by Odessa Lynne
He would adjust.
He worried he wouldn’t be so lucky with his hearing. It was a quiet fear, one that sat under his breastbone, one he couldn’t bring himself to talk about, not even with Rick.
He needed someone to explain what was happening to him and why. But it would be a while before that was possible. Eventually, he would be able to read again. Even if he never understood a word anyone said to him, he would be able to read.
But that thought wasn’t a comfort.
Loneliness washed over him, like the spill of water over stone in a slow moving creek.
Because of his cochlear implants, he’d heard the wolves’ language with a depth very few humans had ever experienced. He knew rationally that if his cochlear implants were gone, and the alien biotech was recreating his hearing organs and nerves and tissues in the way they should have developed, he would never hear the same way again.
The fear that he might never hear again in any meaningful way wouldn’t leave him alone, even though he knew the fear might be groundless. He’d already started getting used to the rumble of sound that was Rick’s voice—and even though he didn’t understand Rick’s words, he knew when it was Rick talking to him.
He’d known the moment Rick had stopped speaking and left him in that room with the doctors who’d examined him. He’d been able to distinguish the higher pitched voices from the lower, and he’d counted how many distinct voices he’d heard. When he’d asked for confirmation, he’d been off by one.
Only one.
“You’re an alpha,” Cam said, slowly, carefully, listening to the way the words sounded when he spoke them.
The bed dipped and Rick’s blurry shape filled the peripheral of Cam’s vision.
Cam dropped back on the bed. Rick loomed over him, probably propped on his own elbow. Rick’s hand moved to Cam’s wrist, his fingertips resting lightly on the inside of Cam’s forearm.
“Henry tried once to explain some of the ways you guys determine status. How many alphas are you beta to?”
Yes.
No—
Cam scrubbed his hand over his face and let his arm fall wide when he dragged his fingers through his hair. He shifted so he could watch Rick’s face more easily. Funny how natural it felt to look at Rick when he was talking to him, even though he couldn’t see a damn thing.
Okay, not exactly true. He could see a blob blocking the light that glowed from the ceiling overhead.
“One?” he asked.
Yes.
“Have you figured out who Henry was yet?”
No answer.
Cam jiggled his arm. Rick’s fingers clenched, not too hard, and then—
Yes. The rumble of sound that followed went on too long to be a one word answer.
Cam reached for Rick’s face. His finger bumped something soft . . . lips. He slowly traced the warm flesh of Rick’s bottom lip and then cupped his jaw.
“Did you know him?”
Maybe.
Cam frowned and rubbed his thumb over Rick’s smooth chin. “I don’t understand.”
Rick caressed Cam’s arm.
“It’s complicated,” Cam said.
Yes.
Of course it was.
“He was getting ready to come back,” Cam said. “I’d already promised—I promised I would come with him. I think he had resisted the pull for as long as he could. He woke up at night sometimes . . . I don’t know how to explain it, but it was tearing him apart. That’s what I regret. If I hadn’t pushed him to stay away for just a little longer. I was old enough then. Henry’s alpha would have accepted me. He was sure of it. But I was worried. I don’t know. Maybe I was scared. It had taken my dad a couple of years to get back into the country after the collapse. I just wanted to help him rebuild—he needed me, he said. Henry knew how much that meant to me, to have my dad say something like that.”
He pulled his arm free of Rick’s grip and scrubbed his hands across his face. “Jesus. I was so selfish back then.”
Rick’s hand tightened around Cam’s arm. He tugged.
“I really wish you hadn’t mated me. You don’t deserve—”
Rick’s hand clamped over Cam’s mouth.
No. The rumble that followed almost sounded like it meant something.
Cam strained to understand.
“Say it again,” he demanded.
But the rumble that came was indistinguishable from any other, and Cam covered his eyes and rested in silence while Rick petted his arm.
* * *
The next evening, Cam waited by the windows for Rick to return with food. Rick was late. Not just a few minutes late, but hours late. Cam knew because he could see the last few streaks of sunlight through the trees on the horizon. When Rick had left, the sun had been high above the trees, the bright light warming the cool glass.
His ability to see had taken a huge leap forward overnight, and then another great leap after a morning nap.
Rick had been there for the second one, and Cam had been startled by his sudden ability to make out sharp edges between light and dark and—
“My God. You’re beautiful,” he’d said, the words coming out before he’d even thought to hold them in.
Rick’s brilliant gold eyes had flared wide, his irises darkening noticeably.
And Cam had noticed.
Because he could see, and the world around him, the colors, the light—the light was really the difference. He’d always seen clearly. He’d had fantastic vision according to every doctor who had ever examined him.
But something was different, even if he couldn’t quantify that difference.
He knew it existed.
And in his new world, Rick was so much more than just attractive. He was so beautiful he took Cam’s breath away.
Rick reached up for Cam’s face, and Cam had grabbed Rick’s wrist without even having to think.
“I want to mate,” Cam had said.
So they had.
But now it was getting late, and Rick should’ve returned with food hours ago, but he hadn’t, and the longer Cam waited, the more certain he became that something was wrong.
But now he could see, and he didn’t have to sit here and wait.
He had spent the morning and afternoon exploring the house he’d spent the last eight days in. He was, in fact, in a bedroom. The thing he’d bumped his kneecap into had turned out to be a stool made of a beautiful wood with an unnatural looking swirl that flowed from the smoothly carved seat and into four short, twisted legs.
He had known the moment he looked at it he wasn’t looking at something designed by a human, with earthly materials. It’d been carved of a single piece of wood from an alien planet that had once existed somewhere out there in the universe.
The fact that Rick had decorated his home with what to a human would have been priceless alien artifacts made Cam aware of just how much his life was about to change.
He’d thought he was ready for that, with Henry, but maybe . . .
Maybe he’d been too young six years ago to appreciate what awaited him if he embraced life with someone of another species.
Cam took the stairs to the lower level of the two story house, built much like any human house might have been built. He walked through the centrally located kitchen and through the outer rooms that surrounded the kitchen with shelves and greenery that grew up along walls from long planters. Windows hid little of the outside, but the sun had finally dropped below the horizon and now it was getting darker.
Rick was going to be pissed if Cam left the house.
Cam was going to do it anyway.
But when he reached the door, he hesitated, his hand on the knob. His gut told him that once he stepped outside, his world might change again, and not in a way he liked. He wasn’t one of the wolves, and heat season and the human scent trigger wasn’t something to treat recklessly.
If he did this and one of the wolves caught his scent, was he willing to submit to save his life and risk a confrontation
between Rick and one of his own people?
He drew his hand back.
He’d always been a little reckless—or, hell, a lot reckless. He couldn’t hide the truth from himself. But he didn’t have the right to put Rick in that position.
A few hours delay with dinner wasn’t a good enough reason to risk so much.
“Shit,” he said, so loud the noise of it rang in his head. He dropped his forehead against the door, the dull thud vibrating along his scalp.
He took a breath and turned away from the door. One quick look around the room and his gaze settled on the pile of fluffy pillows he’d barely noticed the first time through. He crossed the room, tossed a few of the largest pillows against the nearest wall, and slid down to sit on one, his back to another.
He stretched his arm out across his knee and watched the door.
He didn’t have to question his decision for long; Rick came for him before the light outside the window had completely faded to dark.
Chapter 23
The wolves didn’t drug him. He had almost expected it. Lane had told him the wolves had drugs that encouraged a loose tongue and made it hard to lie.
Instead, he was staring at a question on a screen. Rick stood behind him, his hands on Cam’s shoulders, and Cam read the question, looked up into Trevor’s—aka Matthew’s—bright eyes, and pressed his lips together thoughtfully.
Cam’s gaze took in the lack of a scar anywhere along Matthew’s neck. Matthew looked good for someone who’d been shot in the neck only a week ago. The technology Matthew had passed on to Cam had certainly done the man a few favors.
“I’m not a double agent,” Cam said. “My superiors believe I’m outside the northwest edge of the protectorate, getting ready to work my way into another leadership position in the group that’s trying to put itself back together after the screw up earlier this year. I have orders to stay out of the protectorate. If my superiors find out I ignored them, I’ll probably have to face charges. They respect the treaty.”
Matthew listened, but his expression didn’t give much away. Matthew would know all about the screw up earlier in the year, since he and Cam had apparently been working at cross purposes. It was one of the only useful pieces of information Cam had gotten from the ambush and that asshole Jay.
So did Matthew believe him?
No way to know, yet.
Cam’s gaze flickered down. Another question waited, and an image.
He returned his gaze to Matthew’s face. “I don’t know if that’s Lane. We’ve never met in person. All our communication was through the sats, no images. I wouldn’t know him if he walked up to me and punched me.”
Another question.
“He somehow found out about my personal search for Jones and offered to help,” he said. “I knew of him because of the work we’d both done for the anti-renegade department, and I needed what he was offering. I accepted his offer and he did what I told him to do however he saw fit. That’s all I can tell you about Lane.”
Another question.
“Look—”
Rick’s hands tightened on Cam’s shoulders.
Cam didn’t look behind him. He did cover one of Rick’s hands with his own, and he noted the way Matthew’s gaze wandered between them. “Tell me you’ve saved Mig and I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I don’t have a lot to hide right now. You have everything that’s important to me.”
The next thing to appear on the screen wasn’t a real question: Right now? Why doesn’t that surprise me?
Cam shrugged.
Matthew glanced down. An image appeared on the screen.
Cam leaned forward. Mig, in a bright room with two beds, sitting beside Luis and holding something Cam couldn’t identify. He looked up at that moment, and the sight took Cam’s breath. The dent that had been part of Mig’s skull since the day Cam had met him as a scared nine-year-old who’d been ordered by his father to drag a tray of food into Cam’s cell was gone.
Cam dragged in a ragged breath and sat back. He looked across the table at Matthew and caught his gaze.
“Thank you.”
Matthew shrugged. He said something, glanced at Rick, and then glanced back.
Cam glanced down at the screen just as another question appeared.
He’d known this was coming. He’d also spent some time thinking about how he could use this to his advantage. They had to want some of the same things he wanted.
“Jones worked for my father. That’s how I knew about his son and how I knew what he’d done.”
A narrow furrow formed between Matthew’s eyebrows. He spent a moment studying his own screen, flicking his fingers, and then—
He raised questioning eyes to stare at Cam. His lips were parted, and Cam was almost sure he’d said something under his breath.
Cam wondered at that moment why he’d never bothered learning to read lips. But the answer came to him easily, quickly. There’d been no point. He’d never been forced to confront the reality of the body he’d been born with. His father had protected him from that reality with the one thing he had in abundance.
In case Matthew doubted what Cam had meant, he said, “Pace Campbell.” Tech genius. Inventor of so many new technologies that he’d almost owned the world.
Unfortunately, when the economies of the world collapsed, he’d had more to lose than most. And he’d lost a hell of a lot.
Including his son.
Cam didn’t know if he would ever forgive his father for failing to pay the ransom for Henry. If his father had . . . everything that followed might not have happened.
But Cam couldn’t regret saving Ava and the boys, and part of him hated knowing that, because if Henry hadn’t died, he might not have done it. His life had changed forever during those few months. He couldn’t regret who he’d become. Henry would have been proud of him.
None of that absolved his father.
Maybe Cam would have saved Ava and the boys anyway. Maybe Henry would have been there to help.
“Jones built my visual implants before I was born and he was responsible for them every step of the way as I grew up. Then the wolves came to Earth and he and my father collaborated on some top-secret projects—not for the government, but something they’d discovered and wanted to pursue privately. I found out later it was the wolves’ alien healing technology. They formed a partnership with several other individuals.”
Cam stared at Matthew, knew what he was about to say and said it anyway. “Robson Greer, some other high ranking officials that gained power once the States signed the treaty with the wolves and formed the protectorate. Jones had taken some information when he was working with the wolves that my father claimed formed the backbone of the project they were working on together, and he went missing, taking everything he had with him. I’d been looking for him for almost six years when I finally found his son. Apparently, Jones had died. But I suspected his son still had what I needed.”
Matthew’s face was as expressive as it had ever been—Cam didn’t have any trouble remembering how Matthew had looked when he was buried deep inside Cam, his body strung out with pleasure and his approaching orgasm. The glimmer of satisfaction that radiated from his eyes had that same edge to it, as if he was on the verge of getting exactly what he wanted.
That was good. Cam wasn’t trying to hide anything.
A sound rumbled behind Cam. He looked up over his shoulder at Rick, but Rick was watching Matthew.
Matthew crossed his arms and sat back, his gaze never leaving Rick. Rick said something else, and Matthew responded, his arms tightening momentarily, his body turning slightly away from the table toward the door.
Cam’s gaze flickered that way, but the door remained firmly shut.
He looked back to see Matthew nod, reach out and tap something on the screen.
Cam’s eyes flickered down to the screen in front of him again. He returned his gaze to Matthew before he answered.
“I didn’t know Jay.”
&
nbsp; Matthew waited.
“There’s nothing else to say. I didn’t know him when he showed up with guns and men. He ambushed me and I listened to what he had to say about you and your supposed plans and I made a decision to do my best to warn you off. I did what I could.” Cam glanced again at Matthew’s neck. “I didn’t think I had a choice when I tried to take his rifle. Sorry that worked out the way it did, buddy.”
Surprisingly, Matthew grinned. His hand went up to his neck and he shook his head.
Cam decided to cut straight to the shit that mattered. He’d liked Trevor. Hadn’t quite trusted him, and turned out he’d been right to keep him close—if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have realized someone had betrayed him just in time to get out—but the one thing he knew was that to keep a lie going the longest, it was better to start as close to the truth as possible. Matthew and his alter ego Trevor probably weren’t that different.
“I’m close to finding the main weapons’ supplier for the largest of the organized renegade groups,” Cam said. “I have access to names, and I’m willing to hand them over if you’re willing to let my people keep looking through the data I got from Jones. You won’t get them any other way, because the names are encrypted and there’s only one key.” Cam tapped his temple. “None of it’s here.”
Matthew’s eyes narrowed on him.
Rick’s fingers tightened across Cam’s shoulders.
Cam rested his hand on the table. “And I want to talk to Greer. I know he’s here. I know what it means that he mated First Alpha Tra’s’k’ille and it’s nothing like what the organization I work for thinks.”
He could tell that his butchered attempt to speak the first alpha’s name in the wolves’ language had impressed Matthew. Matthew’s gaze swept upward, likely to meet Rick’s.
Cam didn’t take his eyes off Matthew.
Matthew was easier to read than Rick, even now. And despite appearances, Cam knew Rick was in charge of the interrogation. Matthew hadn’t been very good at hiding that. Cam didn’t know if Rick did it to preserve the separation of their mated status from his duty to make sure Cam wasn’t a threat or if he had another reason for letting someone else handle the questioning, but Cam suspected Matthew was one of Rick’s betas and every question he’d asked had been at Rick’s direction.
