Savage Love

by Riley Storm

  “I’ll fix it,” he started to say, but Alison rounded on him before he could really get the words out.

  “What the hell happened last night Lucien? And why did you come to me of all people? What made you think I would take you in?” Her normally docile brown eyes blazed with an amber fire at their core that he’d only seen on one prior occasion.

  Gods, she was beautiful. Even in anger, the lines of her face were nothing if not mesmerizing. He wanted to reach up, to stroke those soft, rounded cheeks. Her hair was wrapped up into as tight of a bun as she could manage with that mane of black. It was thick and unruly at the best of times, but she loved it when he ran his fingers through it all the same.

  Or she had, at least.

  “Why did I come to you?” he repeated, the first piece of toast gone. “Because for starters, you’re a good person.” He snagged the protein shake and downed half it in one go.

  “Yeah, even to those who don’t deserve it,” Alison said hotly.

  Lucien heard the words, but his mind was back to the previous day. He couldn’t stop watching Logan go down under a pile of bodies while Lyken watched, fervent satisfaction upon his face. How had his old friend, someone he’d been so close to, become so warped in his view of the world? Lyken had always been a stickler for following the chain of command, as he put it, but this…this was taking it to the extreme, wasn’t it? Couldn’t he see that the orders were wrong?

  “Hey!” Alison said sharply, snatching the plate away from him.

  The loud words brought Bergey over from where he’d been lying at the foot of the stairs. His ears were up, eyes flicking between the two of them, as if trying to figure out what was wrong.

  “You owe me some answers or I’m calling the cops,” Alison snapped as he reached for the plate. “What happened to you?”

  Lucien bit his lip. There was only so much he could tell her, but the truth was, Alison was right. He owed her some sort of explanation for showing up covered in blood and passing out on her floor.

  “Me and some of my, uh, brothers, left home,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “We were attacked, unexpectedly. I…escaped.” Try as he might, Lucien couldn’t get himself to admit that he’d run away. The shame was too great.

  Alison’s expression softened, morphing more into something concerned. “What about the others? Your, brothers? I didn’t realize you had any brothers,” she added with a frown.

  “Not by blood,” he said, the only explanation he was willing to give on that front. “They were taken. Captured.”

  Faint rounded eyebrows shot up. “Captured? By who? Taken where? What is going on, Lucien?”

  He hesitated. If he told her the truth now about where he suspected they’d been taken, Alison would lose it. Besides, it was only a guess, he didn’t know for certain just yet that they had been taken there, though it would be standard procedure, and if anyone followed procedure, it was Lyken. Still, he didn’t want to say anything until he had it confirmed.

  “I’m not sure yet,” he said, hating himself for not telling her everything, and yet knowing it was for the best. He would only tell her if there was no other way. That was his backup plan, and one Lucien desperately hoped he would never have to use. “But I’m going to find out,” he added, injecting as much iron into his voice as he possessed.

  “Then what?” Alison wanted to know.

  Lucien pulled the plate back, her grip upon it forgotten. He could already feel the food providing a tiny wave of energy to him.

  “Then I’m going to go in there, and get them out. They’re my brothers. I won’t leave them behind.”

  4

  Alison waited, watching his face as he drank down the rest of the shake and resumed his attack on the toast. When it became apparent that he wasn’t about to tell her more, she just shook her head and got up.

  “Fine, whatever,” she mumbled. “I’m going to work.”

  Maybe that would give her some semblance of normalcy. She could go there, and live her life, trying to forget about the insanity that was her not calling the authorities on Lucien. How was it that six months after disappearing, he still had a place in her heart, to the point that she would willingly let him pass out and bleed on her carpet instead of calling the police?

  Damn you and your hotness, Lucien. Your jaw covered in that short beard… and your blue eyes that I can’t do anything but look straight at.

  But the blue orbs were focused on his plate as he carefully and methodically chewed, taking his time in a display of restraint he didn’t normally display around food.

  Eventually, she got up and went upstairs. There wasn’t time to shower, she was already going to be cutting it close. Thankfully, Lucien had stirred, because she’d forgotten to charge her phone and it was now completely dead, and so she wouldn’t have had any alarm to wake her.

  Halfway through changing, there was a loud thud from downstairs, followed by a yip from Bergey.

  “Bergey?” she called, and the dog came upstairs, tail wagging.

  The unfounded fear that Lucien had done something to her dog faded, and Alison scolded herself. She knew better than that. Lucien loved her dog almost as much as she did.

  So what had been the thump? Cautiously she went downstairs, to find Lucien in a heap on the ground closer to the door.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, rushing to his side as he started to move again.

  “Getting up.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  Lucien twisted his head to glare at her, his eyes glacial in their ire. “Yes. I do. Now are you going to help me or what?”

  “Absolutely not. You lie back down and rest, mister.” She glanced over to see the plate was empty, yogurt and shake containers tilted on their sides as well. “Just because you ate doesn’t mean you’re instantly better. You lost a lot of blood and need stitches, realistically, for that one at least,” she said, pointing at his shoulder where he’d pulled it open again in his quest to get up.

  “Can’t lie down. My friends are out there,” Lucien said, shuffling into a hunched-over position on his knees. “Have to find them. No time to waste.”

  “Lucien,” she barked. “Stop being an ass. Think this through. If whoever it was beat up you and your buddies when you were healthy, and then took them away, do you really think you’re going to be able to do anything to save them in your current condition when you can’t even stand up?”

  Lucien moaned, a pitiful sound that stabbed her to her core with its sheer, utter helplessness. “But I should have fought,” he said. “Maybe I could have saved them.”

  “Or maybe you’d be wherever they are as well. Which I certainly hope isn’t prison. If you were fighting the cops, I am in so much shit.”

  “I am not a criminal,” Lucien growled, his voice filled with fury.

  “Okay, okay!” she yelped, backing off.

  “Help me up,” he commanded, trying to push off from the floor.

  He got up into a kneeling position, and then promptly started to fall over. Alison darted in to try and stop him, but he was too big and they went tumbling over together, though Lucien managed to avoid crushing her, much to her relief.

  “Stop it,” she snapped as he tried to get up again. Grabbing his biceps, her fingers not even making it halfway around the huge muscles, Alison easily forced him back down to the ground. “You stay here, understood? Rest. When I’m home from work, we’ll see how you feel. But if you try to get up, I’m calling the cops, or an ambulance, or both. Understood?”

  Lucien looked like he was about to try and argue, but Alison stiffened her glare and let him have the full wrath of emotions in a wordless display of dominance that left him lying back on the carpet obediently.

  “Better,” she muttered, fearfully aware of just how weak he’d felt when she’d grabbed his bicep. The strength that had always been there every time she’d stolen a touch was absent, and that scared her more than she was willing to admit.

  W
ho could have beaten him up so badly?

  “No ambulance,” Lucien said once he’d recovered. “I need to go get my friends.”

  “Oh for…If you want to rescue them, then you need to heal up. Is your memory no good either? I just pushed you to the ground, Lucien. Me! I am not very strong.” She softened at the pain on his face, wondering why she was catering to him. They hadn’t even begun to address the shitstorm that was coming his way from her. “Your loyalty to your friends is admirable,” she said, crouching down at his side. “It really is. But you’re in no condition to help them, and you know that. If you truly want to help them, you need to heal. Or call the police.”

  “No police,” Lucien said, shaking his head. “No police.”

  “Why not?” she pleaded.

  “They…wouldn’t help,” he said lamely.

  Alison sighed impatiently. “You keep saying you’re not a criminal, but you must realize that that is exactly what a criminal would say, right? Do you at least understand that?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “It’s shady. Very shady.”

  “I am not a criminal. I’m not shady either,” he said stiffly. “Just…different.”

  Alison had heard this tone from him before. She recognized obstinate behavior when she came up against it, and this was something she wasn’t going to win. “Fine.”

  She stood up as Bergey wandered back downstairs, pressing his cold nose to her exposed thigh. “Hey!” she said with a giggle. “That’s chilly.”

  On her thigh. His cold nose. On her thigh.

  Alison looked down in horror as she recalled she had only been half-dressed when she’d heard Lucien thumping around. Grabbing at the sides of her buttoned blouse, she tugged them as low as they would go, trying to hide her underwear from Lucien as she backed away before turning and running up the stairs without uttering another word. She was trying to forget that she’d just been crouching next to him in nothing but a thong. Her cheeks burned.

  Speaking of clothing…

  Once she was dressed, she grabbed her stuff for work, re-did the bun her hair was in and then grabbed a pile of stuff from the back of her closet.

  “Don’t feed Bergey too many treats,” she ordered as she came downstairs, noticing that Lucien had managed to get himself up onto the couch. “And here.” She tossed the pile at him and headed out the door, ready to put the last twelve hours behind her, and lose herself in paperwork for the next nine.

  You know shit has really hit the fan when you start looking forward to being overwhelmed by documents and reports. Cripes.

  5

  The comfort of the couch had proved too tempting, and seconds after sinking into it, Lucien had been passed out cold once more. He vaguely recalled Alison saying something, maybe, but it was a blur.

  When he finally stirred, the first thing he became aware of was the extra weight on his chest. Blearily mumbling nothings to himself, he grabbed at it, realizing it was fabric.

  Not just fabric. Clothes.

  He held up the oversized t-shirt and pants. They were his. Now where had those come from, he wondered? There was really only one answer though. Alison.

  It had to have been. Nobody else had been by. If she had them though, then that means she kept them. From before. She didn’t throw out everything of mine.

  Could that mean that things between them weren’t completely unsalvageable? Lucien tried to keep hope from spiking, but he wasn’t entirely successful. A sliver buried itself deep within him, but he promptly closed himself off around it. The temptation to dwell on that, on the possibility that he could still fix their relationship, was stronger than he was willing to admit. But right now his focus had to be elsewhere.

  Logan and the others are counting on me. None of the others had made it out. Only him. He was the only one who could rescue them. Once that happened, once they were all safe, then, and only then, could he turn his focus to Alison. He had to put others’ wants above his own.

  Bergey wandered over to him, nose down as he sniffed around, trying to track something down. Lucien watched the boxer try to find whatever it was he was looking for. When he did, he snatched up the half-eaten bone triumphantly and pranced over to a corner where he carefully set it down, looked around, and then promptly collapsed in a heap and began to gnaw at his prize.

  Lucien smiled. He’d earned it. Sniffing it out, tracking it down, finding his missing—

  Abruptly, he realized he’d been thinking about it all wrong. Now wasn’t the time to turn his focus away from Alison. In fact, now was the time for him to put even more focus on her. Because he’d brought danger her way.

  Although he was fairly positive he hadn’t been tracked, it wouldn’t exactly have been hard for them to follow him. He must have stumbled through half of Plymouth Falls to reach Alison’s house. The fact that he couldn’t even remember that told him more of a tale than he wanted to dwell on.

  “Good boy,” he mumbled to Bergey, who looked up from his chewing at the sound. “Yeah, you’re a good boy, Bergs, aren’t you? Always showing me what I can’t see myself.”

  Toy forgotten, the big boxer came over to the couch and lay his head on Lucien’s chest.

  “Yeah, I’m going to be okay, boy. Don’t you worry about that.”

  Though he hadn’t tried to get up yet, Lucien could feel the energy from his meal going to work. He was going to need more food. A lot more food, and more time, before he was feeling like his old self, but he had faith he could probably stand up on his own two feet without face-planting this time.

  Thank God Alison was upstairs and didn’t see that. How embarrassing.

  Lucien wasn’t used to being this weak and even less used to others seeing him in a state of any weakness, let alone unable to stand. If his—he still refused to think of the other side as his enemies—if the loyalists, had realized how weak he was, they would be breaking down the door right now.

  That was one sign that helped him stay somewhat calm, reassuring him that Alison hadn’t been captured the moment she walked outside. If they knew where he was or what shape he was in, Lyken would have sent a squad in to fetch him already.

  Bergey shuffled his position and a very wet, slobbery doggy tongue dragged up Lucien’s beard.

  “Eyuck!” he yelped, trying to get away.

  The dog thought he was playing and jumped up on the couch, following him as he tried to burrow into the cushions, tongue playfully flicking out non-stop. “No! Bergey! Ack! Ahhh! Yuck!” he yelped as the dog climbed on top of him and slobbered all over his face with kisses, tail and hindquarters going back and forth like crazy.

  The exertion was too much and Lucien sagged back into the couch and lay there staring at the ceiling as Bergey excitedly licked his face in victory. Lucien’s eyes opened and closed slowly.

  “Ew,” he deadpanned several moments later as Bergey finally retreated.

  “At least you don’t hate me,” Lucien said, reaching out to scratch Bergey behind the ears. “You know that I didn’t leave her because I wanted to, don’t you, boy? That I wanted to stay.” He buried his face in his hands. “I just wish I could tell her. Explain to her the truth, you know? But how I do explain that I’m a wolf shifter? Our entire culture. How am I supposed to tell her that, and not have her pronounce me crazy and call the police?”

  Bergey woofed softly.

  “I can’t just tell her, boy. Not without knowing how she’ll react.” Lucien shook his head. “There’s more than you understand. It’s more than just me.”

  Bergey sat and then promptly started to clean himself.

  “Yeah, good call,” Lucien muttered, gingerly pushing himself into a sitting position, where he paused until the room stopped spinning. “A shower sounds like a great idea.”

  Eventually, he pushed himself to his feet, bringing the clothing with him. Bergey came to his side, and together the two of them managed to hobble over to the guest bedroom on the main floor—Lucien was not ready to tackle stairs—and g
et the water running.

  Stripping out of the ripped and bloodstained clothes, Lucien ducked under the steaming water. Almost immediately, the base of the shower turned red as blood sluiced off him in great rivers, turning the water rose-pink and growing darker until it was near solid crimson.

  He groaned and sighed loudly as the water cleaned him up, ignoring the larger cut on his shoulder that reopened, contributing fresh blood to the water. Gently, he poked at the knife wound, wishing it would just close for good already. The fact that it was still able to bleed told Lucien just how badly hurt he’d been.

  More like hovering on the edge of death.

  It must have been a close call. He was lucky to have even woken up that morning.

  “But I did wake up,” he growled, staring into the depths of the white tiles, focusing his anger. He was alive, and—slowly—starting to mend.

  They had failed to capture him. They had failed to track him. Now it was up to Lucien to make them regret that. He would track down Logan and the others, and break them free. Logan could unite the others, those who wanted a different future, and together they could reshape House Canis into something to once again be proud of. That was his goal, and it was past time he started doing something about it.

  Shutting off the water, lips pulled back in a scowl, he toweled off, careful not to open his cuts again. He stared at his battered body in the mirror, using that image to fuel his focus. Then he snatched the folded pants from the counter and tugged them on.

  “What the—” he muttered, the fabric straining as he pulled it up over his waist. “Oh, very funny Alison.” Trying on the t-shirt, he ran into the same problem. The seams of the arms split even as he tugged it into place, and the bottom of it stopped above his belly button, turning it into a crop top.

  “Wonderful,” he said, eying his capris and exposed stomach. “I’m just a wonder of a modern fashion.”

  Changing his plans slightly, he stuffed his tattered rags into the garbage and headed downstairs, his forced slow movements having the added benefit of ensuring he didn’t rip his clothing.