Everything That You Are

by Nikki McCoy

  Kaden felt his hopes of keeping the information he had to a bare minimum vanish as he listened to Dennis’ words. While he appreciated the fact that the man was smart enough to figure all of that out without any outside help, he also cursed him for it. He could feel the overwhelming sense of despair and pain grow in his chest and felt a single tear escape as he looked up at Michael and tried to memorise the features of the only man he had ever loved.

  He gave himself only seconds, though, before falling into the headspace he always retreated to when he was forced to deal with something he knew he couldn’t handle. It settled over him like a familiar cloak and he took comfort in the emptiness he found there.

  Nothing could touch him here. There were no emotions, no dreams, no pain.

  Kaden stood and walked to the window behind the loveseat, staring unseeingly out at the expanse of grass and trees, and started from the beginning.

  “After I discovered my power, I tried to keep people from touching me, which was easy for a while, but I had to get a job. It took me a bit, but eventually I learnt to harness the emotions of others and keep them inside me, so that when I…when I sold myself, I wouldn’t project the emotions of whoever was touching me too far. It didn’t always work, especially if the emotions were powerful.”

  Kaden shivered as he remembered the night this had all come about. “When I saw Michael, I was drawn to him. I felt like I could finally know what a home was if I just made him notice me, but…well…Alpha Gregory saw him reject me. He knew that if an Alpha was rejecting me, then I must be clanless, and somehow he knew I was part mage. He took me behind the building and he…” Kaden choked back a pained cry and worked to find his headspace again. “He took me back to his place after that and discovered what my power was because I couldn’t contain it. He was so strong, so demanding. I couldn’t keep his emotions inside me.

  “Gregory and his Betas started to take me with them to people who they wanted to influence. Powerful people. Gregory would touch me and project his feelings onto them, convincing them to give him money, sign deals, offer lands that he would turn around and sell at a profit.” Kaden felt his voice fading and cleared his throat. He had to get through this, and he could, as long as he kept his gaze focussed on the scenery outside the window he was facing. As long as he didn’t catch the look of disgust he was sure was on Michael’s face.

  “He also used me to kill someone once, just to see if he could. I was a conduit, and the emotions he poured into me crippled the man. He never stood a chance.” Kaden paused to take a shuddering breath. “I never met this Stephen, but if Gregory sent his Betas to kill him, he had to have been in Gregory’s employ.”

  Kaden stopped, not knowing what else to add, and a thick cloud of silence descended upon all those in the room with him. It was eerie and almost suffocating, but he was reluctant to say any more than he absolutely had to. He stayed lost in his headspace, hoping that if he ignored the rest of the story, everyone else would as well.

  Of course, his luck always went from bad to worse.

  “Did you try to stop him? Tell anyone what was going on?” Nick asked.

  A wrenching sob tore through Kaden’s chest before he could stop it. He felt his stomach heave and try to rid itself of its contents as he tried desperately to regain control. He wrapped his arms around his waist in an attempt to hold himself together, and hunched his shoulders. Alone and sick to the very depths of his soul, he paused for several minutes until he managed to find that emptiness that surrounded him with familiarity, as if welcoming him home.

  In a deadpan voice, he replied, “No. I’m sorry.” He turned to look into the eyes of every man in the room, knowing they probably wouldn’t believe him, and also knowing that he was saying goodbye. “Between the beatings and the starvation that lasted for days on end, being locked in a cage and used daily as a whore and a power source for him and his Betas, no.” Anger rose within him and the humiliation of what he’d been forced to suffer for years suddenly came to be too much.

  “No!” he yelled. “No!” Tears flowed freely down his cheeks and his body trembled so much he thought he might shatter from the force.

  He looked straight at Michael and cried, “He broke me. Every day they broke me.” He swung his glare to Nick. “And before you ask, the answer is no, I didn’t try to fight him as a wolf. My mom ran with us after my father was killed and we had to hide from all mages and weres to avoid the same fate. I had no one to teach me to shift, so I couldn’t fight them in were-form because that obviously didn’t happen.”

  He immediately regretted the insult to Michael, but couldn’t bring himself to care anymore about how he sounded. The horror he saw on each and every one of their faces was enough. It was done. He’d played his part, and he wasn’t going for sainthood here, so it was time to leave. He would collect Missy tonight, but for now, he had to get out.

  He walked to the office door and left the room as if on auto-pilot. Each step he took towards the front door of the house was made in silence, and each tear that fell at the absence of the sound of his mate running to stop him was like a knife tearing at his soul. It ripped the tattered, pathetic pieces left over from years ago until there was nothing left.

  His body paused as his hand reached for the front doorknob. He absolutely hated that incessant voice at the back of his mind that told him to wait. That maybe, if he held off for just a bit longer, Michael would come for him, but it was the same hope he had held onto for the past four years, and it was time to let it go.

  Kaden scrubbed at his eyes and yanked the door open but managed to stop himself just before he childishly slammed it closed. The glare of the afternoon sun dazed him, causing more tears to blur his sight as he stumbled down the front porch and across the driveway. Before he could wipe them away, though, something solid and sharp struck the back of his skull and the blinding brightness of the sun was all he saw before the world went black.

  Michael watched as his mate opened and closed the door to his office, leaving a room full of shocked men in his wake. He wanted to go after him, to force him to stay while Michael’s mind caught up to the implications of the man’s testimony, but he couldn’t risk touching him in the state he was in.

  He had never before felt such all-consuming, unadulterated rage as he felt at that moment. Anger at himself for leaving his mate to be subjected to the horror he’d had to live through for years. Anger at Kaden’s mother for not providing for her son the way she should have, but especially anger at that son-of-a-bitch, at all those bastards, who had hurt Kaden.

  Sam’s voice eventually broke through the roaring in his ears. “Michael, I can’t pretend to know what you’re feeling right now, but I think we need to come up with a plan, and soon. I doubt that the rest of Alpha Gregory’s clan knows what he’s been up to and we can’t afford any more deaths.”

  Michael focussed on his father’s words enough to let the haze of red that clouded his vision fade. Taking in the concerned faces of the men standing in the room with him, he saw his own anger mirrored in their eyes. His hands shook slightly as he leaned his head forward and wrenched at his hair, using the pain as a sort of release for the violence swirling around in his head.

  The truth had been in front of him the whole time. The scars, the fear of people, the cryptic words here and there. All alluding to what the boy had been through over the past several years.

  How could he not have pieced it together before now? How could he have been so blind?

  “I should have known. I should have searched for him harder.” He looked at his father pleadingly, as if the man might be able to offer him some sort of reason how he could have failed his mate so completely.

  If he were being truthful, he would admit that he was also looking for censure in the man’s gaze. Here he had been blessed with a life full of people who loved him, who were willing to lay down their lives to protect his honour and safety, and all while his mate had known none of that. Michael had only added to his misery from
the moment the pup had silently asked for help when they’d first met.

  “Alpha Michael,” Joseph said formally. “With all due respect, sir, I think we all owe your mate an apology, but I also think Sam is right. Our self-recriminations should come later. If this Alpha Gregory is behind the murder and has been using Kaden’s power for years, we should take the asshole into custody and bring him before a tribunal of our clan as well as his. If what Kaden is saying is true, and I don’t doubt him for a second, then I’m also inclined to agree that this Gregory and his Betas have kept their clan in the dark about their…use…of the young man.”

  Michael fought to gain control of his roiling emotions and pulled his head from his hands to sit back. “Yes. Of course you’re right. Dad, have you ever heard of Gregory or his clan?”

  “Only in passing reference,” his father said. “From what I know, it seems the man has accrued a considerable amount of wealth over the past several years, although I haven’t heard anything about him recently. We should ask Kaden how long ago he managed to get away from Gregory. That will at least give us an idea about when he was using the boy so that we can more accurately track his financial transactions. It could also clue us in as to who he’s been doing business with.”

  “Agreed,” Dennis chimed in. “If Gregory is dealing with humans as well as wolves, we need to find out exactly who in order to minimise exposure. As appalling as it is that one of our own would be willing to risk the secret of our existence from humans just to make a buck, it’s not the first time it’s happened. Hopefully, though, it won’t turn into the disaster it caused the last time.”

  “That time it was a group from a clan up in Washington State, wasn’t it?” Nick asked. “I remember that. It didn’t end pretty.”

  Michael nodded and pushed back from his desk, standing up. They were right. The situation warranted their immediate attention, which meant he couldn’t afford the luxury of anger right now. He needed to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  “All right gentlemen, it looks like we have our work cut out for us. I’ll get Kaden back in here to see if he can give us any more information. Meanwhile, Dennis, see if you can find anything on Gregory through the ‘net. Dad, if you know anyone that might know something about the man, that would be great. I’ll be right back.”

  Dennis took his seat at the desk to jump on his computer while Michael left the office to find his mate. He went upstairs and searched his room but came up empty. A quick investigation of the bathroom, kitchen, living room and spare rooms also proved to be fruitless.

  By the time he got to the back yard, where he inhaled deeply but couldn’t find a trace of the man’s scent, fear had replaced every lingering ounce of anger and his senses went on full alert. Running back into the house and towards the front door, he yelled, “Kaden!” but there was no reply.

  Once in the driveway, he detected the faint scent of ocean spray that belonged to his boy, along with a few other scents that were vaguely familiar. In the few moments it took for his father and Betas to join him outside, his memory kicked in.

  The men from the barn. Their scents were blended in with that of his mate, but they went no farther than the front of the house. He ignored his men’s questions and concentrated on the ground, spotting the presence of tire tracks that didn’t belong to any of their vehicles. The tracks ended where dirt met concrete, as did their combined scents.

  They had his mate. The sick bastards had the audacity to snatch him right in front of his home.

  Once again, he’d failed his mate out of negligence, and the only one paying for his inability to take proper care of the man was Kaden himself. Only this time, Michael was fully aware of what he’d lost. He knew his mate’s sweet, innocent smile, his charming desire to put the needs of others above his own, his bright, contagious laughter.

  This time, he knew exactly what the man would suffer due to his failure to protect him, and he had no one to blame but himself. Again.

  There was no holding back his black rage. He screamed out his frustration and his men and father had the good sense to vacate his immediate presence as he found the nearest thing to him and threw it with all of his were strength across the lawn. The lawnmower snapped the trunk of a ten year old tree some twenty yards away with a loud crunch.

  “Michael!” his father yelled.

  “They took him! Sam, they took him while I was sitting inside trying to get over his past. He’s living it all over again because I couldn’t get my head out of my ass long enough to comfort him. To protect him.” He heard his voice crack but he didn’t care. His mate was suffering at the hands of monsters and he had done nothing to prevent it.

  “Then we get him back, all of us, but you need to focus. Your mate needs you, and we will stop at nothing to help you get him back.” The deadly, determined look in his father’s eyes, mirrored in the faces of his Betas, encouraged him to marshal his chaotic thoughts and assume the role he’d been preparing for his entire life. He was their Alpha, his mate’s Alpha, and he’d be damned if he was going to let someone else usurp his role.

  “We have work to do.”

  * * * *

  Pain erupted in Kaden’s skull as he felt a large hand strike the side of his face with a force that snapped his head back, spraining his neck. Another slap had blood bursting from his lips and filling his mouth.

  A rough grip yanked the front of his shirt upwards then slammed him back down. He blearily blinked open his eyes to stare into the face that haunted his dreams and filled his waking thoughts with dread. He could feel the sickening emotions of lust, pride, and anticipation course through him, radiating from the man’s touch and threatening to drown him in their intensity.

  The cold, hard grit of concrete pressed into the flesh of his back and the weight of the powerful man above him made the dank air in the room seem more and more oppressive by the second. He didn’t need to look around to know that he was in Gregory’s basement. The smell and cold and darkness of the room were as familiar to Kaden as the pain he had come to associate with the man looming over him.

  The fear that had consumed every cell of his being for longer than he cared to remember returned in full force. He’d managed to put it aside over the past year for Missy’s sake. Learnt to bury it so that he could have the chance to explore a world that didn’t revolve around pain and humiliation, but it was back. Living and breathing, inside him and on top of him, and he could feel his chest burning in an attempt to suck in air that he couldn’t pull into his lungs fast enough.

  “Did you really think you could hide from me forever? I own you, boy.” Gregory grabbed hold of his hair and wrenched his head painfully to the side. “And I see you’ve been letting someone else enjoy your body.” Gregory leaned his head down and bit viciously into the mating mark left from Michael.

  The pain of the man’s fangs as he tore into the sensitive skin of his neck was nothing like the untainted, arousing passion that Michael evoked in him. That one act, that one desecration of the only thing in his life that was still pure and beautiful and perfect, was more than he could take. It felt worse than any violation of his body and emotions he had been forced to suffer through by this man.

  He twisted his neck away from Gregory’s jaws, feeling the tendons in his neck tear and warm blood spurt from the wound to splash onto his chest and spill to the floor beneath him.

  Agonising pain swept through him, searing every nerve ending from his abdomen to his scalp, but his act of defiance was well worth it. He’d spent almost his entire life bending to the will of others. Learning to fear the physical pain they subjected him to as well as the emotions they bombarded him with out of their own ignorance or for their personal gain.

  Gregory’s distant, angry shout would have brought a smile to his lips had he been able to control the muscles in his neck and face, but he could settle for the satisfaction of the man’s curses.

  “Stupid little whore!” Gregory said between clenched teeth.

  Kaden
knew the gash and loss of blood wouldn’t kill him, but it would force the Alpha to give him time to heal before the man could risk using him in any way. Gregory spat the blood still in his mouth onto Kaden’s cheek, cursing him before he brought the back of his hand across his face again, causing Kaden’s vision to blur and new pain to blossom in his head.

  The door to the basement opened and Kaden could just make out Thomas’s scent as he heard the Beta ask, “Is he awake yet? Shit, Gregory, what the hell did you do?”

  “Just reclaiming my property. The boy did this to himself,” Gregory growled.

  Thomas took in all the blood coating Kaden’s body and spreading in a puddle on the floor and shook his head. “We need to use his power. Now. Deals are falling through and…”

  “We’ve waited a year and a half—we can wait a few more days. By then, he’ll at least be able to sit in with me for a few conferences. We can renew deals with other weres here first, then we’ll start visiting with the humans.”

  Gregory ripped Kaden’s shirt from his chest to use as a compress to stanch the flow of blood. When he applied more pressure than needed, Kaden had to bite the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood in order to keep from crying out. Between the pain and lethargy from blood loss, it was getting hard for him to follow their conversation.

  “Fine, but I don’t think you should use him for your own entertainment until then either. The sooner he heals, the sooner we can get things taken care of,” Thomas said.

  Gregory fisted his other hand in Kaden’s hair and dragged him to the back wall of the basement while chuckling. “Oh, I don’t think we need to worry about that. It’s using his power that saps his energy. Isn’t that right, boy?” Kaden managed a weak glare as Gregory placed a steel cuff, on a short chain bolted to the wall, around his ankle.

  “Gregory,” Thomas growled in warning.