Brendan's Fate (Wolves' Heat)

by Odessa Lynne

  “Gonna kill me?” Brendan asked, hoarse. “Taking over the groups won’t be as easy as that.”

  “Easy enough,” Jay said, “especially when I spread the word that the wolves turned you against the group.”

  Brendan wiped away a drizzle of blood making its way down into his collar. His neck burned where the wolf’s claws had pierced his skin. “Bullshit. Everybody knows you came to us on behalf of the wolves. They won’t trust you that easy.”

  “You were caught, been gone for weeks now. It hasn’t been that hard. Tell him Matthew.”

  “I already told him all about what you’ve been up to, at the cabin.”

  Brendan turned his head toward the sound of Matthew’s voice. The light wasn’t good, but Brendan had just enough time to glimpse Matthew holding himself up with the side of his hand against the heavy doorjamb before Jay grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back against the barrel of the gun.

  “Ow, dammit!”

  Brendan rubbed his hand down his thigh.

  “Stop fidgeting,” Jay said harshly, jamming the gun tighter against Brendan’s skull.

  “My leg hurts.”

  “Here.” Jay kicked him right in the muscle at mid-thigh, the toe of his heavy boot jabbing Brendan with enough force to feel like it was punching a hole through his leg.

  Brendan screamed before he could stop himself, the pain sharp and immediate over his old scars. He doubled over and grabbed his thigh.

  Matthew yelled something, and Jay yelled back, but Brendan was too busy trying to fight back the gray at the edges of his vision to pay attention. Probably a threat, something meant to keep Matthew in line.

  Brendan had a switchblade tucked into his boot and he stayed on the floor for a few seconds longer than necessary, before Lamar dragged him upright again. Brendan gritted his teeth the whole way and realized quickly that he couldn’t put weight on his knee without pain shooting up his thigh.

  That son of a bitch.

  Brendan massaged his thigh and glared at Jay.

  “I’d be fine with killing you,” Jay said, “but that’s not the plan. Put your hands behind your back.”

  “Fuck y—” Brendan’s words got cut off by Jay’s backhand to the face.

  The iron taste of blood coated his tongue. Brendan spat on the floor and then wrestled against Lamar’s attempt to grab his arms.

  “Stop fighting, you fucking asshole,” Jay demanded. He knocked Brendan in the head with the butt of the gun, and the impact left Brendan with ringing ears and a steady throb in the back of his skull.

  While Brendan tried to shake off the dizziness, Lamar grabbed Brendan’s arms and pulled them roughly behind his back.

  Brendan dragged Lamar off balance but something clamped tight around his wrists anyway, pinching the skin and making Brendan unable to catch himself or Lamar when they fell. Brendan’s shoulder took a jarring hit as their weight collided with the floor. Something beneath them popped, the retort echoing eerily over the rising bluster of wind.

  “Fuck,” he breathed out between gritted teeth.

  Lamar’s weight shifted and Brendan had a second to catch his breath before Lamar and Jay each took one of his arms and yanked him upright again, onto his knees.

  His breath gusted out of him as a pang twisted deep in his thigh.

  “Do you want me to shoot your boy there?” Jay demanded, pointing his gun at Matthew. “I can do that if you don’t stop this shit now. I need you, not him.”

  Brendan eyed the direction Jay was pointing the gun’s barrel and his heart beat uncomfortably fast. Jay didn’t seem eager to kill Matthew, but who was to say he wouldn’t do it?

  “Okay, okay.” Brendan moistened his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. “I’ll stop fighting.”

  “On your feet,” Jay said and he and Lamar jerked on Brendan’s arms.

  Brendan staggered to his feet, his balance shot to hell by the brace on his foot, the muscle spasm in his thigh, and the fact that his hands were tied behind his back.

  “I want back in,” Matthew called out, a noticeable shake to his words. “If you leave me here, you know the wolves’ll find me. I’ll swear to God I’ll keep my mouth shut and follow orders.”

  Brendan stared at Matthew but the gloom was too deep to make out his expression.

  Jay’s head came up. “Can’t trust you. Sorry.” Jay started to turn them toward the opening to the alley.

  “I won’t make any trouble,” Matthew said. “Please.”

  Brendan jostled Jay’s arm with his shoulder. “You can’t leave him here with the dead wolf. They’ll think he did it. And he needs medical care for that bullet you put in him.”

  Matthew started walking toward them slowly, the naked skin of his upper body pale enough to be visible in the low light. He was holding his shirt against his shoulder again, and the darker shadows of smeared blood crossed his stomach and chest. “I’ll do whatever you want. Anything.”

  Jay hesitated.

  “Come on,” Brendan said. “He’s valuable. He has access to shit we needed. Why the hell do you think I wanted him with me?”

  Matthew’s halting approach stopped and his gaze flickered toward Brendan before returning to Jay.

  Jay pointed his gun toward Matthew and Brendan’s heart started to race, but Jay didn’t act like he was getting ready to shoot Matthew. “You tell everyone Brendan here was sent back to spy on them—and that he shot you. You do that, and we’ve got a deal. You dispute a single word out of my mouth to anyone and I’ll blow the backside of your head off first chance I get.”

  This time it was Matthew who hesitated. Possibly rethinking his rash promise to do anything Jay said.

  Jay’s fingers twitched against Brendan’s arm.

  “Do it, Matthew,” Brendan said. “Open your fucking mouth and say yes, you hear me?”

  Jay’s hand clenched tighter around Brendan’s arm, as if Brendan’s interference was pissing him off.

  “Okay,” Matthew answered, and Brendan couldn’t ignore the relief that flooded through him. “Okay. I’ll say it. I’ll tell the guys whatever you want.”

  Brendan’s relief didn’t go that deep, though, because Brendan was sure Jay would probably just use Matthew to support his attempted takeover, then find a way to get rid of him.

  Brendan hoped to God that whatever happened to him, Matthew would have sense enough to take off at the first opportunity and get himself out of Jay’s reach.

  Matthew was still naïve enough to think playing the hero was always the best move. Brendan had already discovered that playing the hero didn’t always work out like you expected and he had the scars to prove it.

  Matthew stayed to the wall as he finished crossing the distance between them, coming up to stand a few feet to the side of Lamar who stuck his arm out when it looked like Matthew was going to get too close.

  Matthew hung back, while Jay and Lamar directed Brendan toward the gap in the wall less than ten feet away.

  “Why’re you doing this?” Brendan asked, his gaze on the floor so he could avoid tripping as he hobbled along with Jay and Lamar. “Killing me would’ve been the easiest way to take over. We both know that.”

  “You just said killing you wouldn’t work. Now you say it’d be the easiest way. Which is it?”

  “Does it matter? You said killing me wasn’t the plan. So what is the plan?”

  The truth was Robson Greer wouldn’t ever allow Jay to step into Brendan’s place in the end, even if no one ever understood why. Jay would die and Brendan’s replacement would be hand-picked from a very short list of candidates who knew how to keep a secret.

  A gust of wind shook the building again and another deafening pop echoed from below.

  Brendan wasn’t the only one who stilled at the sound, his heartbeat ratcheting up to thump painfully hard inside his chest. He looked over his shoulder at Jay, who was just behind him, hand still clamped tight to Brendan’s arm while Lamar was getting ready to duck between the ragged edge
s of cracked and broken masonry that made up the gap leading to the alley beyond.

  Dust swirled on the wind.

  God, he wanted out of this death trap and he was almost willing to accept his current circumstances if it meant Jay was about to drag him through that opening and out into that wide open alley.

  The wind died down and Jay shoved Brendan toward Lamar, releasing his arm.

  “The wolves have as much political drama as the rest of us. That one—” Jay gestured back toward the dead wolf lying on the floor. “—was with a faction that wants you dead. The First Alpha wants you alive. And my new alpha, she wants leverage. You’re it.”

  “So you’re just a flunky then,” Brendan said. “If you try to take over, you’ll be doing it on behalf of this wolf of yours.”

  “She’s not mine,” Jay said. “But she says I’ll belong to her if I prove my worth.”

  Brendan laughed, almost a bark of sound. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re doing this to convince a wolf you’re good enough for her? She’s fucking using you.”

  Jay backhanded him, harder than before. He’d almost expected it. But then Jay shoved him in the center of the chest, and Brendan stumbled. Lamar let go, and Brendan couldn’t keep his balance. With his hands tied together behind his back, he couldn’t catch himself when he fell and he landed hard, mostly on his shoulder, but his cheek and nose glanced off the floor. He started coughing as a sudden rush of warm blood poured down his face and into the back of his throat.

  Matthew dropped down beside him, pulling his head up and shoving his filthy shirt against Brendan’s face, almost suffocating him.

  He shook his head fiercely, struggling to get his knees under him.

  “Give me a minute,” Matthew muttered. He was trying to get his shirt wadded up so it wouldn’t cover Brendan’s mouth.

  “Asshole,” Jay said. “You don’t know anything about them.”

  Brendan started laughing again, against Matthew’s shirt, and the laugh turned into a chest-burning cough that made it impossible to breathe. His ribs ached, and his vision narrowed.

  Jay stared down at him with clenched fists and Brendan wondered for the first time how Jay had become part of a wolf pack in the first place and how he’d gone about finding another alpha after Craig had killed his first one—if that alpha had actually been Jay’s first.

  Brendan had just gotten his coughing under control when he heard a roar in the distance and lifted his head. Matthew’s shirt fell away and blood streamed down over his mouth. He rubbed his face against his shoulder, getting the blood off his mouth long enough to take a breath, then doing it again.

  Matthew pushed the shirt up to his nose again. “Blow, goddammit, or you’re gonna choke on it.”

  “I’m already choking on it!” But he blew. When Matthew pulled the fabric away from his face, he could still feel a trickle of blood trailing down his upper lip, but he could breathe finally.

  Another roar, nearer this time, and Matthew looked at Brendan with wide eyes.

  God, he looked so much younger staring at Brendan like that. Brendan’s stomach churned and he knew it wasn’t just the blood he’d swallowed causing the feeling. He hated himself for dragging Matthew into this shit with him.

  Why had he done it? For a regular fuck? For companionship, because he wasn’t getting what he wanted from Ian? For the access to Matthew’s small inheritance and the old keycard that still worked to get them into one of the old power stations where they’d set up so they could track those new micro-beacons they’d started using?

  Whatever his reasons had been, they felt like bullshit now. Every goddamn one of them. He’d been a selfish son of a bitch to use Matthew like that, and that was the only truth he could see in any of his actions.

  He was starting to see a pattern and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want to accept it.

  Because—

  Because how the hell was he any better than Trey? At least Trey had told Brendan from the beginning what he planned to do with him. Brendan hadn’t really lied to Matthew, but he sure as hell hadn’t told him much of the truth either. Just like he’d never told Ian the truth or Devon or anyone.

  Because the truth couldn’t protect you. Only lies could do that.

  Chapter 27

  Jay prodded Brendan in the hip with his boot. “Get up. If those wolves find us, they’ll kill us all.”

  Discreetly, Brendan dug into his back pocket for the switchblade he’d slid out of his boot and hidden when Jay had kicked him in the thigh.

  Brendan palmed the knife as he struggled to his feet with Matthew’s help.

  Matthew gasped once, but otherwise he didn’t seem to be letting his gunshot wound stop him. Brendan hoped it meant the wound wasn’t that bad, but a cold fist still twisted his gut every time his mind strayed to Matthew’s injury. Matthew needed treatment and he needed to get out of here so he could get it.

  Lamar was halfway through the gap when he yelled, “Wolves!”

  Jay slung his rifle off his shoulder with swift competence and raised the gun.

  Brendan didn’t hesitate, just shoved his shoulder into Matthew’s arm and pushed toward the wall furthest from the opening.

  Lamar disappeared and the gloomy light from outdoors spilled into the factory again before a wolf rushed through the gap, his roar echoing off the walls.

  Jay got off one shot that sent a booming echo bouncing off the high walls before the wolf ripped the gun right out of his hand.

  Brendan and Matthew slammed up against the wall and a tremble vibrated beneath their feet as the weak floor shimmied in a threat as dangerous as the wolf in their midst.

  Then another wolf came crashing through the gap, and another.

  Brendan pushed Matthew back. He grabbed the front of Matthew’s waistband awkwardly with his hands.

  Matthew grunted and cursed, and said, “What the hell…” in a confused mutter, but Brendan didn’t ease up, just kept his back pressed tight to Matthew’s chest, as if he’d be able to keep Matthew from shoving him out of the way if Matthew tried.

  “Cut me loose.”

  “I don’t—”

  “My hand.”

  Matthew’s cold fingers fumbled against Brendan’s. “Where’d you get—”

  “Hurry!”

  Brendan couldn’t take his eyes off the wolves, who had burst into the old factory not as a group, but as enemy combatants. A roar sent his pulse racing and goose bumps made his skin crawl.

  The first wolf threw Jay across the floor where he landed with a thud and slid to an abrupt stop against the shadowy object that had stopped Brendan’s gun earlier when Jay had kicked it.

  Brendan heard the click as Matthew released the blade and then the plastic tie holding Brendan’s wrists together snapped apart. He rolled his aching shoulders.

  Another roar and the third wolf slashed wide, his claws digging into the chest of the second.

  Brendan knew he and Matthew couldn’t get out of the factory the way they’d came in, no way in hell, so he shoved his hand into Matthew’s waistband and tugged sharply. “Gotta find another way out before they start paying attention to us. Run.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Go, you fucker.” Brendan shoved Matthew ahead of him toward the space where they’d hidden earlier. Matthew stumbled but then squeezed Brendan’s fingers, then turned and ran.

  Brendan watched Matthew dodge the debris in his way, but also kept an eye on the first wolf, who had come to the aid of the second. The third had blood covering half his face but he wasn’t down yet, even against the other two.

  Matthew disappeared into the shadows of the factory just as another gust of wind hit.

  Brendan grabbed at the wall to keep his balance as the floor jolted beneath him and settled on an alarming angle. The fighting wolves went down, sliding across the floor a few feet. Brendan could hardly believe it when the three acted as if nothing had happened. One roared and slashed at the other’s throat while the third gr
abbed at him from behind.

  Brendan started making his way across the sloped section of floor toward the interior, his stomach clenching the entire way. If he hadn’t already sent Matthew ahead, he would’ve stayed and faced the wolves instead. The thought of getting trapped in that heavy darkness…

  He clenched his fist. “Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered. “You can do this.”

  He was halfway to the gaping doorway when another wolf jumped through the gap in the wall from the alley beyond. And then three more followed.

  Brendan should’ve been watching where he put his feet. His boot caught on something heavy and he tripped, coming up short against the wall with a loud thud. “Shit.”

  “There!” he heard, just as one of the wolves leapt in his direction.

  Brendan scrambled to rebalance himself while snapping his switchblade open and reaching for the bigger, better knife he always carried in his boot before he realized what he was doing.

  Fuck. His knife was somewhere near the dead wolf.

  A heavy body slammed into his, knocking him back against the wall and stealing his breath and he only barely managed to hang onto his switchblade.

  Dust fell into his eyes from somewhere above and his eyes started watering so bad he couldn’t see anything, so he stabbed blindly, knowing as he did he was probably wasting his time.

  “Stop!” the wolf said, grabbing Brendan’s wrist tight. Brendan struggled against that grip, kicking at the wolf’s legs, almost expecting claws to tear into him or to feel teeth at his throat, but instead, the wolf hurled him down the wall, toward the gaping maw of the doorway that led deeper into the factory.

  Brendan landed on his ass, skimming up against the wall, and tumbled over onto his side. When he rolled over to the sound of a yell and a roar, he saw the wolf he’d stabbed holding back another wolf, hands clenched tight around the other wolf’s wrists.

  “Go!” the wolf ordered, and for a heart-stopping moment, Brendan couldn’t think, couldn’t decide—