by Odessa Lynne
Brendan’s face closed down and his mouth went white around the edges. He stared at Devon, his pale blue eyes wide with shock or hurt. Devon wasn’t sure and didn’t care at that particular moment anyway. He wanted to go back to sleep. He’d been sitting, unmoving, in the same position for the last few minutes and he could have been floating and he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference.
Brendan put his hand down on the floor and started trying to maneuver himself to his feet. His back hit the cot behind him and the metal frame screeched a few inches across the floor.
Devon closed his eyes again and let himself drift away. His questions could wait.
He wasn’t sure how much later it was—could have been seconds or minutes—but he startled awake to the sound of his name, “Devon!”
Brendan had his hands under Devon’s arm, tugging hard enough to pinch the underside painfully.
“What?” he mumbled.
“You need to get back on the bed. Come on.”
“Why?”
“’Cause you need to rest. Because the floor is filthy. That’s why.”
But that wasn’t the question Devon had been asking. He put his knees under him and knelt up on the floor. “Why’re you helping me?”
“Because—fuck this. Get your ass off the floor, Devon, come on.”
Devon stumbled up for the second it took Brendan to manhandle him into position over the cot, and then he dropped down and curled up on his side.
“Fucking wolves. That medicine isn’t doing anything for you at all. They’re going to let you die in here. I tried to tell them—”
“Can’t take it,” Devon said, voice hoarse and dry. “Don’t let them give me any more of it.”
“If I can stop them, you can bet your ass I’m not letting them give you any more of it.”
“I had treatments.” Devon inhaled and thought about going to sleep again, but Brendan patted the side of his face.
“Devon. What are you talking about? What treatments?”
“When the wolves came. I had treatments…” He wasn’t sure how much of his words came out audible.
“When the wolves came? You mean—what the fuck? You mean you were dying from some disease when the wolves came? Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
“Don’t want to talk about it.” Devon tucked his arm around his stomach and turned his face into the flat pillow, breathing in the clean cool scent.
“Devon! Don’t go back to sleep.”
But Devon didn’t listen. He was so tired he couldn’t resist.
The next thing to wake him was the sound of Brendan’s voice, stridently loud. He missed some of what he was saying, but it was enough to make him turn his head and open his eyes, looking for whoever Brendan was cursing.
“…getting worse. Get somebody in here and get away from him with that needle!”
He heard a clatter and blinked and his eyes focused on the swing of Brendan’s crutch. He heard a growl that raised the hair on his overly-sensitive skin and he rolled over onto his back.
“What is it?” he muttered and he felt the prick of a needle jab into his thigh and he jerked. “Shit. No more. Can’t—”
“You fucking—he can’t take your goddamned medicine! You’re going to kill him!”
Another clatter and then Brendan hollered and Devon hissed because the needle came out on an angle and he heard a door slam open and a roar filled his head.
“Don’t.”
“Kem,” Devon said, because he was sure to his soul that was the voice he’d heard. “No more…” Medicine. No more medicine, he tried to say, but then his stomach cramped again and he opened his eyes wide and rolled to the side as fast as he could, which turned out not to be fast enough as he started gagging and coughing.
Luckily, he had almost nothing left in his stomach so he didn’t choke. But he lost track of what he was doing or what anyone else was doing, until he felt the gentle brush of a hand across the back of his neck.
“I’m taking him with me,” he heard Kem say. “I’ll answer to Alpha when this is done but he can’t stay here. I won’t let him die in this room with this one even if he is one of them.”
One of who? Devon didn’t know.
The cot creaked and he felt someone—Kem—picking him up by the arm and a warm hand settled on his ribs, then Kem took him away from Brendan and the wolf holding Brendan back with an arm around his throat and claws at his chest.
The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness again was Brendan yelling at the top of his lungs, “I told you fuckers! He’s a dick that I wouldn’t have guarding my back if he was the last human on Earth. I already told you, he isn’t one of us, you goddamned fuckers!”
Chapter 21
Something cold pressed to Devon’s forehead and he flinched awake. “Stop,” he said, raising his arm to push the cold away.
A hand clamped around his wrist and lowered his arm. Devon blinked and focused through the darkness and saw Kem’s face looking down at him. That was when he realized he was flat on his back on a soft bed, moonlight glinting in through a nearby window and spilling across Kem’s bleak expression.
He realized his stomach wasn’t cramping and his head, although clouded and thick, was no longer pounding. He tried to push himself up on his elbow.
“Ahhgg,” he groaned, flopping back down on the bed at the ache buried deep in every muscle he had.
“Don’t exert yourself. You’re still not well.”
Devon met Kem’s eyes, the green washed out under the glow of moonlight. “But I’m getting better?”
“You are. When we realized you were rejecting the medicine, we questioned your friend closer and he told us you said you’d had treatments. We searched our records and found you there.” Kem brushed his knuckles against Devon’s cheek. “You told me you couldn’t hate us. Now I know why.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You were going to die young for a human. Your mother died when you were fourteen.”
Devon didn’t say anything. He let his gaze rove over Kem’s face and throat and to the collar of his t-shirt. His lips parted. The skin at Kem’s neck was hard to see in the moonlight but those were scabs, dark and thick at the edges. “What happened to you? Why’d you send me back to the basement? How’d Brendan get here?”
“Devon.”
Devon shook his head. “No. There’s nothing to say. I’ve known I would get Lou Gehrig’s since I was twelve, when they diagnosed momma and tested me and told me the disease would manifest. They could tell me I was going to die young, but they couldn’t fix it. We just hadn’t had a good enough medical breakthrough yet.”
“And then we came and provided you with your cure, at a cost.”
“I took a chance on you guys when you offered to cure anyone who would volunteer for the treatments. It was a gamble that seemed well worth the risk. I saw what the disease did to my mother. I knew what was coming for me eventually.” Devon licked his lips. “Can I get some water?”
Kem helped Devon sit up and then he put a glass of water to Devon’s lips.
For once, Devon didn’t argue about Kem holding the glass.
When he’d taken a few sips, he said, “The cost wasn’t much. Never thought I’d need to take any of the medicines you guys created for us.”
Kem sighed. “Those medicines cure many illnesses and diseases for you humans. Without them, you’ll always be at greater risk of sickness and death. Only access to some of our more specialized medical technology will make a difference. You humans have too many weaknesses.”
“Is that why I feel better—some of that technology?”
“Yes. Without it, you would have died. I thought you were going to.” Kem cupped the side of Devon’s face. “The risk you took to find me…the wolf who brought you back had been out of drugs for almost a full day. I don’t know how he resisted your scent. If not for the human he brought with him…”
The speed of Devon’s heartbeat pic
ked up. He’d forgotten all about Gerald.
“Is Gerald—the human—okay?”
“He’ll be spending the rest of the heat season here in the den but he doesn’t seem that unhappy about his situation.” Kem then said a word in the wolves’ language that Devon couldn’t translate, likely the other wolf’s name, and it sounded something like “Corgan” with a lot of extra syllables at the end that dropped too low for Devon to replicate. “—will take care of him. He’s a watcher looking for a new pack.”
Devon had no idea what a “watcher” was. He wasn’t even sure if he’d translated correctly. “Gerald’s a good guy.” Something Devon hadn’t realized until he’d been put in a situation where he’d witnessed Gerald’s willingness to help despite the sacrifice he had to make to do so.
He leaned back and closed his eyes and then reopened them almost immediately. He remembered being in a room with Brendan and he was pretty sure that hadn’t been a dream. “Is Ian still with your alpha? Is he okay?”
“He is.”
He’s what? Devon wondered. With the alpha, okay, or both? “Can I see him?”
“No.”
Devon opened his mouth to argue but Kem put his finger over Devon’s lips. “Soon enough.”
Devon nodded, accepting Kem’s answer and acknowledging the unspoken order to drop the subject of Ian.
Kem lowered his hand.
“I have a lot of questions,” Devon said, raking his hair off his forehead and staring tiredly into the dark toward a shadow at the other end of the room. He couldn’t make it out, but the sight disturbed him in a way he couldn’t explain.
“So do we. Unfortunately, my status can’t protect you from questioning.”
At that Devon brought his attention back to Kem, eyes flickering over Kem’s face. There was something there…a hesitation, a worry…
“What kind of questions?” Devon asked, his tiredness falling away under a quickly rising anxiety. “Why is Bren—uh, that human—locked up in that building?” Then, as soon as the thought occurred to him, “Why was I locked up in there with him?” But Kem was staring at him with a telling look on his face and Devon realized he’d already made a mistake. He exhaled slowly. He’d asked about Brendan earlier. He’d used Brendan’s name and if Brendan was locked up…
A wolf stepped out of the shadows and Devon jerked hard. Kem turned his head and looked over his shoulder before turning back to stare at Devon.
The lights came on and then dimmed to a low glow.
“He seems well enough for questions,” the wolf said, eyes a striking green that reminded Devon starkly of Kem’s own. The resemblance didn’t end there. The wolf had the same straight nose and hair color, the same build, but his stance was that of someone used to being in charge. An older brother?
“No. He’s not well enough,” Kem said, turning slightly, the move putting him more firmly between Devon and the other wolf.
“Submit,” the wolf growled, low and deep and so authoritatively that Devon could feel his entire body tighten with tension.
Kem grimaced and tilted his head as if resistance to the command was a physically painful thing. “He isn’t ready—”
“Submit!”
The vibration carried on the air and skittered across Devon’s skin, setting his teeth on edge. He knew better than to open his mouth. He hesitated even to breathe too deeply despite his quickening pulse. Devon saw Kem’s hand fist, claws poking at his own palm.
But somehow, Kem resisted. “He needs more time, Father.”
Devon thought for a moment he had to have misheard.
No way. That wolf barely looked older than Kem.
The wolf’s eyes glowed in the dimness and Devon wondered how the wolf had hidden that earlier when he’d been standing in the shadows. Somehow, he had though, because Devon would have noticed the glow of wolf eyes.
“Apparently stubborn resolve breeds true,” the wolf said. “Soon you’ll be Alpha and you’ll have the right to challenge my decisions. But you don’t have that right yet, and you will submit because you know it’s the right thing to do. To do otherwise would mean throwing away all your aspirations to one day become First Alpha.”
“He’s mine,” Kem said. “And his care is my responsibility and my privilege. I won’t have him questioned before he’s well.”
“You question that I wouldn’t take care not to harm my own son’s true mate?”
Kem looked over his shoulder at Devon and then turned back to his father. “Your will isn’t what I question.”
Ah. So Kem was more afraid of what Devon would do to provoke his father than what his father had planned. That realization was something of a relief, because that meant Devon just needed to worry about his own damn mouth and not about being tortured for information. Good news, that; Devon was too damn tired to argue about much of anything right then.
“I don’t have anything to hide,” Devon said. Not much anyway. “I can handle a few questions.”
A short knock reverberated through the wood of the door before anyone could respond to his statement.
Kem looked to his father.
“Enter,” Kem’s father said.
The door opened. A wolf stood in the door, making no attempt to come further into the room, and although his gaze drifted over to Devon, once, Kem growled, and he jerked his gaze away immediately.
“First Alpha Traesikeille,” the wolf said, “Alpha Craeigoer’s heat cycle has finally ended for the moment. He can meet with you as soon as you’re ready.” This voice Devon recognized. One of the wolves who had been in the basement with Kem when he’d picked Devon out of the group. He couldn’t remember the wolf’s name but he definitely recognized that voice.
But that realization didn’t stop the spin in Devon’s head as the implications of what the wolf had said came together.
Kem was the son of the First Alpha. And for some reason, Devon was to be questioned by the First Alpha about…something.
Traesikeille’s gaze tracked the wolf’s every nuance of expression and his nostrils flared with a subtle sniff that made Devon wonder what he’d missed.
“Dress him. Wait for us outside the other’s holding room.” With a short nod at Kem, Kem’s father followed the other wolf from the room.
Devon sighed. He should get up. Then he watched as Kem removed a t-shirt and a pair of pants from a drawer, and then a pair of socks and turned and Devon saw the look in Kem’s eyes.
“Oh, hell no.”
Kem’s eyebrows rose. “Haven’t you realized yet that one of the ways we use to calm the lust of the heat cycle is to put all our energy into taking care of our heat mates?”
Devon followed Kem’s progress across the room. “No.”
“Then take them. If I don’t get away from your scent for a few minutes, I’m going to do something I’ll deeply regret later considering your condition.”
“You don’t seem all that lust crazed since I woke up.”
“We’ve regained access to the repression drugs. I’m on a heavy dose because my mate wasn’t here with me.”
“Not my fault,” Devon said. “I didn’t ask to go back to the basement, and how’d you do that? How did you get the drugs back?”
Something big had to have happened for Brendan to be here.
Kem stared hard at Devon. “We can’t discuss this right now.”
It was the first time he’d seen that cold-eyed look from Kem since he’d returned. Devon slowly sat up straighter. “Why not?”
“Now isn’t the time.”
“But—”
“Submit.”
“I—”
“Traesikeille and Alpha will be waiting soon. Submit.”
Devon noted that Kem’s eyes seemed greener, brighter and he knew his continued resistance was just undermining his own plans.
“I submit. Here.” Devon stuck his hands out.
Kem dropped the garments into his arms.
The weight was more than he expected, likely because his a
rms were weaker than he’d realized until that moment. He let the garments fall to his lap. “Okay, do it. But don’t think I’m going to let you make a habit out of it.”
Kem’s eyes flared wide and his chin rose the tiniest fraction with a deep breath. “Submission suits you,” Kem said.
Devon didn’t know whether to laugh or yell. Since he didn’t feel like doing either, he just glared at Kem and raised his arms and Kem picked up the dark t-shirt, color too hard to distinguish in the low light and slid the garment on over Devon’s head.
“Why the hell does your father look like he must have been a kid when he had you?”
Kem’s fingers trailed over Devon’s ribcage as he tugged the shirt down. Devon popped his head through the collar just in time to see Kem’s frown.
“He doesn’t look that much older than you. I don’t get it.”
There was a lot he didn’t get.
First Alpha was the single most important wolf to their entire species, as far as Devon knew. The same one who had made first contact. The one who could decide at any time to change the way the wolves dealt with humans and turn all their advanced technology against the humans if that was what he wanted to do—and every wolf would follow his lead. He didn’t know a lot about the wolves, but Devon knew the alphas were the top of the political and social heap.
So why was First Alpha’s son stuck in a pack of wolves out in the middle of nowhere in the Appalachian mountains, when he could be anywhere? How the hell did they organize their people? Why was their society so hard to understand?
“I belong to my father’s first season. It’s always been the practice for those in line for First Alpha to breed as soon as possible so that if they find a true mate who can’t breed, they’ll already have children.”
Devon looked askance at Kem, who had to be plenty old enough, and made a leap of logic. “That means—God Almighty, you already have kids, don’t you?”
Kem stilled, watching Devon carefully. “We eliminated the birthing limit as soon as we settled on Earth. I now have seventeen children. There’ll be no more. Humans can’t breed with us and you are male.”