Brendan's Fate (Wolves' Heat)

by Odessa Lynne

  Chapter 19

  The light hurt his eyes. He didn’t want to open them. He wanted to curl in on himself and pretend he didn’t remember anything. That nothing had changed. But that wasn’t true.

  He remembered everything. Everything.

  There was a clarity to his memories that took his breath and he had to fight the tightness closing his throat and the anger vibrating along his nerves.

  He hated him. Trey, the wolves, all of them, for doing this to him. He hated them all. How could he not? How could he ever look at Trey and not remember how he’d made him want him—a wolf. He’d wanted him. He still wanted him. He wanted—

  He wanted to forget again. Forget it all. Forget why he wanted the wolves to leave Earth. Forget why he had started this in the first place. He couldn’t reconcile his memories from before Trey with those that followed.

  Brainwashing.

  That’s all it was. Brainwashing. All of it.

  And Ian. He loved Ian. He’d always loved him and Ian had never wanted him. Not for a single minute and he’d chosen a wolf over Brendan in the end.

  “Brendan.”

  Trey’s voice.

  Brendan opened his eyes. Trey’s brilliant green gaze met his.

  Brendan felt his heart fall out of his chest.

  “Get away from me,” he said. “Get the fuck away from me.”

  Did he imagine that flash of hurt in Trey’s eyes? No. No, he hadn’t. And—

  “Get away from me!” he screamed, before he could let the weakness inside himself bubble to the surface. He couldn’t—he couldn’t—he hated them all.

  Even Trey. Especially—especially Trey.

  He rolled off the side of the table and crashed right into a tray that held the tools that had delivered the drugs directly to his brain.

  He hit the floor with an oomph so hard that he bit his tongue. He could taste the metallic tang bloom in his mouth and he swallowed it and got his hands and knees under him.

  Trey tried to take his arm.

  Brendan jerked free. “Don’t you ever—ever fucking touch me. Ever.”

  Trey didn’t reach for him again. He stared at Brendan, inscrutable, while Brendan’s heart thudded against his ribcage, suffocating him, and then turned and gestured to one of the wolves at the door behind him.

  “See him to a room. Restrain him if he doesn’t cooperate.”

  The wolf nodded and Trey left without a single look over his shoulder at Brendan.

  Brendan was glad. Glad to see the back of him walking away.

  He screamed at the guards and resisted with everything in him.

  Chapter 20

  The room’s bright light didn’t encourage him to sleep. He had cleaned the blood off his cheek and knuckles at the sink in the small bathroom attached to the room and then laid himself on the bed and stared at the ceiling and plotted.

  Every few minutes a thought would flutter through his mind, a memory of childhood or the woods or Ian or Devon or Matthew or his father or … Trey.

  The harder he tried not to think of Trey, the more often those memories intruded.

  That fucking asshole.

  Brendan didn’t want to think about him. He wanted to plan his way out of this, figure out how to get in contact with his father so he would get Brendan the hell out of here, somehow, someway.

  But Trey kept sneaking into his thoughts, stabbing into the cracks and crevices in his concentration like a stream snaking through a cave.

  He couldn’t help but remember wanting Trey so badly that he would have given up every memory he had to keep things the way they’d been with him.

  He dug his sore fingers into the sheet under him and tried to deny that he still wished Trey had let him.

  When that didn’t work, he curled over on his side and faced the blank wall, the bed creaking quietly over the hum of the air circulating in the small room.

  He’d loved Ian. Not Trey, Ian. But he’d messed up with Ian. He knew that to the bottom of his soul. Ian would never forgive him this time, and Brendan didn’t blame him.

  Just like Devon. Except he’d messed up with Ian worse than he’d ever messed up with Devon, and he’d known he’d messed up with Devon the night after Devon’s birthday, when Devon had been pissy and finally just told Brendan to go fuck himself because he was done. Then he’d recounted Brendan’s folly to him, how he’d gone maudlin after getting drunk and whined about how it wasn’t working out with Ian the way he’d always thought it would, how he’d been sure Ian would someday recognize their friendship for the true love it was fated to be.

  “It’s fate, dammit,” Brendan had said. “Fate brought us together and he should fucking recognize it!”

  He hadn’t remembered that outburst until Devon had repeated his words back at him, voice sharp and brittle, and added, like he was twisting a knife into Brendan’s gut and enjoying it, “He won’t recognize it because you’re a fucking prick, Brendan, and Ian’s smarter than to fall in love with someone so goddamned self-centered! He doesn’t love you and he never will and you should quit holding out for something you’re never going to get.”

  But he’d deserved it. Because he’d said all that after fucking Devon and pretending, for just a minute near the end, that Devon was someone else because even though Brendan had a good thing with Devon, Devon wasn’t the one.

  The one.

  God, what an asshole he was.

  Well, goddammit, turned out Ian wasn’t the one either.

  But he still could’ve been happy with Ian. He was sure of it. Enough that he’d risked everything to put that fucking deal together so Ian would quit bitching about Brendan’s connection to the renegades. But Ian probably still didn’t know the truth of that, of what exactly Brendan had done.

  Devon had apologized later, a shit apology, but an apology nevertheless and Brendan had been desperate enough not to lose one of his only real friends to accept it without caring if Devon really meant it. He’d accepted the apology and then pretended like none of it had ever happened.

  He pushed the heels of his hands harder against his eyes and curled his legs in tighter. He fucked everything up. He always did.

  Just one more shit move he had no one to blame for but himself.

  God, he hated himself sometimes.

  Almost as much as his father hated his mother and her bullshit psychic beliefs, but that was a set of memories he didn’t want to touch while he already felt like he was breaking apart, nothing left of him but a thousand tiny pieces.

  He kicked the wall with his booted foot, having refused to give any of them the satisfaction of taking off so much as a single garment before climbing onto the bed. The thud vibrated all the way up his leg and he winced.

  His ankle throbbed.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  He wasn’t going to die here. No way. He’d escape; he just had to be ready for any opportunity that came his way.

  He closed his mind against the false assurance from his mother promising him a long life.

  She’s also promised him a love that would grow from a seed of anger to light his way during the dark times ahead, but look how that had turned out.

  Ian had punched Brendan in the gut for calling him names the first time they’d met, his pissed off glare and his easy forgiveness something Brendan had carried in his heart for years thinking it actually meant something. He’d based his whole life on a fate that was nothing but a bunch of lies from his mentally unstable mother.

  He’d believed everything she said, even defending her when his dad called him a fool for believing all that bullshit, and when she’d confessed to the lies last year, he’d felt like his fucking heart was being torn out. She was supposed to be the one person he could trust no matter what.

  When he got out of this place, it was going to be because he’d fucking earned it. There was no such thing as fate.

  No one came, and eventually Brendan fell asleep despite his best efforts not to. He had only his nightmares to
keep him company.

  Chapter 21

  Brendan remembered his first sight of Trey, a wolf with green eyes and high cheekbones in a face that could have been carved into clay and put on display in a museum it was so attractive. But Brendan hadn’t seen a wolf yet that wasn’t attractive.

  Brendan had always had a weakness for guys who looked like they could take a punch and come up swinging and the wolves—everything about them screamed power and strength and the ability to keep going when they got knocked down.

  Of course, Brendan hadn’t known who Trey was on first sight, not until the alpha that had stolen Ian from Brendan and taken him prisoner had called Trey by that unpronounceable name Brendan had come to associate with the First Alpha.

  Trey was the one wolf that Brendan would’ve given anything to have had at the end of a gun.

  Instead, all Brendan had was a crutch and a cot between them, and he almost fell on his ass trying to back up when the First Alpha’s nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed and he got that look on his face that the wolves got when they caught a human scent during heat season.

  And heat season still raged, despite the drugs that had made it possible for the wolves to control themselves around him while he was a prisoner.

  He’d been locked in what amounted to a shed with cots, somewhere within one of their den complexes.

  The wolves had started yelling at each other in their own language and Brendan had caught more than one disbelieving look sent his way.

  Trey had proved his power that day. He had roared in a way that made Brendan’s heart stutter and his breath catch and he’d taken a hit against his shoulder as a wolf with the stubbornness of a bull had shoved Brendan to the floor and stood between him and the First Alpha.

  Brendan had scrambled backward on his ass, his broken ankle throbbing like a son of a bitch. Moments later, that wolf had been on the floor only a few feet away from Brendan with the First Alpha’s teeth at his throat.

  “Yre!” someone had yelled, and in a flurry of wolves rushing through the door, three of them had tackled the First Alpha to the ground long enough to dose him with more of their repression drugs.

  “Fuck,” Brendan had muttered, too shaken to move his trembling hands off the floor, where he sat against the wall opposite the door.

  Brendan remembered the way he’d felt as most of the wolves left him there, with no explanation of what had happened, his stomach in knots and his panting breath a reaction to his pounding heart, too much adrenaline still firing through his blood.

  One wolf stayed back, a long slash across his cheek and upper lip that was so deep Brendan could see teeth through the gap. The sight made him queasy.

  He offered Brendan his hand. “I can help you to your cot.”

  “Fuck off,” Brendan had said.

  The wolf had given him a long look, shaken his head, and turned and left.

  Brendan remembered that wolf and his gold eyes. Rick had sat beside him at Trey’s table, with not a hint of a scar from his run in with his First Alpha.

  Fucking wolves.

  Brendan rolled over in the bed at the sound of the door opening.

  He jerked upright in the bed and got his feet on the floor before the three wolves had gotten more than halfway into the room.

  Rick.

  Kem.

  He didn’t recognize the other wolf, female and taller than either Rick or Kem.

  “I’m not going to cooperate, whatever you’ve got planned,” he warned them, “so you can just go fuck yourselves if you think—”

  “We don’t need your cooperation,” Kem said, his eyes so much like Trey’s that Brendan had to look away. He settled his gaze on Rick instead.

  Rick had a tension about him, in his shoulders and the way he held his hands at his side that made Brendan’s pulse speed up. He quickly glanced at the other wolf, but she had stopped near the door and was just watching and waiting, her impassive gaze on Brendan.

  Brendan curled his hand into a fist and used it to push himself to his feet. He hissed when he put weight on his ankle. He’d done something to it when he’d kicked the wall. Dumbass move, that. But it’d been kick the wall or have a fucking breakdown and he wasn’t showing any more weakness than he had to in front of these wolves.

  He glared at Kem. “You’re the one Devon’s been fucking, huh? You almost let him die.”

  Kem didn’t respond; he and Rick had reached Brendan and they each seized one of Brendan’s arms.

  Well, fuck that. Heat season was over and he didn’t have to worry about the wolves catching a whiff of his human scent and being overcome by lust. They had reasoning skills again—and they were peaceful people, they claimed, the goddamn sons of bitches. “I hope you’re happy with him, he never was a very good fu—”

  That got a reaction. Kem’s hand closed around Brendan’s throat, cutting off Brendan’s insult.

  “He still cares what happens to you,” Kem said.

  The implication being that Kem didn’t.

  “I—” Brendan coughed. “Shit. You’re choking me.”

  “You’re the First Alpha’s mate. I can’t hurt you, but I won’t let you speak against Devon. He deserves better from you.”

  Brendan tried to bring his hands up to pry Kem’s fingers loose but because neither wolf had released his arms, he had to settle for clenching his hands around Kem’s wrists. “Let go.”

  “Apologize. Devon’s done nothing but worry about what’s going to happen to you and you repay his care with insults.”

  “Fuck—” Brendan couldn’t breathe.

  “Submit!”

  Brendan kicked Kem in the shin with his booted foot. A stabbing pain shot through his ankle and into his thigh and hip and he had to grit his teeth against it.

  Rick twisted and grabbed Brendan’s arms from behind, claws piercing Brendan’s short sleeves and the skin below. He could feel the tickle of warm blood and he struggled for a moment before giving in.

  They were stronger than him and there was no way he could break free of Rick’s hold on him while Kem still had his hand around Brendan’s throat.

  “It’s time to choose your fate,” Kem said. “The Diviners and First Alpha are waiting.”

  “I won’t submit,” Brendan said, as they pulled him along toward the door. He dug his heels in as best as he could with the boot in the way, but he wasn’t strong enough; he would never be strong enough and he knew it, but that didn’t mean he had to give up easily. “You’re just taking me to my execution, because I won’t ever submit—ever.”

  He grunted when he tripped and his weight pulled on his arms where Kem and Rick held him. “Shit.”

  “Stop struggling and you can walk,” Kem said.

  The female who hadn’t yet spoken eyed Brendan with the light of something like curiosity in her gaze.

  Kem said her name, a low-voiced combination of syllables, and she reached out her hand, offering Kem a small flat oval with rounded edges. He took what she offered and then shoved Brendan’s arm toward her.

  Brendan wrestled free for a second, but then her hand clamped around his bicep and her fingers dug into the soft tissue under his arm.

  He grunted at the strength in her grip, tighter, harder than Kem’s had been and impossible to break. “Ow, goddamn, that hurts.”

  “Then don’t struggle,” she said, her accent more noticeable than Kem’s and Rick’s both.

  “Like hell. I’m not going to make this easy for you. You people just want us to roll over and let you have whatever you want and the fucking government is too scared to do a damn thing to stop you. It’s not right and I’m not sorry for anything I’ve done—not one damn bit.”

  A lie hidden in a truth but one he could ignore just like he’d always done, even if it hurt more now to ignore that truth than it ever had before.

  He knew the wolves’ great secret—the one his father had shared with him—and nothing Trey had told him while he didn’t have his memories could counter that truth.


  Nothing.

  The wolves would never let humans live in peace.

  Rick and the female dragged him the last few feet out of the room and into the corridor. As he stumbled over his own feet, he looked up and there, at the end of the corridor—

  The wolf that had taken Matthew, amber-eyed and solemn.

  Brendan frowned, but then a flash of blue in the corner of his eye snagged his attention. He turned and that was when the wave of pain seized him, dead center in the chest and his eyes widened and his breath caught in his chest and before he could register what was happening to him, his entire body went lax.

  The wolves holding him up crumpled, and he followed, smacking hard into the floor. He felt the cool surface under his cheek and a warm wetness spreading at his groin but he couldn’t control a single muscle in his body. After a second, he realized he wasn’t even breathing, and strangely enough, all he could think about was the fact that he’d just pissed his pants.

  His eyes closed of their own accord but he could hear the soft thud of footsteps coming his way.

  Panic sent a jolt of adrenaline through him and suddenly he could breathe again. Was this a rescue or a kidnapping? There were definitely wolves out there that wanted him dead, because out in the woods Trey had protected him from—

  He cut that thought off as quickly as he could. He couldn’t think about Trey.

  He groaned as rough hands hauled him up and then he felt a disorienting rush as gravity brought his blood into his head and he was being thrown over someone’s shoulder.

  “How long do we have?” someone asked.

  What the hell? Matthew?

  “Long enough.” A wolf’s accent.

  “Do you think he’ll figure—”

  “Quiet. He’s not unconscious. Only immobilized.”

  “Shit. Sorry.”

  The wolf carrying him jostled him sideways and Brendan’s empty stomach clenched. He hadn’t had food since—he didn’t know, because he didn’t know when he’d finally fallen asleep on that bed or how long he’d stayed asleep before he’d been woken by the wolves entering the room.