by Odessa Lynne
Then, because he knew he wasn’t going back if he could help it, he used the emergency contact information he had for Ash and sent a short message, then immediately erased the message, dropped his phone to the tiled floor, and crushed the small device beneath his boot heel.
He had a hiding place not far from the school where he’d stashed a spare.
If he knew anything about Gage and his boys—and he’d been here for nearly four months, so he ought to know enough—this was going to get ugly.
Chapter 2
Matthew spit blood out of his mouth and stood his ground in front of the man he knew only as Jay. “You fucking asshole, I can’t believe you’re not dead.”
Last time Matthew had seen Jay had been three years ago, as Jay was being tossed across the floor of an old factory by a wolf.
Jay stood beside Gage, the wiry muscle of one arm cut across with several slashing scars Matthew didn’t remember from before. Otherwise, Jay hadn’t changed much, still thin and lean, with rough tanned skin and several puckered scars along his neck, and eyes that said he had no qualms about anything he was going to do, or had done, whatever his purpose.
They’d caught up to Matthew a mile away from the elementary school, and Matthew had never been so surprised as he was when he saw Jay leap out of Gage’s AUV and come running after him.
Sal was the one who’d tackled Matthew to the ground, though, and when Matthew had punched him, Sal had looked shocked, as if he hadn’t really believed Matthew was trying to get away, that he might have a reason to.
A few weeks ago, Matthew had been thinking about trying to convince Sal to leave with him. He’d thought if he got Sal away from the rest of them, he might be able to talk him around to cutting his ties to the renegades. If he’d agreed, Matthew would’ve eventually introduced him to Brendan.
Matthew had changed his mind when he’d realized he was going to have to cut out sooner than he’d planned.
“He’s with the wolves,” Matthew said, looking to Jay’s side where Gage stood. Gage was the one who mattered at the moment. “He shot me three years ago, tried to kill me. I still have the goddamn scar. He’s working with the wolves, I tell you.”
Behind Gage, Tim and Sal hung back, along with a guy that shared the same name as Matthew’s cousin Marcus, and two others who’d followed in the second vehicle.
The other two flanked Matthew, ready to grab him if he tried to run again.
Matthew didn’t see the point. They’d already taken his guns and his knives. If he ran, he was dead that much faster.
Sal kept watching him, his gaze unhappy and his mouth pinched. He’d always been the friendly one; more than friendly. Matthew had fucked Sal a few times, when he’d been especially lonely. Sal had thought it was more. Maybe it would’ve been if Matthew had been who he pretended to be.
“His name’s Matthew,” Jay said. “Not Paul.”
Sal flinched.
“God, Paul, I think I love you,” Sal had said the last time. Matthew hadn’t touched Sal since that night.
Jay looked to Gage again. “He was with Greer when he turned traitor. I should’ve known he’s the one I’ve been looking for. It fits.”
“Don’t know what the hell he’s talking about,” Matthew said, eyes on Gage. “My name’s Paul and this guy’s the traitor who gave Greer up to the wolves. Once they got their hands on Greer, well, we’ve all heard what happened to him after that.”
As far as most of the renegades Matthew had talked to lately were concerned, the story was that Brendan had sold them all out to the wolves in exchange for some kind of amnesty after he’d been captured.
Matthew wasn’t sure who’d started that rumor, but now that he knew Jay was alive, he could easily believe it might have been him.
“You ran,” Gage said, and the look on his face said he’d already made up his mind and it wasn’t in Matthew’s favor. “Seems you’ve had several names over the last two years. John. Trevor. Paul.”
“If that’s what he told you, he fucking lied,” Matthew said. “That’s all there is to it. My name’s Paul. Swear to God.”
“Drop the act. Nobody believes you,” Jay said. “I’ve been looking for a traitor ever since I ran across what was left of Cam Lujan’s people.”
Matthew tried not to react to the Lujan name. From the look on Gage’s face, he didn’t think he’d succeeded. Cam Lujan had been a suspicious asshole who’d asked far too many questions. Matthew didn’t like how he’d handled Lujan, but in the end, he’d gotten a piece of intel to Ash just in time for a pack of wolves to thwart an attack and capture over half of Lujan’s group of renegades. Lujan had escaped.
“I owe you a bullet,” Jay said, staring at Matthew with that cold-eyed gaze he still remembered from three years ago.
Matthew rubbed his palm on his thigh and stared right back. He might heal quickly now that he had the wolves’ biotech in his body, but a shot to the head was still likely to kill him on the spot, and that was what Jay had promised him three years ago.
“Put him on his knees,” Jay said, already reaching for the holstered gun under the edge of his tight-fitting gray t-shirt.
Gage grabbed Jay’s arm. “I give the fucking orders around here.”
Jay turned to look at him, as coldly confident as Matthew remembered him. “Okay, then, give the goddamn order. He needs to die.”
Sal took a step forward. “What if he’s not—”
“Shut the hell up, Salvadore,” Gage said. “Tim.”
Tim seemed to understand. He grabbed Sal’s arm and pulled him back. Sal looked at Matthew, eyes wide, lip puffy and jaw still red where Matthew’s fist had hit him.
Matthew glared at him, then deliberately looked back to Jay.
Sal would get himself killed if he put up a fuss and Matthew didn’t want that to happen. Sal shouldn’t die because of him. He wasn’t like most of Gage’s group. In fact, he reminded Matthew of himself three years ago, gullible but convinced he was doing the right thing because someone else had told him so.
Jay watched Gage with a look on his face that said he wasn’t going to put up with Gage’s attitude for long.
The group needed a better leader, and Jay—goddamn Jay was probably planning an outright takeover and Gage wouldn’t even see it coming.
If Jay took over, this group would become something else altogether, more than a nuisance—a serious threat to the peace between humans and wolves.
Gage stepped up in front of Matthew.
The two guys flanking Matthew grabbed hold of his arms. Matthew didn’t struggle. His mouth had gone dry, but at least they hadn’t put him on his knees—not yet anyway.
“I trusted you,” Gage said. He slapped Matthew across the cheek, a sharp, insulting blow that stung like hell.
Matthew grimaced, holding the expression of pain past the point where the stinging faded to nothing. “He’s lying. What do you know about him? What the hell makes him so trustworthy?”
“That’s none of your business, cunt.”
Matthew clenched his jaw.
Gage slapped him again, this time busting open Matthew’s bottom lip and drawing blood.
Jay shifted his weight, his thumb flicking the edge of his holster, once, twice, and then again. “Get on with it.”
Matthew licked the blood off his lip and eyed Jay.
“I have questions,” Gage said, giving Jay a look that reminded Matthew how nasty Gage could be when he thought someone was challenging his authority.
“Then ask them. You think he hasn’t had time to get a message off to somebody? We don’t have time for this. They’ll come for him.”
Fact was, Gage was the only thing standing between Matthew and a bullet from Jay’s gun.
“Come on, Gage.” Matthew hated the whine he put in his voice, but he had no choice. “You know I’ve been loyal. I’ve done anything you asked me to do. I’m not the traitor here. If you kill me without proof that I’ve done something wrong, the rest of the guys are goi
ng to get nervous, you know that. He’s probably counting on it, maybe even gonna use it to get rid of you later.”
Gage gripped Matthew’s chin in a bruising pinch. “I’m not a fool, so shut your fucking mouth unless you’re answering one of my questions.”
Matthew pulled back but Gage didn’t let go. He stared mutinously at Gage and imagined breaking the asshole’s nose.
“A bullet’s too easy for you. I don’t like it when people try to make a fool out of me.”
He wasn’t prepared when Gage punched him in the stomach.
His breath seemed to explode out of his lungs. He bent double, his weight pulling heavy on the two men holding his arms, and he couldn’t breathe, unable to drag even a short gasp into his lungs as his muscles seized.
The two guys dragged him upright again.
Gage stared at him. “You’re not going to leave these woods alive, but if you answer my questions, I’ll have the guys go easier on you. A bullet instead of a beating.”
Goddamn, but Matthew had known Gage was a mean son of a bitch.
But he had no choice, even if he was afraid of the answer he had to give. A bullet would kill him too easy. With a beating, if Ash and the wolves didn’t arrive in time, he might still heal.
“Fuck you,” he said, and his heart thundered in his chest. He clenched his fists tight and watched Gage’s eyes go hard and mean.
This was going to hurt.
* * *
Matthew wasn’t sure how long he lay on the forest floor, breathing in the sharp scent of freshly fallen oak leaves against his nose, but his attention came into an abrupt focus at a crackle of sound a few feet away. He blinked and caught sight of a squirrel running toward the base of the tree nearest his bare foot.
He groaned and tried to flip himself over.
“Ahhhh…” The movement made him feel physically ill and a second later, he threw up all over the forest floor beside his hand.
The acrid burn stuck to the back of his tongue and he had trouble holding himself up off the ground so he wouldn’t breathe in his own vomit.
He spit blood out of his mouth and then rested there, holding himself up on a shaky arm, the trembling in his muscles deep and painful. He groaned again, just trying to shake off some of the pain so he wouldn’t pass out again.
The pain would eventually stop, and that thought kept him focused, kept him from giving in and just letting the darkness at the edges of his vision swoop in and take him away.
His arm reacted to his brain’s commands finally and he shoved himself over, flopping painfully onto his back.
He screamed as he landed, the sound torn out of him, the echo reverberating against his eardrums.
He was pretty sure they’d broke something in his back. He knew Gage had broken his left arm and crushed his hand.
He had no idea if it would heal properly without intervention. The biotechnology that made the wolves so incredibly fast to heal wasn’t quite the same as what they had put in him and the other few humans they’d offered the technology to.
The rough edge of a dried leaf tickled the sole of Matthew’s foot and his toes twitched.
When Gage and his guys had left him for dead, they must have decided to take his boots. He blinked up at the sky, felt a chill seep into his bones, and then realized he was completely naked.
Fuck.
They must have taken everything.
Then—
The bullet. Thank God he’d hidden it in the same place where he’d been keeping that spare phone.
And where the hell was the cavalry?
Ash should’ve come for him by now. The sun had started to fall behind the trees, and night would set in soon.
They wouldn’t just leave him to fend for himself. They wouldn’t.
So…
Something was wrong, somewhere.
Or…
Matthew closed his eyes. Or heat season had started.
Shit.
He had no idea if or how the onset of heat would affect Ash, but Ash was the only person Matthew had sent a message to. He should’ve sent one to Brendan too, but he’d been in a hurry to hide the bullet because he’d heard a vehicle getting close to him, and he had wanted to get as far away from that hiding place as possible before he got caught.
If everyone was busy getting dosed up with repression drugs, or mating, or whatever the hell else went on with the wolves when they felt the first urges of their heat, maybe Matthew was going to have to make it on his own a lot longer than he’d thought he would have to.
And he was going to have to do it bare-assed naked too.
Goddamn assholes.
A crack echoed in the distance. A branch or twig, Matthew couldn’t be sure which.
He didn’t even try to move, choosing instead to save his energy in case he had to get away from a predator.
The woods weren’t always a friendly place.
Another crack and then another followed. Someone was walking through the deadwood that made up the forest floor, and they weren’t trying to be quiet.
What if one of the guys had come back to make sure he was dead?
Or, God forbid, Cary, because that son of a bitch was a kinky bastard who just might be interested in—
Matthew shut that thought down. His mind was racing, way more than it usually did when he healed, and he could only assume the healing was affecting him so strongly because his body had so many injuries.
His thoughts weren’t even really making any sense. If sex had been on anyone’s mind earlier, his beating would’ve taken a turn in that direction, and it hadn’t, or it if had, he sure as hell hadn’t been conscious for it.
He closed his eyes and tried to feel where he hurt the most, but the fact was, everything hurt. Still, he didn’t think he’d been sexually assaulted, other than Gage’s knee to his balls early on, and he was grateful for that at least.
He heard the shuffle of leaves being kicked aside and forced his eyes open. The footsteps were getting closer and he couldn’t decide if he needed to move now—no matter how painful it was going to be—or wait.
One deep breath was all it took to make him decide waiting was his only real choice. His ribs burned and a stabbing pain shot through his back.
He turned his head toward the sounds, his breath hitching as he did. He glimpsed denim and a pair of old sports shoes. Nothing the wolves would wear.
He heard someone suck in a breath. A woman’s voice, low and tight, “Chen, there he is.”
“Shh,” a male voice said, “not so loud. He said there could be wolves—”
“I know,” the woman interrupted, but quieter. “I told you I heard a scream. We need to hurry.”
Two of them, Matthew realized, and he hadn’t even noticed.
An itch tickled the back of Matthew’s neck, a beetle or an ant, or even a spider crawling over his skin. He tried not to move but one of his muscles spasmed, and he groaned through gritted teeth at the sudden sharp pain that radiated across his shoulder and down his back. The pain forced him to try to roll over.
“Chen!” the woman said. “He’s alive.”
Chapter 3
Chen watched Matthew with hazel eyes that stood out even in the bad lighting of the bedroom Matthew had woken up in.
“Sal was one happy motherfucker when he found out you were alive,” Chen said. He’d introduced himself simply as Chen, no last name, and he’d called Matthew “Paul.”
Matthew blinked a few times and then tried to swallow but realized right away that his mouth was too dry. “Can I—Water.”
“Here.” The bed dipped as Chen sat on the edge, cupped the back of Matthew’s head and lifted, then put a glass of water to his mouth.
Matthew took several big gulps. He actually didn’t feel like he needed the help to keep his head up, but his common sense quickly caught up with his confusion, and he relaxed into Chen’s hand.
The wolves’ biotechnology was a secret and he’d been entrusted with that secret when he’d
been offered the treatments that had allowed the biotech to flourish in his body.
“How’d I get here?”
“We dragged you to an AUV, put you on a trailer, and drove you here. You passed out as soon as we rolled you onto the stretcher we used to get you to the AUV.” Chen’s eyes tracked over Matthew’s body, covered only with a thin sheet. “Sal asked me to go find a body that had been left in the woods near here. Didn’t want the coyotes to get to it. I haven’t heard him that upset in years.”
Chen’s gaze lingered curiously on Matthew’s hand.
Matthew casually tucked it under the sheet. He could feel that something wasn’t right with his fingers, but the deep ache and the sharp pains from before had eased to tolerable levels. Still, he didn’t know what Chen had seen in the woods, and what he saw now.
Was he healing visibly in places that Chen would notice?
Matthew cleared his throat. “Who are you? How do you know Sal?”
The bed creaked as Chen leaned over and sat the water glass down on a stack of plain cardboard boxes that substituted for a bedside table.
“Step-brother. He shouldn’t be involved with those guys.” Chen’s voice had turned hard and cold. He settled back onto the edge of the bed. “He said they turned on you.”
He waited, probably hoping Matthew would volunteer something, but Matthew kept quiet.
After a moment, Chen spoke again, “They didn’t have good reason to turn on you, did they?”
“Don’t know what you mean.” Matthew noticed how still Chen sat, and he followed the line of Chen’s other arm, tucked up beside him opposite Matthew.
He frowned, then realized what he was looking at. The hammer of a gun jutted up beside Chen’s denim-covered thigh.
The first gun Matthew had ever seen in real life had been one his cousin Marcus had brought home after the wolves came. Matthew had been sixteen.
“I’m not going to give you any reason to use that,” Matthew said.
Chen didn’t move his arm. “Why’d they turn on you?”
“Because someone I once pissed off came in and said some things meant to get me killed.”
“He must hate you a lot considering you were left for dead.”