by L. C. Davis
“Of course. I care about him,” I said pointedly, watching him. “Obviously so do you.”
He rolled his eyes. “I might not be in charge of the Lodge like your boyfriends, but I'm still a dom. I care whenever I see a sub getting mistreated.”
“Okay A, they're not my boyfriends. Sebastian is my soulmate with a serious case of buyer's remorse and Victor is his brother,” I clarified.
Another eyeroll. “Whatever. You and Vic aren't fooling anyone with all the sneaking around, but I'm not judging.”
“B,” I said, giving him a look, “you don't look at him like he's just another sub you're worried about. Did you guys have a thing?”
“I don't see how it's any of your business, but no, we've never had a 'thing.'” Either he was telling the truth or he was a complete psychopath who didn't show any of the telltale signs of lying. I was getting to know Brendan well enough to know that wasn't the case.
“Good. And it is my business because Maverick is—or at least was—a good friend, and I'd hate to see him get hurt. It was just strange that Mr. Hall called him a whore.”
“I'm sure he calls him all sorts of things,” Brendan said distastefully. “Doesn't mean anything.”
He had a point. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more going on. Something that had caused the steep decline in wellbeing that I'd watched in my friend from the contest to this unsettling session.
“Come on,” he said. “Clarence bailed on guard duty so you're stuck with me until tomorrow and I'm gonna hit the gym.”
“That's not a surprise,” I said, following him. “Clarence hated me even before I became a vampire.”
“He doesn't hate you,” said Brendan, rounding the corner that led to the wolves' gym. It was separate from the member area, since they had a tendency to fling weights at each other for fun and we didn't need the wrong members getting the right idea that the wolf pack was made up of literal wolves. He glanced back at me. “He just doesn't like you.”
“Ah. Can't say I blame him. The question is, why aren't you avoiding me?”
He shrugged. “Sebastian and I are bros. He's in a bad head space with you turning out to be the thing he hates most in the entire world and all, but he'll come around. Keeping an eye on his mate is the least I can do until then.”
“That's really sweet,” I said, trying to hide my surprise.
“That and why would I be afraid of you?” He snorted, giving me an unimpressed once-over. “What are you gonna do from down there, bite my ass?”
Moment over. “You're a poet, Brendan. Unrecognized in your time perhaps, but one day your words will touch the hearts of millions.”
He rolled his eyes and grabbed a water bottle out of the refrigerator stationed outside the private gym. It was really more like a world-class weight room with a forgotten treadmill over in the far corner than a full gym. The wolves had little need for stationary exercise when they had an entire forest to frolic in.
“Think you can occupy yourself for awhile?” he asked, walking over to a tall metal rack.
I eyed the rest of the alien equipment. “I'll just run. Have fun picking things up and putting them down.”
“Enjoy running in place,” he called.
Fair enough. At least I was nearly always dressed for the gym these days, since I never went out. My yoga pants and tank top weren't officially sanctioned workout gear, but they'd do the trick. I grabbed a pair of earbuds off the supply shelf and decided to use the radio app on my phone. I had a missed call and a text, both from Victor.
“Sorry I missed you. Things have been crazy. Half the pack is gone, definitely hunters. I'll call tonight. How are the boys treating you?”
I sighed, hesitating in my response. It was getting harder to care about things that didn't directly affect me, and I was struggling to come up with something sympathetic sounding. “Sounds rough.”
Backspace. Now I was making Brendan look like Keats. “Wow, that's awful. Definitely fill me in later. Just sticking with Brendan for now. He's surprisingly sweet, but he's onto us. I'm staying with him tonight, but I'll try to get away when you call.”
Good enough. I tried to hold up the facade of being human for Victor's sake, but I could tell even he was beginning to see through it. After all, he had seen the aftermath of my vampire nature with his own eyes. Maybe he believed me that Clive—his name echoed frequently through my mind, just as Sebastian had wanted it to—had attacked first, or maybe he didn't. Either way, he knew what I was capable of and for some unfathomable reason he loved me anyway.
I popped my earbuds in and found an intense indie rock station to zone out to while I waited for another text from Victor. It felt good to be running again, even if it was on a treadmill. I was going stir crazy after being cooped up for so many months. At least the fact that I was officially a college dropout didn't come as the emotional blow it would have last year. It was just a disappointing speed bump on the now unending road of my life—if you could even still call it a life.
Running usually helped clear my mind, but the problem was that my mind had been perfectly clear ever since becoming a vampire. Or, as the supernaturals put it, ever since “waking up.” After so many years spent struggling with the mental obfuscation of not one but three vampires, I had just assumed that mental clarity would solve all my problems and help me make better decisions. Now, I was beginning to realize that irrationality had its benefits. It was a shield to hide behind.
Things aren't going your way? It's okay, one day you'll fix it all by continuing to do the same stupid shit that messed everything up in the first place. Hate yourself? That's because the real you is buried deep inside and it's the only thing that matters, even though that person never sees the light of day. Lonely? There's someone out there and when you meet him he'll solve all your problems and you'll never be lonely again.
Now that I was a vampire, I knew the truth. Things weren't going my way because I'd lived my life in a constant malaise, hoping things would change but making no effort to be the kind of person who could handle that change when it finally happened. I didn't hate myself anymore, but that was only because these days Victor was the only person I could feel any strong emotion towards. Even though Victor and I were finally together, loneliness crept in as soon as he was gone, which was pretty often with all the hunter buzz going around the werewolf community.
The worst part was that I couldn't even feel grief that our kind—or at least what had once been my kind—was being slaughtered left and right. I couldn't even feel fear that our pack was next. All I could do was indulge in the shallow emotion of self-pity because my boyfriend was working long hours and I was bored.
Yes, I knew something was wrong. Yes, I could feel that I was broken, but what good was being self-aware if I couldn't even bring myself to care enough to fix it?
The phone buzzed, pulling me out of what counted as existential angst for me these days. Sure enough, it was Victor. I slowed the treadmill to a steady jog so I could text him back without flinging the phone across the room.
“Can't say Brendan is my favorite person, but I know he'll take care of you. We're staying with the pack so we should be in for the night by 11. Just call me when you can anytime after that. Oh, and your dad says hello.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ok. Tell ULRIC I said hello back. Be safe.”
At least that was one thing I could feel. Concern. It was only for him, but it was something to grasp onto.
He replied almost instantly. “Always. I love you.”
I smiled a little. “I love you, too.”
I returned my phone to my pocket and resumed listening to the radio. After turning the treadmill up beyond my comfort zone, I finally started to feel a bit better. It was distracting me from the fact that Victor was in danger and there was nothing I could do about it. I turned the music up a little louder and tried to get lost in the rhythm of my feet hitting the treadmill. It definitely wasn't the same feeling as running on pavement o
r earth, but it felt good to push my body to its physical limits. They were further than what they had been.
Being exhausted wasn't the worst thing for a vampire. At least not for one who didn't want to eat his friends. Maybe if I kept busy enough, it wouldn't matter that I hadn't fed as much as usual from Maverick. I could always ask Clara to have my dose of Victor's blood a little early.
Brendan had moved on to another rack and judging from the look of exertion on his face, I wasn't the only one trying to put something out of my mind. Whatever had happened between him and Maverick, I hadn't seen anyone look at another person with such intensity since—well, since Victor saw me on that stage such a long time ago.
There was part of me that wished I could press a button that would make Maverick belong to Brendan. If he had to have a master, it seemed only fair that he should have one who treated him well. Another part of me understood that the decision could only come from Maverick, but I had to wonder if he was even in a place where he could make a decision like that for himself, emotionally or practically.
The sound of a weight dropping caught my attention. Brendan was staring down at his phone like it had just bit him. He clenched his jaw and I thought he was going to throw it, but all he did was put it back in his pocket and shove another weight onto either end of the barbell.
“Enjoying the show?”
I stumbled on the treadmill at the almost unfamiliar sound of Sebastian's voice. I barely yanked the stop cord in time and turned to face him, panting. “What?”
He was leaning against the door, wearing the brown leather jacket he had lent me on so many occasions. His arms were crossed and he was looking at me with the casual disdain I had come to expect from those eyes that once held me in adoration.
“I asked if you were enjoying the show,” he repeated, nodding to Brendan.
Ah. So he thought I was gawking at his friend. “No,” I said firmly, stepping off the treadmill to grab a bottle of water. “Not sure why you care since I hardly ever see you these days.”
He shrugged. “Brendan is like a brother. A better one,” he said pointedly. “I just don't want to see him get hurt making the same mistake I did.”
I smiled to mask a twinge of something impossibly close to hurt. Leave it to Victor to be the one who could make me feel love and Sebastian to be the one who could make me feel pain. It was almost a welcome sensation.
“I wouldn't worry about that, Sebastian,” I said, taking a swig of water. “Between your brother's bed and his dungeon, I'm all tapped out.”
His glare felt like the closest thing to a kiss I was ever going to get from him. His massive hand gripped the door frame and I heard a loud crack. He stepped away before he could break the entire thing.
“You're not even putting in a half-assed effort to hide the fact that you're a psychopath now, are you?”
I shrugged. “I'd say I'm putting about as much effort into that as you're putting into pretending like you didn't abandon me out of sheer disgust.”
“I didn't abandon you,” he snapped. “I needed time, and you both jumped at the chance.”
“See it however you want. I needed you and he was there.”
“Victor is able to just accept --” He looked me up and down, grimacing in a mixture of pain and disgust. “To accept this because he's practically a vampire himself. The Remus I loved would have felt the same way I do.”
His use of the past tense didn't escape my notice. “Then I guess the Remus you loved is dead.”
He flinched visibly like a dog who'd been struck. I wasn't sure why that came as such a surprise to him. He'd been saying as much with his actions for the past few months.
“I guess so,” he said once he'd collected himself. He shifted his weight onto his other foot. “I didn't come here for any of this,” he said in a deflated tone. “Clara wants to see you. There was some kind of accident in the infirmary and she said it was important. Everything was a mess when I went in.”
“Accident?” The urgency of my tone must have alarmed him because he looked at me like he was seeing a ghost. I dropped the bottle of water and rushed past him before it hit the floor.
“Hey, wait!” called Brendan. I could hear them both behind me, but I was faster, if only slightly.
“Grab him!” yelled Sebastian. His size came at the cost of speed.
“What he hell do you think I'm trying to do?” Brendan yelled back.
I turned the corner and sprinted down the hall, blowing past a couple of regular members. It was like a dream where no matter how fast I tried to run, the monster was right behind me, only this time I was the monster racing to see what I'd done.
If Maverick was lying in one of those beds, hurt or worse because I had bitten him...
No. It couldn't be. I had been so careful, so gentle. I even fed from the left side of his neck just in case I did somehow snap. Had it been the trance? I never should have attempted something so foolish without Victor's supervision. I thought I was ready, and I had risked Maverick's health, possibly even his life, because I thought. Was one of my only true friends in this world destined to become my next victim?
My heart thundered as it hadn't since I was human. I nearly ran past the infirmary, caught in my own momentum. I grabbed the door frame to steady myself for whatever I was about to see in there and flung it open just as Brendan grabbed me from behind.
“No,” I cried, clinging to the frame. “Where is he?”
Clara stared at me in shock. The infirmary was a mess. Blood was everywhere. I couldn't even breathe, but I didn't need to smell the blood to know whose it was. The sight of Maverick's lifeless body flashed before my eyes and suddenly Brendan's arms around my waist were the only thing keeping me upright.
“Oh God,” I choked, covering my mouth. I hadn't even realized I had been crying until that moment. I didn't even think I could cry, not anymore. “Please, not him.”
“Remus, calm down,” said Clara, stepping over broken glass. Her heels stopped in a pool of blood. The sight of it wasn't appealing, it was nauseating. My knees gave out completely and Brendan scooped me up into his arms.
The two of them exchanged a confused glance as Sebastian finally arrived. “What the fuck is going on? Oh shit, who got murdered in here?”
I clung to Brendan's drenched shirt, grasping at consciousness. The realization that it was drenched with my tears was a bizarre one.
“Should we restrain him?” Brendan asked nervously.
Clara hesitated. “I think it's the sight of the blood that's getting to him for some reason.”
Had I really become such a monster that I couldn't react in horror to the knowledge that I had at the very least seriously wounded my own friend without everyone being shocked?
When I caught sight of the bloody cloth Brendan had used to stop Maverick's bleeding earlier, my head spun in an all too familiar way. I struggled to get out of Brendan's arms and I think he let me go out of pure dismay. I took a step forward to reach for the cloth and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor. The frantic voices of the wolves were muffled by the blood rushing in my ears and a trail of Maverick's blood creeping towards me was the last thing I saw before it all went to static.
2
“We are not going to call Victor, he's my fucking mate!” Sebastian bellowed from somewhere in the room. Which room was the question.
“Dude, you don't know how to handle this shit,” said Brendan.
They were arguing in a dull haze I was beginning to recognize as the infirmary. I struggled slightly when I realized where I was, but I was strapped down. I didn't want to be there. They might as well have been keeping me in a morgue.
“Will you both shut up? No one is calling Victor, not if we can help it,” said Clara. She was uncharacteristically authoritative in her own domain. “He and Ulric dealing with enough as it is and they're both in danger if they think he needs them. Sebastian will handle this since this unfortunate misunderstanding is his fault anyway.”
&n
bsp; “How was I supposed to know what was going on?” he demanded.
“You weren't, but as always, your complete and utter lack of tact gets us all into trouble,” said Clara. “Now we need to focus on how to deal with this.”
Were they planning on covering up the murder? He really was dead, then, if the three of them were conspiring to keep Ulric and Victor from finding out. Where was Maverick's master? He would surely go to the police. He was probably in the same room they locked Victor in.
I moaned and strained at the straps that held my arms, legs and torso to the bed. I wanted to tell them to stop, that I didn't want to hide this. Turning myself in was the least I could do. This wasn't another body to hide in the woods. This was Maverick.
“Shit, he's awake,” said Brendan.
“Sebastian, just keep quiet. You obviously upset him,” said Clara.
He grumbled but gave no argument. The sound of Clara's quickly approaching heels made me struggle even more.
“Please let me up,” I begged. My voice was faint and distant.
“I'm afraid I can't do that, not until you're in a better state of mind,” she said. “You had a meltdown and it's not safe for anyone to let you go without understanding why.”
Of course I had a meltdown. I had just killed my friend.
“Please let me up, I can't be in here,” I told her, shaking my head. “Not after what I did. The blood --”
“I cleaned all that up,” said Brendan.
No wonder all I could smell was bleach. They had already hidden the evidence. Clara looked down on me with something other than fear for the first time in months. I wasn't sure I liked pity any better. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, stroking my hair. “You don't understand, you didn't --”
“No,” said Sebastian, coming into view. He stared down at me in cool, judgmental appraisal. Of course he wanted to look at me, to confirm what he had known all along. That I was a monster. A murderer at the heart of it, cold and psychotic enough to kill my own friend. “Not yet.”
He pulled up a stool beside the bed. “What did you do, Remus?”