A Season of War: M/M Wolf Shifter Mpreg Paranormal Romance (The Last Omega Book 3)

by Apollo Surge

  "Interesting," the Nuckelavee said, tipping his head slightly in a puzzled expression. "You believe that is the truth. And yet it smells of falsehood."

  Sawyer's hackles raised, insulted and afraid of what would happen if the Nuckelavee thought he was lying.

  "It is the truth," he insisted, now angry as well as afraid. "I've never been with anyone else."

  "Truth answers truth," the Nuckelavee said, inclining his head in acceptance. "But once spoken, truth is only what the speaker chooses to believe and what the listener chooses to hear."

  "I don't know what you're trying to pull," Sawyer, holding back a growl. "But you're not going to convince me this baby isn't my mate's, so drop it."

  "It is clear some destiny is at work," the Nucklavee replied, eying Sawyer thoughtfully. "Some fate or enchantment has its claws in you. You are certain the child could not have been the result of some stranger coupling?"

  It took Sawyer a moment to realize the last statement was a question. The Unseelie's tone made everything sound like a statement of fact. A tremor of doubt shivered through him, and a fragment of a dream he'd almost forgotten.

  "I will discover the truth of it," the Nucklavee offered. "If you ask. Truth for truth."

  Sawyer's focus snapped back to the matter at hand and he narrowed his eyes at the Unseelie man.

  "That's a bit more than just answering a question," Sawyer pointed out.

  "It will not be difficult," the Nucklavee replied, stone faced. "You will consider it a repayment for showing yourself to me."

  "Except you still want a question of your own out of it," Sawyer pointed out. From what Sawyer knew, that would put the Nuckelavee in Sawyer's debt. Which might sound good on the surface, but Sawyer didn't like that the Unseelie was willing to indebt himself. It suggested that whatever he had to ask was worth a great deal to him. Sawyer shook his head. "No thanks. I know who the father is."

  "Unfortunate," the Nuckelavee said, and though his voice was cold there was a touch of regret in his eyes. "I preferred to answer that question. But you have already asked me another."

  Sawyer froze, panic catching his heart.

  "You asked if I truly wanted to war with the Seelie as fae nature demands," the Nuckelavee said, staring into Sawyer's eyes with surprising intensity. "I do not. I was not born with such compulsions as the true Fae are, and though I must obey them as any other, I have not yet broken to their reign. In truth, what I want is two-fold and wars with itself. I want you to accept the alliance and ensure Unseelie victory, lest your human Council or my own Court find some way to stop the Seelie, preventing the end of the world, which is the only possible release for me from the bonds by which I live, the only way I can finally, truly die. And I wanted to warn you of the coming danger in the only way my compulsion allows."

  Sawyer's eyes widened, realizing the Midsummer might have caught them completely off guard without the Nuckelavee's "offer." Not to mention the advance warning of the Unseelie's plan to sink the mountain if they couldn't take it.

  "There is some fragment of me still that was once human," the Nuckelavee continued, and Sawyer saw there was sweat standing on the man's skin. "And it does not want to see the world destroyed. I want you to live. But you will not mistake this for compassion. I will follow the law I am bound by and do every cruelty in my power to take victory and so what I truly want is for you to run for running water and do not trust me."

  The final words seemed all but forced from his lungs and the Nuckelavee staggered, leaning on the bar of iron for support. Sawyer took a step toward the man instinctively, concerned, then realized this was his chance. The Nuckelavee had weakened himself intentionally to give Sawyer an opening. Sawyer wasn't going to waste it.

  He turned and shifted mid stride, leaping out of his shirt and abandoning his bag as he bolted, a black streak across the mountainside, toward the scent of fresh water. He heard the howling of a winter wind only a moment later, gathering speed like a freight train barreling after him. His heart hammered against his ribs and fear chattered frantic teeth in the back of his mind. He pushed himself to go faster, half running, half falling as he threw himself downhill at a breakneck pace.

  The storm caught up to him, and in the distance he heard the sound of pounding hooves getting closer. He pushed on through the biting wind and the ice under his paws, keen ears trained ahead. Could he hear the stream past the wind or was he only desperately imagining it? The driving hooves in the distance drew ever closer and Sawyer's panic rose. The Nuckelavee hadn't given him enough time. He wasn't fast enough. If he died here there would be no one to warn the others, and the baby-

  A tree branch crashed in front of him, dragged down by ice, and he jumped, barely clearing it, clipping his hind leg. But there in the distance was the stream, clear water glittering in the sunlight. Hooves thundered in his ears as Sawyer put his head down and pushed with all his strength for a final burst of speed. His paws hit the gravel bank of the stream and he leaped, as fast and far as he was able.

  He landed in the water, near the far bank, and dragged himself out slowly, shaking with the cold that was already dissipating. It was summer on this side of the stream, but when he looked back, the storm still raged on the other side, the silhouette of the Nuckelavee just visible through the swirling ice and wind. He had stopped, his hooves just at the edge of the water.

  "Truth must answer truth," the Nuckelavee called. "You will owe me an answer when we meet again."

  "Forgive me for hoping that never happens," Sawyer replied, shaking the water out of his fur, the leg he'd clipped aching painfully.

  "It will," the Nuckelavee assured him. "Our fates are already joined."

  Sawyer didn't like the sound of that.

  "In that case," he said, squaring himself, a wild impulse taking shape that he knew was unwise and yet wouldn't restrain. "I'm going to give you a name that's easier to pronounce."

  "You will not-" the Nuckelavee started to say, but Sawyer cut him off.

  "Nicholas," he said. "What do you think, Nick? How does it feel?"

  The storm gusted once more, briefly obscuring the Nuckelavee from sight. When it cleared again, he had returned to his human shape, standing sentinel on the bank of the stream, iron bar braced in the sand. With a last few flickers of ice, the storm abated. As the wind settled and the frost melted, dripping steadily from the leaves in the silence left by startled birds, the Nuckelavee stared at Sawyer. With the distance Sawyer couldn't read his stoic, impassive face.

  "Now we will most certainly meet again," Nicholas said at last. "Run on, Black Wolf. This will not stop me forever."

  Sawyer didn’t need any further encouragement. He turned and loped away, leaving the newly named changeling alone on the shore. As he left the last traces of ice behind, a chill stayed on his bones. Midsummer was barely more than a month away. In just a few weeks either the Seelie would be defeated and all of this would be over… or the world would burn.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sawyer stumbled toward the wards an hour later, his hind leg alternating between deep, searing pain and total numbness. He couldn't risk stopping to shift and heal it. He didn't know how long he had before the Nuckelavee found a way around the stream. So he limped on, sighing in relief when he spotted the red string tied between the trees, wooden charms jangling in the breeze.

  As he slipped under them he heard someone gasp. Rita and Mike stared at him, eyes wide with surprise. Mike was holding a battered soccer ball.

  "You two shouldn't be playing so close to the wards," he scolded, stumbling as he tried to shake himself off. Now that the adrenalin was wearing off his every muscle ached and just breathing seemed to take more energy than he had. "We talked about this."

  "What were you doing out there?" Rita asked, ignoring the reprimand.

  "Fighting the Fae, obviously," Sawyer said with a sigh, too exhausted and tense to press the issue. His leg was killing him, but he couldn't shift here, especially not in front of the kids. "Where
's Elliot?"

  Rita and Mike didn't even hear his question, too busy making noises of delight and jumping up and down at the thought of more heroics from the Black Wolf. Sawyer gave up, limping past them, but they followed.

  "How many did you fight?" Rita demanded, bouncing on her heels. "Did you kill any?"

  "One, and no, he's still out there," Sawyer said tersely, trying to keep the growl out of his voice, his ears pinned back. Guilt mixed with the impatient anger boiling in him and he struggled to push it down, the ghost of his father lingering in the back of his mind. He swallowed his irritation to focus on the issue at hand. "I need to talk to Elliot and the other leaders, now."

  "What was he like? Did he have sword?" Rita pushed eagerly, her eyes bright and scales showing on her cheeks.

  "Rita, stop!" Mike demanded, throwing the soccer ball at her. "Can't you see he's hurt?"

  Sawyer's guilt grew at how quickly the joy drained from Rita's face as she took in the severity of his limp and the blood drying in his fur.

  "Did you lose?" she asked, worried, holding the soccer ball tightly.

  "No," Sawyer said quickly, stopping to look at her with as much sincerity as he could convey while not in human shape. "I got away. I'm alive. With the Fae that's as good as winning. Everything is fine, all right? I just need to talk to Elliot."

  "I think he's in the barn," Mike said, the concern on his face matching Rita's. "Do you want us to go get him for you?"

  Sawyer was tempted to say no. He wanted to shift and run right into Elliot's arms, to hold the other man tightly and never let go. But he needed to tell him the news first, and he couldn't do that naked and wounded. Well, naked maybe, but in his current state that would also cause a hell of a distraction. He could limp all the way there as he was, but he didn't want to scare people by rushing through camp like this.

  "Yes, thank you," Sawyer said, and both kids stood up taller, excited by the prospect of a quest. "Tell him to meet me in the main house. As fast as you can, all right? It's urgent."

  They both nodded and ran off and Sawyer limped on toward the house, trying to stay out of sight.

  He heard Elliot's footsteps racing up the stairs to the guest room just as he was finishing getting dressed. The Alpha threw the bedroom door open a second later.

  "What's wrong?" He had Sawyer by the shoulders before Sawyer could so much as react, checking him over for injuries. "Are you hurt?"

  "I'm fine," Sawyer said quickly. "Just tired. Everything's fine."

  Elliot pulled him close, squeezing Sawyer against his chest.

  "Thank God," he said, breathless. "These kids came running up to me screaming that you had fought a fairy and you were hurt. They made it sound like you were dying."

  Sawyer winced. No more asking excitable children to run important messages.

  "Sorry," he said, wrapping his arms around Elliot and laying his head on the other man's shoulder, relieved despite everything that Elliot could still hold him like this. "I fucked up my leg a little, that's all, or I would have come and got you myself. Look, it's already healed."

  "What about the fairy they said you fought?" Elliot said, frowning. "Please tell me they were making that up."

  "They weren't," Sawyer said with a sigh, wishing Elliot could just hold him a little longer before he needed to explain everything. "I ran into an Unseelie on the mountain. It's practically crawling with Court Fae, Elliot. The wild Fae have been almost wiped out. The Courts aren't here right now only because of the wards-"

  "What were you even doing up there?" Elliot demanded, his face white and stricken. "Why would you leave the wards?"

  Sawyer started to speak, and swallowed the words with the lump in his throat. He saw the way Elliot's eyes tightened at his hesitation.

  "I had a good reason," he said finally, and felt Elliot's grip loosen on him immediately. As he continued, the other man let go, turning away from him. "There are more important things to worry about right now, so can you just trust me and forget it for now?"

  Elliot was quiet for a long moment. Then Sawyer saw his shoulders move as he took a deep breath. When he turned back around his eyes were remote, and he didn't reach for Sawyer again.

  "So what happened?" he asked.

  Sawyer's heart sunk down into the basement. He'd been annoyingly cry prone this month and he had to fight the tightening of his throat and the pricking at his eyes at how quickly and completely Elliot had disengaged. He cleared his throat and kept going. There was more at stake right now than his relationship.

  "The Unseelie offered us an alliance," Sawyer explained. "We give up the mountain and its power to them, they win the war, and we get to live fairy-free for maybe a couple of years of perpetual winter before the universe freezes over."

  "That's a shit deal," Elliot said succinctly, his eyes wide.

  "Only until you hear the counter offer," Sawyer replied with a bitter laugh.

  "Which is?"

  "The Seelie get steadily stronger until Midsummer, when they'll be powerful enough to overwhelm the Unseelie and our wards. They kill or enslave everyone here, take the mountain, win the war, and we get to live as slaves for maybe an hour - couple of days, tops - before the Seelie turn the universe into one big barbeque pit."

  "Not ideal," Elliot confirmed.

  "You haven't heard the best part," Sawyer continued. "At any point between now and Midsummer, the Unseelie might realize they're losing and, like a bratty younger sibling on family game night, decide to flip the table before the Seelie can win. By which I mean summoning a natural disaster catastrophic enough to destroy the mountain and all of us with it. Which is, hilariously, actually the best possible outcome, since it would mean only hundreds of people die instead of literally everyone."

  "Well shit," Elliot replied in understated punctuation. "I mean, there's still the Council. They might figure something out before Midsummer."

  "Or the table flipping."

  "Yeah, or that."

  "Maybe," Sawyer agreed with a helpless shrug. "But we have no idea what they're doing. If they're doing anything. According to Serena, they might be completely out of commission."

  Elliot took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, running a hand through his hair. Turning away from Sawyer, he went to sit on the bed, staring at the wall.

  "So what do we do?" Sawyer asked.

  Elliot shook his head, distracted. "Don't ask me that."

  "Who else am I going to ask?" Sawyer pointed out. "We need to make a plan."

  "A plan for what?" Elliot asked, staring at Sawyer with open hands. "What can we do? What do you expect me to do, Sawyer?"

  Sawyer's heart was in his throat, hating the hopelessness in Elliot's eyes.

  "We... we need to tell people," Sawyer said, scrambling for some way to take control of the situation, anything they could do to improve their chances, to have any kind of impact on this at all. "We need to prepare and- and research. We still don't know how the treaty keeping them out was broken in the first place. Maybe if we can figure that out..."

  Elliot just shook his head, looking away.

  "Talk to Alicia about it," he said finally. "Maybe you can figure something out. I won't be any help either way."

  "Elliot, don't do this," Sawyer pleaded. "Not right now. We need you right now. I need you."

  "I'm not the Alpha," Elliot said quietly. "I can't do anything."

  "I don't care whether you're Alpha," Sawyer said, voice breaking as the tears he'd been trying to control threatened to break loose again and he had to wrestle them down. "I need you, Elliot. Alicia was being stupid but she'd getting better now and-"

  "She wasn't being stupid," Elliot said, cutting him off. "She was right. I didn't know what I was doing and I just made things worse."

  "So try again," Sawyer demanded. "Do better this time! We're all here trying to help you but we can't do anything if you keep refusing to try!"

  Elliot wouldn't look at Sawyer, his eyes darting over the far wall instead as he stru
ggled with some inner debate. Sawyer couldn't imagine what he was thinking and it filled him with a terrible anxiety. Elliot shook his head.

  "I can't," he said finally, quiet and ashamed. "I'm sorry Sawyer. I can't."

  Sawyer could only stand there for a frozen moment, helpless. Finally, he took a breath, pulled a hand down his face, clenched and unclenched his hand, trying to find what he should say, how he should feel. This was so much more important than just him and Elliot. But right now he could think of nothing else, nor stop himself from feeling like Elliot's rejection was of more than just his responsibilities as Alpha. He pressed a hand to his stomach unthinkingly, feeling a deep and instinctual fear for the future.

  "Is this..." Sawyer said quietly. "Are we still...?"

  He couldn't finish it, and Elliot didn't seem able to answer. Alone together in a silent room, each waited for the other to make a move in any direction.

  It was Sawyer who gave in first as a deep, heavy resignation, like a lead-lined blanket, settled around his shoulders. He'd been preparing for this since the first kiss, after all. He'd almost made himself stop expecting it, and that was his mistake.

  He didn't say any more, and Elliot didn't stop him as he left, closing the bedroom door quietly behind him.

  Life had made it clear to him over and over that it was better not to get attached, that it only made it hurt more when things inevitably ended. That getting attached caused things to end. Coming here, finding the pack and Elliot, he'd almost started to think it could be different. That he could get close to people without driving them away. That he could be a part of something without ruining it. And life had come to punish him for his stupidity immediately. Why had he stayed after Antonia and the others died? He should have seen it then but he'd wanted to be part of this too much. He'd ruined the lives of everyone here with his stupid selfishness. He should have left before it happened, as soon as he woke up. He should never have come to this town to begin with. He should never have been born.

  The tears that had been building never came. Nothing did. He felt tired, and heavy as a stone, but nothing else. He needed to tell the others what was happening, and then he would sleep. He would plan no further beyond that.