by Noelle N
Don't kill him.
Because as much as I wanted Azazel to pay for backstabbing Jed, some part of me knew that Jed was going to regret it if he actually killed the man. Killing Claudius, the man who'd tortured him all these years was one thing. Killing Azazel, the man whom Jed had always treated as his best friend was a different thing altogether. And Jed was already struggling to breathe in the drowning waters of guilt after Spike's death and losing Lance.
Jed paused, his gaze darting between Azazel and me for a second or two, before he finally backed away. Leaving Azazel a gasping, breathless mess on the floor, he disappeared to the back of the diner, presumably to shift back and get himself dressed again. Brutus and the others were already standing in a tight circle around Azazel, bracing themselves for any further attack. But once it was clear that the man wasn't making another move, his brown fur disappearing as he gradually beginning to shift back as well, they took a step back.
When Jed came back out, he was wearing only his jeans and looked perfectly calm. He stepped up beside me swiftly, his eyes cold as he stared at Azazel on the floor. I wanted to scan him for any injuries, really I did. But having him standing there half-naked next to me was doing positively naughty things to my head and this really wasn't a good time.
Jed suddenly snapped his gaze back to me, quirking a brief eyebrow in my direction. That was when I remembered the emotional connection we now shared and, feeling a surge of embarrassment flood through me, I promptly flushed. His eyes gleamed, his lips tilting up in a fleeting smirk of amusement before he deliberately turned back to the situation at hand.
Azazel was by now dressed and his jaw was clenched as he stared impassively at the rest of the pack, who were by now all looking at him with hostile expressions on their faces. Katya was speaking angrily to him, something about him being a backstabbing traitor who deserved to die all kinds of death, but he'd tuned her out, instead fixing his blank gaze on us.
Jed met his gaze evenly, and when I saw Azazel's jaw tighten in defiance, I realised that Jed was probably giving him specific orders through the mind-link, which he was no doubt going to sever with Azazel from this point on.
Then Jed glanced over at Brutus, who seemed grim all of a sudden and nodded firmly. "Azazel is no longer part of this pack," he announced in a clear voice to everyone else. "If you see him, you are not to show him any mercy, much less attempt any form of communication with him. Alpha will kill him if he so much as sets foot on Titan-land again."
There were murmurs of agreement at this, and several people began to clear out of the diner once they realised that there was nothing else left for them to see. Jed stepped away to retrieve the rest of his clothes from one of the chairs, but the moment he turned his back, Azazel made his move.
I could see it coming before it even happened, and I took a quick step forward in horror to pull him aside. "Jed – "
But before the rest of my warning could leave my lips, Jed had already spun round, the look on his face such a deathly calm that I knew he'd already pre-empted Azazel's attack. He had a hand wrapped around Azazel's throat in the blink of an eye, roughly slamming him back against the nearest wall. Several people stepped forward to help, but Jed had it all under control as he tightened his fingers around Azazel's neck, nails digging into his skin, slowly but steadily squeezing the life out of him. For a fleeting moment, there was a flicker of genuine fear in Azazel's eyes but it was gone in a flash and he futilely reached up to pry Jed's hand away from his throat.
Jed's gaze was steady as he looked at Azazel. And when he spoke, his voice was deadly quiet. "Leave."
Then he wrenched his hand away from him and took a step back. The place was entirely silent, varying looks of shock on everyone's faces as they realised that their Alpha had finally spoken in front of them – not to me, but to Azazel.
Azazel fought to catch his breath, fury glinting in his eyes as he stared at Jed. But he seemed to think the better of it when he saw how the rest of the pack would willingly run him out of Titan if he chose to attack Jed again. With one final parting glare that promised nothing but revenge, he spun on his heels and strode out of the diner.
And he was gone.
The relief I felt at having him leave somehow wasn't entirely whole. A part of me still felt unsettled, and I swallowed, watching Azazel's figure slowly but surely disappear out of sight.
After a quick nod from Jed, Brutus and the others headed out of the diner after Azazel, presumably to make sure that he kept his word and left Titan borders. Several people inquired after Jed, offering to treat the various cuts and bruises on his body, but after politely waving them away, he retrieved his clothes and motioned for me to follow him out of the diner.
I bid the rest of the people remaining a quick goodbye and followed him. The sun was bright out, a cool breeze stirring the still air and an overall perfect day in spite of what had just transpired. Jed waited until I was beside him before resuming a leisurely pace, reaching down to loop his fingers through mine as we walked.
I smiled when I felt the comforting warmth of his hand, and couldn't help but sneak several glances at him. He'd retrieved his clothes but he was still wearing only his jeans, holding his thin white shirt and jacket in his other hand. I really didn't want to draw on clichés, but saying that he looked like an absolute Adonis with his skin hued the most delicious shade under the sunlight and his side profile cut in a way that made me want to catch my breath wasn't an exaggeration, but the complete truth. Jed seemed to sense that I was staring at him a lot as we walked, and he finally cast a sideway glance at me, his lips curving up in a smirk that seemed almost satisfied.
I narrowed my eyes at him in an almost defensive manner. "If you want me to stop staring at you, put some damn clothes on."
His smirk widened and he tugged his phone out of the pocket of my jeans, making my breath catch once again when I realised how low his jeans were hanging on his hips, the curve of his hipbones and the trail of hair leading down his tanned stomach in the most teasing way and disappearing beneath his jeans –
My eyes flew up to meet his when Jed deliberately cleared his throat. He bit his lower lip to maintain a perfectly composed expression, even though the hot hunger in his green eyes suggested otherwise, and held out his phone to me.
It's said that marking makes one crave their mate even more.
I think you've proven that hypothesis – rather well, in fact.
I threw him an indignant glare, only to rethink my game plan when I caught the challenging glint in his eyes. "I think it works both ways," I mused, my tone sugary sweet in a way that he immediately caught, because I felt his fingers tighten fractionally around mine. "If I were to, say, take off my shirt right now and walk around with just my bra and shorts and cheeks all flushed until I've tanned to that perfect sun-kissed skin – " My smile stretched when I heard him let out a distinct growl from beside me, but I simply kept my eyes fixed on the sandy path ahead and continued breezily, " – I think we could have additional data to prove that hypothesis, don't you think?"
It was his turn to glare at me now, and he looked so torn between annoyance and frustration that I couldn't stop myself from laughing. Stepping closer, I lifted his arm so that he'd had it wrapped around my shoulder. He seemed surprised but pleased with this new development, and instinctively pulled me closer to him, curling his arm around my shoulder in a way that made me feel entirely protected.
"I like it when you're happy," I said honestly, glancing up at him and feeling my heart flutter when I saw the way he was smiling, not smirking, just a tiny smile playing on his lips and he looked entirely relaxed now, without a care in the world. "Not grieving or angry or guilty. Just happy, with me, that's all I want."
He swallowed, the smile slipping off his lips as a troubled frown creased his forehead. "It's my fault," he said quietly after awhile, averting his eyes from me as he stared numbly down at the road.
His tone was entirely broken and I felt my heart clench when I
realised what he was talking about – trusting Azazel, letting him rise through the ranks of Titan and eventually selling the pack out. We hadn't confirmed what Azazel did, not fully anyway, but the worst-case scenario was clear as crystal – that Azazel was not merely part of the syndicate, but was all along working with Malthus.
I knew what he was thinking: If he hadn't trusted Adrian, then maybe there wouldn't have been so many perimeter breaches. Maybe the packs surrounding us would've never been attacked. Maybe I never would've been captured. Maybe we wouldn't have lost Lance and Giles. Maybe Spike would've still been alive.
I took a deep breath and reached up to catch his fingers in a loose but steady grip. "It's my fault too," I mused, shrugging when he glanced at me in surprise. "If I'd told you about Azazel sooner, maybe Lance and Giles wouldn't have been captured. Maybe Titan would've won. Maybe we would've defeated Prometheus – "
He shook his head firmly before typing a quick message and holding out his phone.
Not your fault. Azazel did all that. Not you.
I smiled when I read those words. "Exactly," I said, meeting Jed's gaze squarely. "Azazel did all that. If our suspicions are right, he did all those things. Helped Malthus do all those things. Our mistake was trusting him. But everything else he did isn't our fault because he chose to do them all."
I could see that I was getting through to him, because Jed looked like he wanted so desperately to believe in my words. He hesitated, a clear internal conflict within him. It was his innate sense of responsibility for all of Titan that warred with his deep-seated desire for redemption. He needed, no – yearned for the assurance that the bad things that happened wasn't his fault; that the path his father and brother had taken wasn't going to be the same one that he was heading towards; that he was, somehow, good, despite what the rest of the world thought of him.
We were almost nearing our home by now and, once we were close enough, I took two quick strides forward so that I was standing on the step of the porch, turning around so that I could face him. He seemed surprised by my sudden actions, especially when I placed both my hands on his shoulders so that I could look him in the eyes.
"I do love you, you know, regardless." I said gently, smiling when his features softened and he slowly wrapped his arms around me, pulling me in so that I was pressed flushed against him, not a sliver of space separating us. "I always have."
Recognition flickered across his face when he realised that I was repeating the words he'd said to me. His eyes were bright and happy now, even as his lips twitched up in a wry smile. "Always will?"
He looked so heartbreakingly hopeful and unsure all at once that I felt my heart twist. Blinking back the tears that sprung to my eyes, I cradled his face between my palms and felt his breath warm my skin like sunlight on the clearest summer's day.
"Yes," I whispered, because it was the truth and there was no other fancy way to say it, before pushing myself on the tips of my toes to seal my promise with a kiss.
* * *
Jed didn't leave his study until late that night, and I found him sitting at the large mahogany desk, his laptop propped up in front of him and files and files of documents spread out in front of him. He had his old iPod chucked on the table, earphones plugged in. It was the same one he'd handed over to me the day he found me, and I remembered him telling me about it sometime later – how his mother had given it to him on one of his birthdays, carving his name across the plastic so that it would be solely his.
I stood by the doorway and watched him for a moment. Just looking at him made everything else seem to fade away, if only for awhile. He was just a regular guy so hard at work that he'd all but forgotten about the time, I was waiting up for him and making sure he didn't overwork himself and we were just a regular couple.
If you took away the world of lycans, all the dangers we were in and all the inevitable deaths this war would eventually bring about, then everything seemed normal. Perfectly normal, and I was reminded of what Spike had once told me. You took normalcy for granted until you weren't, and that was when you realised how much you missed the version that you once were – the version of you that was safe, uncomplicated, normal.
But I knew that if Spike were alive now, he'd still choose danger, complications, his mate over everything.
So would I.
Jed seemed to sense that I was nearby, because he soon turned, throwing me a brief glance over his shoulder and raising his eyebrows when he saw me. His work seemed all but forgotten, especially when he noticed that I was wearing his jumper, and a faint smile flitted across his face at the sight of that.
"You eat all my food, I figured I'd wear all your clothes," I said lightly, with a teasing smile and a faux-innocent look in my eyes. "That's not a problem, right?"
He maintained a straight face as he shook his head, even as his lips twitched. My gaze travelled to his laptop, where he'd had both Lance and Giles's photographs attached to an email he seemed to be sending out to the other packs. For them to keep an eye out, just in case Prometheus turned them loose.
"Mind-link still not working?" I asked sympathetically, feeling my heart sink when he shook his head again, this time more sombrely than the previous.
Mind-linking had been the first thing he'd tried upon losing Lance and Giles, because it was the simplest method of finding out if they were still alive. But there was a cut within the communication line, and the reasons for it were countless, as Jed had written on a notepad to explain to me earlier.
Torturing to the point where they're absolutely unable to think. Forced to fight to the point where their wolf instinctively accepts a new Alpha, creating a new link and breaking the old one. Or – they could be dead.
That conversation had happened hours ago, but the thought of Lance and Giles being dead still sent a painful stab through my heart, and I firmly shoved that possibility aside for the moment. "I have a question," I said instead, stepping into the room now as curiosity suddenly got the better of me. "Earlier, you said that if a lycan accepts a new Alpha, a new link is formed and the old one broken. So how did Azazel maintain his with you when he was a rogue all along?"
Jed bit his lip for a moment, before jerking his head swiftly in a gesture for me to come closer. Pushing aside his files, he reached for a blank sheet of paper and his pen. I headed towards him, and he looked vaguely amused but pleased when I perched on the side of his chair, my toes pressed against the carpeted floor to balance myself and my arms braced on the table. I was surprised when he placed a careful arm around me to keep me from falling, but he seemed entirely relaxed, flipping his pen several times between his fingers before he started to write.
Azazel's wolf accepts me as his Alpha. It doesn't mean that he does.
Every lycan has to balance between their human and animal instincts. And in most cases, one is stronger than the other.
"So," I started, slowly but surely beginning to piece his explanation together, "for Azazel, it was his human over his animal?"
Jed nodded, the expression on his face now grim and he wrote:
Azazel's human mind overrode his wolf. Joining the syndicate, faking his loyalty – he could do all of that and more if he had his wolf well under control. Claudius essentially functions the same way – he found my mother in the human world and forcibly turned her, even though she wasn't his mate.
His words took me entirely by surprise. "She wasn't? I always figured – " I trailed off when Jed shook his head, his arm instinctively tightening around me, writing something else to veer the conversation back on track.
Lycans who are able to maintain a perfect balance between their human and animal instincts are rare. But I have a feeling that Dimitri might be able to do that.
"Really?" I frowned in confusion as I mulled over his words.
But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Kind of. Dimitri's loyalties lay with no one but himself, and he seemed to be in perfect control of his wolf. Whether he wanted to kill or not depended sole
ly on a decision that he made, without any influence from his wolf whatsoever. But if the situation called for it, then he was just as vicious as any other lycan would be when threatened.
I glanced back down at the scribbled words on the notepad. "Azazel, Claudius, Dimitri," I listed the names, counting them off on the fingers of my left hand, before turning to him. "And what about you?"
He averted his eyes, and I could feel the crushing guilt that he was feeling when he finally murmured, "animal."
His answer didn't surprise me at all. I'd known, from the moment I saw him kill Claudius, that his wolf stood at the forefront of his existence. Feral, merciless, inhuman. He'd been placed under conditions that forced him to behave as such, you see. Grown up in a place where you had to let your instincts take over in order to survive. Through all those years of torture, the human side of him had eventually shut down. He kept silent because only the prey cried. He kept out of reach because they couldn't hurt him if they couldn't get to him. Survive, survive, survive. And then, when he was finally strong enough – kill, kill, kill.
Jed was still picking anxiously at a bit of calloused skin along his thumb when I reached down, running my fingers through his hair and feeling the dark locks sift between my fingertips. He smelled of coffee and soap and paperwork and him – an addictive blend that made my heart stutter as I tilted his head up so that he was looking right at me. He swallowed heavily when he realised how close we were, his arm instinctively tightening around my waist as I lowered my head, my hair falling around us like a curtain that shielded us from the rest of the world.