by Renee Rose
“Oh. My. God,” I whisper. My whole body shakes. Torn bits of fluff and fake fur float in the air, coat the floor, my bed, the walls.
One of my closet doors hangs askew on its hinges. The other is in pieces on the floor. My color-organized cardigans are half off their hangers.
It took Deke the wolf thirty seconds to commit this act of destruction.
I press a hand over my left breast, willing my heart to sink back into my chest.
The thing about me being dangerous, Sadie—it’s real.
I didn’t believe him when he told me before, but I believe it now. There’s a predator in my bedroom, and if for some reason it turns on me, I wouldn’t stand a chance. I wouldn’t survive.
“Deke,” I whisper. “Come back to me.”
A growl rises from the black shape in the corner. The wolf backs away, tossing its head like it’s trying to jostle something loose. Then a long, low whine. The pained sound makes my heart clench. The man inside realized what he'd done.
There’s a groan, and Deke rises, back in man form.
“Fuck,” he says, casting a horrified glance around the room. “Sadie.”
I’m pressed back against the headboard so hard, my spine’s fused with it. I’m trembling so hard my muscles hurt. His feral growls still echo in my ears.
“Did I hurt you?”
He takes a step towards me, and I flinch. He sees and flinches himself.
“It’s okay,” I say quickly.
“No. No, it’s not. I could’ve killed you,” he says. “Fuck. Fuck!” the last time comes out a roar. I can’t help my whimper.
He looks down at the wreckage strewn over the floor then back at me. “I’m sorry, Sadie.” His voice cracks. “Now you see. I can’t do this,” he mutters. “I’m not safe.”
I can’t bring myself to leave the bed, but I can keep my voice steady. “Deke, look at me.”
He does, and a small inhuman whine escapes him, sounding like a dog who’s been kicked. Or a wolf.
I lower my hands from my heart and my mouth. I’m safe. I was just scared. My heartbeat is already slowing.
“Deke. No. Deke...it’s okay—”
He turns and leaves. I scramble off my bed, grabbing a blanket to toss around my shoulders. “Wait!”
My front door slams open. I run out of my bedroom, but I’m too late.
“Deke,” I cry. The neighbor's dog next door is going crazy, but there’s no sign of Deke.
His car is still in front of my place, parked at the curb. No Deke. I run down my front path. “Deke!”
A giant black wolf runs down my street, leaping my neighbor’s decorative fence and skidding crazily over the lawn. The last I see of its dark shape is the fanned tail and pointed ears heading into the hills.
Deke
I could’ve fucking killed her. My paws beat over the ground in a constant rhythm. I run until they’re bloody, leaving wet tracks on the red earth until my shifter healing kicks in. The stinging stops for a little while, but another mile, and the rocks on the trail slice through my paws, and I bleed again.
This is the end. This is what I deserve—to run to the ends of the earth. Would that the world were flat, so I could leap over the edge. I will run until I die or until I can think of a better punishment.
Dawn breaks, and I pause in my quest. I’m on a mountain peak, surrounded by red boulders. The air is thin enough to make me lightheaded. I throw back my head, savoring the haziness in my mind. A sort of drunkenness, separating me from the pain. When clarity comes, I remember: I can never go back to Sadie.
My wolf howls and howls and howls until there’s no other sound in the world.
Sadie
Dawn comes and sheds a thin, sad light on the wreckage of my bedroom. I clean it up the best I can, just for something to do. I’m a kindergarten teacher, I’m used to cleaning up messes. At least this one doesn’t involve peanut butter or scissors in the hands of a six year old.
But I’ll never forget the savage rage, the growl in the darkness.
He’s a werewolf. This was never going to work.
The closet doors aren’t salvageable, so they go outside into the trash. My shredded cardigans, same. All that’s left of the damn jackalope is mostly bits of black fabric and cotton fluff. I vacuum and then get dressed to go to school. Not ideal, but I have no idea what else to do. I don’t know where to look for Deke. The desert? The pound? The other option is to sit in my apartment and cry.
Not an option. But I do get a little sniffly when I walk outside. Deke’s Mercedes is still parked at my curb. Inside my house are his keys and his phone, all his stuff. If he comes back for it, he won’t be able to get it unless I’m here.
He will come back for it, right? I hope so, but a part of me is terrified he won’t. A part of me fears he’s gone for good.
Deke
I run until night falls, and then I run some more.
I’m loping down the side of a mountain when a giant black wolf with amber orange markings stalks across my path. My alpha.
I skid on my aching paws. Rafe lowers his head, sniffing me. I stay still on stiff limbs. I didn’t eat today. My wolf made me drink, but I’m weak. My body trembles.
A second and third wolf rise from the brush and flank me. I’m surrounded. If I want to continue my quest, I’ll have to fight it out, and in my weakened state, I’ll lose.
I don’t want to fight. I lower my head. Lances presses forward and licks at my side, cleaning away blood from a wound I got from tearing against a rock. On my right side, Channing presses his shoulder against mine, bracing me.
My wolf relaxes in the presence of the pack. These are my brothers, for better or worse. They heard my call, and they came.
We point our noses to the moon and howl. They sing for a brother found, but I cry for what I’ve lost.
Sadie
Two days pass with no sign or word from Deke. I finally cave and phone a friend. Not all of them, just Adele. I can’t take a full Inquisition.
As soon as I open my door for her, Adele knows something is wrong.
“What happened?” she asks.
I press my lips together to keep the tears back, and she pulls me into a hug. “Sadie, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m okay,” I sniffle.
“No, you’re not.” Adele pulls back and studies me. “That asshole. I will end him.”
“No, don’t do that.”
“Tell me everything.”
So I do. I leave out the part about Deke being a werewolf, but I tell her everything else. The trip, the flirting, the wedding. The sex—of course I skim over those details. “We were all over each other,” I summarize, my cheeks hot.
“Hmm,” Adele murmurs, swirling her wine. Totally non-judgemental. “And he was a total gentleman?”
“Yes. I mean, he’s intense.” I blush red as Adele’s wine. “Especially in bed. But I liked that. Things were fine. He told me about his past, his arrest, and we talked about it. He has PTSD from his service to our country. Sometimes it triggers violence. I was willing to work through it with him.” Crap, now I have to tell her the worst of it.
“But then he…”
“He what?”
“It was the toy. The stupid jackalope. It’s been malfunctioning, and it went off in the middle of the night, and Deke...went crazy.”
Adele goes still. I swallow. “He didn’t hurt me. But he….he thought it was a threat. He wrecked my closet. And destroyed the toy before I could stop him.”
“Well.” Adele sits back in her seat.
“So that was early Monday,” I finish. “When he realized what he’d done, he was devastated. He told me he’s too dangerous, and he took off. I haven’t seen him since. I did leave a voicemail at his office.” There was no answer. I spent last night by the window, waiting, wondering who else to call. “It’s been two days. I’m worried.”
Adele rubs her forehead, an unusual gesture for her normally poised self. She looks tired tonight, the shado
ws dark as bruises under her eyes. “This is a lot.”
“I know.” I bite my lip, desperate to defend Deke. But I need a cool head to weigh in on things. My instincts when it comes to men are all messed up.
“You care about him.” The statement is more a question.
“I do. He’s...he makes me strong. He never tells me what to do. Never tries to control me.” Not like Scott and my dad. “He gives me space to be who I am. He likes who I am.” I search for words to articulate who Deke is to me. It’s impossible. A few days, and Deke has changed my whole life. “I feel stronger with him. But this violence in him… I know he won’t hurt me, but my instincts might be screwed up.”
“He has PTSD—it’s common in vets.”
“Yeah.”
“Can he talk to anyone about it?”
I shrug.
Adele’s voice hardens. “He needs to talk about it. He needs to do something to fix this. He’s dangerous. His first instincts should be to keep you safe.”
“I think they are. That’s why he destroyed the toy.”
“But you could’ve been hurt. He’s willing to fight others on your behalf. But will he fight his own demons?”
Outside, a truck with a big engine rumbles past my house. If Deke’s ride wasn’t parked outside my house, I’d run out to see if it was him.
But then there’s a knock on the door.
“Miss Diaz?” A deep voice calls. I head towards the door, peeking out the window as I do. It’s Rafe. A khaki-colored Humvee idles in the cul-de-sac, Lance behind the wheel.
Adele rips the door open before I can get to it. “What do you want?” she says in a frosty tone that would cow lesser men.
Rafe doesn’t cower. He does stand up straighter, like he’s in the presence of a commanding officer. “I’m here to pick up Deke’s ride.”
“Is he all right?” I quaver.
“He’ll be okay, Sadie. We found him, brought him home.”
I go and grab Deke’s keys, but instead of returning them to Rafe I grip them tight. “I want to see him.”
“I know you do,” Rafe says patiently. “But it’s not a good idea.”
“I just want to know that he’s okay.” My voice catches. Adele puts a steadying hand on my back.
Rafe angles his head to the side, a very wolf-like movement. His eyes glitter strangely in the low light. “Deke can’t be with you.”
Adele takes a breath, and I know she’s gearing up to protest, to defend me. Rafe holds up a hand, stalling her.
“It’s not you, Sadie. He can’t be with anyone. He’s not relationship material.” He holds out his hand for Deke’s keys. I relinquish them, shoulders slumping as I do. My eyes burn with tears. The clink of metal is so final. It’s really over.
“I’m sorry, Sadie,” Rafe says softly, more gently than I’d believe he could sound. “It’s better this way.”
“Goodbye,” Adele snaps and shuts the door in his face. I wait, crying as silently as I can, until the rumbling from both vehicle’s engines recedes before falling into her arms.
Chapter 16
Rafe
“You know this is fucking jacked, right?” my brother demands.
“Excuse me?” I keep my face blank but toss the wrench I’m working with into the tool box. It’s been a week since I retrieved Deke’s Mercedes, but he hasn’t touched it, which isn’t like him. Normally this SUV is his baby. Lance and I changed the oil to see if we could tempt Deke back to normal, but no luck.
We haven’t had any missions to distract us. After we got made on the last one, Colonel Johnson put the recon on Gabriel Dieter on hold. We still haven’t figured out how he knew we were there.
Lance wipes his hands on the grease rag. “Something’s wrong with Deke. He’s fucked up. Way more than usual.”
Understatement. Since we retrieved Deke, he hasn’t eaten, has barely slept. Most of the time he’s in wolf form.
I shrug. I can’t disagree. “I’m doing all I can.”
“Bullshit.” Lance’s cheeks are bright. He holds my eyes bravely, but his swallow belies the innate difficulty of standing up to his alpha like this. “I thought like you. I acted on orders, I went to break Deke and Sadie up. But this isn’t some one-night stand. This woman’s really good for him.”
“Deke’s unstable. His wolf can’t be around humans long term. It’s not safe.”
“I’ve never seen him smile like he does with her. And he was after her from the first whiff of her scent he got. She’s obviously his mate.”
That stops me short. “His mate,” I repeat, testing the words. Mate. I never thought we’d get mates. It just didn’t cross my mind. “Deke has a mate.”
“Yep.” Lance sounds casual, but his shoulders relax. He got his message through.
Deke has a mate. Unbelievable. But my wolf confirms it’s true.
“Fuck,” I mutter. Keeping him from his mate will actually drive him straight to moon madness. He could be dead before the next moon. But what can we do? He can’t have a human. None of us can, but especially not Deke. He’s the most feral of all of us.
“This changes everything,” Lance says.
“No, it doesn’t. Brother. Think. Sadie’s a human. Even if Deke is bound to her, we can’t ask her to be shackled to him. He’s a monster.”
Lance is shaking his head. “He won’t hurt her.”
“You don’t know that—”
A roar cuts me off. I kick the toolbox in my haste to race outside. Lance follows at my back. On the lawn in front of our lodge, there’s a blur of white and brown, followed by a dark streak. Channing in wolf form, getting the shit kicked out of him by Deke’s midnight black wolf.
“Aww hell,” Lance says and starts stripping off his shirt. He sets his Rolex aside carefully before shucking off his khakis and striding, bare-assed, into the fray. He shifts, and his grey wolf joins the fight.
I sigh. Pack fights are fine, but Deke’s been picking fights nonstop for days. Right now, his black wolf is growling and snapping, ripping at Channing before rounding on Lance. Channing darts away, half his ear chewed off. He looks like he wants nothing more than to slink off, but he waits patiently on the sidelines for Lance to tire, so he can run at Deke again. The only way to get Deke to stop is to tire him out. Unless we want to escalate things.
I’ve stayed out of the fights. If Deke turns on me, my wolf will take it as a challenge. And a challenge is a fight to the death.
Across the lawn, Lance leads Deke on a merry chase. The grey wolf’s mouth hangs open, half laughing as it threads between our cars. Lance emerges from behind my Humvee, slowing to a trot. Deke is nowhere to be seen. But then—
“Look out,” I shout.
Lance turns just in time for the black wolf to sail over my Humvee and crash into him. The two wolves become a blur of speed and snarls and fur. Then a pained yelp, and I wince. Deke has Lance by the nose, his fangs sunk into his muzzle. A dangerous move, and an effective one. If Deke hangs on too long, Lance won’t be able to breathe.
Channing’s wolf flashes by me. He hits Deke’s flank and bites the black wolf’s rump. Deke’s head flies up, his body jackknifing in an attempt to reach Channing. Channing plants his paws and hangs on.
Lance backs away looking dazed, his muzzle bleeding. Deke drags Channing now, trying to run in a circle to catch the brown and white wolf’s tail.
This is ridiculous. Time to escalate things.
I stride onto the lawn just as Channing lets go of Deke and leaps out of the way. Deke doesn’t quit. The black wolf lunges for Channing again and again.
“Enough,” I order. I put the force of my alpha command into my tone. It should stop the fighting at once.
But instead of stopping, the black wolf turns and races my way, its jaw spread in a snarl as it launches at me in attack.
Deke
I get close enough to see the whites of my alpha’s eyes before Rafe throws himself out of the way. I crash into the side of the lodge, cracking a shut
ter. The impact makes a section of the gutter fall but the stone wall holds. I’m on my paws as quick as I land, shaking my head to clear it.
I’m broken, bleeding, but there’s no way I can stop. I have to fight. There’s a roaring in my ear, a sick churning in my gut. An engine fed by pain that drives me on and on.
I lost Sadie. There’s nothing left for me. But I can still fight.
I’m disoriented, and by the time I get my wits back, a black and orange wolf slams into my side. I snarl and lunge, trying to catch him, but Rafe dances out of the way. He backs onto the lawn, facing me in challenge. A smarter wolf would stop and go to its belly before its alpha.
My wolf isn’t smart. It wants to die. I show my teeth in a deadly smile, and hurl myself at Rafe. This time he’s ready for me, and doesn’t bother skipping out of the way. He side steps and slams his shoulder into mine, unbalancing me. I find my paws again and lunge. Rafe knocks me over again. A third time, and he snaps at my haunch, a tiny nip that draws blood. And my wolf goes crazy, attacking and charging Rafe over and over as he rips into me. He’s a second faster, a hair stronger, and a million times as lethal. My wolf rises to the occasion, but Rafe bleeds me little by little. And then, finally, he knocks me to my back. I try to move, and he pins me with his weight.
There are teeth on my throat. I go still.
The light is breaking in the east. My last dawn. I don’t fear death. I don’t welcome it either, but if I can’t live with Sadie, there’s no more reason for me to walk the earth.
Rafe growls against me. He’s got me pinned. I scrabble my paws, hoping he’ll make it quick.
“Stop,” Lance is yelling. “It’s a trick.”
Rafe growls again but doesn't move.
“It’s a trick,” Lance insists. “Look at him.” He points to me. “Think about how he’s acting. He wants the bite.”
