Trials, Track, and Tribulations [Spirit of Sage 7] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour ManLove)

by Jools Louise

  “I’m on my way,” Douglas retorted.

  “And so am I,” Cracker said wistfully. “I’m practicing with a few of the guys. Basketball. I’ll see you later, darling.” Cracker pressed a soft kiss on Douglas’s lips, then the blind shifter heard him move away, his footsteps barely audible above the splash of little ones playing in the pool.

  Douglas felt his father’s hand on his elbow, following cautiously along the slick tiles, the slap of water as it sloshed inside the pool increasing in volume. As he approached the pool side, he noted there were raised nodules beneath his feet, guiding him to the edge. He felt his heart beating louder and took fierce control over his nerves. It wouldn’t do to panic now. He didn’t know why this was making him so scared. He’d always liked swimming. Right now, though, he was about to embarrass himself and make a run for it.

  “Easy, son, take your time,” Cody said quietly. Douglas gulped, trembling.

  * * * *

  “Cover his face,” the evil wolverine bitch snarled, her fangs sharp and dripping saliva. Her visage showed the toxic bile at her core, but Douglas snarled right back, not flinching from her odious henchmen as they grabbed both of his arms. They dragged him onto a bench, lying him flat and then covering his face with a wet towel. His arms and legs were secured with heavy steel cuffs, leaving him helpless against whatever they intended.

  “Do your worst, bitch,” Douglas sneered, fighting back his fear, more angry than scared. “When my dad gets here, you guys are gonna have your asses handed to you.”

  The wolverine laughed maniacally, cackling at his rejoinder, as though he had amused her somehow. “By the time those idiots get to you, bitch, there won’t be anything left of you to save,” she chortled, a vicious edge to her laughter. Douglas knew he was screwed. These fuckwits liked causing pain. They didn’t nurture or love or allow their offspring to grow—they turned them into psychopathic killers, like her son Rash, who had just murdered Ellis Hawkwing, Douglas’s mate. Douglas didn’t care what they did to him, now. It couldn’t hurt any worse than having his heart ripped from his chest as his boyfriend bled out all over him, dying in his arms.

  “Do what you gotta do, your ugliness,” he shot back, gritting his teeth.

  “Oh, I will,” she said, that mad humor still in her voice. That was his only warning before he felt the first stream of water, covering the towel and restricting his ability to breathe. It felt as though he was drowning, trying to gasp air into his lungs, but unable to as the water and terry cloth clung to his airholes. He choked, trying to hold his breath, trying not to panic as they continued to waterboard him. In the background, above the sound of the splash of water, was the wolverine bitch’s laughter as he was tortured.

  He began to scream, the panic winning over as he tried desperately to free himself, to no avail. He began to lose consciousness, his oxygen levels depleted from the reprehensible mistreatment. As he lost all sense, the laughing reverberated in his brain, and then he slumped, and knew no more.

  Chapter Four

  Ryder held his lover close, cradling him in his arms as he carried him into the quietness of the woods. He’d gone to speak to Joe, returning to find Douglas screaming in terror, fighting against Cody who was standing in the shallow end of the small practice pool. Snarling in fury, Ryder strode forward, wrenched his mate from Cody’s arms, and then stalked back outside. Douglas had shut down, still conscious but in a catatonic state that terrified Ryder. The man had gone through so much and had shown a courage and resilience that left Ryder in awe. He had half expected flashbacks, panic attacks, a result of PTSD from the trauma, but so far Douglas had been surprisingly composed. Until now.

  Ryder would rip Cody a new fucking airhole when he had Douglas calmed down and back in the land of the living. Cody just didn’t know when to quit pushing. Douglas would let them know when he was ready to confront things. They didn’t know exactly what had been done to the young jaguar shifter, because he’d blocked most of it out. From his reaction to the water being splashed in his face, an accident by one of the youngsters, it was obvious that Douglas had been tortured far more than they had imagined. Waterboarding was a probability. It was banned by many nations, a vile and inhumane treatment of any living creature. Ryder had enjoyed the delights of it himself, in training as an elite trooper, responsible for the safety of his president. It was unpleasant and terrifying, and many victims would sell their own mothers under that kind of duress.

  He was angry at himself for not speaking up sooner. He had been a little wary about not telling Douglas about what they had planned. He worried even more that this would put Douglas’s mental recovery back further. The man had done so well.

  “Here, baby, let’s sit here, shall we?” Ryder asked softly, as though he was talking to a child. He found a site over a mile from the complex and ranch, by a small lake surrounded by aspen trees shimmering in the breeze. The water rippled as a trout leaped up, grabbing a fly from the surface beneath an overhanging branch, then splashing back down with a loud plop.

  Douglas remained silent, not moving an inch, other than a fine trembling that shook his frame. Ryder propped his back against a fallen log and leaned back, Douglas secure in his embrace. He let the musical birdsong soothe them both, the breeze rustling through the canopy of leaves. He would stay here for as long as it took, hoping to bring Douglas back to him.

  “When I was a cadet, over twenty years ago or so, the only thing I wanted to be was a soldier.” Ryder began to speak, softly, stroking Douglas’s hair gently. He nuzzled into the fragrant strands with his nose, inhaling his lover’s sweet scent. It always made him feel as though he’d come home, whenever Douglas was nearby. For so long, Ryder had felt as though he lived on the peripheries of humanity, like a homeless child staring into the window of a well-loved, well-fed family unit. When Douglas was beside him, he knew he’d found his family. The man was the love of his life, without a doubt.

  “Basic training was a bitch,” Ryder continued, smiling to himself. That was an understatement. “Actually, it was one of the worst things I’ve ever done. All those Navy Seals movies you see? With the butch tough guy and the little squirt trying to run rings around everyone? I was the squirt, and I was always playing catch up. Never quite fast enough or strong enough to finish first. But I always finished. I never gave up, even when the bigger guys played mean tricks and acted like it was some kind of a sorority.” He laughed without humor. “Those kinds of games are supposed to bond you to your comrades in arms. They never worked for me. I was kind of a loner. I didn’t really fit in with the cliques. All I wanted was to complete my training and get assigned to a unit.”

  Douglas seemed to calm as Ryder spoke, the shivering ceasing gradually. He breathed more evenly now, rather than the gasping pants that Ryder had heard earlier when his mate had hyperventilated, his mind obviously not recognizing the line between nightmare and reality. Ryder sensed that Douglas was listening to what he said and kept going, wanting Douglas to know him. So far, their intimacy had all been of the physical kind.

  “Once I got through the first six weeks, I transferred to a special unit. I didn’t know it at first, since it was all kinds of hush-hush, but I was being tested for my suitability in a brand-new division.” Ryder remembered the training. He had talked to Rafe Cordoba about it, a black panther shifter who lived at the ranch. The man had been in black ops for years, doing wet work for the CIA and other shady organizations, seemingly sanctioned by the government. President Houston’s government, anyway, which meant it had blurred a lot of lines. “I was like a loaded cannon,” Ryder said, his voice even quieter, barely above a whisper. “They pointed me at a target, and I hit it, no questions asked, no apologies. I was a machine. I didn’t even consider the lives that I took were important, other than an addition to my kill book. I was proud of being their top assassin.” He let out a snort of self-derision. “I actually thought that I was serving my country. Until I had my eyes opened one day.” He trailed off, lost in the p
ast, frowning into the distance. He barely saw the hawk that flew high overhead or the small deer herd that wandered to the water’s edge to drink.

  “What happened?” Douglas asked suddenly, his voice husky, hushed as though he didn’t want to interrupt Ryder’s reverie.

  Ryder tilted his lover’s face up and kissed his sweet mouth tenderly, needing the comfort of his mate’s lips before he spoke again. “I was sent to a facility, on a mission,” he said grimly, nuzzling Douglas’s soft cheek with his nose. “Not the one in Idaho, but similar and much smaller. I went in with a small team, just four of us. We had been told that the targets were agents of a foreign power, a danger to our country. That was all I needed. I was blind to anything but the need to serve and protect. I didn’t understand politics, or the darker desires of people with hidden agendas.” He felt Douglas’s soft lips against his, then the moistness of his lover’s tongue lapping at his cheek. He hadn’t realized that he had tears running down his face, as though a dam had burst.

  “There were children there?” Douglas asked intuitively.

  Ryder closed his eyes against the assault of memories that began to bombard his brain. The crack of bullets, the bellow of an explosion. The screams of terror and the stench of blood. Then the aftermath, the awful realization of what they’d done. The nightmare visions blurred into a kaleidoscope of terrifying realization. “The facility was a laboratory, like the one in Idaho, but further west. Yes, there were children, nine of them. Strapped to gurneys, with IVs and all sorts of other tubes attached to their skinny bodies. We executed our mission perfectly. There were no survivors. I hadn’t asked to see what kind of facility it was or asked why we were being sent to such a place on American soil. It should have sent alarm bells ringing in my head…but I was young and stupid. And angry at so many things.”

  Douglas stroked his cheek gently, his lips moving to collect the tears that rained from Ryder’s eyes. “What happened next? Who were the children?”

  Ryder stared into Douglas’s beautiful face. “I woke up,” he said bitterly. “I stopped blindly following orders, and used my thinking brain for once. I buried those children, or what was left of them. Us grunts hadn’t even checked inside before firing on the place, just ran in and started firing, after we’d thrown in several grenades. They never stood a chance.” He swallowed hard and sniffed, then stared up at the sky, not wanting to see the sympathy on Douglas’s face. He didn’t deserve such consideration. He was a monster. And no matter how many young lives he saved now, it would never take away from what he’d done.

  Douglas was quiet for a long time. Ryder braced himself for rejection. Douglas had been a victim of the cult, of the monsters who Ryder had essentially been helping to carry out their terrible crimes. He wouldn’t blame Douglas for sending him packing.

  “Who ordered the hit?” Douglas asked carefully.

  “My commander at the time, a man called Gibbons, gave the call from command,” Ryder said grimly. “Edward Houston was in my unit, our team leader, and was there on that mission. He gave the final order to strike. He helped me bury the kids, and soon after resigned his commission. He made his name as a politician, rising through the ranks, with me at his side. I believed he could help to stop the atrocities against children, because when I dug deeper I found out about the cult, and I wanted to stop them. I told Houston, and he was angry at what was happening, got me to investigate more thoroughly. When he became a senator, he got there because of his hard-liner attitude to child killers and molesters. He put away dozens of them in his time.”

  “How did he end up being linked to the cult?” Douglas frowned.

  Ryder shrugged, shaking his head. “I really don’t know, but I think he got a little power mad, his lust for more getting the better of him. He changed, from a caring and committed man to someone I didn’t recognize. Or maybe that was just a mask. I don’t know. Somewhere along the line he forgot about those children that we killed, if he’d even cared in the first place, and focused instead on getting to the top of his political tree.”

  “He could have ended it all years ago,” Douglas cut in, sounding angry. “He could have taken the cult down, ended their reign of terror, and saved so many of those poor children. Instead he allowed the cult to do whatever they wanted to, turned a blind eye.”

  “Yes, he could have stopped it,” Ryder agreed harshly. “He betrayed everyone for the price of his place in history.” His scowl deepened. “But so could I. If I had believed in my gut and realized a few things sooner instead of letting myself blindly follow orders, then maybe Sage would never have been destroyed…you would never have been injured.”

  “And we would never have met,” Douglas interjected logically. Ryder took a startled breath, realizing it was true. Their paths had collided because of his involvement with investigating the cult’s activities. “You would have continued working for the military, taking out government targets, like a good little soldier boy, and shifters would still be living in the shadows, afraid to be ourselves.”

  Ryder stared at his mate, his attention snagged by something in Douglas’s voice.

  “We’ve both done things we’re not proud of Ryder. You killed innocents because you trusted your commanders. That’s on them. Yes, you should have identified who your target was, before attacking. You may have saved them. Or maybe by killing them, you did them a favor,” Douglas said bitterly. “At least now they don’t have to remember what was done to them. Maybe they’re the lucky ones.”

  “No!” Ryder shouted, grabbing Douglas’s face between his hands, staring at him furiously. “Don’t say that,” he said, feeling a sickness in his soul at what he’d just heard. “Don’t you ever say that, do you hear? They died because of an evil that I still can’t comprehend. I killed them, with my so-called comrades in arms, sent by someone who knew exactly who was being targeted. One of those men chose to ignore his culpability and humanity, and played us all for fools. Do you know what happened to the others? They’re dead. I found out that our esteemed former president sent out a hit squad to take them both down. They had been making noises about outing him about that mission, and he had them murdered. They never stood a chance. I survived because I was the ‘good little soldier boy’ and believed that Houston was one of the good guys. Those children, my men, were not lucky,” he spat angrily. “They were victims, just as you were. Houston and I didn’t just kill those children. We murdered dozens more, took away their childhood just as yours was taken, because I was so fucking blind, I didn’t act sooner. My judgment is flawed. Otherwise, how could I possibly have been duped for so long?”

  Douglas punched him in the chest. Hard. “Because you feel deeply,” Douglas yelled back, just as angry. He lurched to his feet, hands on hips as he tore into Ryder. “Because you trusted someone who was evil, just like I did.” He kicked a stone, sending it careering across the narrow beach. “My mom was the same way, just like Houston, except she had a problem hiding her true nature. She had the excuse of being abused to back her up, as if that justified what she did to Ethan and I. She packed us both off, for the price of her next fix, and allowed her two sons to be abused because her issues were more important than protecting her children. Houston’s career was more important to him than a bunch of kids, and whatever issues he had were used to excuse his actions. You’re not the monster they were. You followed orders because you believed you were doing something vital. If you were the same as them, I never would have fallen in love with you.”

  Douglas stalked off, his back ramrod straight, barefoot and clad only in swimming briefs. Ryder got up, a little stunned by the outburst, then prowled after his mate.

  “Leave him for a bit,” John suddenly said, in a dangerously soft voice, startling Ryder. He whirled, fists clenched, ready to swing. John was five feet away, thumbs looped into the belt loops of his black jeans, staring after Douglas sadly. “You go and get Cracker. I’ll follow the little snit.”

  Ryder opened his mouth to argue, saw the warning g
lint in John’s eyes, and for once backed down.

  “Good move, soldier boy,” John said, a hard edge to his voice. “I heard most of what was said. I was a soldier once, too. Special Forces. One thing my training taught me was never to just accept that a situation is what it appears to be, especially in the field.” He met Ryder’s gaze, his green eyes icy cold. “You’re not a fool, Ryder, so it seems to me that you didn’t tell Douglas the whole truth. You didn’t just go blindly into that mission, did you? A good soldier checks every detail before making the call to attack.”

  Ryder met the man’s searing disdain calmly. “Houston was our team leader,” he replied coolly. “He did the initial recce. He made the final judgment call.”

  John sniffed, his lip curling into a sneer. “I once told you that if you hurt that boy, I’d rip you into little pieces,” he said, looking as deadly as Ryder had ever seen him. “The only reason that you’re not spread all over the ground in tiny pieces, food for the crows, is because Douglas loves you. So I’d strongly advise you to go back to the complex, and I’ll go get Douglas. At least then I’ll have the chance to remember that you stepped up when you needed to and helped us bring the cult down.” He turned to leave, and then reversed, flaying Ryder with that lethal stare. “You’re lucky that Cody didn’t come after his son. He absolutely would have torn you apart.”

  He stalked off after Douglas, a small backpack in his fist, every line of his body taut as a bowstring ready to let loose at any second.

  Ryder released a relieved sigh, not wanting to find out how good John was in a fist fight. He stayed where he was for a few seconds, his gaze trained on his mate, his heart aching for the man’s pain. He’d read between the lines of what Douglas had said and heard the underlying message there. Douglas felt as though he should have died. He hadn’t just been saying that those poor children were better off, but seemed convinced that he would be better off if he’d died.