But here he was, standing in front of me. By the looks of his scarred body, it hadn’t been a good place. I couldn’t treat him like the carefree teenager he’d been. This wasn’t a world where anyone stayed innocent for long. I didn’t know whether to cry or rage or just hold him. If he’d let me.
I held up my hands. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
“Why are you here?” he croaked out, still hiding in the shadows.
“Why aren’t you dead?” I snapped back, unable to get a lid on the warring emotions in my heart. “Dare said you sacrificed yourself. I fucking mourned you. Again.” Nash didn’t say anything, but from ten feet away, I could sense him trembling. “Are you a prisoner here? I can get you out. I’ll take you home—”
“Not a prisoner,” he said in a short burst of sound.
I clacked my jaw shut. Then why was he cowering? “I don’t know what to do. You’re terrified, and I don’t know how to make you not terrified.” I huffed out a breath. “Can you step into the light a bit?”
Several moments passed, and I thought he’d refuse, but then one bare foot extended into the patch of light, followed by his body. His back was hunched, but as he righted his posture and held his head high, I marveled at how tall he’d grown. Bruises, cuts, and scars littered his body, and his ribs were visible—I could count every one. There was an especially wicked gash on the side of his throat, which was red and raw.
I walked around the side of the bed slowly, keeping my hands up, as I gazed up into his face. Even with the gaunt look, he was still so handsome he nearly took my breath away. He watched me warily, his blue eyes alert despite the wrecked appearance of his body.
“I got away from the Noweres,” he said simply, his jaw tight. “Traveled until I arrived here, and they’ve let me stay since. So I’m alive.”
“I see that,” I answered.
His features softened a bit. “Is Dare okay? And Reese?”
“They all made it home. Every one of them.”
He nodded. “Good. That’s good.” He eyed me. “And you?”
That was a complicated answer. I went with the most honest I could be. “I’m okay.”
“Dare told me you were good.” He seemed confused, like I hadn’t said what he wanted me to say. “He said you were happy.”
“Sure, I’m happy sometimes.”
He stood watching me carefully before he spoke again. “Why are you here?”
“Reese is a Whitethroat. We heard rumors of the pack being rebuilt. I’m here with a few Silver Tip pack members to investigate.”
He pointed to the floor of his hut. “And why are you here?”
I shrugged and rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. “Uh, you know me. Pace said to stay in my room and I’m not good at doing what I’m told.”
His face lost all harshness, and something like affection stole over his features. “Yeah, I remember.” His nostrils flared. “Your smell. It’s been so long, and…”
I walked toward him, not stopping until I stood right in front of him. I reached up, wrapping my arms around his painfully thin shoulders, and tugged him to me.
His face immediately dropped to my neck, and his entire body slumped into me. He nuzzled into my skin, huffing against it, while I ran my hands down his back, fingers catching on the many scars and wounds, old and new.
He clutched at my waist, pressing himself against me. He’d been needing this, starving for it, and while I wasn’t his alpha—hell I wasn’t even an alpha—I was the closest thing he had to a pack right now.
While this was helping him, it was creating all kinds of problems for me. Namely, in my pants, because my dick was thickening with every soft whiff of his moist breath, with every desperate press of his fingers into my skin. My teenage memories of Nash were always present in my mind, no matter how much I tried to erase them over the years, cover them up with dirt and new memories. They always rose to the surface. He’d been my first kiss, a frantic clashing of teeth and tongues along the wall near the Farm back at the Silver Tip compound. At the time I couldn’t believe he’d wanted me back, that those blue eyes of his were clouded with desire over me. Me.
In seconds, from that moment when his lips had touched mine to when he’d pulled back and gazed at me in wonder, I’d planned our whole lives. We’d be mates. He’d work on fortifying our infrastructure—he’d always been good with his hands—and I’d be my brother’s second in command. We’d live happily ever after, or as much as anyone could while surrounded by Nowere hordes.
But we hadn’t had that future. One day outside the walls, my sister was turned into a Nowere, and we’d believed Nash had been killed. Twice now—fucking twice—I’d thought Nash was dead, only to find out he’d managed to stay alive.
He wasn’t letting me go now, my scent fogging his brain like a drug. His tongue slowly swirled along my shoulder, and I wanted to bend over that bed, let him grab my hips and take from me what he needed. This was what had drawn me away from my home, away from my pack. Like I had known in my bones that Nash was alive, and that he needed me.
Nash had always owned me, from that first kiss, and I’d be whatever he wanted me to be. If I had to fuck him to health, I would. Of course, with Nash, I’d never be able to separate sex from feelings like I could with anyone else. But I’d choose him over my own intact heart. Maybe this was why I’d never quite felt like I had a purpose. I’d been waiting for Nash.
The door banged open with a crack, and I started. A figure appeared in the doorway, spear drawn and aimed right for my chest. He wasn’t slowing down, either.
“Get away from him!” Pace gritted his teeth, pulling back his spear to throw. “You have two seconds or I’ll—”
He didn’t finish his sentence, because in a split second a clawed hand shoved me toward the back wall, and then a hulking Were stood between me and Pace, shoulders heaving as a deadly growl filled the small hut.
Nash had shifted, and fuck, I hadn’t seen him as a Were since we were kids. He’d been big then, but now he was fucking massive, his neck bent so that he wouldn’t pierce the top of the hut with his head.
Pace stared at him, eyes wide. He dropped the spear immediately, and put his hands up. “I’m sorry, I don’t know this fucker’s motive. He broke in here—”
“He’s my pack. I wouldn’t hurt him!” I shouted from behind Nash.
Nash shifted back to his human form, and when he swayed on his feet, I ran to his side, wrapping my arm around his waist to support him. “Shit, you need to lay down.”
“I’m fine,” Nash said, his voice thready. His lifted his head and met Pace’s eyes. “Don’t hurt Bay. Don’t threaten him. Don’t fucking touch him.”
I didn’t understand their relationship, because Pace’s face softened, and he gave Nash a short nod. “Sure.” To me, he shrugged. “Sorry, man. Can’t be too sure these days.”
“I get it,” I said, because I did. And if he was willing to defend Nash like that, he’d moved up in my short list of people I admired. “Thanks for rushing to defend him.”
“Always.” Pace picked up his spear, careful to keep the point directed toward the ground. “I’ll leave you two alone.” He turned to leave, but was shoved back by a puffed-up Vaughn—close to shifting—and a breathless Dal.
“What the—” Vaughn stopped short when he caught sight of Nash, his eyes widening until they nearly took up his whole face.
Dal clapped her hand over her mouth, recognizing her old pack mate instantly. Vaughn took a step forward then halted. “Is that…is that really you? But I saw…I know what I saw.”
“It’s me,” was all Nash said.
Vaughn’s gaze jerked to me, then Pace. “What the fuck? Are you keeping him prisoner here?”
Pace looked to Nash, something flickering in his eyes—caution? Nash nodded, some silent communication passing between them before he said, “I’m not a prisoner here. They’ve provided a place for me to heal.”
“He was very nearly dead when we foun
d him in the forest during a patrol,” Pace said, once again glancing at Nash like he needed his permission to speak. “We promised to protect him.”
“From his own pack?” Vaughn growled.
“From anyone,” Pace said through gritted teeth. “Some packs kill their own.”
“We—”
“I didn’t tell them anything about my pack, or even what my pack was,” Nash said. “To them, I was a rogue Were who needed a place to rest.”
Vaughn studied Nash for a moment. “You saved us. You saved us all. How did you survive?”
Nash snorted wryly. “Why have I survived anything I have? I guess my destiny is still to be determined. If I knew it, I’d tell you.”
Dal stepped forward, drawing Nash into a hug. “We’ve been feeling unsettled since we got here, and now we know why. We smelled you and didn’t realize it.”
“Pack attracts pack,” I said softly.
Nash’s gaze drifted to me from over Dal’s shoulder. He nodded, then buried his nose in her neck. They held each other for a long moment before she stepped away, then Vaughn took his turn, rubbing his forehead against Nash’s. “Good to see you, Nash. Dare is going to be thrilled to know you’re alive.”
Nash made no comment, only accepted the rubs and contact. I’d forgotten Pace was still in the hut when he spoke up. “So, if you all want to head back—”
“I’m staying,” I said quickly.
Vaughn stepped back from Nash. “We can stay too.”
I shook my head. “It’s all right. You go back to your rooms. But I’ll stay with Nash. I’m the closest to a pack alpha he has, so I’ll stay. He’ll heal faster the closer he is to me. When I was hurt”—Nash’s gaze darted to me—“I stayed close to Dare. It makes a difference.”
Healing without your pack was difficult and took double the time. He’d been here all alone, trying to recover from his nearly fatal wounds without his pack to help. It would have been a miracle if he survived at all without us.
Vaughn nodded, more settled now than I’d seen him for days. “Take care of him, Bay.”
“Of course.”
He and Dal left the hut, Pace following. He glanced back at us. “You okay, Nash?”
“Just tired,” he answered, his voice rough.
“Need anything, Bay?” Pace asked.
I shook my head. “I’m good.”
With a final nod, Pace left the hut and closed the door behind him.
Nash and I stood five feet apart, unsure what to say now that we were alone. He swayed a bit on his feet, and I rushed to his side, easing him down onto the bed. “You sleep. Anything we need to say to each other can wait till tomorrow.”
Nash watched me with heavy-lidded eyes. “You always assume there’ll be a tomorrow, Bay. You always have.”
I slid down onto the floor beside his bed. “What’s the point of anything if I don’t assume there’s a future?”
“That’s also assuming there’s a point to any of this.”
I didn’t understand this conversation. He wasn’t the Nash I remembered, the quiet, optimistic Were with a soft smile. “What do you mean?”
He closed his eyes, his entire body heaving with a deep breath. “Tomorrow,” he said quietly. “If you say there will be, then there will be.”
Within seconds, his breathing evened out, his lips fluttering with sleep-filled exhales. I stroked his hair once, just a light brush, then curled up on the floor next to his bed. I was asleep within moments, already eager for tomorrow.
Chapter Three
I woke in the dark with a jerk, my nightmare chasing me into wakefulness, a nightmare that had been a reality—where my heart beat and Gage’s voice echoed in my ears and my ribs ached from his vicious kicks.
I inhaled deeply, blinking away the last vestiges of panic and helplessness. I wondered when I’d stop remembering, when I could move on with my life. What happened with Gage was over, had been since Reese tore the Were’s head in two, but the poison he’d leached into my ears had stayed in my body. Everything I’d worked hard to forget—my parents’ deaths, the loss of my sister and Nash—all of it floated to the surface and refused to be buried again.
It was one of the reasons I’d volunteered to travel to the Whitethroat pack. I needed a change, anything to cure this restlessness.
Nash.
I blinked through sleep-fogged eyes, taking a moment to gather my bearings. I was still in Nash’s hut, but I wasn’t on the floor anymore. I was in bed with Nash, his heat and weight at my back, one scarred hand curled around my waist.
I didn’t remember getting in bed with him, but I’d gravitated to him in the night somehow. He was still asleep, his moist breath coating my neck. I shifted my leg, and he stirred, pulling me against him in a tighter embrace.
His lips moved against my skin, no words, just gentle nips and then his tongue snaked out to taste me. He was hard, his thick shaft nestled in the crack of my ass. I swirled my hips once and he answered with a moan, then sucked on my neck.
The nightmare forgotten, my dick began to fill as Nash’s mouth worked delicious torture. It’d been a long time since I’d been touched like this, because I’d avoided everyone since Gage’s attack. My sex drive had been below zero, but one touch from Nash, and I was near boiling.
If just being near me helped him heal, the intimacy that came with fucking would speed up the process even more. Plus, I wanted him. Simple as that. And as Weres, we didn’t deny who we wanted and when we wanted them. All these years of imagining what Nash would be like as a full-grown Were and now he was here, his hand straying to my dick to press against the front of my pants, his lips closing around my ear lobe. I arched my back, pressing my ass into him while I worked to lower my pants. “Nash,” I moaned as he closed a hand around my shaft. I cursed the fabric separating our skin.
“Bay,” he whispered back, his tone a little reverent, something I filed away to think more about later.
“Fuck me,” I said. “It’ll help you heal.”
Behind me, Nash went still. He panted in my ear, trembling slightly, then leaped off the pallet and backed away from me.
I rolled onto my back and sat up, staring at him. “What the fuck?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“No?” I pointed at the bulge in his pants. “That says otherwise.”
He clenched his jaw. “I don’t need to fuck you to heal, Bay.”
Dare always told me to think before I talked, to listen, not just spout out whatever I thought needed to be said. I still wasn’t good at that, but I was trying. And with Nash, I was on new ground. We were no longer teenagers who were glued at the hip. As far as I knew, Nash had been through hell. And my life hadn’t been a picnic either.
Nash wasn’t some agreed-upon hookup. We’d been separated a long time, but there was a history, feelings. “Do you think I’m offering only to help you heal?” I asked slowly.
Nash swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. I stood slowly, and he watched me warily, his whole body tight. I held up my hands, palms out. “I’ll be straight. I’d do anything I could to help a pack member get better. Anything. But I think we both know that us together wouldn’t be about you healing. That would just be a nice side effect.”
Nash didn’t relax, not a fraction. And I wasn’t going to push it. Not now at least. I had no idea the trauma he’d been through, and maybe once we talked that out, I’d get Nash the way I’d always wanted him. The way I knew he wanted me.
I lay back down on the pallet. “Come here. Lie with me. Nothing sexual. I promise. You can hold me or something.”
His gaze took in my body, then he licked his lips and met my eyes. “How about you hold me?”
I smiled at him. “Deal.”
Nash crawled back into bed, settling behind me with his thin arms around my chest. Already some of the wounds that had been on his arms were healing. I tried to turn to face him, but his arms tightened, holding me in place. I wasn’t ready to sleep yet, my brain swi
rling with so many questions. “How’d you get away from the Nowere pack? Dare had said there was no way you’d have made it out alive in your condition.”
Nash’s nose nuzzled into the back of my head, like he couldn’t help himself. “I wanted to lead them as far away from Dare’s pack as I could. I was weak, but I had a purpose. I ran for days until I couldn’t anymore, then managed to squeeze myself into a small crevice in some rocks where they couldn’t reach me. Eventually they caught another scent and moved on. I crawled out, expecting to die, but Pace found me.”
He said it all so matter-of-factly, like he hadn’t run himself nearly to death to save his pack and a bunch of werewolves he’d never met. “You really are a hero,” I said.
He didn’t answer, only hugged me tight to his chest and breathed in my scent along the back of my ear.
Fatigue was hitting me again, weighing down my limbs. “Where’ve you been all this time, Nash? For years I hoped you’d come back…”
His fingers curled around mine, and he tucked our joined hands under my chin. “I don’t want to lie to you, so I’m just going to say that I’m not ready to talk about all of that right now.”
“That’s fair,” I whispered, my heart aching at the pain in his voice. What had he been through? Maybe I didn’t want to know. He was here now, alive and whole. Except, I wasn’t sure how whole he really was. I’d told Dare once that we all had tragic backstories in this world, and it was true. Everything scarred us and I wondered how much more Nash could take before he fell apart.
All I could do was vow to be there to keep him together.
I woke to the sound of heavy pants filling the small hut. I rolled onto my back and rubbed my eyes, blinking into the dimness. Nash was on his hands and toes in the center of the hut, doing pushups. I winced a bit at the sight of his ribs, wishing I could give him some of my weight right now, pack it on his body so he was fuller and healthy.
Chasing Destiny (Silver Tip Pack Book 2) Page 3