by Odessa Lynne
“Go!” the wolf said again and this time Brendan recognized that profile as the wolf who had walked Brendan through the woods, letting bramble and briar smack into him at every turn, his one small revenge against Brendan for the death of his mate.
Brendan scrambled to his feet and took off toward the door as fast as he could run.
“Obetishiki!”
Brendan’s run was more like a hobble and he careened around the corner of the door too fast, knocking into the broken hinge and just remembering the beam in time to divert his path before he fell over it.
He didn’t remember the dead animal until he’d already skidded on the remains.
“Watch out!” Matthew called out from somewhere ahead, but it was too late.
Brendan’s leg went out from under him and he landed heavy on his knee, knocking his teeth together. He groaned and when he moved, he felt damn lucky that all he felt were a few stiff muscles and a uncomfortable pressure at his leg where the brace had tightened automatically to support his injured ankle.
He heard Matthew shuffling forward and looked up. The high windows weren’t letting in as much light as before, but it had to be getting close to sunset and the wind hadn’t died down, so there was probably a cold front moving in and they might be in for some storms.
“You okay?” Matthew asked.
“I recognized one of those wolves. Trey’s got to be here somewhere if one of his wolves are here.”
“Trey? Who—the First Alpha? They’re all his wolves, aren’t they? So what’s it matter?”
“It matters. He’s here somewhere. I know he is. I don’t want him to find me.” Not yet. Not now. Brendan wasn’t ready to face him again. “He’ll kill me.”
“Maybe—”
“No,” Brendan interrupted. “If I didn’t submit, he was going to kill me. He said it himself. He would’ve too. I don’t doubt that for a single fucking minute. One of his children died in one of the raids—who knows, maybe more. Would you ever let someone responsible for that walk away? Could you?”
“I don’t know. They’re different.”
“Bullshit. They’re not that different.”
That wolf, though, he’d been protecting Brendan, even after his humiliation in front of the other wolves, even believing Brendan had been responsible for the death of his mate.
“He said it himself,” Brendan repeated. Trey had said a lot of things, the words just as fresh and sharp in Brendan’s memory as if it had happened yesterday. “He didn’t think you really love me. He was right about that, wasn’t he?”
Matthew’s eyebrows lowered as his expression went from concerned to confused, but not even a flash of outrage there or denial. If Matthew hadn’t been looming so close, Brendan wouldn’t have been able to tell, but he knew the answer without Matthew saying a word.
Maybe Trey had been right about all of it. How could anybody love who you were?
Who he still was, because unlike Trey, Brendan didn’t think he was a different person then and now. He was the same. His reasons for everything he’d ever done made sense to him, even when no one else understood. He had his regrets, more now than ever after seeing how things had played out, but what was done was done. He couldn’t change the past.
So maybe he just didn’t deserve for anybody to love him. He was a selfish, unforgiving man. Too much like his father, with too little faith in the rest of the universe.
“Forget it,” Brendan said when Matthew didn’t answer. “We need to find a way out of here before we end up dead.”
Matthew agreed, and they spent a few minutes getting their bearings in the deepening dark, as the clang and clatter and more than one vicious roar outside kept the anxious roiling in Brendan’s gut at bay.
He reached for the flashlight, but it was gone. He’d lost it.
Fuck.
In the end, he found the distraction of worrying about whether or not the wolves were going to come chasing after them easier to handle than thinking too hard about the fact that pretty soon he wasn’t going to be able to see his hand in front of his face unless those clouds cleared out and the moon rose high above them to light the factory through the skylights and windows.
They had to be careful not to trip over the debris that littered the floor, much of it hidden in the shadows and unidentifiable under a thick coat of rust and algae.
The building had probably already been twenty or thirty years old when the earthquake hit almost fifty years ago. It wouldn’t stand much longer and every gust of the blustering winds made him feel outright sick with the fear that beat at the edges of his thoughts.
“These stairs go up or down,” Matthew said, voice strained. He sounded tired, and Brendan could sympathize—the day felt like it had dragged on forever—but Matthew had a much more worrying reason to sound so exhausted.
“Are you still bleeding?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Matthew exhaled a slow sigh that got lost in a creaking groan from somewhere above them. “I don’t know. Just hurts. Lot of pain in my arm and fingers.”
Matthew started to take the first step onto the metal grates that made up the stair treads.
Brendan grabbed the back of Matthew’s waistband and yanked him away from the stairs. “No. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Brendan, we don’t have time to pussyfoot around this shit. Those wolves—if they’re those watchers Ash told me about—”
“Ash?” Brendan said, feeling desperate for a distraction as he stared down into the depths below the stairs. “What the hell do you know about that wolf anyway? What did they do to you?”
Matthew looked like he was about to answer when a thought came to Brendan.
“Did that wolf fuck you? Did he try to make you think he cared about you?” His voice came out too loud and harsh, an attack where he’d only meant concern. But the thought of Matthew at the mercy of one of them—all because he’d wanted to protect Brendan—
“No! It wasn’t like that. He just—” But Matthew shut his mouth and reached back and knocked Brendan’s hand off his waistband.
“What?” Brendan demanded. “What did they do to you? You were there just as long as I was on that ship. What happened to you?”
“None of your goddamn business, Brendan.” Matthew stepped down onto the first step. “But just so you know, he didn’t do anything to me but explain a few things and let me cry like a fucking idiot over you for a day and a half.”
Brendan took a deep breath and wiped his hand over his mouth. His nose was trickling blood again. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Let’s just try to get out of here in one piece, okay? I’m tired. I don’t want to spend a cold night in this place. My shirt’s covered in blood.”
Brendan reached out and rubbed the back of Matthew’s head, his soft hair a comfort Brendan shouldn’t have needed.
Matthew shook his head but didn’t otherwise try to push Brendan’s hand away. “Fucker,” Matthew said. “I don’t know why I care about you so goddamn much.”
“You don’t love me.”
“Maybe not. Who knows? I thought I did for a while. I’m just—I’m not strong enough for you. That’s all I know.”
Matthew’s boots clanged on the stair treads as he took another few steps. “Seems sturdy enough,” he said. “Come o—shit!”
Brendan grabbed just as Matthew dropped at least a foot. Metal clanged against metal and the tread beneath Matthew’s foot gave out completely. If Matthew hadn’t been holding the rail and Brendan hadn’t been holding Matthew’s pants, Matthew would’ve fallen through the steps.
Matthew groaned. His hold on the rail had slipped and his weight had caught under his injured shoulder.
Brendan tried to take as much of Matthew’s weight as he could, hefting him up by the seat of his pants. Brendan winced at the thought of how that must feel.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
“Shit.” Matthew tried to
twist around and get his knee up on the step above. Brendan grabbed at the railing nearest to him to keep from tumbling forward at the shift in Matthew’s weight. It took Matthew two tries to get his knees under him on the tread above.
Just as Brendan was about to let go, he heard a rush of sound behind him.
“Shit!” Matthew said again, grabbing for the rail as strong arms wrapped around Brendan’s arms and chest. Brendan struggled against the hold, his heels dragging across the floor as he was pulled away.
Glowing eyes moved out of the shadows as Brendan was dragged away and a wolf reached down and hauled Matthew up by his arm. Matthew screamed.
“Don’t!” Brendan yelled, kicking at the wolf holding him, but he couldn’t break free. “Leave him alone!”
The wolf turned his head in Brendan’s direction, the glow of his eyes all Brendan could make out now that the dark had started to set in.
A clawed hand closed around Brendan’s throat and a rough voice, heavily accented, said, “Would you die to save him?”
But the wolf wasn’t talking about Matthew, because the clouds rolled away and the moonlight spilled through the grimy windows and Trey roared into view from behind Matthew and the other wolf, an alpha howl reverberating through the building and shivering through Brendan’s bones.
Trey leapt toward Brendan without any hesitation or warning, and the moonlight glinted on his sharp eyeteeth as he roared.
Brendan expected to die.
Instead, the wolf holding him threw him to the side and roared at Trey as Trey’s claws came at him in a vicious sweep.
Brendan skidded several feet, skinning his elbows on the rough floor and smacking into a rust-caked beam halfway between the wolves and the stairs.
His ears rang from the hard jolt even as he rolled to his hands and knees and surged to his feet, looking around wildly for Matthew, only to pull up short when he realized Matthew was being carried away from the fighting wolves over the shoulder of the wolf who had pulled him off the stairs. Matthew appeared to have passed out.
“Matthew!” Brendan yelled.
“Stay with Traesikeille!” the wolf ordered in a tone that said he expected to be obeyed. “He’ll protect you. I’m taking this one somewhere safe. The others will be here soon.”
Craig. Brendan recognized that voice.
Craig didn’t slow as he disappeared back into the shadows with Matthew.
The others? Which others? Craig’s answer left Brendan confused, because Brendan had no idea which group of wolves Craig was talking about. Trey’s wolves or the ones who wanted Brendan dead?
Why had Craig abandoned Trey for Matthew? It seemed like a damn foolish thing to do, unless Craig was that confident Trey could handle the other wolf on his own, or—or he wanted Trey to die.
Brendan looked over his shoulder to see Trey with his hands gripping the challenging wolf’s arms, preventing the wolf from taking a swipe at him with his claws. They spoke harshly in the wolves’ language, low, quick words, as they struggled, but the wind kicked up and the sound became lost on a groaning screech that rose on the air around them.
The other wolf lunged forward, his teeth grazing Trey’s cheek. Brendan missed the wolf’s next move because the lurch of the floor under his feet knocked him to his ass and he watched in horror as the floor beneath Trey and the other wolf gave way.
“Trey!” he yelled, unable to stop the fear that felt torn from his chest. “Trey!”
But the wolves were gone.
Chapter 28
“Oh my God,” Brendan muttered. He couldn’t think. He scrambled onto his knees and crawled toward the broken stairway that led down.
Wind swirled around him, fluttering the hem of his sweat-damp t-shirt against his skin. Somewhere, the building had been opened to the outside even more than before, but the clouds chose that moment to cover the moon and he couldn’t see anything for a few seconds.
The rail felt cold and gritty under his palm as he closed his hand around the rusty metal and slowly felt his way to the landing.
All he could hear was the creak and pop of old metal and wood, the random loud clack of brick and concrete settling, and the whining wind rushing through the old factory.
“Oh my God.” Somewhere down there—
No. No, no, no. Wolves didn’t die easily. Brendan knew that. He knew it, better than most. That goddamn wolf was probably healing right now, while Brendan clung to the fucking rail and tried to get his breathing to slow down enough so he wouldn’t hyperventilate like a goddamn twelve-year-old.
He wasn’t that person. He could do this.
He remembered that last hug, that moment when he’d been so afraid … so afraid he was about to lose everything he knew about himself. Afraid he’d lose Trey. But he hadn’t. This—this was him. He’d always been the same person, and he wouldn’t leave Trey down there, trapped in the dark and alone. He refused to do that, even if—
Even if—
No.
Brendan squeezed the rail again and shook it hard, but other than an echoing clang, nothing happened.
Common sense told him he was going to die if he went down those steps.
But how would he get through the rest of his life if he walked away and just left Trey there, alone? He couldn’t do it. He had to know Trey was alive.
He put his boot on the first step, trusting his gut to tell him if the tread was safe. His fingers clenched tight on the rail but the twisting discomfort he’d felt earlier with Matthew wasn’t there.
His mother had always told him he had more of her inside him than he realized. Last year, when she’d told him the truth about her lies, he’d felt like such a fool, but now—now he couldn’t help but wonder just what the truth was. His gut was telling him he’d make it down the stairs, the same way his gut had told him Matthew wouldn’t.
“Fuck,” he muttered, gaining a small measure of relief. So he cursed again.
Then he grabbed the rail tight and stretched carefully past the gaping hole left by the treads Matthew’s weight had knocked loose. His boot-heel banged against a metal riser and his stomach dropped, but then his feet hit the next tread down, and that tread took his weight. And so did the next one. And the next, and he made his way down the staircase, one slow step at a time.
Just as he reached the bottom, the clouds parted to allow the moonlight to filter through, crawling over the thick layer of filth and the jutting concrete and rebar and broken beams a foot at a time, illuminating the path between him and the bodies of Trey and the wolf he’d been fighting. Neither wolf moved, bodies tangled in the debris.
Brendan had to fight to breathe.
He wasn’t sure how long it took, climbing carefully over the debris. His boot slipped at least twice, and he had to yank his foot out of a crevice that had formed between a beam and a chunk of the floor from above to keep going. He thought he was going to fall once, when the piece of floor under him—piled atop something on a sharp angle—wobbled precariously, but he stilled and waited and when he started crawling over it again, he felt like he was trying to make his way across an icy pond, the creak and pop of his every move firing his blood with adrenaline.
The shadow of bodies was only a few feet away when another harsh gust of wind rocked the whole building and the moonlight disappeared.
Brendan grabbed the jutting edge of a piece of concrete and held on as the debris under him shifted and moaned.
A piece of one of the windows high overhead broke loose and crashed to the ground, too near, and Brendan had trouble swallowing past the panic closing his throat tight. His fingers didn’t want to release their grip on the concrete and he had to talk himself out of staying put with a few whispered curses.
Coming down here had to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done.
But no—
“This boy,” his mother had said. “He sounds nice enough, but I’ve heard things about his family.” She’d patted the back of Brendan’s head, running her maimed fingers through his ha
ir and he’d shaken off the touch because he didn’t want a lecture. He’d met a boy that day and even though they’d started off fighting, by the end of the school day, he’d been sure this one was the one. They were meant to be, and he was heading over to Ian’s house to look at some of the guns Ian claimed his grandfather had collected over the years. Brendan wasn’t sure he believed him—everybody knew owning real guns was illegal and could get you sent to prison if the wrong people found out. But if Ian was telling the truth then it meant he trusted Brendan. No one had ever trusted Brendan like that before because his dad was a state representative and his mom was just weird sometimes.
“Come on, Mom, you’re the one told me I’d meet someone. It’s him. I know it is. It happened just like you said it would.”
“I know I’ve always told you to listen to your heart, but things aren’t always what they seem,” she said. “Don’t jump to conclusions about who this boy is. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“It’s him. I know it is.”
She’d shaken her head and sighed and left him to shove his feet into his shoes and gone back to the veo screen. She had started spending every spare moment she had scouring the space scopes for signs from the stars. She’d gotten to where she ignored him more often than not these days and he would’ve probably cared about the neglect more if he hadn’t been so busy with school and working part-time for his father in his reelection campaign.
His dad and his mom didn’t like each other, but their divorce had been put on hold for some reason Brendan didn’t understand. It wasn’t like they’d made up, that was for sure. And honestly, having married parents made him stick out at school. He wished they’d just go ahead and get the divorce finished and then he could choose where he’d live—Ian would come visit if he stayed with his mom, he was sure of it. And maybe—God, he felt a thrill even thinking about it—maybe they’d even have sex. Brendan started to get hard just thinking about it and he hurried so he could get out of the house before anyone else saw him.
He’d really wanted Ian to be his first.
Ian hadn’t been. Not even a fucking kiss.