by Sky Winters
Chapter 13
The morning sun streamed brightly through Brock’s windows and he squinted as he sat up, trying to piece together why he hadn’t remembered to close the blinds the night before when he climbed into bed. Memories of the spry man he had bedded began to flood his mind, and he frowned. Where was Owen now? He couldn’t sense him anywhere.
A deep loneliness filled Brock, and he felt angry that he had woken up alone. Owen had briefly mentioned that he had to work in the morning, but Brock hadn’t thought it would mean abandoning him. He could have driven him.
Wait, what was he thinking? He was supposed to be out for revenge. Owen was the enemy…right?
But after last night, Brock wasn’t so sure anymore. Owen wasn’t Drake. In fact, he seemed just as disgusted by Drake as he was. Owen was caring and sensitive. Being with him, no matter how briefly, had helped him to face up to the feelings he had been repressing about Jason. Instead of thirsting for revenge, he had simply felt the grief that he had been trying to block out for so long. Was this why his brothers weren’t trying to go after Drake themselves? Had they allowed themselves to fully grieve Jay’s death?
But it still far too soon to move on. He wished Owen was still there. Maybe it would help him gather his thoughts. He would know for sure whether or not Owen was a good target for his vengeance. Or maybe, Brock’s issue was with Drake himself. It was starting to seem cowardly of him to pick on an innocent guy when Drake was the one who he had the problem with.
Regardless, Brock wasn’t entirely convinced. He wanted to see Owen one more time. Maybe that would give him the answer he needed. If they could just spend a little more time together, he would know if his plan was a good idea, or if he should think of something else he could do to turn Drake’s world upside down.
Brock rolled out of bed and headed into the shower, his mind swimming with the memories of the passion of the night before. Had Owen’s charm and charisma simply gotten the better of him, or was he just messing with the wrong guy? It seemed so wrong to hurt him if he truly was just a kind man trying to make it on his own. He worked hard to keep his mind from being poisoned by his toxic brothers. At least, that’s what he said.
Brock finished washing and walked naked to the bedroom, eyeing the spot he had last seen Owen. His face had been so handsome in the moonlight. His touch so gentle, but not hiding anything about his desire. Confident, but in a very Omega sort of way.
Before he let himself get too caught up in Owen, he would have to see him again. That would clear everything up once and for all. If he had to drop his plan, he wouldn’t know until he saw the man just one more time. Then he would find out for sure what his next move should be.
Chapter 14
Owen panted as he ran through the door of his little apartment, slamming the door behind himself. He had lost the wolf who had been trailing him. He wasn’t sure what he had wanted, but if he wanted to attack him he could have. Maybe he just wanted to make sure that Owen wasn’t there to do anything malicious. Either way, it had been unsettling to run all the way home, feeling as if he was being chased. But once he reached the borderline of the towns, the wolf had lingered behind, his amber eyes ever watchful.
It was almost daybreak, and Owen had had to shift back to his human form just before he reached his apartment. It was against the rules to be in your wolf form during the day unless it was an emergency. There were too many tourists wandering around in the area, and a chance of discovery could mean disaster for the pack. Normal humans loved to take their aggression out on animals, especially wolves, whom they found very threatening.
Owen’s chest burned with exertion as he showered and dressed for his shift at the supermarket. He would be just on time, but only if…
Suddenly, Owen realized that he didn’t have his car and he cursed loudly. He would need a ride to work. But who could he call? Jenny was probably already there, opening up the store and getting the registers ready. His stomach dropped. He would have to ask one of his brothers.
With trembling hands, Owen picked up his phone and dialed the number to his homestead. Drake answered on the second ring.
“It’s a little fuckin’ early for social calls,” he grumbled into the receiver menacingly.
“Drake, I –“
“Well, well! If it isn’t little Owen!”
Owen gritted his teeth, but he wouldn’t bite the bait. Not if he wanted to get to work.
“Hi Drake.”
“How is my most puny little brother?” Drake asked. Owen could practically hear the shit-eating grin on Drake’s face.
“Late for work, actually…I’m having a bit of car trouble. Could I get a ride?”
“At this hour?!” Drake exclaimed. “You’re lucky I even answered the phone, twerp!”
“Drake, please…”
“Tell you what. I’ll be there in ten minutes. But you owe me.”
“Of course. I’ll give you gas money.”
“Keep your money, chump. We’ll discuss payment when the time is right.”
“…sure Drake. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
The receiver slammed down and Owen cringed. Just what had he gotten himself into?
Chapter 15
Brock ran through the woods, his heart soaring along with his legs. It had been ages since he’d been out for a morning run in his wolf form. He usually adhered to the rules and only shifted at night. But there was nothing quite like waking up in the morning and letting go of all his human torment to enjoy the morning as an uninhibited beast.
He could smell Owen in the trees and followed the scent, knowing it would probably lead to his dwelling. What would the man’s apartment be like? Would he be able to catch him in time.
Brock stopped suddenly. There was another wolf in the area when Owen was there. A wolf he knew well. What was his brother Hazel doing with Owen? Was there a confrontation?
But Hazel rarely fought for fun. Maybe everything was okay.
Still, Brock’s heart raced with the uncertainty. There was no way Owen would be able to handle himself if Hazel tried to attack him. Was Owen all right?
Brock ran frantically, following their scents until he reached the border line between the towns. Hazel’s scent stopped there, and Brock’s thudding heart finally began to slow down. Owen was probably fine. He was continuing on toward his apartment and Hazel was lingering behind. Good old Hazel. Just protecting the area. He never let himself rest. Maybe he was dealing with Jay’s death in his own way.
Brock shook the thought away, eager to make it to Owen. See with his own eyes that the man was okay. There was something undeniable about the way Owen made him feel. It made it feel all the more urgent to make sure that nothing had happened to Owen on his way home.
He ran with everything he had until he came upon a small apartment complex full of dingy grey buildings. Brock felt his chest burning with exertion but it didn’t matter. He crept as stealthily as he possibly could in the direction of Owen’s scent. It was pretty fresh. Suddenly, Brock’s heart leapt in joy. There was Owen, standing outside his apartment building, freshly showered and dripping with water. He was glancing anxiously back and forth from the road to his hands.
Brock wanted to call out to him, but he knew it would be a mistake to emerge out in the open in his wolf form and shift back to being human. Besides, it was interesting to view Owen like this. From a distance. It’s how he learned more about his prey. But he wasn’t still thinking about Owen as prey, was he?
A distant rumble caught Owen’s attention, and soon a shiny red sports car pulled up in front of Owen.
“Hey Drake.”
Brock’s chest constricted with anguish and fury.
“Just get in,” Drake’s voice demanded. Owen sighed and got in the car.
That was all Brock needed to see. He turned his back on the scene, nausea and rage filling him until he couldn’t see straight. So Owen and Drake had some kind of a plan for the day, did they? Turns out they w
ere a little bit closer than Owen had been letting on. He must have known his brother had a bad reputation and was used to downplaying their relationship to keep people in their tangled web of lies.
Brock had seen enough. He ran as hard and fast as his legs could carry him, until he arrived back at his house. He was done with Owen McNeil. It was time for payback.
Chapter 16
Owen was having a bad day. Not only did he have to get a ride from his good for nothing brother, but Jenny had called in sick and the store was short-staffed. And he had gotten a quick visit from Johnson, detailing how his whimsical idea not to show up had cost them several hundred dollars in profit. He claimed he was mad enough that he wasn’t sure if he wanted Owen to come back or not.
Even though he was fairly certain Johnson was just being dramatic and letting out his aggression the way many petty little men tend to do, it had been the cherry on top of what was turning out to be one of the worst days he’d managed to have out from under the roof of his brothers. All because of Brock Stewart’s brilliant idea to leave Owen’s car at the rock venue.
Actually, he could trace the fault to Brock further still for bothering to invite him at all. Maybe it was just as petty of Owen to be mad at Brock as it was of Johnson to be mad at him, but it didn’t change the fact that Owen was furious. Why had he thought it was okay to ditch work just to go out and have a tryst with this random stranger? He’d never done anything so irresponsible in his life. But he was sure Brock probably had. He was probably constantly doing irresponsible things like that. Why did irresponsible people always feel the need to corrupt responsible people with their carefree attitudes and don’t-give-a-damn ways?
They had to know how intoxicating it was for a workaholic to just let go every once in a while. Was it some kind of slacker instinct that made them try to infect the rest of the world with their fuck-the-world disease? Why had he listened to Brock?
By the time his shift ended, Owen was exhausted. He couldn’t even fathom going in to work at the butcher’s shop, but his little visit from Johnson made it clear that if he wanted to keep his job, he would have to come in that night and grovel.
Fortunately, Jenny had shown up toward the end of the shift and felt guilty enough to give Owen a ride to the venue where his car was still waiting, untouched, from the night before.
“Didn’t know you were into this scene,” Jenny said, raising an eyebrow at Owen.
“I’m not,” he said firmly. “It was all a big mistake.”
He regretted the words as soon as he said them, but Jenny didn’t really care one way or the other and took off, leaving Owen alone with his thoughts as he climbed into his car. Had it all really been a mistake? He had shared something intense and new with Brock. Sure, it almost cost him his job, but maybe it was worth it.
What the hell was he thinking? It had been completely inconsiderate of Brock, especially knowing that Owen had work the next day. It was clearly obvious that Owen was interested in him. Brock was just a predator who probably got tons of men into bed like he had done with Owen. Jason for example?
He was hurt, furious, and exhausted. Would he have time for a nap before work or would he have to go in feeling like the walking dead? Nobody cared how he felt anyway, he might as well have gone to work with a killer flu. At least then he would feel a little better knowing the people who didn’t give a crap about him might get infected.
Chapter 17
Brock spent the evening with his brothers, but his mind was miles away with Owen. He was angry, but it was a hollow kind of anger. It left him without a purpose. But if he could come up with a good enough plan, something really elaborate now that he had Owen right where he wanted him, then maybe he would be able to avenge Jason.
But elaborate plans were usually nothing with only one person involved. It was time to call in the cavalry.
“Eddie, I need to talk to you for a second.”
Eddie stopped wiping the glasses that his brothers were using to drink with and raised his eyebrow at Brock. He could tell it was serious, but he wasn’t sure how serious.
“What’s going on?”
“Not here,” Brock said, his voice low. The others didn’t hear him, or at least pretended not to, and let the two head off alone to conspire.
“What do you want?” Eddie asked once they were standing in the family room of the house their father had built.
“You spend a lot of time taking care of dad, right?” Brock whispered, sinking down onto the couch. He himself had a hard time going in to look at the man. He knew that his father didn’t want anybody to see him that way. He wanted to be remembered as the alpha he was in his prime. And Brock wanted to respect those wishes.
“Nobody else wants to do it.” Brock raised an eyebrow at his brother. “Well…he doesn’t want anybody else to do it anyway.”
“That’s more like it. Doesn’t it get boring though, being here by yourself all the time while everybody else is off living their own lives. And Jason isn’t out living at all…”
“What does Jason have to do with this?” Eddie asked. Clearly the mention of their brother pained Eddie. He had always been the sensitive one.
“What if I told you I had a plan…a way we could get revenge for what happened to Jay.”
“What happened to Jay was that he made bad choices and paid for them with his life,” Eddie said, frowning.
“Yeah, it’s easy to write it off that way. But I happen to know that Drake McNeil has a way of making people do things they don’t want to do. It’s his sick nature.”
“I fucking hate that guy,” Eddie mumbled.
“Well I have a way to get him back,” Brock whispered.
Eddie looked up at Brock, hope shining briefly in his eyes.
“It won’t bring Jason back,” Eddie said. He was reluctant to get his hopes up, but Brock wasn’t going to let up.
“No, but it would make us feel a hell of a lot better.”
“Nothing can make me feel better about what happened. We should have paid closer attention to him. Helped him when he needed it. But we turned our backs.”
“There was nothing we could have done, Eddie. But there’s something we can do now. I need your help.”
Eddie sighed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I may or may not have Drake’s little brother around my finger. Kind of how he had Jay.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Eddie asked, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Ask Hazel. He saw the kid leaving my house at a very questionable hour. Followed him home, in fact. He doesn’t really know what’s going on, but with you guys on my side, we can get back at Drake through his brother.”
Eddie sighed, and Brock was sure he’d lost him. But Eddie surprised him by looking at him with an unfamiliar hardness in his eyes that made him look more like Jason than he had seen any of his other brothers look. It gave Brock goosebumps.
“All right then, let’s do this.”
Chapter 18
Brock was awakened late that night by a furious pounding on his door. He thought at first that maybe Eddie had misunderstood part of the plan, or he wanted out, so he was surprised when he found Owen standing at his door in the pouring rain, his face angry and his chest heaving.
“I just had the worst day of my life,” he cried, his voice nearly muted by the sound of thunder rolling overhead. Owen poked Brock in the chest as he pushed his way inside. “I had to catch a ride to work with the guy who completely tormented me the entire time we were growing up. Do you know what he wants me to do for him for that?”
Brock was silent, still surprised by the force with which Owen was pushing himself into Brock’s house.
“No? Well neither do I! But what I do know is that he’s the last person on earth I want to owe a fucking favor to! Do you know what he does in his spare time? The way he treats people?!”
Owen’s voice was bordering on hysteria, and Brock’s chest was constricting painfully. How could he have misread the
situation so horribly? Owen looked like he was trying his hardest not to cry, but his anger was stronger and he lifted his chin at Brock.
“Not everyone can blow everything off just for some irresponsible night of…well, whatever that was! Not even Jason, whoever that –“
Brock surprised them both by lunging at Owen and pinning him to the wall by the throat. The rest of Owen’s sentence came out in a squeak, and the fear and confusion in his eyes made Brock drop him at once.
“Hit a nerve huh? I heard you saying his name in your sleep. Just how many different men to you have up here anyway? Am I just another groupie to you or something?”
Brock had to admire the way Owen kept talking, even though he was clearly no match for Brock if it came to blows.
“Jason isn’t a groupie,” Brock said coolly. “He’s my brother. And he died.”
Owen opened and closed his mouth, clearly thrown by the information, but he continued on.
“Well I’m sorry, but that still doesn’t give you the right to upheave my life like that. Do you know what happens if I lose my jobs? I have to go back to living with that piece of shit and my other, slightly lesser pieces of shit brothers. I have to work 15 hours a day, Brock, so I don’t end up back in that hellhole with them. Do you understand?”
Brock had no idea what to say. He was stinging from the mention of Jason, and a little bit angry about it, but he was also floored by just how passionately Owen was admitting to hating the ways of his brother. it was surprising to find that what he had taken to be a conspiratorial morning meeting with the devil himself had turned out to be no more than Brock’s own fault for convincing Owen to leave his junky car back at the venue where he had played his last gig.
“When someone says a ride, I don’t typically think it’s going to cost me everything that I’ve been working my ass off for, Brock. And you know what? It’s selfish of you to expect anyone to drop everything for you like that. I –mph…”
Owen’s words were cut off by the ferocity of Brock’s lips, and they kissed passionately and aggressively.