by Odessa Lynne
Ash stepped close, his hand caressing Matthew’s face. “You’re my life. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”
“What the hell?” What would Ash have said? All of our lives, maybe? But he wasn’t including Matthew in that. Matthew reached up and pulled Ash’s hand away. “So—what? You just accept that I’m going to die? Just that easy? If you care about me—”
“I do.”
“Then don’t act like my fate’s already been decided, goddammit. Because it hasn’t.”
“The Diviners—”
“No, the Diviners are just people. They don’t know anything about me and my future.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Let’s just get this over with so I can prove to you just how much they don’t know.” Matthew spun around and started off into the woods again, toward the outskirts of the facility where the rusted metal fence that had once surrounded the property had been ripped free of the ground as trees grew up around it.
“Matthew, wait.”
Matthew almost didn’t stop, but he couldn’t stand the thought of ignoring Ash. He waited for Ash to step up beside him before turning.
“I’ll never care for another the way I’ve come to care for you,” Ash said. “The Diviners spoke the truth when they said my heart would know no comfort. You’re my true mate and I—I cannot bear the thought of what might wait for you here. Please…” But whatever he’d intended to say remained unspoken.
And Matthew knew he would have to be strong for both of them, because if he let himself live in fear, well, what kind of life was that? He’d been right to say that the Diviners words could have meant anything. What if he gave in to Ash’s unspoken plea and they went back and then he slipped in the goddamn shower and died?
He wasn’t going to go out like that if there was anything he could do about it.
So he threaded his fingers in Ash’s hair and dragged his head forward and he kissed him, because if this was going to be it, he wanted to remember Ash’s warmth and taste and he wanted to feel—
“Goddammit, Ash. I love you so much. Do you know how long I waited for some sign that you wanted to be with me? And now—and now, this. It’s not fair. I hate those goddamn wolves.”
Ash buried his head in the crook of Matthew’s neck and shoulder. “My life,” he said. “You’re my life.”
Matthew clutched tightly at Ash’s head and just held him.
* * *
Cam Lujan was a paranoid asshole who had managed to take over a group of renegades a few years ago to the northwest of the protectorate when the woman in charge had bailed after the wolves captured Brendan. Cam was only a couple of years older than Matthew, but he was broad and tall and a lot closer in size to Ash than to him.
Cam had offered Matthew a blowjob two days after Matthew joined his group. Matthew had thought about refusing, knowing the kind of man Cam probably was, but he’d been new and he hadn’t wanted to do anything to bring suspicion down on himself, so he’d agreed.
Then he’d fucked Cam, and he’d enjoyed that bit of a power trip, knowing Cam thought he was a harmless new recruit who was just excited to have a chance to pound Cam’s tight ass. He’d whispered all the right words. You’re so hot. Oh yeah, you want it harder, don’t you? Come on, let me go deeper, babe, you’re gonna love this…
Having sex with Cam had turned out to be the quickest way past Cam’s suspicious nature and into his inner circle.
With Sal, he’d always felt guilty for pretending to be someone he wasn’t.
With Cam, he hadn’t felt guilty at all. Cam was a leader and he’d been targeting the people Matthew cared about. He’d fucked Cam up to the very day he’d sold him out to the wolves. Then he’d disappeared into the den for a few weeks to figure out his next move, which had turned out to be Gage Rawlins.
Lucky for Matthew, Gage Rawlins hadn’t been gay, so he wasn’t even tempted to do what he’d done with Cam again. But by then, he’d decided he’d made a mistake letting himself use sex to further his efforts. Seeing Fletcher, remembering how he’d called Matthew Brendan’s knee-boy, and then seeing Ash at the den… he’d been almost sick with the idea of what Ash might think of him when he found out. So he’d vowed to himself that sex was off the table as a bargaining tool.
“I was surprised to hear from you,” Cam said, his oddly pale blue eyes dragging over Matthew.
They stood in front of the only building on the property that looked like it hadn’t been damaged in the quake. The stucco façade had chipped away over the years, exposing the block beneath, but other than a hole here and there where some of the mortar had fallen away, the building still looked solid enough behind the thick grass and the crowd of bushes that had grown up around it.
A sign had rusted over, but most of a large red M was still visible at the far left edge. Probably a maintenance building or something by the look of things. A long pipe ran up the side of the building to the roof along with a decrepit looking ladder held in place against the blocks by rusty bolts.
Cam leaned against that ladder, arms crossed, the white fabric of his t-shirt streaked with brown and red where his shoulder rubbed against one of the rungs.
Matthew tucked his hands into his front pockets and shrugged. “I’ve been trying to stay off the sats. Didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’m looking for a new place to drop but you know how that is. I settled with Gage Rawlins for a while.” Then, because he wanted to see how Cam reacted, he sniffed and shrugged again and then looked up and caught Cam’s gaze. “You heard he’s dead, didn’t you?”
Cam actually straightened away from the ladder at that and let his arms unfold. “No, I hadn’t heard that. What the hell happened?”
“He tried to take on too many wolves at one time.”
Cam didn’t stop watching him, his whole body radiating a tense stillness, and Matthew had to remind himself not to fondle the edge of the small weapon in his pocket. He had no idea where those other two people had gotten off to between now and when he’d left that tracking device with Ash and walked up to the meeting place. They could be anywhere, watching his every move. Most likely with a gun aimed his way, because Cam wasn’t wearing one in any obvious place and “Trevor” had been told not to bring one.
“Someone came in from the east, and he caused it,” Matthew said. “Jay’s his name.”
“How’d you find me?” Cam asked, a dark undertone in his voice that spoke of suspicion and doubt.
Shit.
Matthew had been working on the assumption that if he spilled everything he knew, Cam wouldn’t spend a lot of time asking questions that Matthew couldn’t or didn’t want to answer—like exactly how he’d tracked Cam down.
“You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to find you.” Matthew smiled and rolled forward on the balls of his feet. “But I’ve got some information you might want and I’m hoping you’ll help me out with something.”
Cam’s lips pressed together and his gaze flickered from Matthew to somewhere over Matthew’s shoulder. At least one of those two guys was probably somewhere behind Matthew. Maybe even sneaking up on him.
He glanced around, making an effort to laugh lightly. “You’re making me nervous, Cam. What the hell?”
Cam shook his head. He tucked his thumb into the waistband of his jeans and tapped his fly with his fingers. “Things are getting complicated. I thought I could stay hidden, lay low and come back when the heat season was over. I like you Trevor, and we had some fun together, but you shouldn’t be here.”
Tap, tap, tap.
A trickle of unease crawled down Matthew’s spine.
Something was going on here and he didn’t know what the fuck Cam was doing, but Cam wasn’t one to fidget—he’d always been cool under pressure and prone to asking lots of questions, not offering up explanations.
The trickle turned to a roaring waterfall as the door a few feet from Cam opened and someone said, “That’s enough.”
Ah, fuck. M
atthew turned toward that voice, hand wrapped tightly around the weapon in his pocket.
Cam muttered something Matthew couldn’t hear.
The door opened the rest of the way and Jay stepped out holding a rifle. “The goddamn camera I put out here caught the whole show, Lujan. You were wasting your time. This one… he’s not the smartest man I’ve ever met. He keeps putting himself in the middle of things he’d be better off staying out of.”
Chapter 21
“Oh, fuck you,” Matthew said to Jay. He started to pull his hands out of his pockets, but Jay brought the rifle up so Matthew stopped.
“Easy now.” Jay gestured with the end of the rifle. “Pull them out slow. Open and toward me. Hands in the air.”
Matthew had to leave the weapon in his pocket. If someone behind him had a gun aimed at the back of his head, he wouldn’t have time to get out of the way before he was shot. He could heal from a lot of terrible injuries, but he didn’t want to test just how bad an injury would have to be before it killed him.
“Sorry, buddy,” Cam said. “You must’ve given away my hiding place when you contacted me. I’m actually kind of pissed about that but I did try to warn you.”
“Sure,” Matthew said, meaning bullshit.
Cam’s eyes shuttered and he shrugged. “You know how it is, you turn on the people who help you and you get what you deserve. I was willing to try since you used to follow orders so well—we might have been able to work well together—but I’m not putting my life on the line for you.”
Matthew had no idea what Cam was talking about, but Jay stepped forward, raising the end of the gun to keep the barrel out of Matthew’s reach and Matthew had other things to worry about—namely Jay and the goddamn rifle in his face.
“What’s he talking about?” he asked Jay.
“He’s under the impression you came back to try to convince him to help you take over the operation here in the southeast. And that you were going to ask for his help killing me so you could.”
Matthew glanced again at Cam and then back to Jay, whose lean, wiry frame was a sharp contrast to Cam’s tall, broadly muscled shape. “That what you told him?”
“Yeah, Matthew—” Jay smiled, a humorless, tight curve of his lips. “—that’s what I told him.”
Cam’s gaze flickered between Jay and Matthew, to settle narrow-eyed on Jay in a way that told Matthew Cam probably knew who the real threat here was. Still, he could tell by the lines etched in Cam’s face that he was pissed at being the fool here who didn’t know what was really going on.
Matthew sighed. “You going to tell him the truth now? About how you’re working with a bunch of rogue wolves to start an outright war between the wolves and us?”
“No, and you don’t know what you’re talking about. I have a few questions and then our business’ll be done.” He jerked the end of the gun slightly higher. “Keep your hands high.”
Matthew flexed his fingers to ease the ache in his forearms and raised his arms the few inches they’d dropped. “You’re still with the rogue watchers, aren’t you? I bet… they’re the ones who made the bullets, not whoever’s still funding the renegades.”
“Bad bet,” Jay said. “I came looking for Gage because I’d heard about the bullets. My alpha doesn’t want those bullets in the hands of anyone, much less the fucking renegades. I’m assuming you and yours don’t either.”
“That’s right.”
“What bullets?” Cam said. “What’s going on here?”
Jay laughed, a sharp, short sound that made Matthew want to punch him. “Buddy,” he said, a mocking edge in his tone that visibly stiffened Cam’s spine, “you need to stay out of this conversation, because I know who you really are and you don’t want this one carrying stories back to the wolves.”
Cam’s expression shut down, leaving behind only a mask of indifference. “You don’t know shit about me.”
“Don’t I? The States are being run by fucking idiots if they think getting involved in this conflict is going to gain them any favors from the First Alpha.”
Matthew almost let his arms drop but caught himself when Jay’s eyebrows drew tight and his finger slid into place on the trigger.
“He’s working for the States?” Matthew asked.
The United States had welcomed the wolves into certain thinly populated mountain regions in exchange for medical technology and knowledge soon after the wolves came to Earth. After the first heat season, when it looked like the government was on the verge of collapse, the wolves had bartered for rights to a much larger territory. That territory had become the American Protectorate. No one doubted that the wolves’ assistance was the only reason the States had maintained the government Matthew had grown up under—but if not for the wolves’ discovery of Earth, their help wouldn’t have been needed. Those first few years after the first heat season had been rougher than anything Matthew had ever known, but the States had managed to cling together through the worst of it even while much of the world’s economies had collapsed.
Cam took a step forward, foot knocking aside a broken limb that crumbled as it rolled away.
Jay’s shoulders tightened. Without shifting the gun off Matthew, he side-eyed Cam, saying, “You move another step, Lujan, and one of my guys’ll put a goddamn bullet in your chest.”
Cam stopped.
“Matthew here, he’s the one who gave you away to the wolves. He’s been infiltrating every half-organized group in the area for the last three years and passing on intel to the wolves. He had no way of knowing you were planning a huge coup to try to cut the renegades off at the knees. It was a good plan. You should’ve been working together. Then it might’ve worked.”
Matthew bit off a curse, “Fuck.”
Cam’s pale eyes flickered between Jay and Matthew, before settling on Matthew. “He’s telling the truth, isn’t he?”
Matthew nodded. “Mostly. There’s more, but it’s complicated.”
Jay glanced at a thin black band on his wrist. “And we don’t have time for it.” He reached behind him and pushed on the door, forcing it to swing wide. The hinges creaked and grated and the door banged against something to the inside of the building.
Brush rustled behind Matthew. He turned to see a man he’d known three years ago as Sebastian walking through the thin trees toward them, holding the rifle by the stock, eyes on him and Jay and Cam. Sebastian had been an alright guy back then, but for all Matthew knew he’d been working with Jay even then, pretending to follow Brendan.
“Find him?” Jay asked, and Matthew’s heart stuttered a beat in his chest because his first thought was for Ash.
Sebastian stopped several feet behind Matthew and Cam. “No. He stayed ahead of us. What if there’s more than one?”
“Not likely,” Jay said, even as relief swept through Matthew. “They won’t send out more than they think they need, not now.”
Because of heat season.
“The signal block will keep him from being able to track us, right?”
Jay gave Sebastian a hard look and just shook his head. Matthew could see the old scars on Jay’s neck, the puckered skin wrinkling as Jay moved. “Keep Lujan out here. I’m going to question Matthew inside.”
Matthew’s gaze went to that open door and the darkness beyond. If he went in that building, what were the chances he was coming out?
“Go on,” Jay said. “Inside.”
Matthew took a step back. “I think I’ll stay here.” If Jay wasn’t using the special bullets, then Matthew could—
Cam chose that moment to lunge for Jay’s rifle.
Shit.
Matthew didn’t even have time to throw himself out of the way before Jay’s rifle fired and then fired again.
Matthew jerked as a bullet shot straight through the side of his neck. He grabbed for his throat, dropping to his knees, blood pouring through his fingers as fast as his heart could pump it through his arteries. Oh my God. This wasn’t—
All he could thin
k about was Ash. Ash would’ve heard the shot—even though he was supposed to be far enough away so that Matthew’s scent wouldn’t trigger him as his repression drugs weakened, even though he was supposed to stay out of sight and away from the perimeter where heat-scanning binoculars could pick him out of the trees—he would have heard the shot.
The pain faded as his body tried to heal his wound and Matthew fell sideways as a dizzy rush swept over him. How fast could the—
The wolves survived worse—
His head spun—
He hit the ground hard.
His thoughts raced, too fast for him to keep up.
He couldn’t be dying. This wasn’t his fate—he knew that. He wasn’t supposed to die yet. Not until tomorrow—the eve of—but that thought flickered away.
He and Ash had mated for the first time last night. He’d claimed Ash this morning, but Ash had mated him last night, the eve of—
His vision narrowed and his last sight was Jay slamming the butt of his rifle into Cam’s face.
Then something hard slapped Matthew’s cheek and he sucked in a breath, heart pounding, and opened his eyes to the sight of Jay standing over him with a bloody nose, feet straddling Matthew’s hips.
Matthew tried to roll, but his hands had been tied together with rope so tight he couldn’t feel his fingers.
“Goddammit,” Matthew said. He struggled against the rope, realizing immediately that his feet were tied too. His pulse pounded behind his ears. He’d healed, obviously. But Jay had gotten to him first.
“I’m done with you,” Jay said. “You’re too much goddamn trouble. But I need to know something first.” He kicked Matthew’s hip, hard enough to steal Matthew’s breath for a second.
“Considering how quickly you got over that beating, I’m going to assume the First Alpha’s wolves did something to you. Now you take a shot in the goddamn neck and you’re still alive. What was it? What’d they do to you?”
“Don’t know what you’re—Ow, goddammit!” His hip throbbed where Jay’s boot had slammed into him again.