A Pack of Two

by Jacky Russell

  He didn’t look convinced.

  “I love Bravo but nothing, nothing, is more important than you.”

  It was an awkward moment, one in which neither of us spoke as my words hung heavy in the air. His eyes were wide, staring into mine as if seeking the real truth. His fingers glided along my jaw.

  “You would leave Bravo? For me?”

  The disbelief on his face took me off-guard. “Well, yeah,” I answered, trying to hide the impatience welling inside me. “I mean I’d rather not have to choose, but if I do, then it’s definitely you.”

  The disbelief slowly faded to uncertainty. “I won’t let you do that.”

  He kissed the top of my head and walked into the den without a word. I followed him.

  “Lucas?”

  “If you want to walk away, Bre, I won’t stop you.”

  “What?” What the hell?

  He stared at the empty fireplace.

  I exploded. “You think I would walk away because things are tough? You think I’m too weak for this, or have you changed your mind? Maybe having a witch for a mate isn’t so convenient.”

  I don’t know what he said because the door slammed too loudly behind me. I hit the front porch and shifted without bothering to check if anyone was around. I left before the waterworks started because I’d be damned if I would cry after what he said.

  * * * *

  It was a little after four in the morning when I landed in the tree outside of Lucas’s house. Lights were on inside. I didn’t see any movement, the silence punctuated by the occasional ting of something hitting metal.

  I’d been flying around Vicenza for hours and was exhausted and cold. I wanted the warm, strong arms of my wolf. I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted feel his breath in my hair. None of this was his fault any more than it was mine. It just sucked.

  The metallic tings came about every ten seconds. It was an odd sound, especially given the stillness of the night.

  I hopped to the ground and shifted to human. I’d give up Bravo, my career, hell, I’d never do magic again if that would keep him safe. We could run away together, like they did in the movies.

  Dream on, girlfriend.

  Werewolves weren’t exactly incognito and with the amount of dominance Lucas threw around, we couldn’t hide anywhere. A witch and a werewolf would attract attention, no matter where we landed. Supernaturals were everywhere.

  The tinging stopped for about a minute before resuming. The sound was coming from the laundry room so I took the stairs.

  I was sure he would scent me first, but he was so engaged in what he was doing he hadn’t noticed I was ten feet behind him. The sight of him made me pause. Dressed only in sweat pants and ripped to the hilt, Lucas was more gorgeous every time I saw him. Sweat glistened on his back as he lifted a hockey stick and slammed a puck into the open door of his dryer. The puck clanged against the back of the dryer drum before coming to rest.

  “Nice shot.”

  He whirled, hockey stick held high in the air. The tenderness in his eyes brought tears to mine. He dropped the stick and rushed toward me.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he breathed into my ear.

  Damn, how could I have been so selfish to leave him alone like this? “I’m sorry for leaving. I just needed to get away.”

  Lucas pulled back. “I tried to find you but you disappeared.”

  “I know how to fight, Lucas, but I’m not very good with relationship stuff. When you said I could leave, I thought you meant you didn’t want me.”

  His breathing was ragged. “I didn’t mean I didn’t want you. I meant if you have changed your mind about being with me I would not force you to stay.”

  “We have to work together to figure this shit out.”

  He let out a long deep breath and pulled my hand to his lips. “I’m not very good at this relationship stuff either.”

  Something sarcastic almost escaped before I slammed my lips closed. Lucas was the most sincere man I’d ever met and didn’t deserve smart-ass comments.

  I kissed his nose. “We’re a weird pair, huh?”

  He grinned and tucked my hair behind my ear. “A pack of two.”

  Chapter 30

  Lucas

  Breanna curled next to me on the sofa, the morning sun making her auburn hair shine like spun gold. We’d spent the last few hours talking about possible solutions to our problem and didn’t have a workable plan yet.

  “There’s something wrong here, Lucas. I felt black magic last night and I felt it when I was here before. While you were talking to your father, I called Simon. Bravo will be here as soon as they can. They’ve been dispatched to somewhere in Canada to round up a couple of kid-eating trolls and then they are catching a transport to Ederle.”

  “They’re giving up their holiday?”

  “Yeah, I felt bad about it, but I need help with the Malandanti issue and whatever else is going on with this pack. Besides, they’ll be pissed if I didn’t call them for backup in this kind of situation.”

  “The issues within this pack have been there for a long, long time. They have nothing to do with the Malandanti,” I practically snarled at her.

  She touched my cheek. “Okay, so why don’t you tell me about those issues?”

  A door slammed in my mind. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why? Don’t think I’ll understand?”

  I stormed out of the room and into my backyard. I couldn’t tell her. She’d never look at me the same if she knew.

  She followed me outside. I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t make my hands stop shaking.

  Her fingertips brushed against my back. “Lucas, I’ve seen a lot of wolves fight, but I’ve never seen anything like you did last night. Ten on one and you were holding your own, even with silver in your blood. You have the strongest wolf I’ve ever felt and believe me, I’ve been around a hell of a lot of wolves.” She brushed her hand through my hair. “Things that don’t kill you make you stronger. What happened?”

  “I’m not that strong, Breanna. If I were, it would have never happened.”

  “What would have never happened?”

  There was a crack in the wall holding those memories I’d worked so hard to bury. “Stephano.”

  “The one who stabbed you? Damn, I knew I should have killed that asshole. Next time I won’t ask.”

  I jerked away from her. “When I was nine, Stephano’s family moved in with us. His mom is my mom’s sister. At first it was great. Stephano was fifteen. We’d play games and build models, stuff me and Nic did before Josef decided Nic needed to spend more time learning pack business and less time playing.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and willed my stomach to settle. I wanted to vomit.

  “Stephano started coming into my room at night when I turned ten. My wolf was beginning to show, but werewolves don’t have their first change until their sixteenth birthday. Father thought I was exaggerating about my wolf but I wasn’t.”

  I grabbed a tree for support. “My wolf didn’t like Stephano. I didn’t understand what was happening. When you’re young and a natural-born wolf, things don’t always make sense. That’s why I tried to talk to my father, but he was always busy with Nic going through his first changes. Josef thought I was jealous because Nicolli was turning into a real werewolf and I wasn’t. What he didn’t realize was my wolf was surging and I didn’t know how to stop it.”

  I took a swing at the tree and rewarded myself with bloody knuckles and flying wood splinters. Breanna grabbed my hand before I could swing again. My stomach lurched.

  “Stephano would touch me and I thought that was what wolves did. He kept telling me how much he liked me and he just wanted to be my friend. He would hold me down on the bed and do things to me.” I took a breath, but didn’t look at her. “One night he really hurt me and I ran into my parents’ room. My father was so angry because he thought I was making everything up. If anything was wrong, he would have felt
it through our pack ties and he didn’t feel anything.”

  Breanna took my hand. My wolf settled even as my heart raced. Sweat poured down my face as the memories of Stephano roared to life.

  “I tried not to go to sleep at night and my grades went down. My mom had conferences with my human teachers and they kept telling her my attitude was bad and I was acting out. Everyone assumed it was a jealousy thing between me and Nic, but it wasn’t.”

  She leaned against my shoulder without saying a word.

  “I couldn’t take it anymore so I stole a silver dagger from Josef’s study and snuck into Stephano’s room one night while he was asleep. I stabbed him in the chest, but wasn’t strong enough to make the knife go through his ribs. His screaming woke up the whole house.”

  I tried to swallow away the cottony feeling in my mouth. “My father was furious but, worse, he was ashamed. Stephano told my father I had snuck into his room, that I wanted him to do things to me. He said he refused and I got angry and stabbed him.”

  “Did nobody believe you?” Breanna asked softly.

  I shook my head and tried to make hands stop shaking.

  “Father arranged for me to go away to a private boarding school in France so I would be away from the pack. Mom said it was to protect me. It was really because he didn’t want me around.”

  And still doesn’t, but I’m all he has left.

  “Son of a bitch,” Breanna snarled under her breath.

  “I was the youngest kid at L’Ermitage. The headmaster was a werewolf. The other kids were human. They didn’t have much to do with me and I didn’t try very hard to make friends. I wanted to go home.”

  “Even baby wolves need their packs,” Breanna whispered.

  “I’d been at L’Ermitage for three months and nobody came to visit. Mom called. My father never did. One day I got in a fight when some of the other boys tried to steal my lunch. Headmaster Dampier called me into his office and gave me ten lashes for fighting.”

  I slammed my hand on the table. “He locked me in a closet without anything to eat or drink.” God, it had been so dark in that closet. “He said if he heard me crying, he’d give me ten more. Sometime during the night, a couple of slices of bread slid under the door. At first I was too scared to take them, but I was so hungry I ate them anyway.

  “The next day, after Dampier let me out, I was sitting by myself in the library. I’d missed breakfast and lunch. A blond kid I’d never seen before came over and sat with me. He didn’t ask, just took the chair across the table. When he was sure nobody was watching, he pulled a sandwich and a bottle of water out of his backpack and gave it to me.”

  “Tristyn?”

  “Tristyn and I became friends and I finally told him everything that had happened. He was the first person and the only person who ever believed me.”

  He’d never said a word, just sat there and listened. He saved my life.

  “I believe you.”

  I stared into the darkness. “I’m not so good with werewolves, Breanna. My wolf surges when I get around them, particularly males. I don’t always know how to pull him back so we end up fighting a lot.”

  Fucked up and broken.

  She lifted my fingers to her lips. “Your wolf is trying to protect you, just like when you were a kid.”

  “I know, but that makes pack meetings really difficult for me. Hell, I don’t even like female werewolves. The pack never understood what happened. They think I snapped and tried to kill a packmate. Josef never told anyone my side of the story.”

  He never even asked me what happened.

  “Your wolf stays defensive and that’s why the other wolves stay away from you?”

  “I can’t stop it. My wolf is always angry, always ready to fight whenever I’m around other wolves.”

  Fucked up and broken.

  She leaned against my shoulder and her touch quieted my mind.

  “With you, my wolf is calm. My world is right side up instead of upside down like it usually is.”

  “Oh, so I’m your personal source of Zen, huh?”

  “Maybe that’s why I could do the pack meeting. It was the first time I’ve been to a pack meeting since I went away to college.”

  My last pack meeting had been a disaster also. I’d spent the whole time in the corner trying not to throw up. Nic had laughed at me.

  Breanna leaned against the wall. “Do you think it was a setup?”

  “Maybe, probably, no, I don’t know.” The pack hated me.

  “You need to get out of this pack.”

  “It isn’t that easy. I’m the Alpha’s only remaining son. Alpha’s sons don’t walk away from their packs.”

  “This isn’t your pack.”

  “By birth it is, whether I want it or not.”

  “Your father is an ass who has done nothing to deserve your loyalty.”

  I rubbed my temples, hoping to alleviate some of the pounding. “He’s the Alpha of the largest pack in the world. He does what he thinks is best for his pack.”

  “What about what’s best for his son?” Breanna demanded.

  “There’s something wrong with me, Bre. If I was normal, Stephano would have never come after me.”

  She stomped her foot. “Stephano needs to be hung up by his balls in a swamp somewhere. That shit he did had nothing to do with something being wrong with you.”

  She was trying to make me feel better, but I knew the truth. “I’ve never fit with the pack. My father and I fight constantly. I have a difficult time controlling my wolf. I’ve disappointed my parents with almost every decision I’ve ever made and now I’m ruining your life.”

  “Ruining my life? Really? Aren’t you being just a touch melodramatic?”

  “Aaron was right about me. I’m fucked up and you deserve better.”

  Her face went red as she stormed around the room. “Aaron? Aaron said that to you? The same Aaron who went goo-goo over a vampire who used him as a Slurpee and Bravo had to go rescue him? Aaron who can’t keep his mouth shut? I will kick his ass all over Wisconsin when I see him.”

  Her tirade made me smile.

  “We’re mates, Lucas, and like it or not, you are stuck with me. Unlike the rest of your fucked-up family, I will not walk away from you, nor will I send you away. I’m here for the good and the bad so you may as well get used to it and get over the attitude. If I deserve better, then you’d better step it up and be whatever it is you think I deserve because, baby, you’re mine, I’m yours, and that’s the way it is.”

  She leaned against the tree and crossed her arms.

  “And for the record, you didn’t do anything wrong,” she added sternly.

  “What?”

  “When you were a kid and all that shit happened, your father should have protected you, not sent you away.”

  The little pieces of wall that held back my feelings washed away as she touched my jaw and turned my face to her.

  “Not. Your. Fault.”

  I’d have given my soul to hear that when I was a kid.

  “You’re in my world now and I promise you’ll always have somebody on your side.”

  Her words slowly seeped into my emotionally mushy brain. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  She planted a kiss on my lips. “Forgiven and forgotten. Got any ice cream?”

  * * * *

  I left her with a kiss on the cheek and a promise I’d call later. Breanna was going back to Ederle to return the Humvee and do paperwork while I headed to the office to finish the purchase orders before the Christmas holiday.

  “Hi, Clara,” I said, hurrying into my office.

  “Good morning, Mr. Benelli,” she answered in her usual chipper voice.

  My office looked like nothing had happened. A new desk sat in the place of the splintered one, the holes in the walls repaired, and all the scattered papers stacked neatly on the desk.

  I leaned against the doorframe. “Thank you, Clara.”

  The lady werewolf was labeling file folde
rs. “You’re welcome, Mr. Benelli,” she said with a smile. “It was good to see you at the pack meeting Saturday night.”

  “Probably my last one for a while.”

  “I heard about Stephano.”

  I could have gone all day and not heard that name.

  Clara slammed a filing cabinet drawer. “You should have let the witch have him.”

  “You know about that?”

  Clara shuffled the papers on her desk. “The Alpha forbade any wolf to attack her or you. He was very upset about the incident involving Stephano.” She looked at me. “He realized how close he came to losing you.”

  I bowed my head. I hadn’t called or anything since that night. “How was my mother?”

  “Humph. Gemma was fine other than being angry with your father. She thought he should have killed the witch and believed Stephano only attacked because he was under the witch’s spell.”

  “What? Breanna saved my life. Stephano wasn’t under any kind of spell.”

  Clara rearranged the stacks of papers on her desk. “The Alpha agrees. However, your mother was livid with his decision to spare the witch’s life.”

  I never in a million years would have thought my father would be more accepting than my mother.

  “What happened to Stephano?”

  “I’m not sure. He was taken to the holding cell in the Alpha’s basement and nothing more was mentioned about him.”

  A tremor jolted my body. I’d spent time in that dank, dreary cell as a child after I’d attacked Stephano. I’d begged my father not to lock me away by myself in the darkness, but he dragged me down the stairs by my arm and tossed me inside. I remember crying until I made myself sick. To this day I didn’t sleep in total darkness.

  It was almost time to go home when the smell of feminine musk and the slamming of doors announced the presence of my mother.

  “Lucas,” she huffed as she entered my office without a glance at Clara. “I need you to come with me tonight.”