by Odessa Lynne
He felt it when the wolf picked up speed, his walk turning into a jog that caused Brendan to feel like he was never going to catch his breath. He could hear the panting breath of someone nearby and he assumed it must be Matthew keeping up.
Then a swoosh and a low beep started, followed by a free fall that stole his breath. His back hit a hard cushion and gravity reasserted itself right side up.
Brendan curled forward, but someone pushed him back and pulled something tight across his chest.
“He should be able to move again soon. Watch him. I have to set our course.”
Hands patted his face, none too gently. “Can you open your eyes yet?”
Son of a bitch. That voice didn’t belong to Matthew.
Ian.
He worked his throat and was finally able to swallow. His eyes still didn’t want to open so he sat there for a moment, breathing in the flat-smelling air.
His crotch was cool and wet and his underwear felt glued to his balls. That was going to chafe later if he didn’t get a change of clothes. Not to mention the strong smell. He hadn’t pissed since he’d been shoved in that room and he’d already needed to empty his bladder when the wolves had come for him.
“Brendan. Wake up. I know you’re in there.”
“Fuck you,” Brendan managed to say after another few seconds.
“You’re welcome for the rescue,” Ian said.
“Like I said, fuck you,” Brendan said again. Just because he could. And because whatever they’d done to him had made him piss himself. Something about that just rubbed him wrong.
“God, I should’ve known you’d be a dick.”
Brendan opened his eyes and glared at Ian. “Save your piss and vinegar for later.”
“You sure didn’t,” Ian said. “Looks just like you pissed yourself.”
“Fuck. You.” He took a moment to collect his thoughts. “What the hell, Ian? I thought—” He cut off that angle of conversation. Ian obviously didn’t hate him after all, although he probably should. “How’d you do it?”
Ian looked back over his shoulder from his squat in front of Brendan. Brendan followed his gaze. They were in a ship that looked a lot like the one Trey had first taken him up in, although this one seemed to be quite a bit smaller, and he looked to be strapped in a chair facing the rear, where a doorway led … somewhere.
“Matthew’s up front with Ash.”
“Ash?”
“The wolf that carried you here. I can’t say his real name and I’m not trying.”
Brendan remembered Trey laughing at him when he’d tried so hard to say the name of that beast. He scowled.
Ian frowned at him, his hand coming to rest on Brendan’s knee. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he snapped. Short and to the point. Brendan wished—he wished memories of Trey would quit digging their way out of his thoughts at the least provocation—that’s what he wished.
Brendan casually brushed Ian’s hand aside and Ian’s frown intensified, but a door behind Brendan opened and he heard Matthew’s voice.
“Talk about a fucking rush.”
Brendan tried to twist around to see but the strap that stretched across his chest and held his arms down stopped him and he couldn’t get his head around far enough. Awkwardly, he patted at the section of strap he could reach. “Undo me. I can hold myself up now.”
“Sure.” Ian reached up and pulled on something and then the pressure against Brendan’s chest eased.
“Something smells like piss back here,” he heard Matthew say.
“That would be my goddamn pants,” Brendan said. He closed his eyes and sighed before reopening them and catching Ian’s flash of smile.
Matthew came around the seat, squeezing between it and the one beside it. “Hey, you okay?”
Brendan glared up at Matthew.
“Yeah, okay,” Matthew said, shooting Ian a grimace. “Bitching already. He’s fine.”
“Here,” Brendan said, sticking his hand out. Matthew’s brow furrowed but he reached out and clasped his fingers around Brendan’s, probably assuming Brendan wanted his help getting up.
Brendan yanked Matthew down to him and kissed him hard on the mouth.
Chapter 22
Matthew froze, startled, his reaction to Brendan’s kiss oddly weak considering their former—current, goddammit, current—relationship.
Matthew broke away, and Brendan would’ve liked to have thought it was too soon, that he wasn’t ready, but—he really didn’t care. The kiss hadn’t been nearly as satisfying as he’d thought it would be and all he could think was that Trey’s lips had been firmer and had tasted better and had made his skin feel too tight and his body too hot.
Fuck.
“Ash,” Ian said, looked up over Brendan’s shoulder again, his tone cautious. “How’re things looking? Are we safe?”
Ash, as Ian called him, anchored his hand on the back of Brendan’s seat, his claws scraping the upper edge of Brendan’s shoulder. Brendan stiffened at the touch, and then forced himself to relax.
He needed this guy to get out of here. And obviously the wolf hadn’t hurt Matthew during his time on the ship, because what was the likelihood that Matthew and him would be working together if he had?
“We’ll be there soon.”
“You mean we’ve already left the big ship?” Brendan asked, twisting around in the seat and taking hold of the backrest. “That was quick.”
“We were in a hurry.” Ash drew his hand away and stepped back, putting a foot or so of distance between the humans and himself.
“Well.” Brendan scrubbed at his jaw. “Are you working with Jay?”
“No,” Ash said. “I don’t know that name.”
Brendan glanced between Matthew and Ash. “So how’d this happen?”
Matthew dropped down into the seat beside Brendan. “It’s complicated, but the short story is that there are these watchers—”
“Rogues,” Ash said. “Loyal watchers are highly-valued pack members.”
“Yeah, rogue watchers, and they’re out to remove the First Alpha from power, by any means necessary, and they believe in some crazy prophecy—”
“The prophecy is real,” Ash interrupted again, his expression grave. “But like many of the words that come from the Diviners, the words of the prophecy are subject to interpretation. The rogues interpret the words differently than the packs that follow Traesikeille.”
Brendan recalled the words the Diviners had spoken to him and felt a chill. Like his mother, they were probably just liars intent on making people think they had some kind of supernatural insight into the world around them.
He no longer believed in psychics, but even when he had, he hadn’t admitted it freely because when he was growing up, he’d never wanted his friends to think he was a crackpot. Then the wolves came, and he’d known no one would take him seriously if he admitted to believing his mother had predicted the dark times ahead.
Now he was glad he’d never admitted to any of that shit to anyone but his father. Because that’s all it had been. Bullshit.
Dark times had come, though, with the collapse of the budding international economy and half the governments of the world and the shifting of power in the governments that were left. The biggest change to affect him came when the American government had split in two and formed the American Protectorate that became the official human government for the areas where the largest number of wolves had settled.
They’d settled into many of the sparsely inhabited Appalachians on this end of the country, where over fifty years ago the great “quake that broke a river” had left behind so much destruction and chaos: many old buildings and abandoned cities hadn’t quite disappeared yet, including an old nuclear power plant which had suffered enough damage to cause a massive scare that he’d heard stories about from his mother’s folks when he was a kid.
The wolves had settled in plenty of other places across the country and the world, but under the new rule of t
he American Protectorate, they’d taken over a huge area that bordered Brendan’s childhood home, and that of his friends’.
Living in the same places as the wolves was dangerous come the wolves’ once-every-three-Earth-years’ heat season. So dangerous that the wolves and the humans had built shelters for those who refused to give up their property to the wolves. Some people moved to the shelters when the heat season hit. Some people didn’t.
Brendan’s father had made the smart choice and taken the wolves’ offer of trade, while many others refused.
Brendan’s father had also spent a fortune on what weapons and supplies he could get his hands on and set Brendan the difficult task of running a group of renegades in the area.
The son of a bitch had made sure Brendan knew why he had to do it too.
Brendan’s involvement with the renegades had stuck a wedge between him and his friends, Ian and Devon, in a way that he’d begun to believe he’d never get past.
And yet here Ian was.
His friends hadn’t abandoned him, even though—even though maybe they should have.
Brendan gripped the back of the seat at the top and pulled himself to his feet. He didn’t like looking up at the wolf.
Too weak, too much like—
Submission.
“How do you interpret them?” Brendan asked pointedly, getting his mind back on the problem at hand. He wasn’t comfortable with this wolf’s sudden reveal as an opponent to Trey’s rule and he wasn’t sure where the feeling was coming from. But something wasn’t right. He’d always put a lot of trust in his gut feelings. It usually paid off.
Of course, that wasn’t always the case, or he wouldn’t have screwed up so bad with Ian, but that was in the past now. Obviously Ian had gotten over it.
Ash looked to Matthew. “The prophecy says what it says. I interpret it the only way I can.”
“Okay,” Brendan said, contemplating the non-answer. He looked down at Ian.
“Raider?”
Ian pushed himself to his feet with his hands at his thighs. “He’s going to get you back to Earth. What you do when you get there isn’t going to be our problem. Matthew’s going with you. Ash is going to get me back to Craig after you’re gone.”
The words were like a stab in the chest. Brendan stared at Ian, fists clenching at his side. “You’d go back to him?”
“I’ll always go back to him. You—I don’t even know where to start, Brendan, but you’re messed up. I hope to God you think about what you’re doing before you do it next time—they don’t deserve—”
“Don’t you fucking dare tell me what they deserve.” Brendan didn’t raise his voice but his words shook with the force of his emotion. “That fucking wolf used me for sex the whole time I was on his fucking ship. I might as well have been property to him. He sure as hell treated me that way.”
Lies. Lies, lies, lies.
“I’m not getting into an argument with you,” Ian said. “I saved your ass, and now we’re done.”
“Oh yeah, just like we were done before.”
Brendan reached for Ian’s arm, meaning to give him a shake, but Ian blocked him and twisted and shoved Brendan back, and he landed on his ass in the seat.
Ash looked on with an unreadable expression on his face and a casual stance that belied the way his fingers flexed, even though his claws were conspicuously absent.
“Guys,” Matthew said loudly, sticking his arm between them.
“Shit, Raider,” Brendan said. “I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“You and Matthew can get somewhere safe before the wolves find you,” was all Ian said, and then he shouldered his way past Matthew and Ash both and went through the door that appeared to lead to the front of the ship.
So maybe Ian hadn’t forgiven him after all. The thought hurt like a son of a bitch, but Brendan swallowed it down and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and his forehead in his hands.
Matthew rubbed the back of Brendan’s neck, his touch almost tentative. “Hey,” he said, “you’ll be okay.”
“I know I will,” Brendan said. “Because I’m always okay. No matter what the hell happens. I’m always okay.”
“Hey,” Matthew said again. “You don’t have to sound like a dick about it. I’m just trying to help.”
“Stop treating me like a fucking idiot then. You know I’m not okay. I can’t stop thinking about—God. About everything.” He dug the heels of his hands against his eye sockets, but all he did was cause sparks of color to shoot through his vision. The memories didn’t go away.
He reached back and knocked Matthew’s hand off his neck. The phantom touch of Trey’s clawed hand remained.
“Sorry,” Matthew grumbled, raising his hand in a placating gesture. “Won’t touch you again.”
“Yeah. That’d probably be best.” Brendan clenched his fists between his knees and stared at the floor of the ship.
“You’re the one who thought it was a good idea for some of us to try to get inside their dens. You think about that for a while. What you’ve been through—it’s not that different.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Brendan snapped. “At least the guys—”
He shut his mouth. At least they’d known who they were. He’d not only taken it, but he’d asked for it. He still had that horrible feeling that if he’d been given the chance, he’d have been happy to live the rest of his life without the memories that made him who he was. Because he’d been wrong. He wasn’t more than a collection of memories. They were all he had to keep him going. The nightmares, his mother, his father, those things drove him. They made him who he was.
“Fucking wolves,” he muttered.
But really, Matthew was right. He remembered that feeling he’d had, that he was a monster for what he’d asked his guys to do.
Maybe he was, but he had good reason.
And what had just happened to him proved it. The wolves were dangerous and they’d take everything before they were done. Even his goddamn self-respect.
Matthew stood there for a moment, Ash a few feet away, and Brendan just glared at the floor and ignored them both. Finally Matthew turned and moved toward the front of the ship and Ash followed.
Brendan watched them surreptitiously, his gaze cataloging every stray movement Ash made. When they disappeared through the doorway that led to the front of the ship, Brendan let out a harsh exhale.
He’d been right. Something was up. He couldn’t trust any of these people. Not Ian, who’d been his best friend since he was a kid, nor Matthew, who had been his last lover.
Trey didn’t fucking count. He would never count.
Brendan pushed his hands in against his eyes again, trying to stem the burn that bled into the back of his nose and made his throat close up tight.
None of those feelings were real, he reminded himself viciously. It had all been an attempt to brainwash him. To steal his soul and turn him against himself. That’s all. Trey hadn’t ever meant any of it. And it didn’t matter if he had. Brendan had his own agenda and it didn’t mesh with being some wolf’s fucking sex slave.
Mate. The word insinuated itself into the cracks of his mind. You were his mate.
Fucking Stockholm syndrome was what it was.
Chapter 23
Brendan took the last of the halfgas from the generator that kept the electricity on and the water running in Ian’s house.
“Get the handle,” he told Matthew.
Matthew sighed and grumbled but he did as Brendan said and grasped the other side of the heavy container and they hauled it to the all-terrain utility vehicle he’d had stashed in the basement of his parents old house. He’d barely had enough halfgas left in his own generator to power the vehicle long enough to get here. The battery wouldn’t charge much as long as the sun stayed behind the thick clouds overhead so they’d need all the halfgas they could carry.
It’d been four hours since Ian had dumped them a few miles into the woods from Brendan’s old place with
the warning that he wouldn’t have long to get out if he didn’t want the wolves to catch up with him.
The blustery wind kept blowing up the bottom edge of his t-shirt and the air held a chill that promised rain.
Thank God he’d taken the time to change out of his pissed-in jeans. He hated to think how uncomfortable he would be right then if he hadn’t. The t-shirt was too tight in the shoulders and he was pretty sure it used to belong to Ian. Though to be honest he wasn’t sure how he’d ended up with it.
Fall was coming in earnest now, the leaves gone yellow and orange over the last week. Chasing down the wolves’ dens couldn’t continue when the woods thinned and the brush died out, because the wolves had such good distance vision and Brendan and his guys had nowhere to hide.
The wolves also had technology that made finding their dens near impossible unless someone stumbled over one. That was one of the reasons he’d come up with the idea that some of the guys were going to have to let themselves get caught while wearing the trackers he’d gotten from Devon.
Devon always had done the best work. After Brendan had met Devon and they’d been fucking for a few weeks, Brendan had mentioned Devon’s skills to his father. Robson Greer had been in the middle of an election year and he’d hired Devon to do a few things for him.
Devon never had really said what those things were, but Brendan wasn’t at all surprised when his father’s opponent ended up losing the election everyone thought he was sure to win, because of some shit from his past coming to light in the last few weeks of the race.
Of course, that was all before the wolves came and changed everything. His father was still a Representative in the government but now his place was in the American Protectorate and his role had expanded greatly because the Protectorate acted independently of the rest of the States.
The treaty with the wolves had seen to that.
A power grab, nothing more, as far as Brendan was concerned. Food and halfgas cost so much these days that people went without one or the other on a daily basis. Hence the need to steal all the halfgas from Ian’s generator. Ian was probably already back with that wolf anyway—Craig, Brendan remembered. Then he tried to push aside the memory of Craig as the young wolf Trey had saved from the beast when Trey was barely an adult himself.