“Goddamn,” she says and sighs, shuffling close enough that I see her outline close to the bars. “I guess you’re right.”
“I know I am. Except I wish I wasn’t and that I hadn’t said all that stuff or packed my bags in a blind state of pain because now they’ll think I left and they’ll never look for me. They’ll look for you though!” I say hopefully, my usual positive mind jumping on that fact before my hopes are dashed when she mumbles a curse and dissuades me of that notion.
“They all think I went to visit family in Kentucky. They won’t be expecting me to call for at least five days since I elected to travel in my fur.”
“Shit.”
“Double shit,” she concurs, looking down to where I’m cradling my wrist to my body, trying to keep it still so it doesn’t hurt quite so much.
“My wrist really hurts, and I am terrified of the dark. Banner always leaves a light on in the bathroom for me,” I whisper, my throat closing around the words because a reminder of his thoughtfulness just makes me feel worse.
“It’ll be okay, Cass. We’ll get out of here. They’ll follow your scent trail and find you. Banner won’t just take this breakup lying down. Fated males aren’t exactly rational when it comes to their mate,” she says softly.
I sure hope so, or else we’re out of luck. As it stands, I don’t know if Banner really loves me, or if that’s just my own wishful thinking. Either which way, it’s not like we have a bond or like he should want to find me. I haven’t exactly been the ideal woman for him lately. If I could have a do-over I would play it so different, maybe…I wish I still had my phone in my—
“Hannah! Oh my gosh! I can so call Hannah and—”
“And what?” I hear, the amused drawl coming out of the darkness, making both Julia and I gasp and rear back. “Use her little mind trick to talk to her? It doesn’t work that way. She has to be the one looking for you, and even if she manages to forgive you for leaving your Fated she won’t find you. I can assure you of that.”
I can barely see Blain, but I can hear him, and he sounds amused. Hell, I didn’t even know he was there!
“How the hell did you get in here! I didn’t smell or hear you!” Julia yells, her voice a dark growl of fury.
A light clicks on, making us both blink and strain to focus, and what I see makes me want to cry. Blain, the guy I call a friend, is standing in the middle of the basement, a huge dirt carved cavern and he’s smiling as if he finds this amusing.
“Secret passageway I found when I was younger. It’s been amusing listening to you both decide just which hero is going to rescue you both, but the plain truth is, that won’t happen. See, the only scent that’s hanging around your cabin right now belongs to the male who’s been skulking around out there for days. I believe you know a Mr. Gregor Gage?” he asks pleasantly.
“Er—?”
“I caught him out there just after Julia decided to play the fool and run from me. All they’ll scent out there is him, and by the time they stop looking for him, well…you’re here,” he muses.
I gape, my mind focusing on the fact that Gregor was here, so close, and that he’s the lesser of two evils right now. I would never have even considered a few weeks ago that Gregor is a pussy cat compared to a guy I trusted and spent time with.
“Her trail!” Julia yells triumphantly, smiling for all of a heartbeat before he speaks.
“Stopped at the cabin. Oh! I’m sorry ladies. I forgot to tell you both that you’ve been injected with a rather pleasantly surprising variation of the scent drug. Dr. Bartley has been tweaking it after I found the formula again, and I am pleased to say that I now have something that has only temporary effects but the same potency. No one will smell you down here, not with the dirt all around you masking your scents, and as for the trail, the drug ensures there isn’t one.” He muses.
“Blain, I—”
“Don’t lie to me, Kepner! You and I both know you are aware of exactly what was on that paper when you snooped around in my office. I knew it the moment I looked into your face. That’s one of the few things I like about you, Kepner, you’re too honest to lie well.”
I hear his words, knowing that he’s bad, so bad, but all I can think is…this isn’t my friend. This is not the man who snarls at me but does things like hide chocolate in plain sight for me and his mom.
This isn’t the man who pretends to suffer me, but spends time in the kitchen “overseeing” my work, just so he can talk to me. I recognize a lonely soul when I see one because I was one before I found the Greyriver pack.
I was just so hoping that he would be good somehow, that I could bring it out of him with love and caring, and that I would prove Banner wrong when he became my friend and stopped being an asshole.
“Please don’t do this. You don’t have to do this, Blain. I know you’re good, and I know that you don’t really want to hurt anyone. We’re friends. You’re my friend, Blain,” I whisper, a tear falling when he grinds his jaw and snarls at me.
“We are not friends, Kepner. You’re a lowly human. Nothing in the scheme of things. Just a maid with too much kindness to be smart and smell the bad when you scent it! Didn’t I warn you not to be so nice? Didn’t I tell you your incessant and irrational belief in people would disappoint you?” he asks, seeming pissed at me for not being smart enough to distrust him.
I gulp, choking up with disappointed anger, and turn away when his eyes flinch and he bares his teeth at me.
“Don’t blame me! Don’t you blame me for this! This is on you. You just couldn’t toughen up and lie properly, could you? Why are you so fucking naive? Why didn’t you run to Banner the moment you left here, you idiot!” he yells, stalking away with agitated movements.
“Because, because I didn’t want you to get in trouble,” I say weakly, my voice going small because it sounds ridiculous, even to me.
I should have known I was being a fool, but the truth is, I don’t like the thought of Blain being hurt. I like him. He’s my friend. He deserves a second chance, if only he’ll take it.
“There are no second chances! Can’t you fucking understand that? This—”
“Is not you!” I yell, cutting him off with a scream of conviction and anger. “Don’t you stand there and defend your action because you want to think you’re some bad guy with no feelings. You just need to decide to be better. Please. Be better,” I beg, watching him wince and turn his back to me.
“Leave it, Cass. Don’t talk to him. It’s a waste of time you do not need to bother with. He’s going to kill us. Aren’t you?” Julia snarls, her eyes filled with anguish when he turns around and faces her, his eyes closing in a groan.
“What choice have you left me, female? You should have kept yourself in that ivory tower your father built for you and never ventured forth. This playing field is for the ruthless, and to survive it, I have to be ruthless. I have no choice!” he rages, his eyes going wild when Julia swallows and steps back, as if the close proximity hurts her.
“You had choices! You can’t tell me you didn’t. Brigger turned out good, even Hannah, as much of a pain as she is, she turned out good. You choose this Blainton Seers, and the worst part is that you enjoy it!” she screams, her mouth curling into a sneer.
“Enjoy it? Yes, I do, and do you want to know why, you self-righteous, spoiled brat? Because it will give me everything I have always wanted. A chance to change the pack so that they are not wild ungoverned dens of abuse!! You think you know what the world is like because your daddy’s the Alpha and he’s all powerful? You have no fucking idea. I’ve watched your father turn a blind eye to what his own people do because it’s easier to lead those he loves than to care for those he looks down on. You think my kind are bigots? Your father, your entire family are the worst kind. You stand there and sneer at me, probably justly in any event, but have you ever asked yourself exactly how the resistance came to be born if your father and other Alphas were such good leaders? If there was no need for us, we would have never
had such support. We are a need,” he stresses, seeming to be telling himself as much as us.
I hear every sneering word, but I also hear pain, anger, betrayal, and hurt. I hear the anger born of hurt and pain and suffering, and my heart goes out to him because I know that Blain and all the Seers living under Damon have more than earned the right to be angry.
“Don’t you dare talk about my father, you bastard! My father is ten times the male you will ever be. He’s kind and good and he loves his people!” Julia yells, her hands curving around the bars when she lunges, the spark in her eyes making her growls all the deeper because her animal is so close to the surface.
“Love! Aah, this kind loving Alpha, who knows how to rule and never shirks his duty. Where was he when Jessa Rubens was torn apart by her own brothers, her body dumped across the border? He didn’t even know because she’s elite and he doesn’t bother with the elite unless he’s got a bug up his ass about us making waves. Where was he when my father was beating my mother and sister? Where was your father when your own friend Lync went feral because his mate deserted him and got her whore-ass killed? He was nowhere. He was so wrapped up in ‘the pack’ he didn’t see it, and as for Lync, that male deserved more than almost six years in a cage,” he says somberly. “No, female. Love? Your father loves only those he deems worthy—”
“Because you all make it so hard on him! He changes the laws, and you protest. He extends our borders, rebuilds the clinic with his own funds after your elite males vandalized it, protesting birth control because females were struggling to care for seven young at a time with mates who only know how to breed not love their children. My father is no perfect male and an even less perfect Alpha, but he’s the best for this pack because he does care. If you people bothered to do things right instead of wanting to wrestle power from him all the time he would listen!”
“When!” Blain screams, pulling at his hair in anger.
Heck, Julia do not piss him off, I think, watching his eyes glow a blue so light they look almost white. He’s pissed off, in his own head, and on the edge of losing it at any moment.
“Jules, I think you should—”
“You know what your problem is, princess? You only see what you want to. You did it with Hannah, a female I have never seen try so hard to please others. You took one look at her and hated her because you wanted to. It wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been as blindly kind and trusting as Cass because you don’t see beyond the surface. You and that spoilt brat mother of yours, you’re so blinkered that you don’t see a thing. The only decent one out of your lot is your brother. Fat lot of good it does because he’s so blinded by love and lust he can barely see straight lately.”
I sort of agree. I mean, not to be nasty or judgmental, but for a guy who is next in line for Alpha, Bear doesn’t seem interested.
“My family—”
“Are good people. Even I have to admit that, but not very kind to those they think of as unworthy. I was unworthy when I approached your father at the age of fourteen when I knew you were mine. I developed fast, shifted young, and knew you were mine, and yet do you know, instead of looking at me like a young in need of help and guidance, he kicked me out and told my father to keep me away from you. I didn’t understand what the hell was happening to me, and all he saw was a kid he didn’t like coming for his precious angel,” he says, smiling darkly when we both gasp.
Julia rears back, her eyes going wide with disbelief while Blain bares his teeth.
“That is your Alpha! That is the male who let me get beaten and starved for two weeks without mercy! He judged me unworthy, left me confused because I didn’t understand what was happening, and didn’t bother to give two shits about a kid he saw as a threat to you. I was running on instinct, and he judged me, sentenced me, and handed me over to my abuser. He let the female I loved be murdered because he isn’t watching the fucking ball! After I grew up and got real, I let myself find happiness. I fought back my instinct and found a female I could trust, one who wanted me. She died because she was just another elite. A spoilt brat beneath his notice. The resistance is there to make sure that Alphas rule with justice, not this separatist attitude that seems to be rife,” he says, shaking his head as if clearing it.
Turning to me, he smiles sadly, as if he regrets what he has to do but will do it either way. I see pain inside him, feel pain for that little boy who needed someone to give a shit, and I feel resigned because that boy isn’t here with us because Blain won’t let him be.
“Hannah cannot hear you in here. I’ve studied her intensively since we were young. She may not remember all of her ability when she was young, but she has a problem with interference like large bodies of water and magnetic fields. Suffice it to say this house is the one place she will struggle to find you. There is an underground stream under the northern foundation. If she happens to get through, well, I doubt she will, so it’s a moot point. There are fold-up camp beds in the corner of your cells. Please make yourselves comfortable.”
He leaves before I can say anything, and from the pale cast and shock on Julia’s face, she isn’t capable.
“He’s crazy!” she says, turning terrified eyes my way.
I hate to say this, but I just might agree.
Chapter Twenty-two
Banner
I’m swaying on my feet by the time I stumble upstairs and fall face first into the mattress. I’m so drunk my animals aren’t even a whisper in my mind anymore.
After that phone call and the soul-crushing words Cass threw at me, the only thing I could think to do was drink to blot it all out. For hours I’ve done nothing but drown in booze to try and kill the words that won’t stop repeating in my head.
It’s not working, though God knows I’m grateful not to have to listen to my animals and their pitiful whimpers anymore. At least that’s one less pain to bear.
She doesn’t want me. It’s all I hear, all I feel, all I can think about, as the drunken wave of thought keeps spinning inside me, growing momentum until I hurt so much I want to destroy everything. She’s all I want in this world, all that matters, and I can’t have her because she’s right, if I am what is hurting her, then I have to stay away.
Growling, the sound turning into a whine that comes from my gut, I roll over onto my back and try not to breathe in her scent that still lingers on the sheets.
I smell her everywhere, and the reminder serves to twist the knife deeper because I know that soon the scent will fade and I’ll have nothing to cling to. She’ll be gone from me, just within reach but never close enough to claim, and certainly never in my life because I can’t hurt her.
I thought briefly of going to her and talking things out, but after thinking about what’s happened, every time she was sick and weak, knowing that it was all when she was with me, I stopped myself and instead tried to forget.
Should have known nothing could take it away, I think drunkenly, closing my eyes when tears burn them. I don’t let them fall because I know it won’t make one bit of fucking difference, and I’m not sure that I could stop once I start. That might make me a fucking pussy, but I don’t care. I love Cass. She’s mine. My female. My fated. The only female in this world I will ever want now that I know her and all I can see before me is a desolate wasteland of empty years if she’s not with me.
Losing her is like losing every single dream I’ve ever held. I will never love another, so in all likelihood I’ll be alone until I take my last breath. I won’t have young to fill the bedrooms I built in anticipation of a happy ending. I will never know the joys of seeing her bring my young into this world, watch her suckle them, and give them love, and I will never feel what I felt these last few weeks with her to fill the void inside me.
Everything is gone, and I have no one to blame for it because it’s nothing that can be pointed to. Of course, I could hunt down and kill the fucker who bit her, but Cass was right when she laughed and told me that if not for Gregor she would have never found me.
So it wouldn’t really matter, would it? It seems that no matter what played out, how she came to be mine, I was never destined to hold her.
For a Fated, it is the worst moment, knowing that what is yours, what your body and soul crave, is gone…
I now know what Lync felt, and I feel all the worse because if this is it, then I don’t blame him at all for letting himself get lost beneath the wildness of feral fever.
The only thing keeping me from it is the thought that I will at least see her from afar sometimes, and while it isn’t near enough, it’s better than nothing.
I won’t ever hold her again, scent her, put my scent and mark on her, but to see her and just know that she exists, it is enough to keep my mind whole instead of shattering into pieces.
Lync had no such luxury. Fuck us all for judging him and asking why he couldn’t just get over it. I understand now. I feel for him in ways I didn’t before, and I respect the hell out of him for coming this far because if it was me, it would be over. I’d never fucking come back.
“Pain.”
I grunt, my head lolling to the side, and see Lync standing in the doorway, his eyes a curious mix of anger and grief.
“Pain,” I concede, my breath stuttering on the word when it grips me again and makes my gut ache.
“Cass.”
“She’s not…coming back.” I choke. “She gets sick because of me. Her body is fighting against our mating.”
God that hurts. It goes against everything I believe! I am her male. My blood is her blood. My breath is her breath. I need her.
“Blood.”
“Goddammit! I fucking told you I can’t blood her!” I roar, swaying when I rear up to unleash my anger on him.
I need it. I have to do something before I bust open from the sorrow. I need to hurt on the outside and break everything. I need to kill. I need—
“Blood. Heal.”
“My blood won’t heal her!”
He growls, stalking into the room and grabs me by the shirt with one hand, lifting me as easily as a rag doll. The roar he releases right in my face is a sound filled with fury and frustration so great I swallow and just hang there, accepting his censure.
Greyriver Shifters Page 92
