Devon's Gamble (Wolves' Heat)

by Odessa Lynne

  Lennie hesitated only a few more seconds before running to the door. He snapped the deadbolt latch sideways and threw open the door. Devon had just enough time to mash his thumb to the screen and drag the little red bar until it topped out before Lamar and Sebastian grabbed him from behind by the arms, Lamar’s hold so tight he wrenched Devon’s shoulder.

  They dragged him away from the equipment and toward the door back inside the basement.

  “The other way!” Devon said.

  One of the guys slammed a fist into Devon’s back and he struggled to catch his breath, staggering against their hold.

  “Jay,” someone said.

  “Come on,” Devon gasped out when he could breathe. “Get us out of here. It’s going to explode in about ten, nine, eight—”

  The guys threw him bodily over the threshold and across the concrete floor. Devon skidded, tried to get his hands under him, but his knees hit hard and he tumbled over onto his side, while the other guys ran the other way toward the exit.

  Five. Four…

  He’d been guessing. He’d guessed wrong.

  The lights flickered.

  The explosion knocked the breath out of him. Brendan’s guy—Jay?—threw himself to the ground near Devon and the basement went dark.

  Debris peppered the concrete floor near the door and he tasted the acrid scent of burned chemicals in the back of his throat.

  The room had contained most of the explosion, but if they’d been in there when it happened, they’d probably all be dead. He wasn’t sure, but he thought Lamar and Sebastian had gotten out.

  Black and gray smoke poured through the doorway, shadowed by bright, hot flames being fed fresh oxygen through the door to the outside that had been left open.

  Over the ringing in his ears, he heard the loud hiss of steam coming from the room, and he had a moment to think about that water recycler.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “There could be another explosion. We need to get out of here.”

  Devon rolled to his hands and knees, but before he could stand, a boot caught him in the ribs. Devon grunted and grabbed at Jay’s leg. He missed.

  “Not you,” Jay said. “You’re more trouble than you’re worth, I don’t care what kind of deal we had.”

  He kicked Devon again, hard.

  Devon rolled over.

  He twisted, threw his arm out to stop the next kick, and the impact jarred to his bone. He grunted, heard blood pounding in his head, and then a pounding overhead that said someone was running across the floor.

  “Better get out,” Devon said. “In case the wolves come down.”

  Someone yelled through the doorway. “Leave him! Let’s go! I see headlights and the wolves are running! We’re going to lose them! He’s going to be pissed if we miss our chance!”

  Lamar was obviously standing just outside the basement because his voice carried over the sound of the crackling fire and the hiss of steam and the pounding of feet over their heads. Even the hacking cough that Devon was having trouble controlling. He tasted blood on his lips and his eyes burned and watered from the sting of smoke.

  He couldn’t catch his breath.

  “Not a—” A cough interrupted Jay, and then another and another.

  Devon plowed into Jay’s legs, wrapping his arms around the back of Jay’s knees. Jay stumbled back and yanked a handful of Devon’s hair.

  Devon pulled him down on to the floor. He could barely see anything, the smoke was getting so thick and every breath burned his lungs.

  The house was about to go up in flames. The explosion had been a dumbass move, but apparently he’d been just on time with it. The wolves—Kem—would get out before the renegades could sneak in and kill a bunch of them, and Ian—Ian would be okay. He would. Devon really hadn’t had a lot of options.

  Jay wrestled on the floor with him, pulling hair and throwing weak punches that didn’t land. Devon had to squeeze his eyes shut, the response to the smoke completely involuntary.

  Hands grabbed the back of his shirt. “Stop!”

  Lennie? Devon would have laughed but he couldn’t. Lennie’s hand twisted tight in Devon’s shirt as he dragged him across the floor and Devon was finally able to get his eyes open, but the coughing became so ragged his lungs felt like they were going to explode from the lack of oxygen and he saw spots at the edges of his narrowing vision.

  “God,” he groaned, but he couldn’t finish the thought. His vision became a pinprick of light and he couldn’t think, and then—nothing.

  Chapter 13

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?” Brendan asked, voice tight and controlled.

  Devon scooted up on the bed to a sitting position. He’d woken up a few hours ago with a headache like a knife stabbing him behind the eyes to find himself filthy and sore and bloody from all the fighting.

  He had recognized the room—Brendan’s, in Brendan’s old house, the one his parent’s had abandoned to the wolves when they moved away from the area a few years ago. No one had ever come to claim the place so Brendan had continued to use the house whenever he wanted. Officially, they’d all moved in with Ian at his old Grandfather’s place a few miles away, but only Devon and Ian ever stayed there—and not during heat season.

  During heat season, these houses weren’t the safest place to be, too close to the border of what had become the wolves’ territory, too far from the fortified shelters to be a quick visit. But if Brendan and his guys had pushed the wolves’ deeper into their territory, then maybe he’d decided the risk was worth it.

  Light filtered in through a thin curtain and a wide window, cutting across the foot of the double bed and the tan blanket folded at Devon’s feet.

  Devon put his hand to his forehead. He might as well have a hangover, he felt so rough. “Got a drink?” he asked.

  “There.” Brendan pointed to the bedside table. “You’ve already been drinking it.”

  “Yeah. Wasn’t talking about water.”

  “You’re not getting alcohol after the shit you’ve been through.”

  Would have been nice, Devon thought. But he shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “The wolves got you, didn’t they?”

  Devon glared up at Brendan around his aching arm and then dropped his hand to his thigh. “You know they did. You took out their drug supply.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t get yourself killed, but I should have known you’d pull through for me.”

  “Did you steal the drugs or destroy them?”

  The corner of Brendan’s mouth pinched.

  Devon kicked Brendan’s thigh. “Get the hell off this bed.”

  Brendan wobbled before slipping off the edge and landing on his ass, the thud of impact vibrating up through the bed.

  “What the hell, Devon?”

  “You got rid of their drugs and I ended up a heat mate for one of them, that’s what the hell, asshole. You knew what would happen.”

  “You’re not dead, are you?”

  “Fuck you. You set me up.”

  “I didn’t make you take that bet with the guys.”

  Devon gritted his teeth. Brendan wasn’t lying about that. Brendan couldn’t know how bad Devon needed to get his hands on some money—he might have hoped Devon would be drawn to the lure of a hundred gold ten-dollars but he couldn’t have been counting on it.

  But Brendan was smart and clever and he was good at manipulating people, so Devon wasn’t going to rule out anything.

  Brendan got to his feet and rubbed his wrist, as if he’d hurt it when he landed on the floor.

  Served him right.

  “Ian was there,” Devon said. “Did you—”

  “He was already gone. The wolves had to have taken him.”

  “Goddammit.” Devon scrubbed his hands over his face. “Why’d you let him follow me?”

  “He was gone before I could stop him.”

  Devon looked up and watched the flicker of Brendan’s blue eyes, the pupils wide in the soft light
.

  “You son of a bitch. You didn’t even try to stop him, did you?”

  Brendan turned away and then grabbed the back of the lone straight-backed chair near the foot of the bed, swung it around and sat down, leaning his forearms on the back of the chair.

  “Listen,” he said. “There’s more going on here than you realize. The wolves are starting to fight each other. There’s a faction that’s not happy with their First Alpha what’s-his-name, and they want him out. I’m not a hundred percent sure what’s going on, but someone’s made contact on their behalf and we’ve got us an opportunity here to make some real progress.”

  “Ian doesn’t deserve what you’ve done to him. You moon over him like he’s the love of your life or something and then you treat him like this? You know he’s never let anyone fuck him before. You think that’s not what’s happening?” Devon threw out his arm, his anger too fierce to contain. “That alpha wolf is probably fucking his brains out right now.”

  Brendan’s mouth went tight and the skin around his eyes jumped in a tic. “Shut up.”

  “You had to know it would happen if you let him go after me. I bet you could’ve stopped him. I bet you didn’t even try.”

  Brendan smacked his hand against the top wood slat of his chair back. The thwap echoed hollow and loud. “What’s this shit between you and Ian anyway suddenly? You’ve always hated each other and now you act like you care about him more than you care about me.”

  “God Almighty, Brendan. Don’t you get it?”

  “What?” he snapped out. “What don’t I get?”

  “Nobody likes you anymore. Not me, not Ian. Nobody. You’re a goddamned prick.”

  Brendan shoved back from his seat, standing abruptly, the chair legs hanging in the dusty carpet covering the floor and making the chair tilt.

  Brendan knocked it upright before it could fall. “I should have left you there, out cold on the ground. Your pal took off after he made sure I wasn’t going to let Jay at you again and I brought you here to keep those assholes away from you. But I shouldn’t have bothered.”

  “No, you shouldn’t have.” Devon stretched his legs out over the edge of the bed and made to get up but the pain in his side made him grimace and hesitate.

  Brendan’s gaze flickered over him. “They hurt you.”

  The sound of regret in Brendan’s voice seemed out of place after everything they’d just said, but Devon couldn’t deny that something other than anger laced the words.

  “No, they didn’t. It was an accident. The rest came from your guy.”

  “Jay?”

  “Yeah. What’s his story anyway?”

  Brendan offered Devon his hand. “Don’t know. He’s the contact I was telling you about.”

  Devon frowned, thoughts playing heavy through his mind, but the strain of the night before had clouded his thinking and he was too tired to reach for whatever it was trying to break free.

  Brendan wiggled his fingers. “Come on. You need help.”

  He stared at Brendan’s palm before he gave in and took it.

  “I want my money,” he said. “I think I earned it. Tell your guys I’ll be around to collect if they don’t make good on the bet. The new drugs the wolves are using work better than anything they’ve ever tried before.” Devon stood and caught Brendan’s gaze. “At least when they’re taking them. No one tried anything until they started to wear off.”

  Brendan flinched. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  Devon didn’t waste his breath answering. His scathing look said everything he wanted to say at the moment.

  He walked out the door and down the hallway to the bathroom and left Brendan standing in the bedroom.

  His neck burned. His lungs ached. His ribs throbbed, and so did his arm.

  He still didn’t know what had happened to Kem and he splashed water on his face and had a flash of regret that he might never know.

  Kem said they’d mated. Devon had warned him he was leaving. He had no reason to be feeling so…so…guilty? So maudlin. So fucked up.

  He leaned over the sink and stared at the mirror. If not for the generator out back, there’d have been no electricity here, or water, but the well and the water recycler ran on the generator which got most of its power from solar panels and halfgas, so he was able to see his face, take note of the bruise under his eye from Lennie’s elbow, the split lip from the struggle with the wolves the night he’d let himself get caught, the smooth jaw that still didn’t have the first sign of new beard, the fresh cut and deep bruise under his chin, and the dirty bandage at his neck where the outer edges were dark red with dried blood.

  He tilted his head and started peeling the bandage away from his skin.

  One streak of gauze didn’t want to come loose. He took a deep breath and yanked.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  He pounded the side of his fist against the ceramic of the sink’s edge until the stinging stopped.

  Brendan came to the doorway, but he didn’t say anything, and neither did Devon.

  The claw marks were clearly visible under the clear tape made to protect and heal deep wounds. The wolves had shared the skin-like material soon after arriving, better than the human developed equivalent, a medical advancement that had finally making stitching a barbaric alternative. One small piece of tape had come free at the very end of one long slash and dried blood caked the area along with a bit of gauze that had torn loose from the bandage.

  There was no hiding the fact that a wolf had left those deep slashes, and Devon caught Brendan staring at his neck in the mirror.

  “It was an accident,” he repeated. “Kem—I mean, the wolf, he wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Don’t make excuses for them.”

  “He never looked twice at me when he had those drugs in his system.” Devon turned his gaze back to his neck and wet one of the three wash cloths sitting on the edge of the sink.

  What he’d said wasn’t exactly true. Kem had mentioned at least once that Devon’s scent had called to him from the beginning. But…Devon wasn’t sure he believed it, and he wasn’t about to give Brendan anything else to latch onto.

  “Did they—” Brendan paused and rubbed the side of his nose. “Did he hurt you anywhere else?”

  “Fuck off, Brendan. I’m not talking about this with you.”

  Brendan stepped through the door and dropped his hand on Devon’s shoulder. Devon tried to shrug off the touch, but when he moved his shoulder a stab of pain made him catch his breath.

  Brendan jerked his hand away. “Sorry.”

  “Just leave me alone.” But then Devon turned and grabbed Brendan’s arm. “Better yet, get me my money. I need those ten-dollars now. And if you get Matthew and the other one—what’s his name—killed chasing wolves, I won’t be out what’s rightfully mine. They owe me.”

  Brendan nodded. “I’ll go get your money, if that’s what you want, but then we’ve got to talk. I mean to go after Ian. He’s wearing one of the special trackers you made for me and we’ve already started picking up the signal again.”

  Devon clenched his fist against the sink and shook his head. If he said something now—

  “You bastard. It’s like you wanted to get him killed.”

  “That’s not true,” Brendan snapped out. “But it’s time he started to think about something besides that shit he’s been spreading. Submit. Like—”

  Devon couldn’t help himself. He shoved Brendan backwards and Brendan stumbled up against the wall, the back of his head thudding into the wall and his elbow cracking loud against the door frame.

  Brendan hissed and grabbed his arm.

  “Go get me my money so I can get the hell away from you before I really lose my temper.”

  Chapter 14

  Devon’s hand shook as he dug out the small bottle of liquid medicine from his front pocket and then held it up to the light. He stood in the middle of the kitchen still waiting for Brendan to return with his money.<
br />
  Just before Brendan had left, he’d dropped Devon’s phone and favorite gun in front of him at the table, where Devon was trying to make himself eat a can of tuna. He’d held his fork steady and stared at the phone and gun and then turned back to his tuna without a word.

  God, he hated tuna, but there’d been nothing else in the cabinets and he hadn’t been sure when the last time was that he’d had a bite to eat. His stomach had been growling and he’d been feeling weak, but every bite made his nausea worse.

  He’d finally given up on eating a couple of minutes after Brendan slammed the door behind him.

  He should’ve gone with Brendan, but … he was glad he hadn’t gone. His skin felt so hot he was sure he had to be running a temperature and the only reason he could think of for that was the injury at his neck.

  But he couldn’t take the medicine.

  His fingers closed around the bottle and he shoved it back into his pocket. He needed a doctor—and not a human one.

  He needed to go back to Kem, because he was sure Kem would be able to find him someone that would handle this. Would Kem make it easy for Devon to find him? He’d claimed Devon would be his life, so would Kem be looking for him?

  And what if—but no, Devon had distinctly heard “healing.” Kem was healing. And the wolves had gotten away. Brendan had admitted that earlier. Kem wasn’t dead.

  He wished he knew what it was that Kem was supposed to be healing from, wished he knew what had happened after he’d passed out.

  Coming into contact with any other wolf right now was out of the question, not without some of those drugs to help repress their mating instincts.

  Brendan had to have kept those drugs. He wouldn’t have destroyed them suspecting as he did that the drugs were more effective than ever. They had too much value.

  So, how to get his hands on some of them? Or would he just be wasting his time? How quickly would the infection spread? How fast would it kill him if it did?

  And what was Brendan talking about when he said the wolves were fighting?

  Devon sat back down at the table, sweating and tired, and picked up his phone.

  He had several messages. Three from Geoff.