by Haley Weir
“Yeah, but when do you ever listen?”
Brock laughed through his nose as Michael called Anders. He made sure to tell the doctor not to wear his coat in case Corey woke up in hysterics. The brothers sat on the couch in silence for a while, nursing a bottle that was passed between the two of them. Michael finally broke the ice. “It’s going to be a bloodbath with all of us in one room. Dorian said he’s on his way and so is Anders.”
“This is the first time we’ve gotten together like this since I’ve been back.”
“It’s long overdue if you ask me,” Michael said.
“Anders doesn’t really have a problem with Corey, but he can’t stand the sight of me. Dorian can’t be in the same room as Corey without wanting to take his head off, but he’s already said he forgives me for my role in this. The room is split.” Brock turned toward his brother. “Where do you stand?”
“Where I always do. In the middle.”
“The eye of the storm is where you seem to thrive, brother.”
Anders and Dorian entered the loft at the same time. Dorian sat beside Michael and pilfered the bottle of bourbon before downing half the bottle. Anders walked right past Brock to stand beside the bed. He opened his medical bag and began treating the former hunter as though no one else was in the room.
“Did you tell him?” Dorian whispered to Brock. “Did you tell your brother about Corey and Hydra?”
“If you’re talking about the fact that Hydra is Corey’s father, I already knew.” Michael was as much an enigma as Hydra himself at times, but Brock understood that his brother had ways of getting information...ways that he didn’t want to know about.
The look of utter disbelief of Dorian’s face, however, spoke volumes of his friendship with Michael. “And when were you going to have this conversation with me?”
“We’re having it now. Why does it matter?”
“Because we’re friends,” Dorian stressed. “Too much has been going on for you to keep this kind of thing to yourself. Having secrets between the four of us have never ended well for anyone, Michael.”
Brock left them to discuss the intricacies of honesty to go clean himself up. After a hot shower, he called the station and requested the rest of the day off for him and Dorian. A shout of alarm came from the main room and Brock burst through the door. Corey thrashed on the bed as Anders held him down. “Get over here!”
He grabbed Corey’s arm and forcefully gripped the man’s jaw. When Corey’s eyes opened, they weren’t the eyes of a man. The jaguar began to shift. Anders pulled a syringe from his bag and jammed the needle into its neck. Corey fought the sedative but lost the battle as his eyes drifted shut. “What happened?” Brock asked.
“He woke up when I finished sewing up the last of his wounds. The others might not understand, but you know I do.”
It was true. Anders had been the first of them to get taken to the facility. The fact that his friend still experienced the trauma of that time in his life meant Brock and Corey had a long way to go in their recovery. Michael called Anders and Brock over to the large windows that took up an entire wall of the loft. The view of Haden Springs was impeccable.
Brock listened as his brother stood before them and explained the connection between Corey, Destiny, and Hydra. Michael, as per usual, knew more than everyone else. Brock was stunned silent by each new revelation.
“Hydra’s name is Alexander Collier. He was born and raised in Manchester, England and was the father of two children. Not long after Corey was born, Alexander’s wife as diagnosed with a terminal illness. Things were looking grim and there was no end to her suffering insight. While his wife was pregnant with Destiny, he heard rumors of inhuman healing abilities.”
“Shifters.”
“Precisely,” Michael said. “Rumors were good enough for him at this stage in her illness. He poured most of his fortune into research, wasting what precious years he had left with his wife halfway across the globe trying to find a cure. Alexander returned to England to learn that his wife had passed away and that his son was showing characteristics associated with shifters.”
“So, he despised Corey right away because his research never produced a cure,” Brock sighed. He ran a hand through his hair before his gaze fell upon the sleeping figure in his brother’s bed.
“What the doctors discovered was a suppressant, something to block a shifter from fully maturing into its abilities.” Michael filled a fresh glass with some of the same bourbon and took a sip. He went on to explain the rest of Destiny and Corey’s story, even proving that Corey had never been the one to set the fires.
“But he was leading the team that did,” Dorian argued.
“As far as I’m concerned, he made a lot of threats and tried to instill his authority, but failed. Every plan Corey had was thwarted by one of us. The fires, the stabbings, gunshot wounds...everything that happened to us was carried out by his rogue teammates.” Michael shrugged his shoulders as if unfazed by the entire conversation. “He didn’t consent to have his memory wiped or to become what he is.”
“And that makes it right?”
“No,” Anders answered before Michael. “It doesn’t make it right, but it makes him a victim just as much as the rest of us. Hydra is the real enemy here, not his children.”
Dorian’s hands were tightly clenched into fists by his sides. “Trust them if you want, but all three of them are going to get us killed.”
Brock moved past them and awkwardly picked up Corey. He stormed toward the front door of the loft, not paying any mind to the voices that demanded he stay. Brock tucked Corey into his truck and drove from the fire station to Destiny’s home. She ran down the stairs and flung open the door the second they pulled up. “Where have you been?” she shouted. “I’ve been trying to call both of you...w-what’s wrong with him?”
“He was sedated. There was a problem up on the mountain, but we made it out of there in one piece.” Brock couldn’t believe his eyes. Somehow Destiny had gotten even more beautiful in the small amount of time he had been gone.
“Brock?”
He snapped back to reality and helped her carry her brother inside. Brock put Corey in his bedroom and walked out the front door without stopping. Destiny chased after him. The slight grip on his arm stopped him in his tracks and for a moment he hated Destiny Collier for the tears in her beautiful eyes. “I have to go.”
“Please. Can we talk about this?”
“I can’t talk to you right now,” he said quietly. “I’ve got too much on my mind. We both know if we have this conversation I’m going to say something I can’t take back.”
“Brock, this isn’t healthy. I’m your mate.”
“I know that!”
“Then stop running away!” Destiny cornered him near the door of her bookshop. She didn’t seem to care that all of her customers had stopped what they were doing to watch. “I never took you for a coward, Brock.”
“I’m not a coward just because I can’t trust you. It must say something that I’d rather have your brother at my back than you when he was the one who ruined my life. He may have been the one to break my mind and my body, but at least he left my heart alone.” Brock gripped the handle so tight that it broke off. “You have no right to talk about Logan as a manipulator when you manipulated me.”
“No! It...it wasn’t like that.” Destiny grabbed onto his arms with both hands and tried to move closer, but he shrugged her off. “I never wanted to hurt you.”
“You might think I’m overreacting, but take a second—just one second—to think about this from my perspective.” He handed her the broken door handle and fished out his wallet. Brock tucked enough money to pay for the damage he did to her shop into palm. “I’m leaving Haden Springs. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
He didn’t stay to see her break down in tears. The door slammed with a rattle and Brock drove to his secret sanctuary nestled at the heart of the town. He walked through space and packed a few of his thing
s, avoiding the bed and bathroom as memories of their time together haunted him. Brock’s tires squealed as he drove out of Haden Springs like a madman on the loose. Trees and endless fields passed him by.
When the mountains disappeared in his rear-view mirror, he was able to breathe properly.
Chapter Seventeen
She stood beside the door, clutching the handle as though it was a metaphor for her relationship. Destiny knew Brock was doing the right thing by getting as far away from her as possible, but it had hurt so much to see him walk out for a second time. Their relationship had started off on shaky ground because he hadn’t healed from his trauma and because her world had been turned upside down when Logan came back into her life.
The customers in the bookshop hurried with their purchases and she closed early. Instead of heading up to the apartment where Corey slept, Destiny made her way to the book club meeting room and laid across one of the settees. Her heart felt heavy as tears dotted the fabric of the thin cushion beneath her cheek.
“Are you going to stare at me all night or are we going to have a conversation?”
She blinked rapidly, trying to come back to the real world. “Sorry. I have this habit of getting lost in my mind. My friends always give me trouble about it.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind you staring,” Brock teased. “I just need to know if you want me to pose or not. Maybe take my shirt off again.”
Brock had been the first person in her life who hadn’t judged her or made her feel incompetent because of her tendency to fall into a daze.
Destiny flushed violently and lowered her head. Jenny and Sapphire were the bold ones of their group, so she didn’t really know how to respond to his flirtatious demeanor. “You seem quite eager to diminish my lady-like sensibilities. I’ll have you know, I was raised with a steady hand and will not be defeated so readily.”
“Oh, you want a competition?” The smile on his face was dangerous and sensual. “How about we strike a bet to make things interesting?”
She missed the playful banter between them. When she met Brock, Destiny hadn’t just gained a mate, she gained a friend as well. Her heart clenched at the thought of losing him forever; a life without him seemed unbearable. Brock gave her hope that she didn’t have to exist beneath the shadow of her father anymore.
“Des!” Corey’s voice carried through the bookshop and into the meeting room. She hopped up and ran to find her brother. He leaned against the counter, face ashen and a bit green. “Where’s Brock?”
“He’s on his way out of town.”
“What? Why?” Corey’s eyelids were heavy from the sedative, but his words were as sharp as ever. “Des, you didn’t actually intend to use him against Logan, did you?”
She knew the guilt was written all over her face. Destiny shoved her shoulder beneath Corey’s and helped him back upstairs. She sat him at the kitchen table and fixed him a cup of tea the way he enjoyed it as a boy. He snorted and asked if she had any whiskey to take the edge off of his pain. Destiny dug around above the fridge for an old bottle of booze. “Here,” she said, thrusting the cup into his hands.
“Now, let’s get back to you being a major pain in the backside.”
“Hey! I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Destiny’s shoulders slumped forward. “But it’s true. When Logan showed up, I panicked. There are still bullet holes in my bedroom wall from those men trying to shoot me. Good thing they have Stormtrooper aim.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Destiny shoved his shoulder and sipped her tea. “The point that I was trying to make was that I haven’t had time to slow down and think anything through since Logan pulled me back through my bedroom window.”
“Brock was right to be angry with you, Des. You can’t use people as a shield and then get mad when they decide they’ve taken too many hits.” Corey lifted his shirt and stared at the bullet wounds on his side.
“Maybe it was wrong to go into a relationship like that, but things have changed.”
“Did they change only because Logan showed you his true colors or because Brock showed you his?” her brother asked. “Because making any relationship decision based on someone else is never a good idea. Your bond with Brock should not be determined by any outside influences.”
“I don’t mean to be rude, Corey, but I wasn’t aware you had been in any relationship at all.” Destiny hadn’t meant for her tone to be so biting.
“No offense taken, Des.” There was a strange look in his eyes for a moment and Destiny was under the impression that he was troubled by something. “There was someone. She was in love with me, but I was brainwashed by my training and never gave her what she needed. We hooked up a few times over the years. I couldn’t see how much it had ruined her. It tore her up inside.”
“What happened?”
“She became...unhinged,” he revealed. “Starved for attention and my approval. It got so bad that she took every order I gave her to the extreme. I’m sure you’ve heard her, but while your friends know her as a crazed woman who set fire to Jenny Owens’ home, I know her as another victim of our father.”
“Vanessa.”
Corey nodded. “I treated her so badly, Des. I used her like an emotional punching bag, a warm body to lose myself in when the world got too complicated. And now she’s dead. I wish I could go back in time and tell her how sorry I am.”
“I’m sure she knows.”
He reached over and grabbed her hand. It was the first time Corey had initiated contact with her since returning to her life. He stoked the back of her hand with his thumb. “Nothing in this life is certain, so we can’t expect it to be any different in the afterlife. Don’t spend your time on earth thinking you can make amends after death. Just try to live without regrets.”
“I don’t regret what I have with Brock.”
“Then make sure he doesn’t regret it either,” Corey advised. “Learn from my mistakes, Des. Don’t let anything go unsaid or else he’ll never trust you.”
She felt her face crumple, but didn’t care about ugly crying in front of her big brother. Corey squeezed her hand comfortingly. “I messed up, Corey. I’ll be lucky if he ever speaks to me again.”
“Brock will come around.”
Destiny spent hours cleaning and repairing the apartment before cooking dinner. She wasn’t as good in the kitchen as Sapphire, but she was determined not to torture herself with thoughts of Brock all night. He had been gone for less than a day and she was already a complete wreck. Destiny didn’t know what to do with herself.
Each day that went by brought a new pain. She stopped taking care of herself. Her wardrobe morphed into a rotation of three pairs of sweatpants and two of Brock’s shirts that he left behind. Most days she closed the bookshop well before the usual time and avoided talking to anyone.
Corey began to worry when her nights were spent at the renovated room in the abandoned building Brock took her on one of their dates. She even attempted texting the Kodiak Dating Agency to invite him out to dinner. Of course, her attempts went unanswered, but it comforted her that at least he would know that she wasn’t willing to give up on them so easily.
After two weeks of moping around town, Corey forced her to go on a walk through the woods. He didn’t say anything or offer any more relationship advice, which she was grateful for, but Destiny missed the sound of his voice. She never expected that he would miss Brock just as much as she did. Destiny was sad that she underestimated her brother’s friendship with her mate.
The days seemed darker without Brock. She found it harder and harder to pull herself out of bed. “I love him,” Destiny said on one of their walks. Corey stopped. He looked her in the eyes with more sympathy than Destiny thought she deserved.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“I can’t live without him.” The tears she had kept at bay for weeks came back full force. “He’s everything I need. I don’t care about father or Logan or anyone else
. I just want him back. Brock understood me in ways I didn’t understand myself.”
“I suspected your heart had changed.”
“What am I supposed to do, Corey?” she asked. Her brother opened his arms and she walked into his embrace. They had grown closer and closer with each day that passed. In some ways, they were closer than they had been as children.
“I’ll talk to Michael and see if he can track Brock down.”
“Thank you.”
“But I need you to keep your head up,” he said. “Don’t lose yourself in the process of figuring out your relationship.”
At first, Corey’s words hadn’t made much sense to Destiny. But as time went by, she began to realize that accepting someone into her heart didn’t mean that she had to give up the things she loved in the process. She could love Brock and love her bookshop. Destiny could love herself and submit to the man who had done everything in his power to keep her from harm.
“Why am I wrong?”
“Because submitting to me is different than giving someone else power over your life. Submitting to your lover, your friend, and your mate means that you’re trusting me with your heart and your body. It’s a bond where taking care of your needs heals parts of me that nothing else can reach, where you no longer have to put up this endless battle in your mind about who you’re supposed to be. You would find purpose in being mine as much as I find purpose in being yours,” Brock explained. “I understand that handing over the burden of your own safety, finding that part of yourself that is obedient, and trusting someone with your mental health is a challenge. But you have all the power.”
And it took one afternoon to destroy everything.
“I was so determined not to fall back into bed with Logan that I lied and told him I had a boyfriend. There were a few dates here and there over the years, but nothing that was ever serious,” she confessed. “I contacted the agency and did my orientation. The next day, they told me I had a match. I just wanted to feel in control again, to feel like I had a choice and that I didn’t have to run back to him—”