by Fel Fern
The Alpha offering an alternative was new, Daryl thought with some surprise.
“That’s it then,” Lance told the fugitives. “Get back in your car and drive away, forget you’ve seen and spoken to us.”
He knew he shouldn’t be doing this, had no right because at that moment, he wasn’t Deacon’s mate, just an adopted pack mate, but he had to try.
“Deacon, please. Linda’s close to giving birth. They’re all exhausted,” he blurted unthinkingly.
Deacon turned his hard-eyed gaze on him, but the Alpha didn’t immediately dismiss his idea.
Hope flared in his chest. He went on. “Look, they’re frightened. All they need is a few days, right?” Daryl asked the Baxters. John took a deep breath and nodded. “Please let them stay. I don’t sense any malice from them. I’m just not too sure of Walt, but the rest are okay.”
“Walt’s been through a lot. He’s my cousin,” Zane said, plea in his eyes. “He’s been tortured by the Discipline Squad for six months and there isn’t much left of his mind, but I assure you, he’s harmless.”
Deacon didn’t speak for a while, staring at the fugitives, but he had a feeling Deacon had his own conversation with Santino and Sabine. Lance and Joe looked tense, as if Deacon’s next actions might be unpredictable.
“You’ll take responsibility for these people, Daryl?” There was an edge to Deacon’s voice, and he swallowed.
“Yes, I’ll vouch for them.”
“Deacon, you’re actually changing your mind because he asked you to?” Lance interrupted.
Daryl paled. Lance actually had the balls to challenge Deacon when no one else in the pack would. He developed newfound respect for the Beta suddenly. Maybe that was why Lance was second-in-command.
“That’s your opinion then?” Deacon finally asked. “We’ll take a vote.”
“A vote is useless when Santino and Sabine are involved,” Lance interrupted.
Holy shit. In some ways, he mused, Lance was pretty awesome, but he wasn’t too sure if they should be having this discussion out in the open.
“Their vote won’t count,” Deacon answered, ignoring Santino’s growl.
“Sounds fair,” Lance replied, then gave the group another considering look. “Daryl says they’re safe. Instincts tell me they are what they say, merely looking for a place to stay a few days. The husband is human but looks devoted to his family. I say they can stay a few days, and we’ll decide from there.”
The Beta’s words surprised the hell out of Daryl, because he didn’t think Lance would take his side. No, he realized, Lance wasn’t ruled by emotion but by logic.
“Joe?” Deacon asked.
“Sorry,” Joe said. “I agree with Santino here. It’s suspicious they turn up here now and they came from New City, too.”
The frightened fugitives remained silent, watching the exchange with fear in their eyes. Daryl felt for them, but he lived among the werewolves and other paranormals in Devil Hills, too. The community also had their young, old, and weak to consider. Not everyone there was a warrior. Plus, there were also entire Esper families in Devil Hills, too, those of his kind who put roots in this land because they considered it safe and their home.
“Then it’s decided. Joe, Sabine, escort them to town,” Deacon ordered. “Santino, take Daryl home. Lance, we’ll talk.”
“Looking forward to that,” Lance said.
Daryl began to protest about needing an escort, but Santino gripped his arm in warning. The enforcer shook his head. Reaching out to Deacon only left him slightly out of breath. The Alpha’s mental shields were airtight, but he didn’t need to pry further to know all Deacon contained right now was deadly, quiet rage.
He noticed Deacon and Lance quietly walking into the woods, and Joe and Sabine quietly talking with the fugitives.
“Hey Daryl,” Zane called out to him before Santino led him back toward town.
The other Esper ran up to him. He didn’t need to touch Zane to know Zane’s Esper abilities felt weak. Daryl guessed Zane had mostly been human. Those who had quarter or a small percentage of Esper genes were almost practically human, harmless, but the Squad seemed intent on either capturing his kind or wiping them out completely. It made him angry.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for convincing your Alpha to let us stay. It’s really been a hellish few days for us,” Zane said, before returning to his group.
“Curious, isn’t it?” Santino remarked as the fugitives got back into their car and the two enforcers back to Joe’s ride.
“What is?” he asked, crossing his arms, expecting a verbal fight with Santino.
“That he called Deacon ‘your Alpha’, when none of us confirmed he’s the Alpha of the pack and none of them had seen us werewolves shift.”
A chill went down his spine at those words. Daryl recovered. “Maybe Zane has the same ability Sabine does, he can tell shifters from other races.” Daryl hated how his explanation seemed childish, weak. “They’ll be watched closely anyway, right? The same way you guys assigned some shifters to watch Dave and me when we first moved here?”
“Yes, but once you introduce poison to an environment, sometimes it’s not easy drawing it out anymore,” Santino said.
Just when Daryl thought the Devil began warming up to him, Santino, no surprise, became all cold again. It appeared like they were going to walk back to town, which meant spending more time with the angry enforcer. He wished Deacon assigned Sabine to him instead. Daryl could use the silence.
“Zane guessed lucky, that’s all, and you know I won’t intentionally bring harm to my friends, the people I now consider family. For the longest time, all Dave and I had was each other. Here, I’ve managed to build so many bonds and memories with wonderful people,” Daryl pointed out. “Plus, I want you to know I never intended to put Deacon in a spotlight like that. I really care about him, you know?”
Santino didn’t speak for a moment, much to his frustration, especially after he bared his soul open to the enforcer.
“You know,” he ventured. “When someone speaks to you from the heart like that, you should respond, say something at least.”
“Kindness can be a weakness,” Santino told him. “That’s your greatest flaw and your greatest power, Daryl Rush.”
“Uh.” Daryl chewed on that for the entire walk. He realized Santino had slowed down his pace so Daryl could keep up. True, he wasn’t as unfit as when he’d first came here, but he still wasn’t a shifter. As he suspected, Santino was really a decent guy underneath all that anger and prejudice.
“Why do you hate outsiders so much?” he asked the enforcer.
“Your new wolf friends must have told you about the pack’s history.”
“Sure, but Jared and the others weren’t there when the old pack was decimated.” Daryl knew he might have just brought up a taboo topic, but to understand the Alpha he wanted to be with, he needed to know how the past shaped Deacon. Santino’s emotions were like Deacon’s a moment ago, shut down.
“Not decimated, massacred,” Santino said, as if stating a fact when Daryl expected him to be angry.
He swallowed. “Jared said the pack lost a battle with some human mercenaries.”
“It had never been a battle. A battle means we had a shot. This was pre-meditated murder, but it’s Deacon’s story to tell. Ask him.”
Daryl ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Will he even talk to me?”
“Didn’t you approach him last night?”
“Actually, Sabine told me Deacon wanted to see me, but that wasn’t true.”
Santino swore, then sighed. “She gave you a little push, that’s all, but you did what few werewolves are able to. Show Deacon again that you’re not afraid to speak your mind.”
“Hold on a second, weren’t you mad that I pleaded with him to consider letting those fugitives stay?”
Santino didn’t answer right away.
“You do this often, don’t you? This silent treatment thing
?” he pressed.
Santino snarled at him, baring teeth, but he knew the enforcer a little better now. Daryl could even see Santino as a potential friend in the future. “I never thought anyone alive would be able to handle Deacon, but maybe you have potential.”
“Just potential?” he couldn’t help but tease.
Santino grunted. They finally emerged out of the woods and right at the town area’s entrance. He blinked, surprised to see his brother Dave there, looking worried, even more so when he spotted who Daryl was with.
“Daryl, are you—” Dave began, tentatively approaching him.
“I’m fine,” he told his older brother, letting Dave pull him to a hug. It seemed Dave needed that. When he looked around, Santino was nowhere in sight, but he had a feeling Santino would be nearby, watching him. He sighed. Daryl would definitely take Santino’s advice and have a word with Deacon tonight.
“There’ve been a few rumors about the Alpha and you, and now, the town’s buzzing about Deacon letting in some outsiders,” Dave said.
“A lot of things had happened,” he admitted. “Come on, I’ll tell you at lunch.”
Chapter Ten
“These will be your assigned rooms,” said Joe, one of their group’s werewolf guides.
The Esper male tried not to fidget in the presence of the big werewolf, to give anything away. He couldn’t afford to blow his cover, especially after coming so far. God. Voss, the captain of the Discipline Squad, would be so proud of him.
Few humans in recorded history had ever been inside a community run by paranormals. Then again, he wasn’t human, but if he proved himself to Voss and the Squad, they might finally consider him one of them, a rehabilitated Esper and yet a valuable member of the Humans Matter society.
Their little group had been directed to a town, which surprised him because it looked like any other human-run town, except they’d been surrounded by non-humans. It prickled his skin, remembering how some of the strange inhabitants on the streets stared at them. Some wore curious looks, while others glared at them with hostility.
Joe led them inside an inn named the Honey Bee and introduced them to an old woman who frightened the hell out of him for no explainable reason.
The Baxters warily opened one of the doors, and he glimpsed inside to see a spacious room perfect for a family. John and Linda relaxed. Their little boy, Tommy, sprinted inside. Voss thought it would be fine sacrificing a few half-human half-Esper potential specimens for the good of humanity.
If he, the spy, could get more information on these close-knit communities, then it would give humans a better edge. Plus, his main target had been so close. Daryl Rush remained on the Squad’s priority list of rehabilitation candidates because empaths made the best scouts for the squads, able to sense if an Esper was nearby. Even better, the more talented scouts were able to convince a frightened Esper child to surrender without any violence.
The spy wasn’t a scout. Hell, he had a feeling he’d soon outrun his usefulness as a rehabilitated Esper to Voss, but if he succeeded in handing Daryl Rush over along with information on one of the largest werewolf packs in the area, Voss would certainly reward him.
That black-haired and black-eyed Alpha frightened the fuck out of him. Instinct told him to stay away from the monster the Squad nicknamed the Demon Alpha. Rumor had it, Deacon Becker once eliminated an elite group of Squad members on his own, and the rehabilitated Espers couldn’t do a thing to the Alpha’s mind, either.
“Something wrong?” a voice asked.
The spy jumped, took an instinctive step back from the white-haired female werewolf who scared him the same way as the Alpha. Those silver eyes looked wrong on a human, then again, she wasn’t human, same went for the rest of the folks living here. This monster, for all her exotic looks, might just be considering if he’d make for a worthwhile snack. The spy suppressed a shudder.
“No, everything’s fine,” he said, trying not to appear nervous.
The spy had the impression someone had been feeling his mind out, which made him think the werewolves had Espers in town, too. The corridor suddenly felt chilly, and a window opened. The spy noticed the Baxters had retreated in their room, only leaving him behind.
His back hit the door of his room, where his other companion had already entered. Shit. The spy had been distracted, too pleased by his ruse. What if he screwed up everything now? He’d worked so hard, getting the Baxters to trust him and his friend, to convince them they were on the run and needed a ride.
“So it’s true, Deacon has allowed outsiders into Devil Hills again,” said a silky female voice.
Seeing a pale, slender woman with long blood-red curls and crimson eyes similar to a snake’s, he tried the knob on the door again. Metal rattled. Damn. Why wouldn’t it open?
“Madeline, what are you doing here?” the big, burly werewolf Joe demanded.
“My king wanted to find out what made Deacon cut their meeting short. Now I see.”
“You,” Joe barked at him and he stilled, wondering if he fucked things up so bad that he wouldn’t live to see the next few hours. “Get inside your room if you don’t want to become vampire chow.”
The spy didn’t need to be convinced. This time the knob turned. Okay, it wasn’t broken. He was just nervous. He hurried in and locked the door. His companion had opened the windows in the room, telling him night had fallen. A vampire. Jesus Christ. Sweat gathered in his armpits and soaked through his entire back. At least werewolves and Espers looked human, but that thing that slipped in the corridor wasn’t.
The spy needed to sit down. His companion, well, his cousin, started pacing the room. Well, the other man was nothing to him. Voss convinced him that if he wanted to live, he needed to shed all his connections to his family and old friends. His loyalty only lay with the squad.
His companion’s footsteps made it hard for him to focus on the people outside. Then again, the paranormals might have moved somewhere else. They certainly didn’t trust outsiders. Good thing Daryl Rush intervened for their sakes.
“Sit down and relax,” he snapped at the other man, who gave him an open look of distrust before sitting on the other bed.
In New City, the Squad had swept the streets clean of any dangerous non-human species, so only the weaker ones were left. Here, monsters ran rampant everywhere. He didn’t want to be here longer than necessary. Besides, Voss gave him a deadline. If he failed to achieve his mission, then his life was forfeit. He couldn’t have that, but rushing things and making a mistake might cost him, too.
The spy decided he’d wait, gather information, and when the moment to strike presented itself, these monsters wouldn’t know what just hit them.
* * * *
Deacon nursed a headache after Sabine stopped by the cabin to give him an update about the outsiders settling in. He could have chosen to return to his rooms in the main pack house, but Deacon needed time alone. No doubt after his recent decision to let those outsiders in, his other enforcers and other senior pack members had questions for him.
After his conversation with Lance, though, he wanted some privacy.
“So, the vampires know. I’m not surprised, they always had spies around town,” Deacon said dryly.
They stood on the porch outside his cabin, because he wanted to be close to nature. Seeing the familiar old trees and surroundings calmed his angry wolf a little, and the beast was a little too on edge after today’s events.
“Did Madeline say anything else?” he asked.
“No, I think Ezekiel is just curious about these outsiders. She left soon after. Like you asked, Malden sent some of his hawks to keep a close eye on these fugitives.”
That would be just like Ezekiel. The vampire king was the sort of man who was content to watch events from the sidelines. Either way, Deacon would worry about the vampires another time. It was the other members of the community he had to think about.
“And you agree with Daryl about the rehabilitated Esper being a potent
ial threat?” Deacon pressed.
“Something is not right about that man,” she agreed. “His mind feels like an empty shell, wiped of his original personality.”
“I’ll assign more wolves to watch over him closely,” Deacon decided.
She gave him a side-long glance. “How was your talk with Lance?”
He snarled softly. “Our Beta is of on opinion that I’m letting personal matters cloud my judgement.”
“Lance voted to let the outsiders in,” she reminded him.
“Yes, but you know how he is. Lance acts on logic, that’s why he’s Beta, but he didn’t need to point the truth out. I caved, because Daryl asked.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re a good leader, Deacon. You’ve probably weighed the pros and cons in your mind, too.”
Deacon did. He thought about the people he was responsible for, both the pack and those who called this place home and contributed to the community. Still, he couldn’t deny that seeing the silent plea in Daryl’s eyes pushed him to agree to letting the outsiders stay.
“Each time we agree to let outsiders stay, we take the same risks. Why does this bother you so much?” she asked.
“Because Daryl is capable of changing me,” he said.
Only to Sabine or Santino, he’d show weakness, but never to the rest of his pack. Daryl, too, had that ability to expose his heart, which was why the Esper was a danger to him. Still, he couldn’t get rid of that gut-wrenching fear he felt for Daryl. During the drive, all he kept thinking about was Daryl putting himself in harm’s way. Fuck.
Deacon never felt this way about anyone else in his entire life.
“Change is not necessarily a bad thing.”
“A blade that grows dull is useless to anyone,” Deacon returned. She probably knew he was speaking about his father and how those humans got to the former Alpha.
