Savannah was his home, and his heart. She was the family he’d never had.
Cliff shook his head wearily. “How could I? Because I didn’t know that the military school would be like that, but I did know that my father hated Austin and planned to kill him. At that point, my father and I were still about evenly matched, and I was too young to get the pack to rally behind me. The Elders wouldn’t have backed me. It was a stalling tactic to save his life.”
“Why did he hate Austin so much?” Savannah asked, her voice hoarse with emotion.
Cliff looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. “If you know anything about abusive parents, then you know that the parent often singles one child out for the worst abuse. Austin was always stubborn and defiant. Maybe he reminded Lloyd too much of himself.”
“Lying,” Savannah informed him, but Cliff just flicked her an annoyed scowl and didn’t answer her.
“Whatever.” Austin bit the words off bitterly.
Cliff was making him doubt everything that he’d ever believed. Had his older brother really sent him away out of concern rather than cold-hearted competitiveness? He wanted to believe it, and he hated that weakness in himself.
Rusty emerged from one of the cabins. “No sign of the rifle anywhere!” he yelled.
Savannah’s hand tightened on Austin’s arm. “We can’t do it,” she said despairingly. “We can’t keep him under control for two more days. We’re…we’re going to have to kill him. I don’t want to, damn it, but what else can we do? We can’t let him get loose and kill people, and you and me together just aren’t a match for him.”
“No, you’re not,” Roy’s voice croaked, making Savannah start. He looked up at her, eyes glowing with malice. “And that’s the smartest thing you said all day. Think you can do it? Of course you can’t – you’re a fucking pussy. What about your boyfriend. Think he can do it?”
He started hurling himself back and forth on the ground, and Rusty ran over, carrying the rifle he’d brought with him. He shot Roy with his tranqs.
He gave up after shooting him six times with no effect at all.
“Told you,” Savannah said, frustration drenching her words. She moved back away from Roy, watching him uneasily as he continued to thrash and struggle. Austin stepped forward, putting his body between Roy and her.
They heard the sound of snapping chain links.
Quickly, Austin, Cliff and Grant gathered around him and blasted him with their power.
It was exhausting and draining. He was struggling to shift into wolf form now, and they beat back at him, forcing him to stay human. The air was thick with fury and hate.
He writhed and shouted and struggled, hurling waves of force at them, and it took them a good couple of minutes to crush his resistance and finally knock him out again. They were panting with effort, sweat running down their faces, when they finished.
Rusty just paced back and forth, glaring in frustration. He wasn’t a Dominus, so there was nothing he could do to help.
Savannah walked up to Austin and laid her hand on his shoulder, not saying a word. Just lending him her strength. He felt her quiet warmth flowing into him, and he covered her hand with his own, giving it a gentle squeeze.
Thank you.
“We’ll go with you,” Cliff said to Austin quickly. “We’ll help you keep him under control. Listen, we know about your deal. We know Jason threatened your pack. And I know that Jason insisted that you do this alone, but we’re going to show up on his doorstep with you and point out to him that requiring you to transport this prisoner alone goes against shifter code. It puts every shifter in existence at risk, because if Roy kills you and escapes, he’ll expose us. If Jason tries to give us any crap, I’ll fucking death challenge him on the spot, and not only that, he’d be going up against every shifter pack on our database.”
Austin looked at him suspiciously. “If I bring anyone with me, he’ll kill Tully and his males, and he’ll take the women and cubs. You honestly think I’d trust you with the life of my entire pack?”
“Austin. Do you trust me?” Savannah asked quietly.
He looked down at her, his beautiful little mate with her sweet, loving gaze. “With my life.” And his heart swelled as he said it, because he meant it more than he’d ever meant anything.
“We need them.” She stroked his arm gently. “And they genuinely want to help you. They care about you, Austin, they really do. You’re too close to the situation to see it, but I know what a squabbling family who love each other looks like. And yeah, your family is way more screwed up than mine, you totally win first place on that, but underneath it, the love is there.”
Something twisted inside him, fighting. He’d walled himself off from them for too long. “You said yourself that my brother was lying,” he protested.
She glanced at Cliff, then turned her focus back to him. “He is lying about something. I don’t know what. But that doesn’t change the fact that he still loves you. And so does Grant.”
“Barf?” Grant suggested, looking horrified.
Rusty shook his head reprovingly. “Dude. Alpha Dude, for whom I have enormous respect, so please don’t chew my face off. Maybe not the time to be a dick?”
“Okay, okay,” Grant sighed. “You’re an enormous pain in the ass, but you’re my brother, Austin. I have your back. Always.”
Austin glanced down at the semi-conscious Roy.
“All right,” he said reluctantly. “Let’s get going on the road trip from hell.”
Chapter Fourteen
It was a long, exhausting drive. Rusty went with them, taking turns behind the wheel with Savannah, and Austin squeezed into the back seat of the pickup truck with his brothers to keep Roy under control.
Savannah and Rusty tried to nap when the other one was driving, but with Roy waking up on a regular basis and wrenching them from sleep with his howls of fury, they were both groggy and tired by the time the sun came up.
No matter how many times they knocked him out, he woke up again within an hour or two, and the battle started anew.
They had three cars full of the Bronson Pack’s members following behind them, but if Roy broke out, they wouldn’t be able to help much. Austin suspected that Roy would be able to kill every last one of them without breaking a sweat.
There was no safe way for them to drive faster. The road wound over mountains, around hairpin curves, and down steep slopes. Every time they passed another car, they had to hug their side of the road and creep along at a snail’s pace, wheels on dirt, rubbing up against underbrush and tree branches.
“Road trip from hell” had been way too optimistic a description.
As the sun rose, they pulled over at a rest stop to fill up on gas and take a bathroom break. Savannah slumped in the passenger seat, napping. Roy was unconscious…for the time being.
Austin kept a careful eye on him and nursed an extra-large black coffee as he leaned against the side of the truck. The hot, bitter liquid burned its way down his throat.
Cliff and Grant were standing about twenty feet away from him, talking to each other irritably, in low, angry voices. Austin was too tired to bother eavesdropping.
His brothers were just too Alpha to be living in the same territory. They loved each other as much anyone in their dysfunctional family could, sure. But force them into close proximity with each other for too long, and somebody was going to bleed.
Not his problem. He was part of their family in name only.
Or was he?
They’d come through for him. They’d saved his life. Cliff seemed to be trying to make amends for past misdeeds, with his attempted explanation of his behavior back when Austin was a teenager.
He couldn’t tell if Cliff was running some kind of con on him, but if so, what was it? There was nothing that Cliff needed from him, so why would he be trying to trick him?
But then again, why the hell was Cliff still keeping secrets? How could he fully trust his oldest brother if he wouldn’t come clean?<
br />
It really seemed as if Cliff had come out here to help him. If Cliff had wanted to kidnap Austin and lock him away, he’d had every opportunity when they’d freed him from the concrete bunker.
Savannah wouldn’t have been able to stop them.
He nursed his coffee and rubbed his temple with his free hand, trying to clear the fog from his brain.
Had things really changed? Did Cliff really believe that he was a Seer, rather than a lunatic, and if so, how did he know?
It wasn’t impossible to believe that Korbin had betrayed his oath as a Healer and deliberately mis-diagnosed Austin. But then, why wasn’t Austin seeing real visions? From what he’d always been told, Seers could see snippets of the future. They were rare, so he didn’t know a lot about them, but he’d certainly never heard of them seeing crazy warped visions like what he’d been cursed with.
There was something about that…the implications of Austin being a seer…something wrong, somehow. Austin was too tired to think about what it was right now, though.
And Roy was stirring in the back seat of the truck again.
Fuck.
Austin gulped down the last of his coffee, shuddering at the burn, then walked around and opened the door.
“Hey,” he said to Roy. “Listen. I’m sorry about what I said about your mate. That was off-limits, and it was uncalled for.”
Roy’s eyes flew open and he stared up at Austin. “You really think that’s going to save your hide, boy?”
“No, you fucking asshole,” Austin snapped. “I don’t even think it’s going to make you behave with the slightest bit of decency, because that’s clearly beyond you. I’m apologizing because since realizing that Savannah is my mate, if, God forbid, I lost her and someone spoke about her that way…well…I can’t even think beyond the horror of losing her. It was a dick thing of me to say, especially when you were chained up and couldn’t defend yourself. I’m apologizing because…well, because Savannah makes me want to be a better wolf, honestly.”
Austin looked at her, lying there with her head resting on the window, the strain of exhaustion showing on her beautiful face. She had circles under her eyes, and even in sleep, her brows were pinched with worry. That made him feel like crap. She was his. He should be taking better care of her.
Austin expected Roy to start hollering, to start threatening, to wake her up. He braced himself to call his brothers for help.
Instead, Roy fixed him with a look of contempt. “Fucking sad-ass loser. I’ve got half a mind to bust out of these chains and rip your jugular out just so she can find someone who deserves her.”
“Excuse me?” Austin said, astonished. “I’m sorry, Dr. Phil, let me get this straight – you’re giving relationship advice now?”
“Quit trying to pretend you’re anything like a good mate, when you’re nothing but a whiny little coward. ‘Oh, boo hoo, I don’t want to see the future!’ You know how many times and how many ways you told that girl she’s not worth fighting for?”
So Roy had been awake when they’d thought he was out.
“Thanks for weighing in, when you don’t know shit about what’s happening,” Austin snapped. “I don’t see the future. I see monsters and nightmares. And I fight the visions until I practically puke and pass out. There’s nothing to be done about it.”
“Shit on a stick, just when I think you can’t get any fucking dumber,” Roy spat at him. “When you fight the visions, it warps them. Visions are a gift, you ungrateful sack of turds. You know how many people would love to see the future? Seers sit there and study for years, learning to call up visions. Ass-face.”
“How the fuck would you know?” Austin barked at him. Savannah started, then sat up. Damn it.
“Sorry,” he called out to her.
“S’allright,” she mumbled. She yawned, stretched, and opened the car door, sliding out.
“My mate was a Seer,” Roy said coldly. “And yes, she saw that she was going to die of cancer. Didn’t tell me about it until the end, though. But she saw it coming.”
Before Austin could say anything, he realized that Cliff and Grant had gone silent. A car was pulling into the parking lot – a car full of members of the Hidden Hills Pack.
It was the Elders. Interfering little bitches, so old they farted dust, and obsessed with pack honor and pack law. Their appearance couldn’t be good news.
“Stay put,” he snapped at Roy.
“Blow me.”
“I’ll watch him,” Savannah said wearily. “I’ll shout if he tries to escape.”
Rusty strolled up, holding a cup of coffee. “I got it,” he said to her. “I’ll watch him. Stand by your man.”
Austin glanced uneasily at the car, then linked his arm through Savannah’s and walked over to his brothers.
The Elders piled out of the car and stalked over, scowling.
He kept expecting to hear Rusty shout for help, but he heard nothing.
The Elders were giving him an odd look. Oscar, Phineas, Sylvester and Minnie, who’d stood against Cliff during the Alpha Trials a couple of years ago, were looking especially sour. They’d never liked him, but now there was open hatred on their faces.
Back at you, Austin thought contemptuously. None of them had lifted a paw when his father was kicking his ass.
Their hostility didn’t really make sense, though. Austin avoided the pack completely. He wasn’t a problem for them, because he never set paw on the family property.
Herbert, Maurice and Juliette, who’d backed Cliff during the Alpha Trials, stood off by themselves and looked at him with pity.
What the hell?
“Cliff, did you get any of our text messages?” Oscar, the oldest, demanded.
“I did not,” Cliff said coolly. “Sorry. Reception sucks balls out here.”
“Hmmph,” Minnie snorted, her face curdling as if she’d just gulped sour milk.
“Something in your throat? Surely you’re not calling your Alpha a liar?” Grant growled at her. A minute ago they’d been fighting, but facing a common enemy, now the two brothers were putting on a united front.
“No matter. We’re here now,” Oscar said icily. “We got an urgent message from Jason Washborn. Do you know what he said?”
“I can’t imagine,” Cliff said, his expression bored. “But I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
Oscar raked him with a look of utter contempt. “He said that Austin is his older half brother. He says that his father Christopher had an affair with your mother, and Austin is his little bastard.”
Austin’s brows flew up to his forehead. That was absolutely the last thing he’d expected to hear. Jason was his brother? God, how disgusting.
“What?” Savannah cried out in shock.
Austin looked at Cliff, who stood there, arms folded across his chest, not saying a word.
“That’s got to be a lie,” Savannah protested. “If that were the case, then Austin being the older brother…wouldn’t he be eligible to challenge Jason for the position of Alpha?”
“According to their specific pack charter, the oldest male descendent of the Alpha inherits the position unless any other male descendant chooses to challenge,” Oscar said coolly. “So Jason has no reason to pretend. But we can do DNA testing if necessary. By the way, word’s getting around that Austin has been either going crazy or seeing visions. The Seer gene is only passed down from father to son. Lloyd, as we all know, was not a Seer. But Christopher was. His talent was being able to predict stock market fluctuations – that’s why the pack is so rich.”
That was it! That was what made no sense about Cliff telling Austin that he was a Seer! Because, although there were both male and female Seers, the gene was only passed down through the father.
Which meant that Lloyd could not possibly be his father.
Austin stared at Cliff, who actually shuffled in place and dropped his gaze.
It was true.
That was why Lloyd had hated him so much. He hadn’t known the tru
th, of course, or he would have just ripped Austin’s throat out as a baby. But he’d sensed it on some level.
“If I were a Seer, why wouldn’t it have shown up until now?” he asked, his mind whirling.
“Most likely because you instinctively repressed it,” Oswald said. “It wouldn’t have shown up until your teens or early twenties anyway. But any male descendent of a Seer begins training from a young age, to encourage his abilities. You never had that training, but there were probably signs. Did you always have vivid nightmares?”
After growing up with parents like mine? Hell, yes.
“Don’t answer that,” Grant snapped. Grant was the pack’s lawyer. He had the pack charter memorized to the last apostrophe.
Oswald looked at Cliff. “How long have you known? How long have you violated our laws by protecting him? You convinced his father to send him to military school in case he started showing signs of being a Seer, didn’t you? You didn’t want anyone in the pack to know.”
“Excuse me,” Savannah said hotly, her eyes blazing with anger. “Why would protecting him be violating the law?”
“Who, exactly, are you?” Oswald said haughtily. “This conversation has noo— aawwwk!” Austin’s hand closed around his neck, and his face went purple.
“Stop him!” Minnie screamed, but she didn’t move a muscle to help.
“Austin. Don’t kill the Elder,” Cliff said in a mild, very unexcited tone.
Austin let go of Oswald, who staggered backwards, choking and frantically rubbing his throat.
“I’m his mate, you senile windbag,” Savannah said. “Why would Cliff be violating the law by protecting his brother?”
“Half-brother,” Oswald wheezed. “And he would be violating pack charter by protecting the bastard issue of an adulterous affair. Jessica Bronson dishonored her Alpha by cheating on him and bearing a child who was not his. The pack charter is very clear on this. If they were still alive, Lloyd would be within his rights to put them both to death. And if they managed to escape, they could never set foot on pack property again.”
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