“Annika,” comes her cynical reply, and I squeeze her tighter into my side.
They say lone wolves go feral, and that’s truer for us than anyone, isn’t it? Without an alpha to help them manage it, the feral energy would consume the majority of them. And with alphas, if we had no onetosiphon off of, let alone anyone to care for, we’d lose all reason to exist until we were so empty inside, we withered away.
Annika might have reasons for being a paranoid bitch, but that doesn’t excuse the damage she’s done in my eyes. Even if she was attempting to keep Sabrina’s wolf fed and alive, she did far more harm than good. And if she wanted to shield her from the wolves finding her forever, then why did she kick her out when she turned eighteen?
“Doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you, it means that she doesn’t show it in any way that we can understand. Otherwise, she’d have left you at a fire station and jumped ship when you were a kid. But! We’re officially saving that topic for tonight or tomorrow when we’re back at the Slaughter’s cabin. You don’t have to give up the location of whatever hole you think that she crawled back into, but it might be nice to give Leo, Sebastian, and Merrick some stories to tide them over.”
Slade strides up on her free side, smoothing a hand over her hair. “He has a point. She may be a bitch, but they’ve spent decades wondering what happened to her. Even if they aren’t the stories they want to hear, it’d be a mercy to give them something. If it were you, I know that I’d be desperate for any scrap of information.”
She threads her fingers through mine at her collar. “I know, I guess I just feel like an asshole shattering their image of her they have built up in their heads. Or they’ll think I’m lying. I’m not sure which is worse, truth be told, because both of those options suck. But while they’re gruff assholes, so are you guys sometimes, and I feel bad that I can’t tell them anything that they want to hear. What if it’s the final straw and crushes them?”
Reaching the steps leading up to the front porch of the cabin, I let every ounce of conviction that I have bleed into my tone for her to latch onto. “Lying to protect people is a temporary bandage. The truth always comes out eventually, and when it does, it’ll hurt far worse than if they’d been told in the beginning. Let the chips fall where they may. She created this mess, not you.”
The door is pulled open before any of us need to knock, Derrick standing in the doorway. One glance at Sabrina and my arm around her has his mouth parting in silent shock, and he remains rooted to the spot long enough that Jason comes to investigate. “What are-” he cuts off mid-sentence, staring at our group and scrambling for something to say. Eventually, he manages a stuttered, “Always nice to have you drop by, Kaige. Please, come in.”
I tilt my head respectfully, guiding Sabrina into the small cabin. It’s a two bedroom set up; one for the adults, one for if the need arises with children. While it’s still crowded for a small space, after living in the communal bunks, a family cabin is a luxury that people dream of, and many will never see. Like the Slaughter’s, the main room contains the kitchen, a dining room table, and a couple of couches. But that’s as far as the similarities extend, the fanciest thing in this place the bookcase that’s filled with second hand copies of novels that Derrick, Jason, and Ryan have managed to pick up over the years, as well as the small collection my mother had before she moved in here.
“Rick? Who’s at the door?” My mother comes into view a moment later, emerging from their room and rubbing sleep from her eyes. They bug open as she takes in the large crowd, quickly skimming past us to hone in on Sabrina. “I don’t...”
As she shakes her head, caught off guard and confused, I bring a smile to my face. It’s not too difficult to make it appear genuine; that’s par for the course when Sabrina’s involved. But I do have to work at it a little more than usual, and I crank up the internal volume on the song currently playing in the background of my head. It’s become a necessary staple to function, some sort of background noise, even if it’s imaginary. Otherwise, the silence threatens to become oppressive, crushing me under its weight.
If my mind has nothing to do besides wander, it’ll focus on things I’d rather leave forgotten. My life’s too depressing to let it infiltrate my every waking moment. If it weren’t for my distractions and daydreams, reality would suck every bit of joy from me that I’ve managed to stash away over the years.
“Anni?” she whispers, covering her mouth, looking like she’s seen a ghost.
That woman haunts everyone she’s ever been in contact with, doesn’t she?
“Mom, I’d like to introduce you to Sabrina; my mate.”
Beneath her salt and pepper hair, her eyes water as she shakes her head. “How?”
Meeting Jason’s eye, I pretend that he’s my first choice to address. “While the public story was that Damian, Hunter, and I were gone this past month working a new angle to open up more job avenues for our packs, that wasn’t exactly true. We just didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up until we were able to confirm what we were dealing with, and see where it went.”
He quickly glances from me to Sabrina and back. “You were able to convince another pack to come to an agreement?”
He then looks to Hunter and Damian, wary, and his hackles only continue to rise as he takes in the Hawthorne’s presence, as if preparing himself to fight. I suppose that is what it looks like from the outside, that I came here under a peaceful guise to have some form of backup to deal with an issue I couldn’t deal with on my own while also keeping her safe. For the first time since my mother took on her second set of mates, my regard for them actually rises. It’s always been hit or miss where the four of us stood in this uncomfortable relationship, but to know that they’d be willing to go to bat for me means a hell of a lot in my book.
“Not exactly. We actually went out there to slit her mates’ throats and bring her home, but the plan went off the rails quite a bit.” Seeing my mother wince has me internally kicking my own ass.
Stupid, careless slip. What the fuck was I thinking, talking about killing men and taking their mate in front of her? No wonder she can’t stand to look at me. While I may look like my father, she has me on par with the man that killed him.
The air seizes in my lungs, my other half stretching languidly in my chest as he awakens, and with it comes the heart dropping reminder that every technique I’ve used to deal with him up before will be utterly useless now. For the most part, I don’t struggle like the others, him leaving me to my own devices. But when he decides to make himself known, it’s usually followed by a show; a bloody one. Now that Sabrina’s set him free, though?
There’s no leash keeping him in check. I can’t even remember shifting after we left the hotel, waking up in the car on our way here.
Not right now. Please.
Naturally, he doesn’t respond to me. He simply finishes stretching and rising as fully as he can beneath my skin, making my stomach churn. Where before he was a tight pressure, occasionally taking over to the point it wasn’t unusual that I blacked out and woke up surrounded by an obscene amount of carnage, now, I can feel him pressing against my skin from within. He spreads throughout my body, writhing just beneath the surface, and sends goosebumps across my arms. Invisible claws rake across my flesh as he taunts me, proving that he could tear his way out with such little effort, and there’s nothing I could do to stop him.
Deep breaths. Not at odds with each other, we have the same goal. Ripping me apart serves no benefit when he needs me as much as I need him, and we both need Sabrina. He’s trying to get in my head, throw me off, but for what purpose?
“Kaige?” Ryan asks, and I shake my head, plastering a smile on my face.
“Sorry, lost in thought. What did you say?”
He repeats himself, looking me over with a critical eye. “I asked what you meant about the plan going off the rails.”
“Right.”
