Brendan's Fate (Wolves' Heat)

by Odessa Lynne

  Brendan smacked the bed repeatedly and bit his lip to keep from yelling.

  Trey laughed, licking softly, gently over Brendan’s scrotum, and a soft rumble started in his chest, sending a pleasant tingle through Brendan, warming his flesh.

  Brendan took a couple of deep breaths, but then Trey mouthed at the crease of Brendan’s thigh and groin, his tongue deliberately teasing until Brendan couldn’t stop himself from laughing and just when he thought his lungs were going to burst from a lack of oxygen, Trey sucked Brendan’s dick clean.

  Chapter 32

  Brendan sat down at the table across from the small group of wolves: Trey, Rick, Craig, Kem, and Rae. He’d known Rae less than a day, but she was someone Trey trusted, so Brendan was going to have to trust her too.

  “Even if the signal can’t be tracked, we don’t expect anything else from you,” Rae said, her lyrical voice and vibrant blue eyes a calm reassurance that Brendan needed right then.

  He hadn’t talked to his father yet and this was going to be his first attempt to offer Trey something that might help him put a stop to the rest of the renegade attacks.

  He’d decided he was going to do this last night after he’d submitted to Trey in front of his highest ranking alphas and a select group of high-status betas.

  Rae and Kem were both betas and they had been there, while Craig and Rick were alphas—except they were still Trey’s betas. He knew the wolves had a complex hierarchy of alphas and betas, and that the human terms didn’t really explain the nuances of what an alpha and a beta was to the wolves, or what the hell a watcher was, but he’d decided over the last few weeks of talking to Quint that the wolves’ society might not be any more complex than some of the more complex human societies, but because it was so alien, it was a lot harder for a human to understand.

  Submission had not been nearly as hard as Brendan had worried it would be but it still probably qualified as the scariest thing he’d ever done, giving up every bit of power and control he had to Trey in front of everyone present.

  Before the meal, Trey had told him, “Forgiveness has to be asked for through submission, Brendan. But we’re a forgiving people. You’ll see.”

  “You should hate me, you know,” Brendan had said. “If you were human, you would.”

  “But I’m not human.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “And I don’t hate you. You are my life.”

  Brendan had stared at Trey, the realization hitting him that Trey said that phrase too often for it not to mean something very important, and he felt a slow warmth settle in his gut, like the feeling he sometimes got when he knew—just knew—he’d done something right.

  Then they’d entered the same long room where Brendan had had his first taste of what heat might be like for the wolves, and he’d stood at Trey’s side until Trey turned to him and Brendan had cleared his throat and looked to Trey and said, “Alpha. I submit to your rule.” Then he’d lowered his head to Trey the way he’d seen the others do in a slow, formal nod, before raising his eyes and waiting.

  Trey’s satisfied look and his hard kiss had said it was enough for now. He’d boldly taken hold of the back of Brendan’s neck and turned him, holding Brendan against his body with his hand around Brendan’s throat, and presented Brendan to his wolves.

  “I’ve claimed my true mate,” he’d said.

  The talk had gotten loud, the food had been good, and Brendan had spent a lot of time nodding and sitting beside Trey—and put up with an almost excessive amount of erotic fondling from Trey in front of everyone.

  Really, that had been the highlight of the evening, except for the fact that the whole thing embarrassed the hell out of him because he suspected that if not for his own objections, he’d probably have been at the center of an orgy with Trey and at least a quarter of the other wolves before the night was over.

  Several wolves didn’t seem to have any issue whatsoever with taking their own fondling way too far for Brendan’s comfort. Brendan had seen entirely too much tit and ass in that last hour. The wolves didn’t seem to be the least bit shy about confessions of affection and lust once they got some of that acrid drink of theirs inside them.

  When Brendan had asked later, Trey had explained that heat changed things dramatically, and a wolf’s possessive nature wouldn’t allow for nearly as free an expression of lust between unmated wolves.

  Then Trey had taken Brendan to bed—not for sex, the fucking tease, even after all that fondling—and curled up behind Brendan with a truly ridiculous nest of pillows around them.

  The night had been a learning experience for sure.

  Rae’s voice brought Brendan’s attention back to the matter at hand and he put his phone in the center of the table. Trey had returned it to him that morning, and Brendan had winced, remembering when Craig’s wolves had taken it from him in the woods after his fall from the tree where he’d nearly gotten Ian killed.

  He nodded to Rae and a divider rose in the table, separating the others from Brendan and creating a sound and sight barrier that would mask their presence from Brendan’s father.

  He flicked on the screen and looked down at the blinking message he’d never received. He’d already sent an encoded message telling his father he had escaped—he’d done that two weeks ago through a spare phone at Ian’s. This message, it was something his father had obviously sent after discovering Brendan’s plan to make a deal with the wolves but before his father had discovered Brendan had been captured.

  The message had been brief.

  Fucking idiot. No deals. Free trade isn’t the goal here. Fix it. Whatever means necessary.

  As for Brendan’s message about his escape from certain death, that spare phone had been left behind with the vehicle two weeks ago when he and Matthew had gone on the run from the wolves, so Brendan had no idea what kind of reply his father might have sent.

  Brendan figured it had been something along the lines of “no contact” because that was just the kind of reply he would’ve expected. That had been why he’d been on his way to visit his father instead of just making a call.

  But a visit now was out of the question. At his first suggestion of that idea this morning, Trey had flatly refused.

  Brendan couldn’t remember what he’d told Trey about his father while under the influence of the drugs they’d given him when he’d been interrogated, but he figured it must have been enough.

  Trey wasn’t going to let him anywhere near his father.

  So Brendan was calling anyway, video and audio. The blank screens behind him had dissolved into a view of a random section of what Brendan thought of as the local forest, even though he was currently sitting in a large viewing room on a ship somewhere on the back side of the moon. The sound of the woods filled the air moments before he picked up the phone and made the call.

  “What the hell are you doing calling me?” Robson Greer said, not waiting for a greeting. Although he was likely in hiding, Robson still looked clean-shaven and rested, his crisp appearance blocking Brendan’s vision of anything that would give away his location.

  Brendan kept the phone angled so that only his head and the trees behind him showed in the screen. “Nice to know you’ve been worried about me.”

  “Stop with the bullshit, Brendan. Where are you?”

  “A few miles outside the Protectorate border. Thought I should get away for a while before I made contact.”

  “You wearing a tracker? I’ll send someone.”

  “No. I don’t need you to come get me. Something big’s going on and I think you should make arrangements with the others to send some men. There’s a lot of technology we can get our hands on if we do this right.”

  If he could get his father to contact any of the others or set a plan in motion to move a lot of men, they’d be able to make even more progress breaking up the power structure behind the renegade groups.

  “Tech?” A skeptical look followed.

  “The kind they don’t trade
.”

  Robson looked thoughtful. “What’d you tell them about me when they had you, Brendan?”

  Brendan’s face heated. He knew where this was going. “What do you think? I was drugged. I told them everything.”

  “Fucking idiot.”

  Brendan glared at his father. “I didn’t have any choice.”

  “You’re a goddamned idiot and you’ve screwed everything up by letting yourself get caught. I won’t be able to use a goddamn single one of the favors I’ve collected over the years, because I’ve been labeled a traitor, even though half the fucking government is secretly backing every one of the renegade groups we’ve put together. If you hadn’t decided fucking that idiot friend of yours was more important to you than sticking to our plan—”

  “Shut up.” Brendan’s chest felt tight, not an unusual thing when he was talking with his father. He had to resist the urge to look toward Trey, who was probably watching and listening to everything on a view screen. “Just shut up.”

  “What’s his name again? Ian—Marshall’s grandson—the old bastard. I should’ve kept you away from him. He was as bad as your mother, filling your head with bullshit.”

  Robson’s piercing gaze showed clearly through the screen. “Don’t waste my time telling me about the tech. I’m out. Without my connections, my use to the others is limited at best. They’re probably already trying to figure out a way to get rid of me.”

  Brendan rubbed his forehead. “What about me?” he said.

  It wasn’t that he cared what how his father answered, but he was supposed to keep his father talking for as long as possible so the wolves could track the call to its endpoint.

  Brendan wasn’t sure how the technology worked—that had always been someone else’s problem—but he knew the wolves could probably do it despite the security measures his father used.

  But if Brendan’s father stayed in hiding and this didn’t work, he wasn’t likely to be found any time soon, considering the state of the world and the lack of stability in many of Earth’s governments since the coming of the wolves.

  “What about you?” Robson said.

  “What am I supposed to do while you hide out and wait for something to change?”

  “You created this mess. Fix it. And if you can’t, keep your mouth shut, let the boys fend for themselves, and for God’s sake, stop making decisions with your dick. I’m ashamed to call you my son.”

  Brendan gritted his teeth. “Yeah. I know that. You keep making a point of telling me.”

  Robson’s eyebrows went up. “I point out when you start acting like an idiot. Nothing wrong with that. How the hell do you think you’re going to improve otherwise?”

  “I don’t know. Tell me what the hell I did right every once in a while.”

  “If you ever do something right I’ll tell you. It has to happen first.”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “You’ve always been a mouthy little shit. Go make yourself useful.”

  Brendan’s hand tightened around the slim phone. He was going to have to start a fight, and it was going to have to be a good one too, or his father was going to end this call.

  Robson never could let Brendan have the last word. Since his father had already said he wasn’t going to contact the others, the only thing left was to make sure Trey could find Brendan’s father.

  A slow burn started up in his gut, but it wasn’t quite what he was used to, and he couldn’t tell if it was a sign that he was about to do something wrong or right, or just a sick feeling at having all his mistakes exposed in front of Trey and his wolves.

  “Goddamn you,” he said. “You know I always do. I’ve done almost everything you’ve ever asked me to do even when it was over the line. Even when Mom told me I was making a mistake.”

  “Your goddamn mother is a flake,” Robson said, his pointed tone matching his tight glare. “If her mother hadn’t been the head of S-Tanger Research, I’d have demanded a goddamn abortion when I found out she was pregnant. Now, I’ve made the best of things with you, and you’re useful sometimes, but you owe me your goddamn life and don’t you ever forget it.”

  Brendan’s hand shook and he knew his father was seeing his weakness in the wobble of the phone. “I don’t owe you anything. You’ve made my life hell.”

  “You were a mistake and I’ve done the best I can to make the situation work in my favor. But you, better than anyone else, should know that I’m not about to carry your mistakes too. You’re responsible for your own trouble and I’m not picking up after you.”

  Brendan had no idea how long Trey’s wolves needed and no idea how long he could keep this up without getting mad enough to throw the phone—because he was sure at some point he was going to lose his tight rein on his anger, and if he’d really been out in the woods somewhere, he’d have already smashed his fist into a tree. Eventually his father would figure out something was wrong, because he had an uncanny ability to read Brendan. He would know Brendan was holding back.

  So Brendan decided not to hold back. He would’ve worked himself up to telling Trey eventually anyway. “Killing that wolf wasn’t my mistake. That was yours. You drugged him; you killed him. You almost got me killed in the process. I cleaned up your mess, and don’t you forget that. I still have that video, stored in a safe place where you’ll never be able to touch it.”

  Robson drew in a sharp breath. “You goddamn ungrateful little shit. You told me you didn’t have another copy.”

  “I lied. Learned from the best.”

  “It’s worthless now anyway. They’re already claiming I’m a traitor.”

  Brendan grinned, a lightness in his chest he hadn’t felt in a long time. “I don’t care. I have it, and it’s proof that you’re a two-faced, lying son of a bitch with a plan to exploit the wolves’ biotechnology and a sociopathic disregard for your own son’s life.”

  “You almost died because you were an idiot, Brendan. That had nothing to do with me.”

  Brendan sat forward and stared into his father’s face. “I was barely nineteen. The boy you had picked out was at least two years younger than me. If I hadn’t gone in there, you would have sent in that kid and that wolf would’ve torn him apart—he was an idiot.”

  “He was being paid to participate.”

  “Oh, I know. He was pissed as hell later, I remember. Not hard to do, when he fucking stabbed me in the thigh for my trouble. But that’s not the point. The point is that he would’ve probably died, because he was stupid, and you wouldn’t have bothered to save him, would you? Hell, I still don’t even know why you killed that wolf to save me.”

  Robson didn’t say anything for a moment. “You had value to me.” Another moment of silence, and then, “You mother would’ve finished the divorce if I let you die.”

  “Oh my God.” Brendan didn’t know what else to say and he just stared at his father through the phone. He was alive because his mother had obviously been holding the divorce over his father’s head in exchange for his safety.

  A sound startled him and then Trey’s claw came down on the phone with a click of sound. Somehow Trey had walked up beside him and he hadn’t even noticed.

  “What the hell?” Robson’s voice carried through just before the screen went blank.

  Brendan was shaking when Trey pulled him to his feet.

  “We’ve found him, and he’ll be in custody within half an hour. And you will never see him again. Do you understand?”

  Brendan nodded, feeling numb and stupid. He’d known—he’d always known his father didn’t love him, but he’d had no idea. No idea just how little his efforts to make his father care had meant. All those things he’d done—he felt sick.

  Trey put his arms around Brendan, and Brendan stood there, maybe in shock, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t feel anything but—comfort. He felt the comfort that Trey offered and he took a deep breath.

  “My mother—”

  “She’s safe. She’s been watched since the day after your questionin
g.”

  Brendan clutched at Trey’s t-shirt, his knuckles white with the tension running through him, the burning pressure building behind his nose and eyes so bright and sharp it hurt. He remembered Trey holding him close, wrapped up tight behind him in the bed they’d shared.

  “God,” he said, almost a gasp as he felt like he could breathe again. “Please, don’t let me ever go back to that life. I don’t want to be like him.”

  Trey hugged him tighter. “Of course you won’t ever go back to that life. I am your life now.”

  Brendan let out a short, sharp laugh, desperate for a distraction from his thoughts. “Too fucking arrogant is what you are.”

  “Arrogance? That requires me to believe you’re my inferior.” Trey’s hand went to the back of Brendan’s neck and he encouraged Brendan to look at him.

  Brendan looked into those green eyes, so much more vibrant than any he’d ever seen.

  “We are equals,” Trey said. “Don’t ever let yourself forget that.”

  “I don’t think I believe that anymore,” Brendan said. “You’re so much better than I am and I was too full of myself to believe it until now. God—” Brendan swallowed back more stupid confessions.

  But a second later, he changed his mind.

  “I love you,” he said. “If that’s what you’ve been trying to say to me with the “you’re my life” stuff—it doesn’t even matter. I’m not a coward and I’m not afraid to say it. You need to know I love you.”

  Trey’s body went rigid against Brendan’s but then his arms tightened and Brendan enjoyed the prick of claw at his neck and the rib-creaking strength of Trey’s hug.

  It was nice not to breathe every once in a while.

  Chapter 33

  A loud bang somewhere nearby startled Brendan awake. He jerked upright on the bed and looked around, not sure what he expected to find. His heart was pounding hard and fast and he had that shaky feeling of being woke up too soon.

  “Goddamn assholes thought they could stop me from visiting,” a voice said through the darkness.

  Devon.

  The ceiling lights came on and Brendan hauled himself to the edge of the large bed. “What the hell, Devon?”