Damien’s Dilemma

by Cohen, Julie K.

  “I had no choice!”

  “Who ordered you to kill her and why?” Hayden again, his tone even and calm compared to Damien’s.

  Rinn clenched his jaw shut and shook his head.

  “Perhaps we should throw you in a cabin and set it on fire,” Damien suggested, not entirely in jest. “Justice.”

  Holding the bloody knife to his side, Callen stepped into Damien’s line of sight. “I’m not done, Damien.”

  “I can see that. He’s still alive.”

  “I can’t get information from a corpse.”

  “Flaying is too slow. Burn him. It would be appropriate considering he tried to burn Tess to death.”

  “Followed her. Cabin,” Rinn sputtered out nearly incoherent words between sobs. “Gone. Gone. Gone.”

  “Before you arrived, he said he followed her to Frank’s cabin, but she wasn’t there,” Hayden explained. “I’m not sure if he’s lying or too distraught and saying what he thinks we want to hear.”

  “He probably smelled her dirty laundry and mistook it for her,” Damien said as he backed away from the pitiful shifter chained to the chair. “Time to end him.”

  “A death sentence?” Hayden asked.

  Damien glared. “He’s a risk to the entire pack, not just Tess. What would you have me do, Hayden, release him? He’s a traitor.”

  “As was I.”

  Hayden was supposed to be here to temper him, not dissuade him from what had to be done. “You never tried to kill anyone,” Damien countered. Hayden might think him too upset to think clearly, but he was dead wrong. Damien had no qualms about killing the shifter who’d threatened Tess and his pack.

  “Who ordered you?” Callen demanded of Rinn as he resumed his interrogation.

  Ordered? Damien raised his brow at Callen.

  Callen set the knife down on a metal tray that held another bloody knife and rubbing alcohol, which wasn’t there for cleaning any surfaces. He picked up a small sliver of bamboo. “He could have easily killed her without setting fire to the cabin. There’s more going on here.”

  “He’ll kill me if I tell you!” Rinn yelled back.

  Damien circled, letting his wolf’s growl get under Rinn’s skin before finally bending over to whisper in the traitor’s ear. “That is my mate you tried to kill.”

  “You haven’t blood-bonded her!”

  Damien sneered. “You think that makes a difference? Whether she stays or wants nothing to do with me and moves across the world, I will continue to watch over her. Always.”

  Damien scowled at the pathetic shifter. “You sealed your fate when you tried to kill her. The only question I have yet to decide is how you die. Quickly, after you’ve had a chance to say goodbye to your brother. Or long and slow, out in the woods, where I cut you up piece by piece, but never kill you, leaving just enough to give the birds and insects fresh meat on which to feast.”

  Rinn pulled desperately at his chains. “I’ll tell you if you set me free!”

  “Take him, chain him in the trees by the gulley five miles from here so the pack won’t have to listen to his screams,” Damien ordered.

  Callen placed an iron collar on Rinn. The collar had metal spikes on the inside that laid against the prisoner’s throat. If Rinn shifted, he’d impale himself.

  “It was Drake! He hired me to kill her!”

  Damien didn’t show any emotion. He simply shifted and exited the cave, with Hayden hot on Damien’s trail. He didn’t wait to hear what his second had to say on the matter as he shot straight toward Drake’s territory. Damien was going to kill Drake for trying to kill Tess. That’s all there was to it. No debate, no reprieve, no consideration as to what this would do to pack alliances or the shifters’ ability to defeat the WSSO.

  He only made it a mile before Hayden’s wolf body-slammed Damien and sent him crashing into a tree. As Damien rolled, he shifted to his human form. “Now you’re protecting your brother from me?” he yelled.

  Hayden shifted to his human form. “I’m protecting you from my brother. You’re about to start a war that we can’t win, not when the WSSO is after us as well.”

  “What are you talking about? You read the note. Drake wants her dead. Rinn confirmed it.”

  “Drake doesn’t bluff. That’s one certainty you can count on from my brother. But he wasn’t responsible for this. Rinn’s lying.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I know Drake.”

  “And you don’t believe he’d hurt a female?”

  “Oh, he’d definitely hurt a female if it served his purpose or suited his own depraved needs. But Drake doesn’t deal with traitors, Damien. You should know that. Just look at me.” Hayden pointed to the scars on his chest. “He doesn’t trust anyone who betrays his own pack. Drake bends people to his will, or he punishes them if they don’t bend. Cajoling, or even bribing, Rinn to have him do Drake’s bidding in another alpha’s territory… I don’t buy it. Not for a second.”

  If there was one constant Damien could count on, it was Hayden being level-headed. And no one knew Drake like Hayden.

  “Rinn threw Drake’s name at us to save himself,” Damien concluded. “Hell.” He scrubbed his face as he walked in a circle. “Who then was behind this? Because Rinn didn’t seem to be angry with Tess or even me for allowing her to stay. He was frightened of someone else.”

  “The WSSO.”

  “No shifter would work for that group of monsters,” Damien said.

  “Ian.”

  “Damn it.” How could Damien have forgotten about Ian after how he’d tortured and tried to kill Tess? Damien was definitely losing his edge. His damn wolf was taking too much of his focus. “Do you think Ian and Rinn were partners? That he killed Ian?”

  “Hadn’t thought about that, but it’s likely. They both worked sanitation together.”

  “This stinks.”

  Hayden raised a brow.

  “Not funny. You know what I mean. Get back to Callen, fill him in, and see if he can get more out of Rinn, namely why he’s working for the WSSO and why the bastards want Tess dead.”

  Hayden shifted and ran off. Everything Hayden said made sense, except the WSSO trying to kill Tess. The group needed her to spread the virus. Why kill her after all that trouble to re-infect her? As usual, Damien and his pack were two steps behind the anti-shifter organization.

  Despite the urge to run, Damien headed toward Aloe’s house. The need to watch over Tess was too great to ignore. He couldn’t bring himself to knock. She had made it clear she didn’t want anything to do with him. He would have to be content watching through the window for a few minutes, long enough to calm down so he could think straight.

  The attack came from behind. Damien was too lost in thought to hear the wolf approach. Damien got one slash in before he recognized the shifter. Frank.

  Damien retracted his claws and shifted back to human form seconds before Frank did the same. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Sorry,” Frank said, with a slight but unapologetic shrug. “I heard someone outside. Didn’t catch your scent.”

  “No wind,” Damien said, unconcerned. He wouldn’t fault Frank for being alert and watching over the women inside.

  “Want to come in?” Frank asked, sounding like his usual self, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened in the past week. The shifter really was hard to rile.

  “She doesn’t want me around.” Damien slumped against the house, feeling defeated.

  “Did you tell her, yet?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll keep my mouth shut, then, if you’re sure about this.”

  “It’s a simple solution,” Damien said, not sure who he was trying to convince.

  “How long before you go?”

  “Not sure.”

  With a nod, Frank disappeared back inside. Damien had only told Hayden, Callen, Blade, and Frank about his plan to attack the WSSO if Tess left. A suicide mission would save his pack from having to hunt Damien and put
him down when he turned feral. Plus, it would help keep the pack safe. One way or another, he wouldn’t allow himself to go feral.

  Chapter Twenty

  TESS

  Walking into Damien’s house after all this time, after everything that had happened between them felt odd. But Tess’s presence was required, along with all of Damien’s top men. They needed to discuss the latest developments in what the WSSO was planning.

  “Wait, explain this to me again,” she said, as she put her glass of water on the kitchen counter. “Rinn said he had orders to burn me? That whole time I was alone at Frank’s, Rinn could easily have killed me with nothing more than his hands, claws, or even his teeth. But that wasn’t enough?”

  “I’m just thankful he didn’t kill you,” Damien said.

  She watched every tic of Damien’s face, the clenching of his fists. The fact that he had left her alone and vulnerable—his words, not hers—affected him more than he let on.

  “You were lucky he only scented for your presence instead of getting visual confirmation,” Frank said. “Had he looked inside, he would have tracked you until he found you.”

  “No luck involved. More like my extreme avoidance of doing laundry.”

  “This isn’t funny,” Damien growled.

  “Actually, she’s kind of funny if you—” Frank started but quickly shut up when Damien glared at him.

  She wasn’t blind to the fact that she couldn’t defend herself against Rinn or any other shifter who attacked her. Her shifter speed and strength were long gone, and she had never trained in any type of self-defense. Her sister would have been able to take care of herself, but not Tess. Tess had spent the last seventeen years in Apopka shopping, riding her bike, and flitting from waitress job to waitress job where the only self-defense she learned was how to fend off grabby hands. She hadn’t even done a good job of that when Damien had set his sights on her.

  Speaking of grabby hands, she glanced over at Damien and contemplated that stoic look of his. He hadn’t once touched her today, not even a quick kiss to the forehead. She wanted to believe that he had finally taken her words to heart and had given up on the idea of blood-bonding her. If there was one truth she had come to know about Damien, it was that he was determined and persistent when it came to getting what he wanted.

  “His orders were, and I’m quoting here,” Callen said, “to burn the human bitch’s carcass so there’d be nothing left except ash.”

  “Great, now I’m not only human, but I’m a bitch.”

  “I could have told you that,” Blade said, his mouth curling with a grin.

  Damien growled, and Tess covered her mouth to keep from laughing too hard. Who’d have thought Blade would have such a fun side to him? Tess poked Damien in the ribs. “He’s joking. Let it go.”

  “None of this is funny,” Damien said, his eyes landing on each shifter one at a time. His demeanor was a total one-eighty from this morning when he knocked on Aloe’s door and asked Tess to take a walk with him. He had been smiling and pleasant like he had some burden lifted from him.

  “Look, Damien, either I laugh, or I cry. I’m out of tissues, so I’m trying a different tactic.”

  Damien opened his mouth and then closed it. She didn’t like how guarded he was being with her, but if it would help him get through this mess, then so be it.

  “Trust me, Aloe would say to nod your head and move on.”

  He nodded his head. Clueless and adorable. Why did he have to be an alpha? Non-alphas could blood-bond anyone, including a human.

  “If the WSSO is behind this, what are they trying to accomplish?” Hayden got the conversation back on track.

  “And what’s Rinn’s motivation?” added Frank.

  “Rinn and Ian were tired of being weak shifters,” Callen said. “They wanted to be human.”

  “Why on earth would they want to be—” Tess stopped herself. Just because she was having trouble with being human didn’t mean others wouldn’t want it. “Sorry. Continue, please.”

  The yellow in Callen’s eyes flared for a second before he refocused on Damien. “The WSSO promised to turn them human so they could leave here and integrate into the human society. Rinn said they always got the shitty jobs around here, and he complained about being forced to shift.”

  “No one forces anyone to shift here,” Damien said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “It’s expected at the Running of the Moon,” Tess said.

  “He could have left. I’ve never forced anyone to stay.”

  Tess raised her hand. “Except me.”

  Damien’s brow rose as the corner of his mouth hitched. “You don’t count.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “And I know what Rinn means. Have you ever sat and watched the weaker pack members shift? It’s painful and demeaning for them.”

  “How is it demeaning?”

  “Imagine having everyone watch you suffer or knowing everyone is waiting for you—the slow one, the weak one—to shift, to catch up. Always the one in the back of the pack. I bet some of your weakest shifters are also some of your mentally strongest. They have to be to endure what goes with being physically weak here.

  “You don’t know what it’s like not being able to shift anymore, to no longer hear the sounds others hear, or see great distances in the dark, or even smell who’s been in a room or which way they’ve gone. I feel like I’ve lost so much of myself, and I have to learn how to navigate the world all over again. Now imagine that other pack members scorn you because you don’t have the same abilities as they do, through no fault of your own.”

  “No one looks down on you, Tess,” Damien said.

  “Yeah? Have you seen most of your pack snub me when I walk by? They see me as human, weaker than the weakest shifter. And your hatred of humans doesn’t help, Damien.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. They take their cues from you. Your no-humans-allowed policy emphasizes that the shifters have reason to fear humans.”

  “Many do.”

  “I have reason to fear shifters like Ian and Rinn. I guess humans don’t have the market on cruelty, do they?”

  “We’re getting off track,” Damien said.

  “Are we? Let me tell you what it’s like being here. When shifters look at me with contempt and disdain, as if I’ve committed some atrocity, I bite my tongue, so I don’t snap at them and make the situation worse. I keep hoping that eventually I’ll do something that will make them like me. Despite all my hope that they’ll accept me based on me, I know the truth. They may never get past their prejudice and ignorance.”

  “It’s not your job to make them like you,” Damien bit back, his outrage clear. She wasn’t sure if his anger was on her behalf or for himself and his role in the discontent of some of his shifters like Ian and Rinn.

  “Jobs. That’s another point. What can I even do here, Damien? I have no skills like Alex or Trent. I’m a waitress living in a compound where shifters line up at the cookhouse for their food. So even my elite skills of serving people are useless here, just like my shifter abilities. It’s not like I have the option to run the perimeter, scout on missions, or even train the kids on how to be a shifter. I’m as useless as the weak shifters—”

  “You’re not useless!” Damien shouted as he rose. From the way his eyes darkened and the muscles along his neck and jaw tightened, she knew she had struck a chord.

  “You’re right.” Tess took a calming breath and lowered her voice. She only wanted him to hear her, not get defensive or upset. “I’m not useless, and neither are the weak shifters here. But they don’t get any of the honorable jobs of defending the pack or hunting for food. They get to deal with foul-smelling septic tanks and burying the carcasses of dead animals. They never get to advance to better jobs because they were born weaker, or in my case made weaker.

  “I’ve been puttering around here for almost two months trying to find my place among your pack, and
I’m still an outcast. There’s nothing for me here, and the pack doesn’t want me, but I can leave and start new somewhere else as a human.

  “Up until the WSSO took me, that was my world. I can navigate it without even thinking about it. Your weaker shifters who think the solutions to their problems are out there don’t know what they’re in for, but they’re dreaming of something better. At least Rinn was and maybe Ian. They don’t realize that even if the WSSO can strip their shifter abilities from them like it did me—to make them human—the change won’t give them what they need to survive out there. They’ve been given a raw deal, and the WSSO is taking advantage of that.”

  Tess studied their faces, their stunned faces. “I need some air,” she said as she hurried outside. She hadn’t meant to go off like that, but she had needed to vent. The fresh air chilled her to the bone, but she felt rather at peace with herself right now. She made a few realizations in there. Life had changed for her, irrevocably so. It wasn’t about what she had lost but what she still had, which included the courage to move forward until she found what made her happy.

  “I never realized that’s how you felt, Sweetness.”

  God, it seemed like forever since he had last called her that. She contained the cry that nearly burst from her throat. She wanted him, and she couldn’t have him. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

  Damien’s arms wrapped around her from behind, and his chin rested on her shoulder. The way he stood there, holding her, it was as if he finally understood her. Even when they seemed to be at odds, he never gave up on her. More than all the world, she wanted Damien. The rest, not fitting in here or having a job so she could contribute to the pack… the answers would come in time, if she had the strength to persevere. But the damn blood-bond… There was no way around the fact that Damien would go feral without it.

  “I’m sort of figuring out a lot of this as I go,” she said, leaning her head against his and luxuriating in the feel of his breath against her neck. “I’m not who I was a year ago. What they did to me changed so much about me, more than my ability to shift.”