Damien’s Dilemma

by Cohen, Julie K.

  Damien shifted. “Lock him down for the night, then bring him to me in the morning,” he ordered Mason and Ty, two of Callen’s top shifters.

  Damien offered his hand to Tess, and with a nervous smile, she accepted. If the shifters in his pack didn’t know what she meant to him before, they did now. He wasn’t going to hide his feelings from her or the pack. Everyone needed to understand that an attack on her was an attack on him. Let his shifters speak their minds, even challenge him as Tim/Thomas had done. The second anyone touched her, Damien would rip him to shreds.

  * * *

  TESS

  Damien walked her back to his house but said nothing along the way. She half expected him to yell at her for interfering, for making him appear weak, and he would have been right to do so. She didn’t know why she had interfered with the fight. The faded silver wolf had challenged Damien, and, by pack law, he had every right to kill the wolf. It hadn’t been much of a fight, and she could not condone spilling blood over a simple insult to her, a shifter who wasn’t part of the pack, a shifter who may not still be a shifter.

  “Going for a run,” Damien said as she opened the door to his house.

  Tess turned to apologize to him, but he was already gone. He wasn’t ready to talk to her. She sighed, then entered the house, letting the door swing shut behind her.

  She hung the sweater she’d been wearing on the hook by the door. Hopefully, his run would help him clear his head about whatever was troubling him. She knew her presence was a part of what worried him. His pack didn’t want her here, and he’d nearly killed one of his own because of her. Absentmindedly, she ran her hand along the back of the sofa, trying to figure out what, if anything, she could do to help.

  “You made him look weak tonight,” a male voice said from inside the house.

  Tess’s eyes snapped to the door of Damien’s office. Ian.

  “Leave,” she said, trying to maintain eye contact while on the inside she was cringing at the sight of him. Had she locked, or simply closed, the front door?

  One by one, Ian cracked the knuckles of his right hand as he stepped forward. Each pop and crack sent a wave of terror through her. She needed to run, but her feet wouldn’t move.

  “I have a right to be here. You don’t.”

  “I’m Damien’s guest. Leave,” she repeated, trying to strengthen her voice.

  Ian cracked his neck next. That sound reverberated down her spine. She knew that sound.

  “You’re an outsider. Insignificant, and not worthy of him,” he continued.

  “And I suppose you are worthy?”

  “I’m one of his pack. A loyal wolf who’s proved himself, over and over. Can you say the same? No, because you’re dangerous.”

  Her hackles felt as if they were rising. Except she had no hackles, no wolf springing forth despite her fear and her silent pleas to her wolf. She glanced at the furnishing. This was Damien’s home. She would not let her fears defeat her, not here. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I’m a shifter, the same as you.”

  He chuckled. “Are you sure about that?”

  Terror, sheer and utter terror, shot through her as memories of beatings, and worse, returned. Her eyes dragged over him. His stance, the slight tilt of his head, even the way his hair curled up at the base of his neck all came back to her.

  His brow lifted. “Ah, you remember.”

  Yes, she remembered. All of it. Ian wouldn’t let her live to tell Damien.

  Right now, it was all Tess could do to keep her eyes on Ian, without flinching or curling up in a ball. She had no wolf to stand with her. She was alone, utterly alone, thanks to him.

  “What do you want?” she asked, trying to remember what was laying nearby that she could use for a weapon without taking her eyes from him.

  “You back in the cage where you belong.”

  Tears stung her eyes at the memories. “Why?”

  “Because the WSSO will come for you eventually. And this is my pack. You’ll get us all killed, like you did your own pack.”

  “My own?” The words stuck in her throat, the shock of what he was saying too great to process. Her pack. Her dad. Lily…

  “Oh, that’s right. The researchers had already caged you by then. They didn’t want anyone looking for their special pet, so they wiped your pack out. You attract death, CLS24.”

  CLS24. Her lab designation. For nearly a year, that had been her name to the researchers and to the monster before her. Tess rubbed the tattoo on the inside of her wrist as she called on her wolf only to remember she no longer had a wolf.

  Tess made the mistake of glancing over her shoulder at the door. In less than a second, Ian pinned her to the wall. His tongue ran down her throat, as he dug his fingers into a breast. She screamed as she brought up her knee.

  He deflected her knee with his arm and landed a punch to her face. “Try that again, and I’ll put some more burns on your lovely body.”

  Her head was spinning from the punch. “I won’t say anything,” she lied. He wouldn’t buy it, but it was all she could think of. Time, she needed to buy time. The longer she stalled him, the better her chance of thinking of a plan.

  “Damn right you won’t say anything,” Ian said as he swung her around, placing his hard body behind her. He pulled her left arm up behind her so far she cried out from the pain. “We’re going for a walk. Keep quiet, and I’ll make it quick for you.”

  The hell with quick, the hell with letting her attacker drag her somewhere so he could kill her without anyone seeing or hearing. Tess yelled as loud as she could as she let her entire body drop. He could drag her out if he wanted; she wasn’t going to make abducting and killing her easy.

  Ian kicked her in the ribs once, twice, and then it stopped. She heard a thunderous growl as a black wolf tackled Ian to the floor. Tess got up and ran.

  * * *

  DAMIEN

  Damien ran for hours, well past dusk, but he had needed it. Too many thoughts, too much confusion in his head, most of which centered around Tess. Despite all his arrogance in telling her that her wolf would return, he had to face the very real possibility that she wouldn’t. Would a blood-bond with her doom him? Genetically, she was still shifter, at least he thought she was. This was new territory. The WSSO held the answers, and the anti-shifter organization certainly wouldn’t give Damien what he needed to know.

  If her wolf was too weak to return, did that mean the bond between Damien and Tess would be weak, or even non-existent? There was a very real possibility that blood-bonding with her would be the equivalent of blood-bonding with a human, and that was a risk an alpha couldn’t take. No one knew why exactly, but his father and his grandfather, and every alpha he’d ever heard of, had always said blood-bonding a human would kill an alpha. Sometimes he wondered if they were being figurative. Alphas couldn’t be weak, which is why they only blood-bonded with strong shifters. Did blood-bonding a human kill an alpha? Was his physiology different from someone like Blade who could blood-bond a human?

  There were too many questions. All Damien knew for now was that his pack wasn’t ready to accept a non-shifting shifter. Until Tess shifted, there would always be some asshole like that teacher who would question her right to be here.

  She would be in danger, from his own pack. Damien couldn’t fight them all, let alone kill shifters simply because they opposed Tess’s presence. If blood-bonding her left him severely weakened, he’d be unable to fight, unable to protect her.

  Hayden would have to take over as alpha, and for as much as Damien trusted Hayden to make the right choices, Hayden would have to think of the pack first, not Damien and Tess. That could mean he and Tess would have to leave, to keep peace in the pack. They’d be without a pack. He’d seen what being a lone shifter had done to Blade, how even six years after joining Damien’s pack Blade still had trouble fitting in. He’d been a lone wolf for two years before joining Damien’s pack, which didn’t sound like a long time, but to a wolf who w
as raised in a pack, worked for and depended on the pack, an exile could feel like an eternity. The effects of those years as a lone wolf still showed on Blade, all these years later.

  Damien wouldn’t give Tess up. A life out there, with no one to watch their backs, wasn’t a life he wanted for himself or Tess.

  Damien tried to thrust the dilemma aside for the moment. He was too agitated to think straight, and right now all he wanted was to be with Tess, to smell her sweet scent, to feel her soft skin beneath his fingertips, or better yet, her lips on his. Just picturing her sweet smile and how her eyes lit when he drew near had his heart racing. He’d never understood how lonely he’d been before, not until he had her in his house, his arms. Losing her would be… No, he wasn’t going to think about it. Losing her wasn’t an option.

  The closer he got to his house, the more his wolf relaxed. Damien would feel her, smell her, hold her soon. She calmed him and his wolf, and that was not a gift he’d throw away just because she was more human than shifter.

  Damien pushed the door to his home open. Stale, odorless air greeted him. A second later, he picked up Callen’s scent. His enforcer was sitting on the sofa, yellow eyes tracking his every move. Tess’s scent was faint, old. She hadn’t been here for hours. It was disappointing, but not unexpected. Damien had been gone for a while. He couldn’t expect her to sit here waiting for him forever, though he wasn’t quite sure where she would go. She hadn’t really made friends with anyone yet. As soon as he dealt with Callen, he’d track her down, see what she was doing.

  “When I call a meeting, I expect you there, Callen,” Damien said as he slammed the door shut and reached into the wall unit by the door where he kept pants and a few shirts for when he, or his shifters, entered naked. He slipped a pair of sweats on and headed for the kitchen. He pulled open the fridge and grabbed a beer, still trying to identify that odd scent that didn’t belong in his house.

  “It was unavoidable,” Callen said, being his usual guarded self.

  Damien wasn’t in the mood for this, not that Callen was one to bullshit. As Damien moved toward the kitchen, he caught that scent again, still too slight to identify. He considered asking Callen if he’d sent Tess away so he and Damien could speak in private. But he wanted to get this over with, so he could go find her and spend the night talking to and holding her, shutting out the pack and the outside world for a few hours.

  “Of all days not to show, you picked the worst. You know what happens when my enforcer doesn’t show? Shifters get too brazen for their own good. I nearly put down that new guy Tim, Tam, Thomas…”

  “Trent.”

  “That’s it. The stupid bastard. He knows nothing about fighting. We need to start assessing everyone’s fighting skills and working with them, no matter what their jobs. If the WSSO ever attacks, we need wolves who at least know the basics, not a bunch of pups running from their own shadows.”

  Damien was getting off-track, which was unlike him, but that other scent in his house was aggravating his wolf. He needed to stay focused, chew out his enforcer, and then track down Tess. Maybe she headed to see the kids camping by the lake. She had mentioned the idea earlier in the day.

  “I was investigating something,” Callen said, now leaning forward, his clasped hands hanging over his feet as his elbows rested on his knees.

  “This better be good. What, precisely?”

  “A lead on Ian.”

  After taking a long swallow of the beer, Damien set the bottle down and paced behind the sofa, where the scent was stronger. The house reeked of sweat, anger, and an odor he couldn’t quite grasp. He turned his nose toward the stairs, the office, then Callen. Nothing unusual about Callen’s scent. Damien was simply wound too tight from that disaster of a meeting, despite all the hours he’d spent running afterward. His wolf was creating problems, not willing to give him a moment’s rest.

  “You found Ian, then. It’s about fucking time.”

  “I followed him here, Damien.”

  Damien’s hackles shot up even before he set his beer down. The scent had been Ian’s. Terror overwhelmed him. Tess.

  Bones started moving beneath his skin, and he clamped down hard, shoving his wolf into submission. Callen rose slowly, cautiously, no doubt because Damien had started to shift.

  “What happened? Where’s Tess?”

  “Ian is under guard, but Tess is gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?” He scented the air. That’s what that was. A trace of fear, her fear, had remained. “Don’t make me ask again.”

  “I don’t know where. She fled after Ian attacked her.”

  “Why didn’t you stop her!”

  “By the time I contained Ian, she was gone. I have guards and scouts out looking for her, including Blade, but the rain washed most of her scent away.”

  “You should have called me, or sent someone to find me.”

  “I did. I had so many howls in all directions the pack was starting to panic. Hayden ordered me to cease. He said you’d return when you were ready.”

  Damien didn’t wait for Callen to finish. He flung the door open so hard he ripped it off its hinges. Small bits of clothing rained down as Damien shifted. Desperate to catch her scent, he ran a grid sweep. The rain had washed the area clean of all scents, except the most recent shifters to pass by. He kept running wider and wider perimeters until finally he caught her scent on the wind. Southwest. She had taken off toward Devil’s Peak.

  Damien ran as fast as he could, his wolf recognizing what was at stake as much as Damien. If she reached town before he caught up to her, he could lose her forever.

  * * *

  TESS

  Luck, or maybe some divine being who knew Tess didn’t belong with Damien’s pack, led her to a truck deep in the woods. She followed the tire tracks to the rough and barely noticeable service road. As it started getting dark, she found the main road. A half hour later, a nice elderly lady in an old sedan with vinyl seats gave Tess a ride into town.

  Now Tess stood in the middle of… She wasn’t even sure of the name, not having seen any city-limit signs on her way in. Wherever she was, it was dark, and there wasn’t much activity going on, let alone a hotel within sight. Not that she had a way of paying for a room. She thought of going to the police station, but her father and alpha had always warned her to avoid the police at all costs. ‘Never bring attention to the pack’ was one of William’s rules, and one her father repeated enough that it was engrained in her to this day.

  Dead. My pack is dead. Her soul felt empty, cold. Could she believe Ian, or was this another way for him to torment her?

  Tess wandered the alleys, looking for a spot to rest, some place dry and without too much wind. At least she had clothing and shoes and the freedom to go wherever she damn well pleased—a definite improvement over the lab. Although, right now she’d trade all she had for a pair of strong arms to wrap around her, to keep her warm and safe—as long as they belonged to a certain alpha with gray eyes and a grin that melted her heart.

  She really missed Damien, and she regretted leaving him like that. Once she started running, she hadn’t been able to stop. She had hoped her wolf would sense the freedom and finally surface, but that hadn’t happened. At least she had escaped Ian. She shivered, still able to feel his slimy tongue on her neck.

  The alley she settled in was home to a few harmless-looking, older men huddled around a garbage-can fire. The space between the dumpster and the brick wall, covered by shadows, seemed the safest place right now, so she slipped in when the men weren’t paying attention. As they rambled on about the weather and which locals gave them money versus those who outright ignored them, she drifted off to sleep, tired and emotionally wrought.

  “Lady! Lady!” Someone was shaking her bad shoulder, sending a sharp pain down her arm and her back.

  Tess jolted awake to the sight of an old, toothless guy wearing a yellow-knit hat and a heavy, pink parka staring down at her. His foul breath assaulted her.

  �
��You gotta run! There’s a wolf here!” The man stumbled and ran off.

  Her heart was beating so fast. Had Ian escaped Callen and tracked her here?

  “Sweetness? I can smell you. Please, don’t hide from me.”

  A cry ripped from her throat. “Damien?”

  Before she could stand, the dumpster was flung away from the wall, exposing her. Then he was there, squatting before her, in all his naked glory, reminding her of the first day she saw him. Never had she been so thrilled to see another being in her life, then or now. She reached up and clamped her arms around his neck and let the tears flow.

  Damien held her tight against his body, one hand smoothing her hair down her back. Before she knew it, he scooped her up and held her secure against his chest. She knew beyond all doubt this was where she wanted to be. As long as she lived, she’d never tire of how it felt to be pulled against his hard body, to have his heat warm her flesh, or to know that all those muscles wrapping around her could crush a man, but would never hurt her.

  “I ran, and I was too afraid to go back.”

  “Afraid of me?”

  She shook her head. “Afraid Ian would find me.” She didn’t need to see Damien’s expression. The growl coming from him said enough.

  “I shouldn’t have left you alone,” he said as he buried his head against the spot where her neck met her shoulder. His entire body was rife with tension and anger. Before today, she hadn’t realized how much he held on his shoulders—the pack and his friends’ welfare, the threat of the WSSO, Ian, and now her.