gregor prompts.
Aaron looks up. His brown eyes meet Gregor’s, and under the bright sun, Gregor can see the hazel-flecks in them.
The last time he noticed those, they were doing something a lot more interesting and he was a lot closer
That’s not going to happen again, he realizes. This is the last day of the run. There will be no more heats. No more excuses to get closer to Aaron. At least no more excuses that are genuinely a life or death situation
Aaron lets out a deep sigh. “They’re not going to let me go home with you. I screwed up.”
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