Dan leans against the wall, doing his best to pay attention but there’s only one thing on his mind. Was this my fault?
He’s barely heard from Otto in the nine months since the fight in the car, and Otto didn’t mention Cal Sherwood any of those times.
Yet somehow, Mason Reed found out where Cal was hiding and kidnapped him as easily as if he knew all the Winterstoke plans in advance. And for him to turn up right when Cal was in labor?
Chaos creates opportunity. He can hear Otto’s voice in his head as clear as if it were yesterday. This is chaos alright.
In front of him, the lawyer is going through the claim forms with Luke, pointing out the bits that the Winterstoke alpha needs to sign.
One of the things that always strikes Dan about the various infightings between the packs, is how very bureaucratic it is and how much admin is involved.
Someone kidnapped your mate? Fill in a form.
Spying on your friends for a decade? Complete this report.
He wonders if the Winterstokes will make him do paperwork when they find out what he is.
Betray your pack? Sign this confession.
“May I have a word?”
Dan jolts out of his thoughts to see the man from the Omega Liaison unit looking at him expectantly.
Over at the interview table, Luke Winterstoke is filling in a stack of forms with a lot more patience than Dan would be doing.
“Sure,” Dan says, “After you.”
They stand outside in the corridor, the door open a half-inch.
“This is going to go badly,” the lawyer says bluntly. “Mason Reed is not going to take this lying down and starting a protracted legal battle over an omega is just going to piss him off. I’ve done my best with your friend there, but the best thing he can do is just drop it. There are other omegas out there.”
“I think he’s got his heart set on that one,” Dan replies as evenly as he can.
“Well, his ‘heart’,” the lawyer says, making quotation marks with his fingers, “is going to get him killed. And likely the rest of his pack too.”
Cold-blooded realization floods Dan’s veins like ice-water. He glances over at Luke who is now paging through the forms to check he has missed anything.
“I’ll talk to him.”
“No,” the lawyer shakes his head. “That man’s not going to going to listen. At least not to you and certainly not to me. He needs greater authority. What’s his pack leader like? Will he listen to him?”
“Maybe,” Dan says. Luke’s always been the loyal second to Adam’s pack leader, but Dan’s not sure Luke’s going to listen this time. “His pack leader’s his older brother. I’ll talk to him.”
The lawyer gives a short sharp nod. “Good.”
Dan glances over at Luke again. The man is moving slowly as if in shock, and Dan hasn’t seen him eat or drink a thing since Cal was taken a day earlier.
Nope. He’s never going to let this go.
Dan waits while the lawyer checks over Luke’s signature and then sends the forms off.
Fifteen minutes later, both lawyer and Luke are gone, leaving Dan alone in the police station.
He locks up thoughtfully, mind racing as he checks the windows and doors and sets the alarm.
He hasn’t reported the events of the last few days to Otto, although he’s sure the big alpha knows about them. If nothing else, Elyse would have sent him one of her two-thousand-word emails.
He hasn’t quite decided yet what he’s going to do about this. He’s at least ninety-percent certain that Ronmin and his lapdog is behind Reed finding out where Cal was. How else would he have known? Cal’s trail should have run cold months ago.
Don’t you mean ‘lapdogs’ with a big S? his conscious prompts. You’ve got as tight a collar as any of them.
His phone rings just as he shuts the door. The name on the screen reads ‘Adam Winterstoke’.
“Adam,” Dan says by way of greeting. He still gets a little jolt whenever he sees the name come up on his phone as if this time is when Adam finally calls to demand an explanation.
“Hey Dan,” Adam’s voice sounds tired.
“Everything okay?” Dan asks and then kicks himself. Of course, everything isn’t okay. The first of the Winterstoke brothers has finally taken a mate and he’s been stolen away before the year is even up.
Fortunately, Adam is either too tired or too tactful to pick up on Dan’s blunder. “We heard from Reed,” he says.
“Already?”
“Yeah, it was a pretty forceful no.”
That means he told you to fuck off, Dan translates.
Adam sighs, “I’m going to challenge him. We’ll do it tomorrow night. No need to make Cal stay there any longer than he has to. I need to know if you’re in.”
Panic sends a shiver up Dan’s spine. Why would he even ask that? No other pack asks. They tell.
“I’m calling in the pack agreement,” Adam continues. “Calling the Warwicks and the Fosters too. The bigger display of force we can muster the better, but it’s not mandatory. Not for anyone. If you want out, you don’t have to do it.”
Dan feels his heart stop. He doesn’t need to pass on the word of warning to Adam or anyone. Adam knows this is a suicide mission.
“I’m in,” Dan says before he can stop himself. He owes the Winterstokes that much.
“Good. Meet at the packhouse tomorrow afternoon. Two pm latest.”
“I’ll be there.”
Dan hangs up. The hotel is only a five-minute walk but by the time he gets through the lobby doors, his body is shaking even though his mind is eerily calm.
This was it. The moment he had to make the right choice and he did it.
Elyse isn’t behind the reception desk when he goes through the lobby so he doesn’t stop. Instead he goes right through the back, through the breakfast room, out into the garden and then across behind the building to the managers’ quarters.
He unlocks the door with his key, hoping that Elyse isn’t home. She’ll want to know what’s going on and to debate the best way to deal with it.
All Dan wants is a stiff drink and to sink into his armchair, watch some terrible television and forget that this is going to be the last night of his life if Mason Reed kills him along with the Winterstokes tomorrow.
The house is dark and silent when he pushes the doors open and he sends up a prayer of thanks.
He hangs up his coat then heads into the kitchen in search of the expensive whiskey he’s been saving for far too long.
Otto is standing on the faded linoleum, rummaging through his open fridge. The light from the fridge casts shadows across his face. He doesn’t turn around when Dan walks in, although he must be able to scent him.
“Just help yourself, why don’t you?” Dan says.
“I am. Thank you.”
“What are you doing here?”
Otto turns around. He’s helped himself to a beer, and there’s a pan of Elyse’s leftover lasagna in his hand. “That’s a very good question,” Otto replies, “especially considering I haven’t had any reports from you the last couple of days. I assume there’s nothing interesting going on?”
“Oh, cut the bullshit. You know what happened.”
Otto gives a short sharp nod. “I do. You want to tell me what the Winterstokes are going to do about it?”
A shiver of fury skates up Dan’s spine. The man actually has the audacity to just stand there in Dan’s kitchen with Dan’s beer and Dan’s food in his hands and expects Dan to give up his friends.
At least Hamish never came into the house. The old drunk always stayed in the hotel and never did anything more annoying than run up a tab at the bar that he never paid for. Dan had considered it a reasonable price.
A thought strikes. The door had been locked. “How did you get in?”
“I have a key.” Otto lifts the lasagna and narrows his eyes at the dish. “Can this go in the microwave?”
A key. Elyse, of course. She didn
’t mention it, but then she wouldn’t have. “You need to give that back.”
“I’m going to take it as a ‘yes’ on the microwave,” Otto says, crossing the kitchen and opening the microwave door. “I know you think I’m taking liberties, but I’m starving and I can’t show my face at any diner in town. Not tonight.”
“I don’t care about the stupid lasagna,” Dan says through gritted teeth.
“Really? Because you’ve been staring daggers at it since I took it out of the fridge.” Otto hesitates, then takes a guess at the buttons he needs. The microwave starts with a whir.
Lasagna. We are arguing about lasagna, Dan thinks with a sense of the surreal.
Otto McInnes is in his kitchen arguing about lasagna while Cal is going through god-knows-what horror in River Beach. It’s a bizarre end to a nightmare of a day.
Otto screws off the cap of the beer and takes a long slow swallow. His eyes don’t leave Dan’s once.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says when he’s done. “What are the Winterstokes planning on doing about Mason Reed?”
None of your business, Dan wants to say although it is Otto’s business. It’s Otto’s whole business.
“Was it you?” he says instead of answering. It’s the question that’s been bothering him ever since he heard the Reed had been seen in Cedar Falls.
The last time he asked it was a ‘no’. This time it has to be a ‘yes’. There’s no other explanation.
“Was what me?” The microwave finishes with a ding and Otto turns his back as he gets the dish out.
That’s a definite ‘yes’, Dan thinks. There is no way Otto didn’t know what Dan was talking about it.
His vision suddenly blurs, just as his blood runs cold. He reaches out a hand to steady himself on the kitchen chair. He’d known it was true but he hadn’t wanted to believe it.
There’s no way he can come clean to the Winterstokes now.
Maybe they’d have forgiven him before when he explained everything. Now they’d kill him. Luke would certainly do it without a second thought.
That’s assuming any of them even survive the challenge to Mason Reed tomorrow.
Dan grimaces. His stomach hurts.
“Hey man, are you okay?” Otto’s voice sounds from far away, breaking into his thoughts.
White-cold shock turns to white-cold fury in a flash.
Dan is on his feet, shifting into his wolf form before a single thought crosses his mind. His clothes tear, biting into his skin as his body changes. He doesn’t notice. There’s nothing in there but pure snarling rage.
He has just enough time to register the shock crossing Otto’s face and to enjoy the satisfaction of it before electricity rams into his body, slamming him to the floor.
He lies shaking on the floor, feeling his claws scratch into the linoleum.
Otto stands where he is, something dark in his hand that the working part of Dan’s brain recognizes as a stun gun.
“What the ever-loving-fuck did you do that for?” Otto shouts, but he’s not looking at Dan. He’s staring at fixed point in the wall as if he’s so angry he can’t even look at him. “Do you know I’m supposed to kill you for that? Do you have a fucking death wish? Why are you fighting this? You need to let it go, man.”
No, Dan doesn’t have a fucking death wish. He has a I-want-to-get-the-hell-out-of-this-nightmare wish. He wants to get to his paws and just run for it, never stopping until he’s out of this mess, but he’s struggling to move his muscles.
What the hell even was that? he thinks, as cold shivers wrack his body. Normal stun guns don’t do that much damage. Trust a man of Ronmin’s to take something nasty and make it worse.
“What exactly did you think was going on here?” Otto snarls. He still hasn’t looked Dan in the eye. There’s a furious pitch to his voice that Dan hasn’t heard before. “That you were just playing? That there’d be no consequences?”
Dan closes his eyes and lets his body curl up into a ball. Maybe if he’s lucky, Otto will just kill him now. The chances of him surviving the week are minimal anyway. Best to just get it over with.
There’s a long-resigned sigh from the other alpha, and Dan can hear the exhaustion on his voice. “Look, just shift and sit down at the table. We can talk about this.”
I don’t want to. The moment he gets up, Dan is going to have to face both Otto and all the terrible things that are coming, but he can’t lie on the floor forever.
Dan’s muscles shiver as he struggles to his feet. He can’t decide if they feel warm or cold. In the case of his shoulder where Otto used the stun gun, they’re neither; he’s just plain numb. His leg buckles out from under him as he tries to get to his paws.
Otto doesn’t offer to help. He just leans back against the kitchen counter and drinks Dan’s beer like this is just an ordinary day for him.
Perhaps it is.
Dan stands on shaky feet and shifts, the movement almost forcing him to fall over. His clothes are twisted and half-torn around his body.
He pulls himself over to the kitchen table and sits heavily on the chair furthest from Otto.
Otto takes the chair opposite. His deep brown eyes meet Dan’s own and to Dan’s surprise, he sees nothing but concern there, tinged with... tinged with something that Dan can’t quite identify.
“Look man,” Otto says. “You can’t do this.”
“What are you going to do? Stun me again? Slam me up against the wall again? Put your damn hand on my throat again?”
“If that’s what I have to do to knock some sense into you.”
Dan remembers the shock of it. His back slamming up against the cheap hotel plaster. Otto’s strong hand on his throat as the man bore down on him, close enough that Dan could almost feel the stubble of his jaw against his own.
His eyes meet Otto’s and he can see that Otto’s thinking about it too. The atmosphere changes again, and there it is. A moment.
Otto looks away first, and when he speaks it’s in that endlessly patient tone that makes Dan want to smack him. “Don’t force me to do something I don’t want to do.”
“What about Cal? Did you not want to do that either?”
You sent a good man back to hell, you son of a bitch. Dan doesn’t say that part out loud. He doesn’t think Otto is going to use the stun gun again but he’s not completely sure.
Otto just stares at him like Dan just doesn’t get it. Dan folds his arms, ignoring the way his shoulder hurts when he does it. Let Otto find a way to defend the undefendable.
Finally, Otto opens his mouth. “You have been betraying these people for years, sending reports back to Fort Gosford. You’ve got a hell of a nerve pointing a finger at me.”
“I don’t have a choice!”
Otto shrugs. “Yes, you do. Same as I do. Don’t blame me because you don’t like the consequences of yours.”
Dan suddenly feels tired. The evening was meant to be TV and laziness, not arguing with one of Ronmin’s henchmen over who made the worst choices. He can’t even leave to put the TV on and do what he wants because Otto will still be there, his mere presence like a splinter in the wound even if the man manages to keep his mouth shut.
Dan puts his hands on the table and pushes himself up, feeling every muscle in his body shiver with the effort.
“Well, my choice is to go with the Winterstokes tomorrow when they challenge Mason Reed. Chances are you won’t have to worry about any of us after that.”
“No, I forbid it.” Otto says. He sounds surprised, although he really shouldn’t. He’s the one who put all this in motion.
Even to Dan’s own ears, the laugh that comes out of his mouth is as bitter as old coffee. “Like you said, we all have choices. This is mine.”
He turns his back and walks away. Otto doesn’t follow him.
OTTO
whiskey and dry sandwiches
Every town has its seedy side, although Aylewood’s is more of a seedy alleyway round the back of the Grand Hotel.<
br />
The dirty tarmac is thick with fallen yellow-and-red leaves, blown in from the wind and there’s some deadbeat beta lounging against the wall.
His eyes widen when he takes in Otto, then he gives him a short nod and walks away as fast as his dignity allows.
Jonah Lawson, Otto’s memory fills in. Calling him Aylewood’s resident dealer would be giving him too much credit. The man just takes whatever gap he can, like a rat finding even the smallest hole to get it into a warehouse.
According to Hamish’s notes, the sheriff had been trying to persuade Hamish to arrest and charge him for years, but it was one of the few things that Hamish put his foot down on.
Chaos creates opportunity, even in small time crooks like Lawson.
Lawson was the one who sold Caleb Sherwood fake heat blockers if Otto recalls correctly.
Gonna blame me for that one too, Callister? Otto thinks, I wasn’t around for the all those years that you obeyed orders. You didn’t deal with Lawson the way a proper cop would. That one’s on you.
He glances at his watch. It’s just past two pm. Any minute now, the Aylewood packs are going to come driving down the mountain on their way to the airport, heading off to destroy themselves in one big act of dumb bravado.
As if on cue, his ears pick up the sound of engines. A line of trucks come trundling down the mountain. Otto leans back against the alley wall, keeping his body to the shadows.
There they go, Otto thinks, off to save the day and rescue the princess. Idiots. They’re doing Ronmin’s job for him.
Sunlight reflects directly on the glass as they go past. He can’t see if Dan is in one of the trucks, and he can’t risk getting closer in case they see him.
The taillights disappear into the distance as he watches. If Callister isn’t a complete idiot, he’ll have backed out. It’s not his fight.
Otto pulls out his phone and checks the screen. No notifications. Otto runs his fingers over his scalp and takes a deep breath.
That’s it then. All he has to do now is wait. Wait and file his report.
He briefly considers taking his laptop into the hotel bar and filing his report from there, but while the pack alphas are out of town, the remainder of the Aylewood residents are not.
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