One Last Try

by Kari Gregg

I scowled. “He doesn’t know me well enough to like or dislike me.”

  Asa drank from his mug. “He may not feel comfortable with it, but there’s no denying he’s dazzled by you. He could’ve gone anywhere. Ours is not the only pack in need of a fixer, and Dio’s good at teaching leadership skills and filling gaps in authority until he’s trained pack members to take over. His services are in high demand. But he came here, to this pack. For you.” With his coffee gone, he marched into the bathroom to rinse out the mug in the sink. Back in the workroom, he placed it the basin for dirty dishes on top of my mini-fridge. “You’re no traditional omega, that’s true, but he’s no traditional alpha. Seems to me, to us, if you’d both stop trying to squeeze into roles that don’t fit either of you and be yourselves instead, this mating would progress a lot more smoothly. You’re both screwing it up by fighting too hard to be who you think you’re supposed to be, instead of who you are.”

  I jumped when Dio growled Asa’s name from the door.

  “What? You moved him here to re-socialize.” Asa spread his hands. “I’m being sociable.” At Dio’s scowl, Asa sniffed in disdain. “Fine. I need to leave for work anyway.” He strode to the door, and then pivoted. “See you tomorrow?”

  Nerves rabbiting, I gulped, but I also nodded. “Tomorrow.”

  He beamed as he slipped past Dio in the doorway, where Dio fidgeted. “If he’s bothering you,” he finally said, trailing off.

  Asa’s morning visits had disconcerted me, but only briefly, in the beginning. His chatter filled a void I’d forgotten gaped inside me. “He was my friend.”

  “Is,” Dio corrected. “Asa is your friend. Many in the pack would be friends to you, if you’ll give them another chance.”

  Maybe.

  Probably.

  If only life were that simple. “I don’t remember.” I glanced down, the toe of my sock tracing lines in stray sawdust I’d missed sweeping from the floor yesterday. “How to talk to Asa. How I acted with the others. The way a pack should be. I don’t remember any of it.”

  “Thank God. This pack is dysfunctional as fuck.” Dio’s chest rumbled with a low laugh. “Decent shifters, for the most part, but they’re as prone to repeating mistakes rather than learning from them as the rest. They’re teachable, though. They want to make things right.” He stared, dark eyes fathomless and unblinking. “Don’t give up, not on them or me. Keep trying.”

  Gulping, I met his stare. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

  Chapter Eight

  “You’re sleeping soundly? No insomnia? Nightmares?”

  I hunched my shoulders in the chair in Dr. Bennet’s office, my stare fixed on the edge of his ugly metal desk. “Dio sleeps with me.” I tried to force the tension to drain from my muscles, but I hated this place. My wolf hated it. “In my den.”

  “In your new workshop, you mean.” The human smiled in encouragement.

  “Yes.”

  “Dio is making a concerted effort to meet you where you are and build from there.” His tone gentled. “But that doesn’t answer my question, Nox.”

  For me, it did. Dio was mating me. We both struggled with the process, but we were growing closer, more accepting of and reliant on each other. With Dio’s arms around me and his heat seeping into my bones, I wasn’t as restless at night.

  My alpha was also a demanding lover who enjoyed switching so neither one of us would be sore the next day regardless of how frequently we reached for each other. His birth control shot hadn’t ended his willingness to bottom for me. If anything, screwing for fun instead of procreation had intensified our lust, pushed us to be that much more eager… and versatile.

  “He burns off my excess energy when we fuck. I sleep fine.”

  “You aren’t shifting at night to run anymore.” Bennet’s voice rose at the end to transform the statement into a query.

  A pleased hum slipped from him when I murmured no. “Is that a problem for your beast? Wolves are primarily nocturnal.”

  “I run enough during the day.” Since Dio had made love with me, he sometimes joined me during my jaunts through the woods too. He’d scared me the first time. As an alpha, his beast stood taller, his legs longer and stronger. The barrel of his chest stretched wider, almost dwarfing mine, the thick pelt covering him darker than my tawny fur, and his body heavily packed with muscle beneath. He’d been perturbed, as a man, at how often I escaped into my animal form. I feared he’d herd me back to my workshop. I was too small to defy him for long, and despite my expertise in avoiding capture, I entertained zero confidence in evading a mate whose bond with me strengthened by the hour, every day. Dio could have compelled me to return, but he hadn’t.

  He’d watched me that morning. My heartbeat had quickened. Anxiety had twisted my stomach under his vigilant guard, but he hadn’t approached me, nor attempted to steer my run. Afterward, I hadn’t asked or mentioned his observation of me. Talking with him was still difficult. All the same, I guessed he’d wanted to see what I did when I retreated into my wolf.

  Fight?

  Play?

  Hunt?

  Mostly, I explored. How regularly I traced my familiar paths through the pack lands was irrelevant because new wonders always waited to be discovered: a fresh scent, the rustle of other forest animals in dead leaves, or birds caroling an ever-changing symphony. I liked to listen to the stream bubbling over rocks and the voices of other shifters tending gardens ripening with tomatoes, peppers, corn, and string beans the pack sold to grocers in the towns.

  Dio explored with me. On the second afternoon, he’d joined me. He’d splashed beside me in the creek. We’d taken turns chasing each other. He’d guided me to a bower of willows dripping curtains of leaves near the lake, where we’d caught a feast of bony catfish in the shallows. Spending time with him, sharing and showing my mate my favorite spots in the woods while learning his, had been… nice.

  “My wolf doesn’t miss the night,” I told Dr. Bennet.

  Darkness was for semen, sweat, and sex.

  The human tapped the tip of his pen against the surface of his loathsome desk. “If that changes, I want you to take the Ambien. Don’t snarl at me,” he said when I growled, his eyes going flinty. “Until your situational stress resolves, you should be on Xanax too. Help coping with your anxiety isn’t shameful. Medications aren’t a sign of weakness.”

  I snorted my disdain because probably half the humans rotting in this cage landed in prison, directly or indirectly, because of drug problems. “Wolfsbane hurts.”

  “In large doses, yes. For your kind, wolfsbane can be lethal.” The pen froze in Bennet’s grasp. “Is that what’s troubling you about the prescriptions? Your brother’s treatment program?”

  “Joth can take care of himself.” Of that much, I was certain.

  “His medicated patches are the reason he can function, Nox. His wolf is psychotic, but the drug helps him control those violent, aggressive impulses.” One corner of his mouth tipped up to form a sad smile. “If we’d had the research then that we have today thanks to your brother’s cooperation, we might have prevented your family’s tragedy. I’m convinced he wouldn’t have snapped if he’d been given wolfsbane at the onset of his symptoms.”

  I shrugged noncommittally. I hadn’t noticed any signs of wrongness from Joth before the attack. Neither had Kinessa or my mother. No one had.

  “Medicines aren’t evil.”

  No, my brother was. “I take the vitamin supplements your fertility specialist recommended. The pills for my liver too.” I didn’t distrust drugs altogether. I depended on the shot administered to Dio to prevent him from knocking me up, didn’t I? “I also let Dio bring game to me to improve my diet like you wanted, though I’m not breeding for him. When I agree with your recommendations, I heed them. Including prescriptions. Ambien and Xanax aren’t necessary.”

  “You accept measures to support your physical recovery alone.” Dr. Bennet stared, his features schooled to show a bland mask. His facade no doubt worke
d on his human patients. Too bad I smelled his disappointment, a pungent tang that lingered in my nostrils. “But you resist any aid or therapy targeted at improving your emotional well-being. Don’t deny it. Dio does most of the talking in your couples’ sessions. I can barely pry a word from you.”

  “I don’t have a lot to say.” Annoyance stabbed through me. “And I don’t need help.”

  “Dio reports you also hardly speak to anyone at home.” Bennet’s brow furrowed. “You’re still disconnected, detached. You cling to your isolation as a means of protecting yourself from further harm, but that isn’t healthy, especially for shifters who are inherently more social than humans. You need to reach out to them, despite how anxious socializing makes you initially feel. You must not allow stress and fear to paralyze you. Xanax could help.”

  “I can do it.” I seethed, my teeth clenched with affront at any suggestion I was too scared. “I can talk whenever I want, and I don’t need pills to make that happen.”

  He used the pen to scratch notes on a pad on his desk blotter.

  Asshole.

  “I’m assigning you homework,” he finally said, glancing up. “In between this session and our next, you’ll talk for a minimum of one hour every day with your mate.”

  Self-righteous indignation swamped me. “Dio and I talk.” I glared at the human. “Not here. What goes on between the two of us is none of your damn business, but it isn’t just fucking anymore. We do talk.”

  “I’m glad that part of your homework won’t be difficult.” He arched a cool eyebrow. “You’ll interact with other pack members at least twice each day too.”

  I shot up in my seat and squawked in outrage.

  “After Dio has left for the cabin to get dressed in the morning, Asa stops by to see you. According to Asa, you don’t talk much, but he also said you were never a morning person.” Dr. Bennet thinned his lips. “Otherwise, relocating you to the pack house where avoiding the others should be impossible was an exercise in geography. You still isolate yourself and refuse to interact with the pack. You don’t chat. You scare off anyone who tries to share a run with you except Dio…”

  I rolled my eyes because, seriously? What a crock. I didn’t frighten away anybody. Never had. When Maise’s mottled gray wolf had nosed aside leaves in the underbrush, the fellow omega seeking a welcome to accompany me during one of my shifts, I’d raced off without a backward glance. Any time I scented Odday, Veradek, or Asa ranging inside the territory along with me, I split in the opposite direction, but I didn’t bare my teeth at them. I hadn’t growled or bit at the other shifters.

  “I don’t drive away anyone. Rejecting their company isn’t the same.”

  “Fine.” Dr. Bennet rolled his eyes too. “Stop rejecting their company then.”

  Fury rose up inside me, catching my breath. “They want Dio to knock me up! They think children will convince him to stay in the pack. I’m supposed to meekly breed for him. What I’d like or prefer, what’s best for me, none of that matters.” I clenched my hands into fists and gathered my dignity around me like armor. “They also want me to begin training apprentices to take over the career I, against the odds, developed over the last several years. Because they expect me to be too busy making babies to continue working. “Give it up, just like that.”

  I lifted my chin and unbunched one hand to snap my fingers. “The years I dedicated to learning my craft and honing my skills? Not important. Because I’m an omega with a womb that might be fertile, and what do omegas do? They breed. That’s all they do, all shifters let us do—breed.” Self-righteous anger rattled my bones. My skin prickled. The shift and my beast were that close. I gritted my teeth, struggling against the temptation to set my wolf free. “And you think I should make nice?”

  “Do you realize that’s the most you’ve opened up with me?” With no discernible sense of self-preservation, the idiot human relaxed back in his chair and grinned. No, he beamed. “You, dare I say, growled there at the end.”

  “I did not growl.” I blinked. “I yelled, but I didn’t growl.” My anger collapsed under the weight of my bewilderment. “You’re pleased about this?”

  “You didn’t raise your voice. I doubt you could or ever would.” He waved that away. “You didn’t shout, but you complained,” he said, voice gloating. “Better still, you ranted.”

  Lips pressed into a firm line, I stared at him. “Are all humans this weird?”

  “You’re a hard nut to crack and an expert bottler. Rather than addressing your feelings, you shut down so, yes, relaxing enough to express your anger is progress. If you’re willing to share with me, a human, I think you might finally be ready to be honest with your pack too. Have you spoken to any of them about this? Told them you don’t want children? Let them get near you?”

  “They don’t care.” I sprang from my chair and began pacing the confined space of Bennet’s office as the turmoil inside me exploded into nervous, frenetic energy. “They never have. From the moment I was born and they scented what I am, elders planned my life for me. No one ever asked, could never be bothered to listen. Omegas aren’t for listening to. They’re for fucking. Do you know what that’s like? To be defined by a random genetic blip in your reproductive system?”

  “They made a horrible mistake, one many wouldn’t forgive, but you returned to your pack. Dio is right. You’ve been punishing them and you still are. Instead of finding a way to move forward, you freeze them out and shove away any overtures they offer to make amends. That needs to stop. Open up. Be honest, as painful and upsetting as that might be in the beginning. Instead of wallowing in your lonely misery, work toward a solution.”

  The absurdity of his suggestion forced a bark of laughter, cold and cruel, from my chest. “If I don’t give them what they want, if I am not who my pack expects me to be, they will hunt me.” I glared at Dr. Bennet. “They’ve done it before. Humans hunted me too. All of you would have killed me if I’d given you half the chance. If I hadn’t been smarter and faster, I would be dead.” Red clouded my vision. Fury shook me. “Dead!”

  “They were wrong. We were.” Bennet sighed. “None of us will ever stop regretting what we did that made a terrible tragedy infinitely worse, but we learned. Your pack learned too.” He stared at me. “If you give us a chance, we won’t hunt or hurt you again. Neither will they. You’re self-sufficient, Nox. You could have struck out on your own at any point in the last six years, but you didn’t. You stayed. You want to give us another chance. No one blames you for being wary, but you have to meet us halfway.”

  My anger drained away, leeching from my taut muscles. “You sound like Dio.” I stared at my sneakers. “What neither of you understand is I don’t remember how to be with the others. How to talk and act. Meet you halfway? Might as well tell me to grow wings to fly to the moon.”

  “You don’t have to be anyone except yourself. No one will lash out at you, not anymore.” The human pinched the bridge of his nose. “All you have to do is believe we mean you no harm. Trust that you are safe.”

  My mouth pinched, a wave of incredulity washing through me. “I don’t remember what safety is like. What I was like. Be who I am? I don’t know who I am. You, Dio, Joth, the stupid fertility specialist… you’ve got me mixed up.” I knocked a fist against my temple. “I can’t figure any of you—this—out.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. We’ll help you through it, though. We want to help.” Dr. Bennet smiled. “You say you aren’t feral? Prove it. Give us a chance. Try.”

  Exhaustion weighing heavily on me, I nonetheless waited in the prison visiting room after my session with Dr. Bennet. A deal was a deal, and if I didn’t park my ass in this chair, Joth might refuse research and therapy. I didn’t approve of studying him. My brother was dangerous. What more did anyone need to know? Dio wanted me here, though, and I already defied him by sleeping in my new workshop instead of beside him in his bed. I picked my battles.

  Guards escorted Joth into the cell on the other side of the
glass and unshackled him before leaving us to a pretense of privacy the video cameras belied. When they’d gone, my brother sat in his plastic chair and stared.

  I stared in return and ruthlessly curbed my urge to squirm.

  Joth was less successful. Rather than grabbing the telephone receiver, he fidgeted and studied me as thoroughly as the humans assessed him. A line grooved his brow. Where I had expected fiery rage, however, his gaze reflected only awkward discomfort.

  I wouldn’t be the first to reach for the phone. I watched. Waited. He looked tired, my brother. The unnatural pallor of his skin accentuated dark rings shadowing his eyes. I was young and Joth a year younger still, but wrinkles already grooved the corners of his mouth and fanned from the corners of his eyes. Streaks of gray interrupted the black hair at his crown. Not being able to shift these past years had aged him. Without a regular transition to his wolf repairing and restoring his body, which his imprisonment had harshly stressed, Joth could be mistaken for my father instead of my little brother, and my heart pounded because I realized he wouldn’t last much longer. A few years, at most.

  Joth, whose existence should’ve ended with the first life he’d taken, was dying.

  Exhaling a wary breath, he lifted his hand and brought the telephone receiver to his ear.

  Stomach roiling, I did the same.

  “You look good,” he said.

  “You need to tell them to let you shift at the next full moon.” My eyes rounded at the ridiculous words tumbling without my permission from my mouth. My fingers tightened on the telephone. “If they can build this room, they can construct a cage from which your beast won’t be able to break free. They have to take you off the drugs for a couple of days and lock you in an exercise yard where the moonlight can reach you. Your body needs the opportunity to shift.” I frowned at him, my gaze clinically sweeping him up and down. “Several opportunities,” I amended. “You’re aging too quickly.”

  “If they could guarantee I wouldn’t hurt anyone, I still wouldn’t shift.” His lips twisted into a bitter smile. “More than anyone, you know why I can never let my wolf loose again.”