by Odessa Lynne
Salvadore leaned over the wide window sill and smushed his forehead tight to the filthy window. The woods hadn’t quite taken over the area surrounding the hospital and he could see a pretty good distance past the corner of a broken and cracked parking lot and over the top of another set of buildings. Evening was coming.
A breeze fluttered through the trees but nothing else moved outside.
He gritted his teeth, turned around and slid down the wall to sit on the floor in the cleared out spot where he’d woken up about an hour ago.
He didn’t remember exactly how he’d gotten here. When he’d rolled over and opened his eyes, his thoughts had been crisp and clear for the first time since he’d been drugged. But his memories of his time in the wolves’ custody were slow to come and only a few stood out sharply enough for him to have no trouble at all recalling them.
The blood on Egan’s face. A hard shoulder bouncing into his stomach as someone carried him through the woods. Paul helping him off the cot.
Whoever had brought him here had been gone when he woke up, but Salvadore had been locked in tight.
The fact was he should’ve left the area years ago—gotten as far away from the protectorate as he could. He sure as hell would’ve slept better these last ten years, but he was flat broke and so was Chen and El. His own job had barely paid enough for the halfgas it took him to earn the money at first because it was twelve miles to Mel’s and then he’d had to make deliveries at least three times a week. He’d used every other penny of the money to retrofit an old truck to run electric so he could afford to keep the job. But he’d gotten free food for his whole family and that had made it worth it. He hadn’t had a new pair of pants in more than three years and his boots? Gage had given him the boots last year when Gage had promised Salvadore the financial and legal help Salvadore had needed so desperately.
The alibi had been the clincher. All Salvadore had had to do was join Gage’s group of renegades and give Gage one of the devices Salvadore’s father had stolen from the wolves about ten years ago. In exchange, Gage would keep him from going to prison where he’d probably die—people who went in didn’t usually come out because the government didn’t have enough money to keep the prisons safe anymore.
A low sound came from outside, faint and unsettling. A wolf?
Salvadore rubbed his arms and shifted to get more comfortable on the floor. He didn’t know what to do but wait. He’d already explored what he could. Beyond a swinging door he’d found the kitchen and more doors, but just like the set across the room, they were locked. There were several broken windows in the kitchen but none of them were at a safe level for jumping. Sure he could keep looking for a way out, maybe try the old duct work or get up into the falling ceiling, but what was the point? He was supposed to stick with the wolves.
He closed his eyes but then snapped them open again when all he saw behind his eyelids was Egan’s bloody face.
“Shit.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and stared across the room at those double doors.
A scab on his forearm caught his eye and after a second of not realizing what he was staring at he pulled his hand away from his face and scratched the dried blood off the inside of his forearm.
The thin scab fell away to reveal smooth skin.
Huh. He’d thought that scratch was deeper than that. He remembered the way the blood had welled.
Maybe the drugs the wolves had given him had caused him to heal faster.
Or maybe the scratch hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought.
The doors across the room rattled and Salvadore jumped. He scrambled to his feet, pulse pounding wildly.
Instead of opening the way he half expected, the doors rattled again. Hard.
Salvadore looked toward the door that led to the kitchen and back again.
The latch on the double doors clicked and the wood frame shook. A wolf’s howl echoed outside the door.
A painful sense of déjà vu swept through him as the doors burst open.
Don’t run, the safety training said.
Submit. Because if you don’t…
Salvadore ran.
* * *
Salvadore didn’t remember a whole lot from the first heat season after the wolves came to Earth. He’d worked hard to bury as many memories from that day as he possibly could. He remembered cowering in a cabinet in the lab, his knees pulled in tight to his chest, his nose running because he’d been crying. He remembered the smell of alcohol and the taste of snot and blood in his mouth where he’d bitten his bottom lip almost clean through.
He remembered the sound of wolves fighting and the nice man who had shoved him in the cabinet gurgling his last breath.
He remembered the claw that had grazed the underside of his bloody chin and the scary black eyes that had stared back at him when he’d been found.
That black-eyed wolf had hunkered down in front of the open cabinet and offered Salvadore his hand. “Your fate is in your eyes, child. You won’t be able to hide forever.”
And then someone in a uniform had shot the wolf in the back of the head and Salvadore hadn’t been able to squeeze his eyes closed fast enough.
He’d screamed.
He didn’t scream now. He shoved his shoulder into the cafeteria’s kitchen door and held it with everything he had in him even as his feet slid along the gritty, leaf-strewn floor from the force of the wolf on the other side.
Adrenaline fired his blood but there was nothing else he could do with it, because he had nowhere to go. Once the wolf got in…
The wolf shoved hard at the door and Salvadore bit his bottom lip, but he couldn’t stop the harsh sob of breath that welled up from deep in his stomach as his boots slid another foot and his shoulder jarred against the door and his knee hit the floor.
Can’t let the wolf in.
Can’t let him in…
He remembered too much from all those years ago, sounds he would never erase from his memory.
But he couldn’t think about that.
It was too late anyway. As soon as his boot slid far enough that his knee collapsed under him all the pressure he’d been putting against the door evaporated and the door slammed inward.
Salvadore skidded back across the floor, his cheek numb from the impact with the door.
The wolf’s in…
“No,” he said. “No no no.”
He scrambled around on the gritty, filthy floor until his hands and knees were under him, not even looking over his shoulder because he didn’t want to see.
Didn’t want to see the dark claws that would be coming for him.
Didn’t want to see the lust-filled eyes or the teeth that would tear him apart.
The wolf’s in…
Then a growling weight hit his back and Salvadore slipped and fell flat against the floor, his breath knocked out of him.
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw air into his lungs, couldn’t scream, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything except teeth at the back of his neck, and then—
Another roar, so loud and close that Salvadore felt the reverberation race along his spine and out to his skin, the crawling sensation like nothing he’d ever felt.
The wolf on his back rose up and away and Salvadore didn’t waste a moment. He crawled for the other side of the room with only one quick glance backward.
Reed. Egan. That other wolf—the one who had eyes that made Salvadore’s breath catch in his throat.
He might’ve called what he felt at that first sight of Reed and Egan relief but the feeling couldn’t rise beneath the panic beating at his chest and throat, making it impossible to feel much of anything else.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Too many wolves.
Too many.
Salvadore flipped over and scrambled back until he smacked up against the bottom of a long counter. He had to shake his head to keep his eyes focused, and at the tickle at his neck, he reached up and his fingers slid through warm fresh blood and across the indentions of what m
ight be teeth marks along the ridge of his spine.
He shuddered and looked down at his hand, the fading daylight coming in through the few windows in the cafeteria’s wide kitchen making the bright blood coating his fingers look dull and gray.
He hadn’t even felt the injury although he remembered the pressure of the wolf’s teeth digging into his flesh. Which one of them had bitten him? Which one had attacked?
He glanced up. Reed had Egan on the floor, his hands at Egan’s throat, while the other wolf—the one Salvadore recognized but had no name for—stood over them both, his low growl shivering through the air and keeping Salvadore’s skin alive with the tingle of raised hair. The wolf glanced toward Salvadore more than once, and Salvadore—Salvadore didn’t understand why the wolf wasn’t moving, why he lingered near Reed and Egan, why he kept growling but didn’t seem in a hurry to fight anyone.
“Salvadore,” the wolf said, and the sound of his voice was a slap to Salvadore’s senses.
Salvadore jerked and pushed his back harder into the wall behind him.
“I smell your blood. You’re injured.”
Salvadore looked around wildly, eyes cataloging every corner, every door, every—broken window.
He lunged to his feet and ran for the window on the other side of the room, feeling the crunch of grit and glass and the slippery give of leaves under the soles of his boots.
“Stop!”
Salvadore didn’t heed the wolf’s order. He threw himself up on the sill and his forward momentum carried him right over the edge.
He realized his mistake with a gut wrenching surge of horror as he caught a glimpse of the railed concrete walkway below—at least two stories down. He grabbed for the sill and the inside of his arm scraped hard over the narrow row of jagged glass sticking up above the window’s metal frame. His legs dangled in the open air and his heart thundered and a clawed hand clamped around his bicep so tight the pinch was like a vice bruising him bone deep.
The wolf hauled Salvadore back inside and Salvadore flopped over the edge of the window sill and landed on the floor with a thud, a shattered whimper slipping out before he could stop it.
He didn’t want to die.
But he also remembered other sounds from all those years ago and if he let himself dwell on that, he might as well give up now and slit his own throat the way he’d slit Tyler Brecknell’s throat just last year.
Chapter 6
Salvadore stared up at the wolf looming over him and raked his hand across the debris strewn floor but he already knew he wouldn’t find what he wanted. There would be no sharp pieces of glass with which to slice a vein or stab at the wolf. A long time ago, the window’s tempered glass had broken into a thousand tiny pieces, none large enough to use as a weapon. What remained felt like sharp gravel against his palms beneath the decayed and decaying leaves the wind had blown in over the years.
The wolf said something in the wolves’ language, but the only word Salvadore understood was “safe.”
“It’s not safe,” Salvadore said, his voice quavering with barely checked panic.
“You are safe,” the wolf said, this time speaking human English. He squatted low next to Salvadore and gestured toward Reed and Egan. Salvadore’s gaze flicked that way and then right back to the wolf standing over him.
His quick glance had shown him Egan, breathing heavily but calmer now. Reed hadn’t removed his hands from Egan’s throat and at some point he’d straddled Egan’s chest.
“Raeisikeille has contained Eebaenetakim.”
The sounds didn’t make a lot of sense, and the furious pounding of Salvadore’s pulse and the rapid rush of breath in and out of his lungs didn’t help.
The wolf offered Salvadore his hand.
Salvadore stared at those long, claw-tipped fingers and flexed his hand against the floor. “I can’t.”
“I smell the fear on you. You’re right to be afraid, but I won’t let him hurt you again.”
Reed’s voice came from the side. “Eebaenetakim didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Salvadore looked that way, his bark of laughter coming unbidden. He cut the sound off abruptly as he reached up and wiped at the blood smeared across the back of his neck and then stuck his hand out toward them all.
He couldn’t control the way his hand shook; he didn’t even try. “This—this is not an accident.”
The wolf’s gaze lingered on Salvadore’s bloody fingers. After a moment, he moved to take Salvadore’s wrist.
Salvadore tried to jerk his arm back, but it was too late. The wolf gripped his flesh tight.
“My name is Beintaegoer,” he said quietly.
“I don’t care, Wolf.”
The wolf hauled Salvadore to his feet. The pressure on Salvadore’s wrist didn’t ease even after Salvadore got his feet under him and stood next to the wolf.
Wolf’s eyebrows drew together. “I told you, I am Beintaegoer.”
“I can’t say that.” The high pitch of syllables would be impossible to recreate.
“Then call me Watcher.”
What the fuck kind of name was that?
“I’m good with Wolf.”
Wolf’s eyes narrowed on Salvadore. “Wolf is not my name, just as Human isn’t yours… Human.”
“I don’t fucking—”
Wolf yanked Salvadore closer.
Salvadore stumbled into Wolf’s hard body with a startled yelp.
“If you’d rather call me something other than Watcher, call me Ty.”
The name jolted through Salvadore.
“No,” he said, so vehemently that Wolf’s eyes flickered and his upper lip pulled away from his teeth, showing a flash of pointed eyeteeth. Wolf stared at Salvadore for a nerve-wracking length of time.
“I’m not calling you Ty,” Salvadore said. Even saying the name brought back visions he didn’t want to remember. There’d been so much blood, more than he’d expected, more than he’d prepared for.
Another moment passed while Wolf’s gaze lingered uncomfortably long on Salvadore. “You may call me Wolf,” he finally said, and with that he released Salvadore’s wrist.
Salvadore didn’t waste any time putting distance between them. He scuffled backward several steps, watching Wolf warily.
“You’re safe now,” Wolf said.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Reed said at almost the same time from across the room while Egan dragged in slow, deep breaths under him, eyes closed.
Salvadore sniffed and the dank scent of decay filled his nostrils. He’d almost gotten used to the smell. To forestall a repeat of his earlier panic, he started knocking the leaves and glass off the back of his shirt and jeans. Reed and Wolf watched him without comment, as if they were waiting for him to make the first move.
When he’d gotten as much of the debris off him as he could, he cleared his throat. “What happened? Why are we here? Where’s Paul?” Then he realized what he’d said, and he shook his head. “Matthew, I mean. Why isn’t he here? Where are the others?”
“We were attacked,” Wolf said.
“Attacked,” Salvadore repeated.
“We were separated,” Wolf said, his tone sharp. “You don’t need to know more.”
Salvadore swallowed. There was more to that story. A lot more.
The breeze kicked up some of the leaves at his feet and swirled them across the floor. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Wolf. Then a shuffle across the room startled him and he regained control of his gaze.
Reed was helping Egan to his feet. Egan staggered and Reed took Egan’s weight on his shoulder, wrapping his arm around Egan’s back.
Salvadore waved toward Egan. “Why’s he like that? What’s wrong with him?”
Egan looked like he was going to fall sideways but Reed held tight.
“The newest drug is flawed,” Wolf said.
The repression drugs were the only thing stopping a repeat of the wolves’ first heat season on Earth, back when everyone thought the world was goi
ng to end because the wolves had gone from peaceful to violently aggressive overnight.
“Can’t you just use the old ones then?”
“They won’t work for many of those who used them during the last heat.”
Salvadore frowned.
“I’m using them.” Wolf’s eyes lingered hotly on Salvadore.
Salvadore swallowed again, his throat feeling tighter than it had only a moment ago. “So you didn’t need them last time?”
“I had an obligation to breed. The drugs would have interfered.”
The words were spoken so matter-of-factly that Salvadore didn’t know how to respond. He wanted to ask questions, but—
Better to let it go and have as little contact with the wolves as possible.
Reed’s gaze caught Salvadore’s and he had the nerve to smile at Salvadore, as if—
“We’re not friends,” Salvadore said fiercely. “Stop staring at me.”
Reed’s smile disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. After a second of uncomfortable silence, Wolf tugged on Salvadore’s arm.
Salvadore tugged back. “Let me go, Wolf, while you’ve still got your shit together.”
“I’m not going to let you go.”
An unpleasant churning started in Salvadore’s stomach. “Why not?” He tugged again, twisting his wrist within Wolf’s unyielding grip hard enough to make his skin burn. “Come on, let me go. I’ll disappear into the woods and you’ll never see me again.”
He wanted Wolf to agree. But of course he couldn’t leave the wolves, not yet. Not while that tracker was still under his scalp and those assholes still had Chen and El.
Fuck.
But any human in his situation would be trying to get away, trying to talk the wolves into letting him go. If Salvadore succeeded, he’d just trail the wolves… No one would know and that had to be better than this.
“I can’t,” Wolf said, and although it was the answer Salvadore had expected, the idea of being stuck with the wolves still grated and a tingle of fear settled at the base of his spine.
Then Wolf’s mouth curved and Salvadore had no idea if it was supposed to be a grin or some other expression but Salvadore’s mouth went dry at the sight.