“I’m sorry, Isaac. We’ll fix this.” Tank lifted his head and glared at his Alpha.
Alec nodded vigorously. “We will, somehow.”
Tank continued. “So, my…” He coughed. “Isaac, why didn’t your original pack Alpha bite you? I mean before you left them?”
Isaac winced. Here we go. “I was taken. As a kid. Before puberty and the bite.” He decided he’d better spit it out as quickly as possible. “My father is, was, an enforcer. He left his pack, had this idea about the supremacy of werewolves, thought enforcer was strong enough, and basically started a cult. He kept me as a kind of mascot.”
Judd squinted at him. “You father was Dominance Mercer? Holy shit.”
Alec swung to look at his enforcer. “You know about this?”
“You don’t?” Judd frowned. “The Shift Supremacist movement?”
Isaac winced. “I think Dad’s official moniker was the Shifters Temple Pastoral Gathering.”
It was Marvin who said, finally, “You mean the Smokey Suicides?” He instantly jumped to kneel next to Isaac. “Fuck. Honey, were you there?” He put a hand on Isaac’s knee and looked up into his face with big teal eyes swimming in tears.
Isaac was instantly compelled to comfort. He shook his head and patted Marvin’s hand. “Not at the end. I escaped years before that happened. But I was there at the beginning.”
Tank’s big solid hand petted down his back again, as though he were trying to gentle a skittish horse.
Judd was clearly irritated by all the blank looks from the rest of the pack. “It was basically the shifter version of Jonestown. This asshole enforcer, no offense, Isaac—”
“None taken. It aptly describes my father, although rather insults assholes.”
Judd continued, “He loses his shit, leaves his pack, starts a cult claiming werewolves should rule the world or some such crap, recruits a bunch of loners, low-rank wolves, other shifters, and a few of those human groupies who wanna be furry but don’t have the genes for it, and starts a self-styled utopia in the Smokey Mountains. Ended up in a standoff with the SBI. Rather than be taken, Mercer shifted, killed whoever he could with his teeth, then had the rest swallow silver nitrite, including himself.”
Everyone was now staring at Isaac. He grimaced. “Dear old Dad.”
“Wow,” said Max. “And I thought mine was a piece of work. Congratulations on drawing the shortest of short straws, dude.”
“Thanks,” said Isaac.
“It sucks to be the son of a man who has something to prove.” Alec shook himself slightly. “So you were raised outside of both human and werewolf society? You were born Omega but never bitten after puberty, because there was no Alpha to do it. And you were how old when you got out, mid-teens?”
“Fifteen.” Isaac twisted to look at Tank, feeling oddly desperate. He didn’t care what the others thought, but he wanted Tank to understand. “You know the way everyone always trusts me instinctively?”
“It’s called Omega empathy.” A new voice spoke up at that juncture.
Everyone turned to stare at Colin, who flushed in embarrassment. “What? I know a bit.”
“Of course, you do,” said Kevin loyally. “You’re the smart one.”
“Hey!” Alec looked perturbed. “PhD, remember?”
“You’re smart too, dear, but you’re the Alpha.”
“Which one am I?” wondered Lovejoy.
“You’re the clown.”
“I object!”
“Then stop putting so much gel in your hair. Judd is the mysterious one. Bryan’s the nice guy. Marvin’s the pretty one.”
“Aw, thanks, darling.”
“Max is the sassy one.”
Max snorted. “Snarky, please.”
“And I’m the bad boy.” Kevin finished his categories.
“Aw,” said Alec, “it’s sweet that you think so.”
Isaac narrowed his eyes at Kevin. “Which one is Tank?”
Kevin blinked, as if he’d forgotten about Tank.
Isaac didn’t like that at all, although Tank didn’t seem the slightest bit perturbed.
Tank answered for his enforcer. “I’m the grunt, of course.”
Alec looked at him, clearly startled by the dismissive tone. “No, you’re the anchor. How do you not know that?”
Tank went pink about the ears. “I am?”
“Stable and boring,” said Kev, in good fun, but a little nasty.
Isaac glared at the redhead. “Hey there, sparky. Stable is beautiful and sexy.”
“It is?” Tank went even pinker.
Isaac tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. Tank should know this, how important stability was to Isaac. Especially Isaac, who had moved, and run, and drifted unmoored forever. To find a man who wanted to anchor him, not keep him, just be there if needed. That was amazing. Tank was amazing. How could he not know that? I’ll have to make it clear to him.
Tank tugged on one ear and cleared his throat. “Ugh, could we get back to Colin being smart?”
“Thank you, Tank. So this Omega empathy thing? Colin, explain,” ordered Alec.
“I read about it. It’s a thing they do for their packs. It’s why it is so nice to have one. It’s like how Betas can calm Alphas, only it works on all of us. The whole pack.”
Isaac was pleased to note that all the werewolves around him were keeping position, trying to make certain he felt safe. No matter how interesting the conversation, the higher-ranked wolves hadn’t moved any closer.
Alec nodded to Colin. “Thanks, sweetie. Isaac, would you continue with your history?”
“Sure. So I’m in this cult and able to change into a wolf from birth and then that empathy thing starts kicking in when I hit puberty. The cult started acting all weird around me, leaning in, gravitating toward me, asking me for advice. Dad felt his leadership was threatened and started locking me up.” He didn’t say where or how small the shed, or how hungry he had been all the time. He’d been twelve. The specifics were shameful, he’d been so weak and confused and afraid.
“Eventually I managed to escape and I just ran. I tried to research what it meant to be a werewolf. At libraries and online and stuff. I mean, I knew dad must be full of shit, couldn’t trust anything he said, ever. So I wasn’t gonna trust his explanation as to how the world worked. I didn’t even know I was an Omega. Didn’t know what ranks meant. I thought all wolves were born with the ability to shift right away.”
Understanding flashed over Alec’s face, making it beautiful with revelation. “And every pack you met after that, the Alpha would have basically gone mad. I bet the enforcers all tried to grab you and take you to their Alpha.”
Isaac nodded. There’d been blood and worse, more often than not. Until he just avoided all werewolves.
Massive arms snaked around him and Tank squeezed him softly. “You went from one horror to another. And you were just a baby. You’ve been running ever since?”
“A long time.”
Alec’s eyes narrowed. “I could fix it. I mean, you wouldn’t have to run anymore.”
“How?” Isaac was careful with hope.
“Would you maybe let me just do it? You know, bite you. If I was really gentle.”
Isaac flinched.
Alec did as well, in response. “It’s just there’s such wrongness about you. It’s like some existential wound. I’m desperate to heal you, knit you back together. And in classic werewolf fashion that seems to take the form of biting you.”
Isaac’s wolf agreed with this. Deep inside he could feel his beast, beaten down and frightened, nevertheless yearning for Alec. Straining toward the Alpha.
It was one of the reasons Isaac had stopped trusting his wolf. Always the creature was trying to take him toward pack. Toward Alpha. Yet Isaac had only ever suffered as a consequence.
Isaac looked down at his hands, risking taking his eyes off the Alpha as a gesture of trust. The man still had
n’t moved. Truly, his control was extraordinary.
“My wolf would like it, I think. He has always wanted pack. But he is not to be trusted.”
Around him all the werewolves seemed to inhale together, shocked by his words.
Isaac didn’t understand. What had he said that was so awful?
“What did you just say?” Tank’s voice, next to him, was low and frightened.
Isaac was confused. “I said that my wolf always wanted pack.”
Alec whimpered. “Your wolf…” The Alpha paused and swallowed. “Your wolf is separated from you?”
Tank cleared his throat. “Isaac, look at me for a moment. Please.”
Isaac turned, even more confused, and looked into Tank’s big, worried brown eyes. “Yes, baby?”
Tank said, “You refer to your wolf as something apart from you. A different entity. Do you think of it – um, him – that way? Are you two separate beings?”
“Of course.” Isaac was even more puzzled. “Don’t you?”
Alec gave a funny whining noise but Isaac didn’t look away from Tank’s eyes, which were welling with tears.
“No, Isaac. There’s only I. I am man and wolf, at the same time. There is no we. There is no human-me versus wolf-me. There’s only one me.”
Isaac shrugged. “Well, it’s not like that in my head. He’s separate, and let me tell you, we do not agree most of the time.”
Tank winced and then pressed his face against Isaac’s neck, trembling with strain as if he wanted to pull away but was forcing himself closer.
“Isaac,” Judd this time, “how long has it been since you shifted?”
Isaac shrugged. “I needed him to get away from the last pack that got me, then I was on the run for a bit. Six months, maybe more?”
Someone made a gulping, retching noise. Kevin maybe.
“Six months.” That was Alec’s Beta. Bryan’s voice was low and mellow and calming, as befitted a Beta. “Without a run. I need tea.”
Tank nuzzled Isaac. “Poor baby.”
Isaac did not like that he was now an object of pity. I did fine. I’m fine. I’m alive, against the odds. I’m sane. At least I think I am. “What’s freaking you all out so much? It’s all good. I’m in total control of my wolf!”
“Of course. He would see that as good because every fucking Alpha he’s met is out of control.” That was the Beta again. “Speaking of, Alec, get up.”
Isaac turned away from Tank to see that the Alpha had fallen to his knees in anguish. He looked gray and ill.
Alec glanced up at his Beta. Was he actually crying? “Why did no one look after him?” He turned to Isaac, still maintaining a distance, but the yearning is his voice was unlike anything Isaac had ever heard. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. No one took care of you. Precious boy. No one ever took care.”
The wolf in Isaac responded to the plea, howling, yearning to help his Alpha, to stop the pain on the other man’s face.
Max, the only non-shifter in the room, was watching the whole thing with a mystified expression tempered by intellectual curiosity. Impress me, his attitude screamed.
Marvin still had a hand resting on Isaac’s knee. Then in a clear bid to lighten the mood, he stood, pouted, and said in a huffy way, “Alec never calls me precious.”
“That’s because you’re a pain in the ass,” replied Max without any rancor at all.
“Stop being idiots, both of you.” Bryan paused in his attempt to soothe his Alpha to glare at the mates. “Marvin, Alec isn’t interested in Isaac in that way. Besides, can’t you see that Isaac belongs to Tank? Or Tank belongs to Isaac, rather. This isn’t about that. This is about fixing him.”
“Isaac’s actually broken?” Max clearly didn’t trust Alec’s assessment of the situation, but when Bryan spoke, he took it seriously. Isaac was getting the impression that Bryan rarely spoke. Good tactic for getting people to listen to you.
“I thought that was obvious, especially to you.” Bryan gave his mate an exasperated look.
“Nothing is ever obvious to me, sweetcheeks, except your wood first thing in the morning,” Max shot back.
Marvin lost his pout. “Oh my god, Max, we have a guest!”
Their silliness seemed to soothe Alec, who struggled back to his feet, still looking a little wounded.
He glanced desperately around at the rest of his pack. “We have to help him.”
The two enforcers clearly wanted to move forward, no doubt to hold Isaac down by force if necessary while Alec administered the bite. But they had been told to stay back, so they did. Lovejoy and Colin merely angled to face Isaac, as if offering support through focused attention.
Tank returned his hand to Isaac’s back where it resumed its soothing caress.
“I’m fine.” Isaac tried not to scoff at all the ridiculous fuss. His wolf however, basked in it. Whatever this pack wished to do, Isaac had the sudden sinking sensation, his wolf would not fight them over it.
Tank’s voice was pained. “No, Isaac, you’re not fine.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In For Repairs
Tank wasn’t sure how he could articulate to Isaac the depth of the wrongness in Isaac’s words. To think of the wolf as something separate from yourself, it was like the werewolf version of multiple personality disorder. It was the kind of comment that made the hairs on the back of Tank’s neck stand up. No wonder Isaac had no smell, he was neither man nor wolf.
“Please,” he begged his lover… former lover, Tank supposed, since an Omega was so far above him it wasn’t even funny. “Please. Let Alec bite you. Think about it? He’ll be kind.” He kept his body close, trying to offer comfort and hope and support.
Isaac just looked at them all.
Tank followed his gaze. The pack was clearly drawn to Isaac, but also horrified by what he’d said, the intimation of what he was, or might become. A werewolf who did not shift. A man who was neither fully one creature nor another. A true monster in their midst, to live in limbo like that. Tank’s stomach went queasy.
Isaac turned and looked at him. Sitting so close, Tank could see the gray of Isaac’s eyes had navy about the rim. So beautiful.
“You think that would help me, you know, with all the other werewolves?”
Isaac was trusting Tank, reaching for him for reassurance. This man, who’d had precious little reassurance over his lifetime.
Tank nodded. “My family has been with the Boston pack since before Saturation. I left them and that pack to follow Alec. I would trust him not only with my life, but with yours. Which is more important.”
Isaac cocked his head. “How can you say that so soon?”
Tank shrugged. “You’re you, special, Omega. And Alec is special too. Look at him, he’s not a normal Alpha.”
Alec’s face was drawn and hungry and sad. His focus was hard and sure on Isaac. “Oh, I miscalculated.”
“Miscalculated what?” Isaac’s tone was shocked, no doubt unused to any Alpha admitting he was wrong.
“You don’t need words, you need proof. You chose Tank. Of all the members of my pack, it’s Tank you want. And he’s all about proof in the doing, isn’t he? In being there and helpful.”
Tank wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Was it criticism? It felt like praise. Was he, perhaps, important to his pack in a way he’d never noticed? He’d thought he was nothing, easily discarded. But in being there, in always showing up, in always supporting and helping and providing of himself, had that meant something? Had Alec noticed? Had the others? Was his submission to pack as much a gift as his submission to Isaac?
Alec continued. “So we follow Tank’s example. I’ll wait. I’ll prove to you I’m different. That I’m stable. That this pack is stable and capable of self control and restraint. We will all prove it.” He glared at the enforcers. “If you would like, Isaac, you can stay here. With us. Unbitten. In a guest bed or with Tank in his room. You can observe this pack in action. I won�
�t push you or pressure you.”
Isaac frowned, clearly thinking it over. He looked at Judd, then Kevin, then back to Alec. Finally, he gave a curt nod. “A test?”
“A test.”
“Okay then, with Tank is fine.” Isaac sounded unsure of himself, but resolute.
Tank felt a prickle of relief.
Judd said, “Tank’s room is upstairs near us. Is that wise?”
Alec nodded, jaw firm. “Judd and Kevin, you’ll have to patrol the hall.” Quickly he explained to Isaac. “Not to monitor you, to keep me under control. Sleepwalking could turn into sleep biting or what have you. I don’t know exactly how I’ll behave if I relax control even slightly.” He looked at his brother.
Bryan sighed. “Fine, I’ll stay. But I’m sleeping outside your door in wolf form, thank you very much. I’m too old for floors without fur.”
Everyone breathed out in relief, then looked cautiously at Max.
“What? Oh.” The Magistar rolled his blue eyes, “Oh noes, what will little ol’ me do without my big strong boyfriend in my bed every single night? Forsaken and unfucked. The tragedy of it all.” Silence. “Really, you sensitive dickwads, I’ll be fine. I spent decades sleeping alone, I think I can handle it with my usual grace and aplomb.”
Alec nodded, a small smile on his strained face. “Okay, good, we have a plan.”
Tank looked hopefully at Isaac. The Omega was smiling too.
* * *
Without much further fuss, the pack went about their evening rituals. They were, Tank noticed, a little stiffer than usual. They made sure to say out loud, so Isaac could overhear, where they were going and what they were doing next and why. Especially Alec and the enforcers. No sudden movements.
Marvin and Lovejoy started puttering about making dinner. Well, Lovejoy did – Marvin hung out alongside sipping clam juice and gossiping. The pack house slowly filled with the smell of lasagna.
Tank sat as still as possible next to Isaac and tried to watch his reactions to pack activity without seeming to. Isaac was clearly a little awed, definitely uncomfortable, but he stayed seated on the couch. He sipped a glass of milk that Marvin brought him, gray eyes bright on the movement of those around him. Colin disappeared upstairs, then came and settled on the other couch, feet up and laptop out, working on a school paper. Normally, he’d hole up in his room until dinner. It might be Colin was trying to help Isaac feel welcome but Tank thought it was more likely the Omega thing was drawing Colin close.
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