by Gem Frost
By human standards, of course, the Alpha’s punishment had been brutal. But they weren’t humans, and a certain amount of violence was expected, even encouraged, in their society. Jon felt no resentment toward the Alpha. He’d broken a taboo—hell, he’d broken three or four of them—and he was probably lucky the Alpha hadn’t killed him.
But he didn’t feel lucky.
Bruised and battered though he was, what ached worst was something deep inside. The knowledge that he’d been exiled from the Pack, from Wolf Green, from everything he’d ever known.
And worst of all, from Cae himself.
He knew he could survive perfectly well alone in the forest. Wolves hunted best in packs, of course, but there was plenty of small game in the huge national forest where they’d dropped him off, and he wouldn’t have any trouble keeping himself fed. And in his wolf form, he’d stay plenty warm even in the coldest winter months. He’d be fine, physically speaking.
But emotionally—
The thought of being completely, wretchedly alone for the rest of his life made his chest ache. To a Pack animal, being so utterly isolated was the worst fate imaginable. And the thought of being without Cae, his best friend, his lover, made him want to curl up in the dense underbrush, nose under tail, and never rise to his feet again.
Cae, he thought, and felt misery, dark and deep, coil in his chest. He wanted to see Caeden so badly that it hurt. Just the thought of Cae made that strange, alien, wild sensation come alive inside him. He remembered how the two of them had made love, over and over again, how good it had felt, how incredibly close he’d felt to the other man. Cae had meant so much to him for so long, and now…
Well, he couldn’t live his life out without Cae, damn it. He just couldn’t.
He knew he should probably do what his parents had done, find a human town and try to eke out an existence there. Maybe he could find a job as a teaching assistant to human cubs. No, not cubs—children. Humans called their cubs children. He’d thought of it before, thought of going where his low social status didn’t matter. Where children would respect him as much as any other teacher, without caring that he was a low-ranked omega. Maybe he could even eventually become a full-fledged teacher.
But no. He remembered all too vividly the way that pack of humans had closed in on him. His scent attracted them somehow, and he had the uncomfortable certainty he’d never be safe among them. Anyway, he didn’t want any sort of life without Cae.
He’d just roam aimlessly through these woods like a real wolf, hunting the local game, curling up in a solitary den when it snowed, howling mournfully at the moon. It didn’t matter, not really.
No matter how many people he surrounded himself with, if he didn’t have Cae beside him… he’d be alone.
He whined softly, a canine sound of pain and grief, as he trotted along through the dense woods. Even if the Alpha relented and let him back in eventually, it wouldn’t really help, would it? He’d still live his life out without Cae, never kissing him or touching him or making love to him again.
Because Cae was an alpha, and he wasn’t for Jon. He could never be for Jon.
He might as well be exiled, he thought unhappily. At least this way, he couldn’t embarrass himself by trying to throw himself at the other man. At least this way, his heart wouldn’t break every time he saw a female beta smile at Cae. Really, he was better off alone.
He melted into the underbrush, and tried to lose himself in the shadows.
✽✽✽
The moment Caeden was capable of standing up, he got to his feet, ignoring the slight dizziness in his head, and strode across to the door.
It was locked.
He growled, an ominous rumbling deep in his throat. He’d expected as much. His father wouldn’t take a chance on him running again. Not only was it locked, but it would be proof against his alpha strength. Even so, he slammed his full weight against it repeatedly, using his unwounded shoulder. It shuddered, but held.
Two days before, he’d awakened in his childhood bedroom, the room where Jon had sat beside him during those long two weeks of summer, reading him The Jungle Book and Tarzan of the Apes. It had big windows overlooking the enormous back yard, and an easy drop from the windows down to the porch room, and from there to the heavily wooded grounds. He’d taken that route often enough in his teenage years, and he’d been planning (in a vague, hazy way) to take it again, the instant he’d recovered sufficiently from his gunshot wound.
But as always, his father was a step ahead, as the Alpha needed to be. As Caeden had begun to regain his strength, two burly nurses had come to the house and moved him to a room in the basement. Not a dungeon, precisely, since fancy Victorian houses tended to lack such things, but a nice, spacious, pleasant room that just happened to be bereft of windows.
Caeden stood there, glaring at the door, the need to escape burning inside of him. He couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t. He stood at the door, breathing heavily, while rage and need and longing whirled inside him, slowly coalescing into a single impulse.
I have to go find Jon.
He no longer felt the urge simply to run away from the Pack. True, he was unhappy here, and he knew he wouldn’t ever truly fit in until he was able to change. He could no longer tolerate being treated as a cub when he was a fully mature man.
Even though he was an alpha, and son of the Alpha, he’d seen the scorn on the faces of the townspeople, heard the low, disparaging whispers that followed him everywhere. Wolves were not tolerant of differences, and a wolf who could never learn to shift to his animal form was unheard of, making him the inevitable subject of unkind gossip and sneering laughter.
But the humiliation and distress that had driven him to flee last time had been submerged under his need, his craving, for Jon— the one old friend he knew he could rely on, the person who’d come after him to the city, sacrificing everything in order to save him. He no longer felt the animal need to lick his wounds in solitude. Instead, he felt a desperate hunger to find for the one person who loved him and accepted him the way he was.
He needed to find Jon.
He had to find him.
It wasn’t difficult to guess where Jon would be. Only two other wolves had been exiled during his lifetime, and they’d been driven to the national forest two counties away—a wild, mountainous region—and dropped off there. He could steal a car and drive there, or swipe some money and take a bus, or hitchhike.
Hell, he could hike there on foot if he had to. Even though he was still recovering from his injury, he could run further and faster than any mere human, and traverse the distance much faster than any human could hope to.
How he got there didn’t matter. What mattered was finding his friend and lover again. The national park encompassed nearly two million acres of land, and it might take weeks or even months of searching to locate the other man, but eventually, he was confident that they’d find one another. The desperate need for Jon burned inside him, and he suspected Jon’s need for him burned just as brightly. Sooner or later, the two of them would be drawn together by instinct.
If he could only get out of this room, he could join Jon.
He wondered why he hadn’t thought of the national forest as an option before, on the night when he’d fled Wolf Green. Instead of hunting humans, he could have gone to the forest, armed with human weapons and camping gear, and hunted animals.
He’d told himself that because he couldn’t change, he’d been better off among humans, living as a human. But for the first time it occurred to him that perhaps he’d gone to the city at least partly because he wanted to hunt humans. He’d been angry with his Pack, infuriated by the scorn and condescension they’d displayed toward him, and he’d taken out that anger on humans, who looked so much like his people, but who couldn’t truly fight back.
The thought made him ache with painful guilt. He was an alpha, born to protect the weak and the helpless and the frail. That he’d ever gone so far off the rails as to delibera
tely hurt humans was utterly shameful.
God help him, his father was right. There was something wrong with him. At least, there had been. The whirling fury inside him seemed to have calmed to some degree, and he thought that was probably because of Jon. Being with Jon had permitted him to make a connection to his own kind, helping ease his pain and loneliness, and thus allowing him to fight whatever had gone wrong inside him.
If he stayed with Jon, he thought, maybe he’d be all right. Maybe he’d be able to keep the wild animal inside him at bay.
But if he didn’t…what then? He imagined himself going wild again, and perhaps turning on Jon this time. The thought made his blood run cold, because he knew that if he went bad, if the craving to hurt and kill came upon him again, Jon would never even try to protect himself. What if he lost it again, and this time he killed Jon?
He couldn’t risk that. He just couldn’t. Jon meant too much to him.
And yet he had to go to Jon. He had to. Something deep inside told him so. Jon was his only chance for salvation, his one shot at redemption. He wanted Jon.
He needed Jon.
Deliberately, he turned, walked back to the bed, and lay down on it, feigning sleep.
Sooner or later, someone would come to see him.
And when that happened…
He’d be ready.
Chapter 13
“This bloodwork is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Dr. Rich Bronson stood in front of the Alpha. As a high-ranking beta, and a valuable asset to the town thanks to his hard-earned medical degree, he wasn’t ordinarily unnerved by the old man. He was confident the Alpha was unlikely to ever hurt or punish him. But there was something in the Alpha’s eyes today that made a shiver go down his spine.
The Alpha wanted answers, and Rich had the uncomfortable feeling that if he didn’t give adequate ones, the Alpha might just casually tear out his throat, heedless of the town’s need for good doctors. He squared his shoulders and went on steadily, refusing to flinch under the Alpha’s golden stare.
“The cortisol levels in his blood are unbelievably high, to the point where a human wouldn’t survive them.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, in humans it could be a sign of Cushing’s syndrome, meaning the adrenal glands are malfunctioning. In humans that can cause a loss of emotional control, but that doesn’t generally extend to violence, though admittedly humans and wolves are not the same, medically speaking. However, wolves rarely suffer from human maladies, and I’ve never heard of one with Cushing’s syndrome. Nor does he have any of the usual symptoms associated with it. I’ve consulted with every other wolf doctor I know, and we all agree that in wolves, high cortisol is an indication of stress. Your son is under extreme stress. His blood pressure is also extraordinarily high, which suggests the same thing.”
“What is causing it?”
“I can’t be certain,” Rich answered honestly. “As I said, I’ve never seen this in a wolf before. It’s possible it’s the fact that he’s bonded with Jonny—MacArthur, I mean—and is suffering because he’s unable to complete the bond. But that has happened before, rarely, when two wolves begin a bond and then one is killed suddenly. The bloodwork under those circumstances typically looks nothing like this.”
“So it’s not a longing for young MacArthur.”
“Probably not. But there is another notable symptom your son is displaying which I have never seen in a wolf before.”
“His inability to effect the change,” the old man growled.
“Yes. I’ll add that his bloodwork showed that he certainly should be able to change. He has all the blood factors and hormones common to our kind, including the blood cells that make wolves what we are, known as lupimutacytes. He possesses these in even higher amounts than alphas ordinarily display, so it’s safe to say he has abundant change factors. But something is inhibiting the change.”
“And you think it’s this—cortisol.”
“It is currently unclear whether his high cortisol levels are due to his inability to change, or if they are causing the problem. But it does seem likely that they are at least part of what is causing your son’s aggressive behavior, and perhaps his increasing speed and strength as well. The excess lupimutacytes may be involved as well, but I know of no way to reduce those. But the high cortisol levels may be correctable. I’ve discussed the matter with my colleagues, and what I’d like to do is prescribe a steroidogenesis inhibitor—”
“Speak English, please.”
“A drug which should reduce the production of cortisol. We are uncertain as to whether this will correct the problem entirely, and it won’t have any effect on his lupimutacyte levels, but it should at least help reduce some of the stress on your son’s body. This may make it more likely that he’ll be able to effect the change. At least it should help calm him down.”
The Alpha glared at him through slitted golden eyes for a long moment. His look was so murderous that Rich had to struggle to prevent himself from cringing.
At last the Alpha spoke.
“Do it.”
✽✽✽
“Caeden?”
Rich spoke quietly, gently, as he pushed open the heavy door that led to Caeden’s basement prison. Behind him stood two burly guards, just in case he had trouble with the young alpha. But he didn’t really expect an issue. He’d been the town’s doctor for five years now, and he’d long ago earned Caeden’s respect by taking care of the townspeople. He’d even sutured Caeden himself up a time or two.
Besides, he’d injected the young man with enough sedative to keep a horse groggy.
He stepped inside, glancing around. He expected to see Caeden’s large form still sprawled on the cot, but there was nothing to be seen there except rumpled sheets. He looked around, and his heart sank as he saw the room was empty.
“Damn it,” he snapped to the guards behind him. “Get the Alpha on the phone, right now, and let him know—”
Something erupted from behind the door. Rich had just enough time to see Caeden’s angry snarl.
And then something slammed into his head, and everything went dark.
Chapter 14
Caeden didn’t have any trouble knocking out the guards after he knocked out Dr. Rich. In fact, he was a little insulted that his father had only posted two guards, and in human form besides. They were both betas, and pretty fierce fighters in their wolf form, but Caeden simply cracked their heads together, knocking them both senseless before they had the instant needed to change.
But now that he’d escaped his father’s dungeon, it wouldn’t be an easy thing to get out of a town filled with canids, since everyone in town obviously had incredible hearing and an inhumanly acute sense of smell. Besides, they were able to move much more quickly on four paws than he could on two feet. None of them would take on an alpha, even one that couldn’t change, but they’d alert the Alpha quickly enough if they spotted him.
But he had to risk it, because the need for Jon thundered inside him with every beat of his heart.
He remembered the words Jon had said to him after the last time they made love, his voice, soft yet ringing with sincerity: I’m never leaving you again.
He knew that Jon would never have left him voluntarily, and that neither of them could be happy without the other. Somehow, he had to get to Jon. No matter what it took.
Adrenaline, and the scalding need for Jon that surged in his veins, burned away the remnants of whatever sedative Rich had injected him with, leaving his senses as sharply alert as a predator on the hunt. He left the unconscious men sprawled on the floor, and slipped up the narrow basement staircase as silently as he could manage. Having lived in this house from childhood, he knew precisely which stairs creaked and groaned when stepped on. Walking cautiously, he made it up to the first floor, and stood silently, listening intently.
The house was completely silent but for the steady ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the hallway. The ligh
t slanting in through the big Palladian window over the front door suggested it was midafternoon, and the hall clock confirmed that it was 3:35. His parents were probably out, as he would expect this time of day—his father doing paperwork at the town hall, and his mother running errands.
So for now, he was safe. But he had to somehow slink out of town unnoticed. It was a small town, and Main Street was only about half a mile long—but there was no possible way he could get out of here on foot without being spotted by a dozen or more people. If he was seen, then more guards would be called in, and someone might get hurt.
A car. I need a car.
Since it was a small town, and most of its residents could get around quite rapidly if they so chose, not many people had cars. Certainly his parents didn’t. Caeden frowned, thinking.
Dr. Rich has a car.
He had a very vague memory of Jon placing him into the car, in fact. Rich must have been the one to drive them back from the city, so his car would be somewhere in town. But Rich wouldn’t have bothered to drive it to the Wolf mansion, since the clinic was only about a block away. It was probably parked in its customary place in front of the clinic.
If I can just get to that car…
He thought a moment, then turned and strode back down the staircase. The three men were still out cold—ordinarily he would have worried about their well-being, but whatever was still simmering inside him muted his concern for other people, rendering him indifferent—and he rifled through Rich’s pockets rapidly, then yanked out a key ring, with a Lexus key dangling from it. While he was at it, he looked through Rich’s expensive calfskin wallet and appropriated all his cash, too.
He turned, slipped back up the staircase, and headed out into the backyard.
His parents’ yard was virtually an estate—hardly surprising, as it had been one of the first houses in town, and had always been owned by the most powerful family in town—and it was heavily wooded. Wolves generally preferred a forested environment, so it wasn’t difficult to stalk unobserved into the next yard, and the next.
