by Roxanne Lee
He nodded in acceptance and his eyes wandered around the room as his thoughts spun intricate patterns and displayed curious twitches in his facial muscles. I felt the need to see inside his head, figure out what caused those expressions and follow his unique trail. He was a puzzle in a gleaming box, something I could spend quite some time figuring out.
"Get dressed...come downstairs. I'll tell you a story." He smiled rather blankly as if it was a forced expression, something he only did to make those around him feel more comfortable. "Perhaps you'll understand...my position."
I nodded and stood from the bed, limping slightly with the pull to wounds still in the healing process. I really needed to feed soon, the tingle in my stomach was a familiar sensation, one that pre-warns for future clawing. I'd expended a lot of energy that needed to be replaced and I'd prefer to do that before it became some deeper hollowed abyss.
A rumble trembled around the room, echoing through my chest and answering the steady beat the empath already played in my gut. I looked up and saw Lane with his eyes on my thigh, little flashes of the wolf's amber breaking through grey and forcing his jawline to stand out in sharp angles, deepening the hollows of his cheekbones. Shadows that dipped over the lines of his face, paling the tan skin to an unnatural tone and coercing an animalistic structure. A beast that fought it's human for rights to the body they shared.
I found a pair of jeans on the chair near the door, kept the t-shirt that someone had already dressed me in. As soon as I covered the bite marks in my leg the rumbles came to an abrupt halt.
"It bothers me...that another wolf bit you."
That was both weirdly obsessive and oddly intriguing. "It tried to tear my leg off - I don't think it was flirting."
He grunted again and shrugged those big shoulders."Still don't like...its teeth in you."
I hummed back at him and dropped the conversation, I'd learned early on that male wolves were exasperating creatures. "Whose clothes are these?"
"One of the females...don't know which one."
I raised an eyebrow, "do you know any of their names?"
He peered at me at confusion. "No. They are unimportant."
I probably should have taken the high road and said that he should make an effort to get to know the pack he was in charge of. I found myself smiling at him though - it seems I'm bitter like that. I passed him as he held the door open for me, a gesture I was surprised he made. I walked ahead of him towards the stairs, already scenting a strong, heady aroma of some kind of Cuban coffee bean - it seemed the new female liked decent coffee. His soft treads behind me gave me an unexpected twinge of safety, like a chained and muzzled tiger guarding your back - something that could never quite be a domesticated pet.
He sighed a little and I started at the sudden sound breaking the silence. "I don't like that...I hurt you. Wolf doesn't...like it."
I turned a curious gaze on him,"you seemed pretty happy about it at the time."
He frowned at me, "I am never sure...if you are serious or not."
I grinned widely.
He sighed again,"would you like to...hurt me?"
"What?" His cloak of sanity was quite obviously dropping again.
He lifted his shirt - still covered in splattered remains of the slaughter, it made me wonder for a moment, why he'd taken the time to dress when he shifted from his wolf, only to bathe once more in the sodden, stained mud. I quickly became distracted by an art piece of genetic engineering - the parts that synced together to make this wolf and his human form. It was someone's most perfect accomplishment, granite like muscle that carved and clenched at each tiny movement, dips and raises of heated skin that wrapped tightly around his solid stomach. He was not lean - I don't think that word did him justice. There was no excess fat - a hard thing to accomplish as wolf anyway but, it was more than that. He wasn't just born this way, it was taking what he'd been given and torturing his body into submission. Starting with a single building block and constructing a towering masterpiece.
He coughed quietly and raised his eyebrows as I forced my eyes back to his. "Stab me."
"What?!"
"I would feel better...if you stabbed me."
The man was clearly on crack. "I'd rather not right now."
He narrowed his eyes again and let his shirt fall back to cover his stomach."The offer is open...if you feel the need."
How sweet.
I turned back around and hurried down the stairs, perhaps Arya would be more on my level and I wasn't sure how much more of Lane I could take. I put a hand on the heavy, oak kitchen door and paused before entering. "You can't just flash your abs every time you fuck up, you know?"
I almost felt the nod of his head behind me. "Yes. There are...other body parts though."
He made a joke?
That was a joke right?
The kitchen was clear of females as we entered. The coffee brewed slowly in a pot on the side counter, a trickle that wavered in thick accents to fill the large room. Perhaps the rest of the pack were feeling their losses privately - away from the empath intruders. I stood at the window and peered out at a lowering sun, burnt orange that promised a clear start tomorrow, low enough in the sky to cast it's last golden rays on the evenings encroaching first frost. Daylight's final stand against the dark's frigid, black invasion.
A group of trees wavered in the chilling wind, bowing to the sun’s lost seat, trailing the floor with budding green leaves. Arya sat beneath the solid trunk of the largest one, it's falling branches almost covering her from view.
"She likes those...trees." Lane stepped up behind me, his arms on either side of the counter as he boxed me in against the sink. "Coffee will be done...soon. She won't want...to miss it."
His breath puffed against my hair, his head low enough to whisper words against my ear. Shivers worked their way along my forearm, traveled a daunting path all the way to my neck. I found it harder to catch my breath and harder to fight the urge to lean back into that solid chest.
I snapped my eyes open and blew out a lungful of air. "I'll get her."
Less than graceful, I ducked under his arm and skipped to the doorway, eager to breathe free and clearly under the falling mist. Such suffocating summer showers and rolling thunder in that house, like I couldn't take a single taste without drowning in his essence.
I walked quickly to Arya's relaxed form, lent back against the tree, eyes closed to the muted light around her. "Coffee’s nearly done."
She smiled slightly,"smells good doesn't it?"
I nodded and waited for her eyes to focus on me. It took a good minute before she opened up back to the world around her.
"You should have tried the sludge I used to drink. Awful.” She sighed a little, “although sometimes I kind of wish I could taste it again.”
I cocked my head to the side in question but she only closed her eyes again and shook her head in response. "Charlie will be here soon. You'll like him." Green eyes flashed wide once more and I waited patiently for her to continue. "He's like you."
I gaped a little at her. "Really?"
She smiled again, "yes. Probably has a bit more inside then even you do."
"Where's he from?"
She cocked her own head my way, "where they're all from - the guard."
At that moment I finally understood my own stupidity."The Captain. Of the Guard." It was my own recognition of how much I'd managed to miss in their conversation and how I foolish I'd been to look past that exceptional fighting ability. "I'm such an idiot."
She chuckled quietly,"you wouldn't be the first one." She narrowed her eyes my way, "does it make a difference to you? That he's a guard?"
I snorted, "that's the least of his problems."
She hummed,"so I've been told." Her gaze was rather old for a wolf I was pretty sure was quite a few years younger than me. "It's not all its cracked up to be."
"What isn't?"
She shrugged, "revenge. Has a habit of biting you in the ass."
I l
ent forward to rest my hands on my knees, allowing a little relaxation to fill my own body."I'm a little annoyed at fate. Now I know why Conall laughed so much."
She laughed even louder."We're the best of enemies - fate and I. I'll give you a little advice - sometimes it's less about what you're willing to do and more about what you're willing to lose."
It didn't seem like advice to take lightly. "What about what I'm willing to let go?"
Green eyes flashed a little gold in the center. "She'll have her way, whatever you do. Be sure you're willing to take the consequences."
Chapter 20
"Before I was Wolf...before I found immortality...empaths found me."
Heated smoke of simmering roasted beans twirled lazily in the dimming light. A flood of rich, burnt hazelnut that floated serenely on the air.
"I'd lost my parents...don't quite remember how. Wandering the woods in...stockings and breeches."
A reddish angry glow hovered in its finality, burning the heavy oak table to auburn with its flaming glare. The sun's last ditch attempt to stay it's hold over the day's end, a dying break through the overwhelming night.
"Two hundred years ago. Can't remember a single thing...about my father's face, but I remember...in vivid detail...the moment those people found me."
A chill dropped slowly over the warmer air, evening's companion that chased away the rebellious sun. Such frozen night that beat against a golden king, shadowed warriors of Arctic chill that dethroned a burning emperor.
"I smiled as they walked...towards me. Felt joy as they...took me away. I happily allowed them...to lead me on-wards...in my own destruction."
Silence blanketed the world. As if those shadows brought a deafening end along with them, dragging an iron curtain over the frosted forest. Deadened air that suffocates in its free falling sleep.
"Two took me to...their village. Fifty were waiting...to feed. Grief kept them sated...for some time. Pain became necessary...within a year."
Muscles strained against a thickened voice. A throat that worked to force that deep timber forward. A catch with each pause for breath, like he missed a vital part of his inner-workings - as if the construction of ligaments from throat to mouth was broken beyond repair.
"I wasted away...tied to a post, bare to the elements. The rope dug into my skin...until it grew within me, flesh healed over cable. I became emaciated quickly...as the wolf grew with maturity...it ate away at my body. They fed so often...fed me so little...I could not replace what they stole."
Steel eyes as cold as the shadows that fought for supremacy. Fire burned brightly in the center and melted cool steel to liquid silver. Consuming the shadows with flames as the wolf pushed his essence through the man.
"They put steel tipped barbs...on a cat whip. Tails of a thousand stabbing knives. They sank into my legs...with every crack and ripped away...flesh with every pull. They slit my throat...marveling at the blood that spilled. Wolf is the only reason...I lived."
A crackling roared to life in the living room. The fireplace pulling in oxygen and releasing it's waste through the chimney. Popping wood spat embers to the floor, singeing that marble surround with tiny smoldering comets.
"I was seven when they...took me. Fourteen when Carver...arrived. My wolf fought his brothers...raged against these strangers...like some rabid dog. I was taken to Carver's mother...wild and uncontrollable. She made me...what I am now."
Buttery leather creaked under mountainous weight. Roughened hands, calloused from work and fight, rubbed back and fore in monotonous obsession on solid thighs. Tiny tips breached the fingers, claws prodding at their skin cage to be released. Flashes of rippling beneath the dermis as the animal shifted within.
"Years later...I killed them all. Each one I ripped...their flesh from their bones...as they had done to me. Duncan found many of them...found your parents. I may not have...retained my sanity, but I remember...every face that smiled as I fractured."
The wolf pined, shuddered as his voice became harsher, as the struggle to continue showed in his throat. Skin that strained against the quivering muscles, pain in that stilted speech as breath choked the words from his mouth.
"Covered in blood...it rained down on me. Killed them all."
I lifted a shaky hand to his lips, placed my palm against such soft skin. I stopped any more words from trying to force their way out. "That's enough." I picked up one of his hands, still rubbing a friction path down his trousers and passed a mug of still steaming coffee into it. "Drink."
I watched the pull of sinew as his throat worked to swallow, a wince with each gulp as though the movement physically hurt. I would have imagined the wolf bursting through to have healed the damage. Either the wolf had not been strong enough to complete the healing or the remaining problems he had with his speech were a residual psychological effect. It was astounding to me, that his voice was the only obvious issue, I doubt I would have made it as far as he had. "She did a good job, Lane."
He frowned at me while soothing that ragged voice with silken hazelnut and caffeine.
"Carver's mother, she did a real good job."
He smiled. A little twitch to his lips that hid bright, white teeth. Less the predator he always seemed and more just simple expression. The ripples had ceased under his skin, the wolf calmer without reliving the atrocity that nurtured him. I hesitated to ask, not wanting to disturb the peace he seemed to find, but finally realized it was the only way to get the answers I sought.
"Did Duncan kill them? My friends in town?"
He coughed slightly, stretching that muscle to work once more. "He said he’d left me a present, I’d been chasing him...for over a day. Still don’t understand...why he did it"
A little flash of memory froze my hand in motion, lifted to push my hair away from my eyes, a tiny eight year old so stilled in terror that she'd not noticed her surroundings. "Was he with you that day? When you let me leave?”
He shook his head in denial. "I didn't know...you were mine."
I huffed at him."That's not what I'm saying. He would have seen that you just let me leave, maybe he knew what you didn't."
He shook his head again, slower this time. "You were a child...don't think I would have...killed you anyway."
Nice to know he was so sure about that. I rolled my eyes at him,"maybe he thought it was odd. Perhaps he's always known where I was. Killing Michael and Sarah gave him a reaction from me - seeking the wolf that left his smell in the house. I’d always been days behind you previously, I’d never caught your scent before.” I furrowed my brow falling deeper into thought. “What does he want from you?”
Lane growled. "To join him...in his madness. Been chasing him...since he betrayed the guard."
He took the time to explain all of Duncan’s betrayals to me. His murder of the old man that had saved Arya, his attempt to kill the Captain’s mate and his years long game of putting her under the control of one sadistic empath. I could admit my mistakes in this enlightening conversation, admit when I had been wrong about what drove an Alpha wolf to kill.
"What has the best chance of turning your beast to madness faster than anything else?"
Little rumbles vibrated his chest, anger at what could have been. "Realizing it had...killed it's mate in one of its rages."
I widened my eyes his way."I would never have won against you, you're a guard - I never really stood a chance."
"I smelt empath...your wolf was just stronger."
I clicked my fingers at him,"Ty rarely came with me to Sarah's house. Doesn't like to be around other strong empaths, finds it difficult to keep his own under control. Duncan didn't recognize him in that store - he's only ever seen me at that house. You weren't chasing him, he was leading you there."
He growled low and deadly, some serious fury simmering to a boil. "Don't like...the games he plays."
I nodded in agreement."I’m not a fan either."
He winced again and I passed him my coffee that was still only half empty even thoug
h, for a change, he'd done most of the talking. I wondered at Duncan's failed plan, if I was even correct in my assumptions. That night in my house as a young girl, Lane's wolf had been in full control. It didn't seem such a large leap of thought to believe the animal had known what the man hadn't been ready to realize.