by Odessa Lynne
New phones weren’t exactly pouring out of the factories, when too many people needed food and halfgas more. The last phone Salvadore had gotten had come straight from Gage and it was probably still sitting in his abandoned—
“Aw, fuck,” he muttered, raking his hand through his hair and settling back in the seat. “I bet my truck’s been stolen by now, goddammit.” Why wouldn’t it have been snatched up at the first opportunity? If he’d ever come across a truck that didn’t need halfgas, still had the keys and a phone inside and no one around to claim it, he sure as hell would’ve taken it.
The door to the building opened and the green-eyed wolf looked that way. Salvadore barely glanced at the wolf stepping into the building because what was one more wolf at this point? He’d begun to feel almost safe, despite how many of them were milling around.
He realized his mistake a scant second later when Wolf tensed, hard and fast, and Salvadore felt an odd sensation prickle across his scalp. He quickly looked back toward the new wolf.
Paul. This wolf had something to do with Paul, he could see it as clear as he could see the scratches that marked up the wolf’s throat and his vibrant golden-brown eyes. He’d seen this one before, in that cabin, and Salvadore remembered him especially because of how Paul had stared at him.
Salvadore tried to rise out of his seat.
Wolf pulled Salvadore down and then surged upward to stand in front of Salvadore. “Do not move.”
“I want to know what he’s done with Paul. He’s—”
“Submit!” Wolf ordered, turning and grabbing his arms.
He should’ve listened to Wolf, he knew that, but he couldn’t. “Where’s Paul?” He fought against Wolf’s restraining hands and got his feet under him. He had no doubt Wolf could have kept him down if Wolf had been willing to hurt him, but he obviously wasn’t and Salvadore took advantage of that. “That wolf did something to Paul. What’d he do?”
An image flashed, of teeth biting into Paul’s throat.
His struggle had drawn the entering wolf’s attention. In fact, one quick glance showed him he’d drawn everyone’s attention. Tension rippled through the room, coming off the wolves in waves.
“What the hell did you do to Paul?” Salvadore yelled over Wolf’s shoulder.
The wolf’s back stiffened as his gaze narrowed on Salvadore. He sniffed the air.
Craig did the same and his gaze swung back toward Salvadore, an expression on his face that made Salvadore stumble backward into the chair. Wolf released him as he fell back and his ass hit the seat hard, the chair shifting almost out from under him. Craig thrust his nose forward, taking a deep whiff of Salvadore even as Salvadore tried to lose himself in the slats at the back of the chair. His heart raced.
Craig snarled. “We have a problem,” he said, shoving away from Salvadore abruptly and turning to the green-eyed wolf looming beside him. “He smells like Matthew. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before.”
The green-eyed wolf took one look at the wolf who’d just entered and started running toward him. The sudden move startled Salvadore so badly he would have sworn his heart skipped a beat.
Wolf growled and crouched.
Craig snapped, “Submit!” but it was too late.
The wolf who’d entered charged them.
An image hit Salvadore as fast and as sudden as a bullet and the feel of it twisted through him so viscerally that for a moment he almost believed it had happened. Him, fucking Paul. A split second later, insight came with it: the wolf thought Salvadore had some kind of claim on Paul.
“Shit,” Salvadore said in a breathless rush.
That was all he got out before Wolf grabbed the chair and him both and shoved, throwing them out of the path of the charging wolf.
Salvadore lurched sideways as the chair skidded and fell, and he banged his shoulder into the hard edge of the table. He panicked—there was no other explanation for the way his vision narrowed and his lungs froze. Between one second and the next, he caught sight of wolves rushing toward them—him—no, the other wolf—and then he surged over the table, rolling across the surface to the screech of table legs grating across the floor and wolves yelling and someone roaring.
Salvadore’s human reaction time was nowhere near that of the wolves and it made him feel like he was a veo playing back at half speed while everything around him had been set to double.
Someone yelled out “Devon” and the very human name stood out in the midst of all the yelling in the wolves’ language.
He tumbled off the edge of the table and swung his legs down just in time to keep from crashing to the floor.
He looked up but he had nowhere to go. He turned and slammed his back up against the wall and hoped like hell that wolf didn’t get his hands on him.
Salvadore sucked in a breath and then realized he’d been sucking in too many breaths, too quickly. For one short, startling moment he couldn’t tell if he was moving or standing still. Luckily it passed quickly, the second of vertigo possibly caused by the speed with which he’d changed positions earlier or a side-effect of the adrenaline flooding his body.
He didn’t know. He only knew that that wolf had expected him to fight and had been planning to tear out Salvadore’s throat and rip out his spine and only the wolves standing in his way had stopped him.
Wolf stood guard over him, far enough away to defend without getting Salvadore caught up in the fight, but the others seemed to be successfully dragging the wolf to the floor, his bucking body a furious expression of what Salvadore had always thought of when he thought of the wolves and their heat. Memories flashed and flared, and a cold sweat swamped him. Only the constricting pain in his chest kept him from moving at all or he would have already been huddling on the floor curled up in a fucking ball just like when he was a kid.
But something else kept him still too, and it wasn’t as easily explained.
Craig left the crowd around the wolf and stalked toward Salvadore. Wolf moved, but Craig gave him one hard look and snarled, “Submit,” and Wolf stopped almost within touching distance, his struggle to obey the alpha something Salvadore could outright feel vibrating on the air around them. He didn’t understand how he could feel any of that, but Craig’s command had hit him with the power of a physical blow.
Something was wrong with him. He couldn’t keep thinking he was imagining things. Something was messed up inside him and he didn’t know what it was, but the look in Craig’s eyes was strong enough to feel like a vise around Salvadore’s heart.
“What kind of relationship did you have with Matthew?” Craig demanded.
Salvadore dug his fingers into the wall behind him. “That’s between him and me.”
Craig leaned in, the edges of his eyeteeth visible and a growl rising from his chest. “Submit!”
Salvadore jerked. Craig’s command felt like a push against his forehead. “It’s—personal. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s not your decision to make. I asked you a question.”
“Why does it—” Salvadore winced at the sudden increase of pressure in his head. “Okay, okay. We fucked. We were—I don’t know—we fucked. It was a way to pass the time.” It had been much more than a way to pass the time as far as Salvadore had been concerned. Of course, that had been then, and this was now.
Craig stopped looking so much like he was about to tear into Salvadore, and he took a slow, careful sniff of the air. “How close were you?”
Salvadore glanced at Wolf, who nodded at him. Encouragement? “Uh, as close as you get when you’re fucking, I don’t know.”
Another roar from the pile that had formed near the fake windows startled a jerk out of Salvadore.
Craig looked to Wolf. “And you say he’s been communicating with you?”
“Yes. The first came after the renegades attacked us.”
“What’s going—” Salvadore started, only to have Wolf shake his head at him and Craig narrow his eyes.
“Don�
�t interrupt when I’m not talking to you,” Craig said.
Salvadore mashed his lips together.
“Did they mate?”
Salvadore could damn well answer for himself. “I told you we fucked—”
Craig jerked his head toward Wolf and Wolf grabbed Salvadore’s arm and yanked him close.
“What the fu—”
He wasn’t expecting it when Wolf clamped his hand over Salvadore’s mouth, cutting him off mid-sentence. He growled against Wolf’s palm and tried to prize Wolf’s hand away.
Wolf pressed harder. “Submit,” he growled into Salvadore’s ear.
A tingle raced over Salvadore’s skin, making goose bumps rise along his arms. He snorted a sharp exhale through his nose and stilled.
“He’s willful,” Craig said. “He’ll probably never submit with ease. I hope you can continue to resist the instinct to wring submission out of him.” Craig’s hand neared Salvadore’s face. Salvadore tried to turn away, a very real fear twisting his stomach.
Wolf held Salvadore’s head tight to his shoulder, but because there wasn’t more than a few inches difference in their height that meant either Salvadore’s knees had to give or his back bow. His breath came sharp and fast through his nose against the edges of Wolf’s fingers and he let himself go weak just so he could feel Wolf’s heat at his back as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the scrape of Craig’s claw along his jaw.
“I see what’s in his heart,” Wolf said. “His willfulness is how he fights off his fear. Someday his fear will fade away to nothing and he’ll submit with enthusiasm.”
Enthusiasm? The fuck he would.
But then he thought of Wolf looming over him in bed and knew there were some kinds of submission that he could easily imagine himself accepting with enthusiasm.
The claw stopped at Salvadore’s chin. “Open your eyes.”
Salvadore mumbled, “Don’t think so,” but what came out through Wolf’s palm was a mish mash of syllables that no one could have deciphered, so he tried shaking his head instead. That didn’t work so well either.
“Open your eyes,” Craig said again, and this time the words dug into Salvadore’s skin, creating so strong a pull that Salvadore couldn’t resist even though he was afraid he’d see nothing but deeply unsettling black eyes staring back at him.
Chapter 25
Despite the fear roiling inside Salvadore, when he opened his eyes he didn’t see black eyes staring back at him. Craig had vibrant blue eyes and sharp features and the claw at Salvadore’s chin didn’t belong to a wolf who had only moments left to live.
“A Diviner spoke to Salvadore when he was just a child,” Wolf said. “It was—” He said something else, something sharp and hard and difficult to describe, an unusual collection of sounds even for the wolves. “He died in the first Earth heat.”
Craig sighed and let his hand fall. “So he is dead. Better that than captured and held for all these years. The other Diviners will be relieved he’s no longer among the missing.”
Salvadore could only guess at what they were talking about. Part of him wanted Wolf to remove his hand so he could ask questions, but another part of him found a strange comfort in the confining hold, Wolf’s unyielding hands a reminder of his strength and his promise to protect Salvadore from the wolves standing around him.
Now that his eyes were open again, he had trouble keeping them on the alpha. Too many wolves, and he could feel the sweat making his jeans stick to his groin uncomfortably every time he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His underarms didn’t feel any better and a trickle of sweat teased the back of his neck despite the cool air in the building.
“He knew his fate and he went anyway to find—” Craig stopped speaking, his eyes narrowing on Salvadore. He looked to Wolf. “The prophecy hasn’t finished with you yet, I see.”
With those cryptic words, Craig stepped back, putting some desperately needed distance between them. Salvadore’s relief made his whole body weak.
Wolf removed his hand from Salvadore’s mouth but continued to hold onto Salvadore’s arm with clawed fingers.
Salvadore kept his mouth shut this time.
“Did they mate?” Craig asked again, looking to Wolf.
Wolf’s fingers flexed but his claws didn’t do more than poke lightly at Salvadore’s upper arm under the short sleeve of his shirt. “He’s never claimed to be mated. The human—Matthew—made no effort to claim him when he was brought in front of Alpha Paetarikeille.”
Salvadore tried to resist the urge to speak, but he couldn’t keep quiet any longer, even at the risk of drawing the alpha’s ire. “All we did was fuck, I’m telling you.”
They ignored him.
Wolf said, “He did try to protect him.”
“As a mate would?”
“It… is possible those were his feelings. He was holding something back and he didn’t communicate it to me.”
Craig’s eyebrows furrowed and he glanced back at the green-eyed wolf who was now watching from a position over the wolf who had tried to attack Salvadore.
There was a smear of blood on his chin and his claws were poking deep into the other wolf’s shoulders as he struggled to keep him down with the help of several of the others.
Salvadore missed Egan and Reed at that moment. Although he could rationally accept that the wolves holding down his unexpected enemy were doing just fine, he knew Egan’s and Reed’s strength and he would have felt so much better to have people he knew with him, even if they were just as dangerous to him as any of these wolves.
Something was definitely wrong with him.
Craig looked thoughtful. “I didn’t think humans left behind mating scents when they claimed each other, but Matthew’s scent is stronger than I would have expected. It’s possible Matthew claimed him and he isn’t aware of that. Humans don’t seem to value straightforward declarations the way we do.”
“If he did, I will fight—”
Craig interrupted, speaking in the wolves’ language this time, his tone sharp, “You won’t interfere. Matthew’s Alpha is First Alpha’s mate and Traesikeille would fight in his place. ”
That meant nothing to Salvadore, but Wolf reacted. The tension tightened the air around him, making Salvadore hyperaware of the strength of Wolf’s hands on his shoulders.
“I would fight anyway. He is my life. Without him, I have nothing.”
Salvadore felt the reverberations of that declaration into his bones. That… meant something. He turned wide eyes to Wolf, a sudden flutter in his stomach that had nothing to do with his fear of his current situation.
Wolf was watching Craig, though, and didn’t seem to notice Salvadore’s attention.
A soft growl rose from Craig’s chest then stopped as quickly as it had started. “I understand how you feel, but Ian has explained to me that most human matings are short-lived. Patience might be the only thing the universe asks for in return for a rewarding fate.”
Craig gave Wolf time to respond, but Wolf stayed quiet.
Craig’s eyeteeth flashed as his lips pulled back. “Devon has gone to fetch Matthew. We’ve been here too long already. This needs to be resolved for both your or Ashikid’s sake.”
After saying that, he shifted his attention back to Salvadore, his piercing blue eyes not giving away an iota of what he was thinking. “Did you consider Matthew your mate?”
Salvadore answered quickly, “No. Never.”
Wolf’s fingers clenched on Salvadore’s arm.
The lines of Craig’s face hardened. Another short growl followed, making the hair at Salvadore’s nape prickle. “You’re lying to me. Don’t.”
It had been such a small lie. How had he known? Salvadore fisted his hands, opening his mouth to fix his mistake, but behind Craig, someone roared out an incomprehensible challenge that made every hair on Salvadore’s body stand on end with an electric pulse.
Every instinct that wolf had was telling him to fight, and Salvadore knew exa
ctly what would happen if that wolf got to him. He’d end up with his spine ripped out and a gaping hole where his throat should be.
Salvadore felt a ripple in the air a millisecond before the wolf roared again and broke free.
Wolf released Salvadore’s arm, moving swiftly, and Craig roared at the other wolf.
Craig leapt forward, racing to intercept him and Salvadore slammed his back into the wall again, holding onto the barest thread of control.
Craig’s grace and strength was an impressive thing to watch. Between him and the others, they got the attacking wolf down again, faster than before. Barely seconds later, a female wolf ran in through the building’s door with a handful of those cylinders that had the drugs inside. She tossed the cylinders to the green-eyed wolf and while Craig’s claws dug into the crazed wolf’s throat, the green-eyed wolf snapped one open and jabbed it into the wolf’s thigh.
“He needs a heavier dose,” she said. “Give him another.”
She stayed back, out of the way, as the crazed wolf continued to thrash to free himself, bowing his back and attempting to throw off the hands holding him down. The green-eyed wolf jammed his knee into the center of the crazed wolf’s chest and snapped open another cylinder.
Something the hell was wrong with that wolf. Salvadore had seen what those drugs usually did. This was so far away from those instances that he had trouble believing there was even anything in those cylinders.
Then it hit Salvadore—the human scent triggered the lust craze because it interfered with the wolves’ control over their instincts. But lust wasn’t the only emotion that could drive someone into a craze. If the drugs had been created to repress a lust craze… well, why the hell would they work as well when it wasn’t lust driving them crazy? Because the one thing Salvadore knew was that that wolf on the ground didn’t have any interest in fucking him. He wanted to eliminate the competition—he wanted Salvadore dead.
Finally the wolf’s struggles weakened and Craig rose to his feet, looking to the side.