by Odessa Lynne
“God Almighty.” Devon wiped his hand down his chest, smoothing the soft fabric against his skin. “What the hell do you do with all of them?”
“Unless something happens to one of their mothers, they’ll grow up in their mothers’ packs until they’re old enough to take up duties and then I’ll take over their care until they’re adults.”
As if Kem knew Devon’s next question before Devon could voice it, he added, “They were all conceived over the last two heat seasons. I wasn’t breeding age before we found Earth.”
“Wow.” Devon did the math. “You have seventeen kids under the age of six.” He paused. “So why the fuck haven’t you got anybody pregnant this season?”
Chapter 22
Devon knew he’d sounded belligerent. He wasn’t sure why he’d even asked, but he’d sounded like he was accusing Kem of something, and—shit. He was jealous. He was jealous because Kem had seventeen kids with who know how many women and this was heat season and when it was all over would Kem even still want him without his human scent trigger causing the lust craze?
Devon’s chest ached and he tried to cough out the tightness but it didn’t really work. He still felt like shit. He could have been anybody, any human, and Kem would have wanted him. He knew that. He’d known it all along. So why had he let himself—
This was Brendan all over again, goddammit.
Why did he do this shit to himself?
Kem’s eyes lingered at Devon’s mouth and his brow furrowed deeply as if he couldn’t figure something out.
“I would have,” he said, “but recent events interfered with our plans to meet with another pack to exchange heat mates. Then your renegades attacked the drug supply and then the universe delivered me my fate.”
“This just seems crazy. I knew you guys had a lot of kids, but this is—” He couldn’t come up with the right word, so he waved his hand and reached for the pants still in his lap.
Kem stopped him and took the jeans. “I’ve studied human reproduction. We can’t wait and take our chances the way you do. We’re only fertile for about a month once every three Earth years. Our females usually deliver multiple infants with each pregnancy. We need children to prosper. Billions of our people died before the end, and many more thousands after we left our planet to search for a new home.”
Billions. God. Maybe Brendan was right. Maybe the wolves were going to take over the entire planet and wipe out humans with sheer numbers. Earth could barely handle all the humans crowding the planet, although a random disaster here or there, such as the big quake, sure did clear out some space every so often.
“You’re wasting your time explaining,” Devon said, resting his head back against the wall. He’d thought he was feeling better, but now he was just tired again and he wanted to go back to sleep. He raised his leg so Kem could get the pants started. “I don’t care why, I really don’t. I’m just trying to wrap my head around you having seventeen kids.”
Because…shit. He wasn’t ever having kids. No way, no how.
He had no interest in passing on his genes and the idea that he’d create another Gran chilled his blood. If something happened to him, he wasn’t leaving a kid in her care. Sometimes, God help him, he hated his mother for having left him with her. Surely she could have found someone else—anyone—if she’d really loved him, but then he would remember her soft eyes and the way she’d never let Gran yell at him and he knew he had loved her so much that he found it easier to be angry than to think about how much he still missed her, ten years later.
But as interesting as all this talk about kids was—and really all it was doing was making Devon feel awkward and uncomfortable and think about things he’d rather not think about—he had other concerns right then.
“Look, we’ve got to talk about something.” He caught Kem’s gaze. “I need some money. Gold ten-dollars. And a lot of them. I came back to you because I figured I could barter for your help and I didn’t know where else I could get it. I don’t do the whole submission thing well, I know that, but I can try a lot harder, if—if—and—”
“Hush.” Kem yanked the jeans halfway up Devon’s thighs and Devon grabbed Kem’s arm and pulled himself over enough to sit on the side of the bed. He stood carefully and tugged the jeans over his hips.
“I have tech skills. I know the renegades are using trackers to locate dens and I can give you codes and frequencies. Those assholes thought they could use my stuff for their—”
“Devon.” Kem’s claws had extended from beneath his dark fingernails and his hand clenched tight on the fabric at Devon’s waist. “Don’t.”
Devon pinched the bridge of his nose while Kem snapped Devon’s fly closed. “I swear I can give you whatever submission you want if you can spot me the money and help me get it to the person I owe. Swear to God.” He put his arms out. “See? See how I haven’t bitched?”
Kem’s hand settled over Devon’s crotch and Devon swallowed. He felt the firm press of the points of Kem’s clawed fingertips over his dick and the pressure felt good and made him remember what it had felt like to have Kem rutting over him and in him.
When Kem’s hand moved on him, Devon closed his eyes. His dick started to fill with blood.
He could submit. Hell, he was probably already in love with Kem anyway. It was going to hurt like a son of a bitch when heat season ended and Kem went back to whatever normal life he had so what did it even matter?
“I won’t barter with you for your submission,” Kem said.
“Goddammit,” Devon muttered. “Kem. I need this.”
“You’re willing to trade your submission for money? How can you not realize what kind of an insult that is to me?”
“That’s not—” Devon swallowed thickly and heard the scrape of claws on denim and felt the faint tickle of sensation straight through his dick and into his balls. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like an insult to me. It’s a bargain. Win, win. A gamble doesn’t get better than that. How can you not realize we both get what we want this way?”
Kem shook his head and let his hand fall away from Devon’s crotch. “This isn’t the time. Traesikeille and Alpha will be waiting.”
But Kem’s eyes glittered and his forehead had a sheen of sweat on it that hadn’t been there before. Touching Devon had gotten to him, even with the repression drugs in his system.
An abrupt knock on the door startled them both. Kem stepped closer to Devon as the door swung open.
“Traesikeille is leaving.”
Devon didn’t recognize the wolf by sight, but he definitely recognized that voice, deep and sure.
Kem’s alpha. Alpha Craeigoer. The one who had Ian. He had a series of scabs on his cheek that could have been a match for the set Devon had on his neck, only the alpha’s were further along in the healing process. He’d fought another wolf recently, Devon realized.
“Why?” Kem asked.
The alpha spared a glance for Devon. “An unforeseen complication. We’ll save the questioning for later. Let him rest another day. That way if we have to use the drugs, he’ll be less likely to get sick so quickly.”
“Whoa,” Devon said, raising his hands. “What drugs?”
“Devon.” Kem’s sharp tone could easily have been a reminder that Devon had just promised to try harder to submit, or it could have simply been an attempt to get him to shut up and stop interrupting.
Devon crossed his arms and eased back onto the side of the bed. He wasn’t sure his legs were going to keep holding him up if he just stood there.
Kem’s gaze followed him down and then turned back to the alpha. “I’d rather not use them if we can avoid it. It could set his recovery back.” Kem glanced again at Devon and Devon wondered at the contemplative look.
“I’m not planning on lying about anything,” Devon said. Not directly, anyway. He had no intention of betraying Ian or Brendan if he could stop it, not even as part of his hoped-for bargain with Kem.
“Good,” the alpha said.
> Devon tilted his chin. “I meant it. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know even though I can’t promise much of it will be helpful. Can I see Ian?”
The alpha narrowed his eyes and stared at Devon, face a mask of cold regard.
“You’re not getting near Ian before I know what your intentions were in coming here.”
“Ian’s my friend,” Devon said, uncrossing his arms and steadying himself with a foot pressed tight to the floor and his hands on the edge of the bed. “I just want some kind of reassurance that he’s okay.”
“You’ve put him through enough with your irresponsible trespass into my territory. He’s here because of you, but since he is my fate, I’ve forgiven your trespass. You act irresponsibly even now, a challenge in every word out of your mouth. You smell of defiance and you’ve pushed Wentarki past the point of his control at least once, in a time when our control is severely limited by our natural instincts and the changes brought on by our heat, and I was barely able to restrain myself enough not to kill him for what he did.”
That brought Devon up straighter, elbows locking, and he couldn’t stop his quick glance at Kem’s throat and the ugly scabs there as the alpha continued in that same cold tone.
“I assume the only reason Wentarki hasn’t killed you is because you submit to him as his mate with considerably more grace than you submit elsewhere. As Wentarki’s true mate, you have status with the rest of the pack and even with the First Alpha, but Ian is my true mate and your status won’t protect you if you ever put Ian in danger again.”
The alpha’s words were followed by the unique rumble that seemed to vibrate up through the wolves’ chests and it set Devon’s nerves tingling and lifted the hair on his arms. He didn’t move; he tried not to react at all.
The problem was that to an outsider, of course Devon’s actions would have looked irresponsible and foolish, and he knew it. But he hadn’t had a chance to do more than offer his barter to Kem, so no one knew he had a deeper reason for what he’d done. And what did he care what they thought of him anyway?
Kem inclined his head in a slow nod. “We appreciate your generosity, Alpha.”
Devon scowled. We? He didn’t like Kem’s apologetic—submissive?—tone on his behalf.
“I did all that,” he said. “Not Kem.”
“You mated,” the alpha said. “Your actions now reflect on him. He’s respecting you by acknowledging your mistakes as his own.”
“That’s bullshit. He had nothing to do with that and we definitely weren’t mated at the time—goddamn witness saw him fucking my ass doggy style when that happened, remember?—so how’s it right that he has to grovel because of something I did?”
Kem frowned at him. Even the alpha gave him an odd look.
Maybe grovel hadn’t been the right word. Devon wished he were better at reading the wolves’ body language but his head was pounding again and the light that had seemed dim earlier had started to feel too bright.
The alpha raised a brow and looked to Kem and for the first time, Devon thought he saw a flash of humor in those cool blue eyes. “He’s not what I expected for you, Wentarki.”
“He’s not my ideal fate, but I have faith in the universe.”
Devon hid his wince, or he hoped he did. Kem’s words were just another sign that this thing with him was going to fall apart as soon as heat season ended. Anger welled up under the twinge of pain that thought brought him.
And then Kem added, “His strength of will appeals to me.”
“Just be sure it doesn’t get him or you in trouble.”
Devon’s temper flared. “Hey, ass—”
Fingers grasped his arm and yanked him to his feet, cutting him off mid-word. Claws pricked the skin on the inside of his arm and Devon grunted and then snapped his mouth shut.
“Apologize,” Kem said, his cold, hard tone telling Devon quite clearly that he’d gone too far.
Devon cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
“Ian said you were loud and brash and offensive enough to make anyone crazy.” The alpha’s gaze dropped to Devon’s crotch and then rose to meet Kem’s gaze before meeting Devon’s eyes again. “He also mentioned another of your distinguishing features.”
Devon huffed out a breath. “He’s a dick for mentioning it.”
The alpha raised his brow again and dragged his forefinger across his chin.
Without really thinking about it, Devon mirrored the action, finger trailing over his scar.
“Ah,” he said. Then quickly, before he lost his nerve, “I’m worried about Ian. I haven’t seen him in a week.”
“Why are you so obsessed with seeing Ian?” the alpha asked, a roughness to his words that made Devon take notice.
Kem stilled. Devon remembered how irrationally Kem had reacted to the idea that Ian was something more to Devon than a friend. He felt the sudden desire to tread carefully, which wasn’t that usual for him.
“He’s the closest thing to family I’ve got. He’s—” He hesitated while he reached for the best explanation he could think of to describe how he’d begun to think of Ian—completely aware of Ian’s many—many—faults, but equally appreciative of all his strengths. “He’s like a brother to me. He’s a pain in the ass most of the time, but shit, if you’ve learned anything about him, you’ve got to know he’s impossible not to love. Ever since I figured out that he followed me and got caught by you guys, I’ve been miserable with regret. He wasn’t supposed to follow me. Swear to God. I didn’t think he would or I would’ve made a lot more effort to hide my tracks from him.”
Of course, if Ian hadn’t followed Devon, Ian wouldn’t have been in danger to begin with so Devon wasn’t going to take all the blame when he finally got to tell Ian what he thought about Ian’s habit of not minding his own goddamn business.
His answer must have satisfied, because the alpha blinked, and the intent stare faded to a more reasonable flicker of curiosity.
“Ian risked a lot to come after you. I’m glad you return his regard. Pack often becomes as important to us as family.”
The wolves’ word for “pack” seemed to Devon to have a meaning beyond what he’d expect, especially since he was discovering that family and pack weren’t synonymous when he’d had the notion that it should be.
Kem inclined his head, a gesture Devon took as agreement with the alpha’s sentiment.
“Yeah. So does that mean I can—”
“No.” The alpha turned to Kem. He glanced again at Devon. “The Diviners have stepped in.”
Kem’s brow furrowed and then, even as Devon watched, his eyes widened. “No. That can’t be. Why him?”
“The prophesy will play out even if we aren’t ready. We’ve spent so much of our time preparing for the coming of heat season and keeping a close eye on the progress of the renegades, it was easy for us to miss the signs.”
Kem nodded, but his expression was troubled, and even Devon didn’t have trouble reading that one.
But neither wolf said more and the alpha left. Kem helped Devon take off the clothes he’d just put on so he could climb back into the bed, and then Devon watched as Kem turned out the light and left him alone, for reasons he didn’t explain to Devon.
Devon tried not to wish Kem had acted more like his old self, desperate and determined to have him, but he couldn’t help himself. He kicked out with his foot and knocked one of the extra pillows off the bed and it hit the floor with a soft whump. Then he kicked another.
And another.
“Goddammit.”
He was cursed with his mother’s soft heart and his Gran’s nasty temper and he never had been good at pretending he didn’t have feelings.
He was in love with Kem and he hated knowing it.
Chapter 23
The room was cramped and overheated in a small building that wasn’t that far a walk from Kem’s home inside the complex of buildings that made up the wolves’ den.
A masked wolf—creepy as hell—dropped Devon’s bag a
t his feet and took a single step back.
Devon stared at that bag for a few seconds and then raised his gaze to meet Kem’s and the alpha’s and then that of the masked wolf.
He’d forgotten about the bag. Gerald must have remembered it and brought it along.
He’d shoved that bag full of incriminating evidence, dammit. He’d intended to use the technology to help him get back to Kem but he had never intended to bring most of it with him, just what he’d thought he could use in his barter.
He thought about his phone. Was it in there? No—he remembered. He’d had the phone on him, but he hadn’t seen it once since he’d woken up. His heart started beating faster. Shit. What about his lockbox? Did they have it too?
Devon rubbed the underside of his nose. “Look. I know what this looks like. And, yeah, it’s mine. And the stuff inside. But—”
“So you are one of the renegades,” Kem said, his expression so closed Devon couldn’t read him at all.
“I’m not,” he said. “I’ve never joined and I never planned on joining.”
“Then you’ve been working with them,” the masked wolf said.
“I don’t work with them.”
“Then why do you have a device in here that can trace the newest microbeacon we’ve discovered them using to locate our dens and open us up to attack?”
Sweat trickled between Devon’s shoulders. Could they smell if he lied?
“There’s this guy,” he said. “One guy that I’ve worked with for years, before the renegades even started forming groups. His father was a representative—you know, in the government, and I used to take on work from him—freelance if you want to call it that, mostly just helping get the dirt on the competition—and yeah, planting that dirt a time or two, not my finest moment, I admit it, but I was barely eighteen at the time, and then we had a falling out and I quit working for him. I didn’t do anything else for him, not anything that I thought even for a moment he could pass on to the renegades, not until—” He stopped.