by Elle Lincoln
“You four?” I smile.
“Well, it was five,” Dakota counters, earning a scowl from Nix. No, not just that, but something deeper, darker. Painful.
I cock my head at him, eyeing the sadness that washes over his face, and the grief that calls to my own. There’s a splinter that exists in the soul, threaded there with wood, and if I remove it, the wood will only splinter further. “Five?” I question.
“Leave it,” Nix commands. His hurt pulses out of him, stinging my chest.
“Kade was the fifth in their little sub-pack of mostly alphas.” Dakota barrels on as Nix’s hands clench into fists and his jaw grinds.
“Mostly alphas?” I prompt, trying to keep him focused on that alone and not this Kade.
“Well, a pack should only have one true alpha, the king,” he taunts. “Their little group likes to pretend there’s only Athos, but we all feel the power they wield. It’s why Shadow Pack and others are jealous.” He shrugs a delicate shoulder like his words mean nothing.
But with each word, Nix’s shoulders rise more and more toward his ears. I reach out and thread my fingers through his. Sitting here, though, I understand where Dakota’s statement stems from. Nix’s power engulfs our space, and I feel like he’s holding it back. But it’s stronger than Dakota’s whose power feels like a light sprinkle of rain. I’m amazed I can even feel it, but it’s something almost everyone has. A pulse, an aura of power. That piece of their soul, that halo around them.
“Why are they jealous?” Glad he moved on from the Kade topic, Nix’s shoulders relax a fraction.
“Because alpha lycans don’t work together, they compete against each other.”
I spear another green bean, chewing thoughtfully. “So they are all alphas?” I point at Nix, referring to his group.
“Mostly, they’ve had to fight to prove it. Athos is the only one who fought for his position and claimed the pack. Nix, Liam, Christian, and Kade were content to let it be. But we all knew. And then Kade—”
“Enough, cousin.” Nix slams his fist against the table, and I swear a smirk lights up Dakota’s face at his outburst. Cheekily, Dakota traces the marble on the tabletop. “We shall not speak of him.”
Now I’m curious as hell, and I really want to push it, but I don’t because of the hurt wrinkling Nix’s face. Whatever happened there cut soul deep. Those kinds of wounds take time to address.
Undeterred, Dakota continues, and I wonder just how far he will push him. “Well, I just think it’s important for your mate to know.”
I pause, butterflies fluttering in my belly. “Wait.” I poke Nix’s hand with my fork, grabbing his attention. “All this time you didn’t want me meeting the pack, either pack, but that wasn’t just it, was it?”
Nix’s lips roll in as he fights for words.
He doesn’t have to, though, because Dakota is more than willing to say what needs to be said. “Of course they aren’t worried about our pack. Shadow Pack maybe. Savages, the lot of them, if you ask me. But no, they worry about Kade.”
“Why?”
“Because he was our brother. Our packmate. Most of us fled here, seeking sanctuary as children, as teens. Traveling the country looking for a home that called to us. Liam and his father were here before it was pack land. I believe he was a teen. It’s why he remembers playing with you as a cub.”
“Yeah, that timeline makes no sense. He said he played with me by the swing set and I don’t remember him.”
“As a teen, you wouldn’t, because he was a literal cub.” Nix smiles sadly. “But more than that, the rest of us banded together when we met. The stars paired us as packmates. As a sub-pack. As brothers. Kade was more than just a packmate. He was our brother.”
“Nix, what happened to Kade?”
“He got a taste for human blood.” Outside, thunder rolls across the mountain, emphasizing his words and the storm brewing in here.
I swallow thickly. He’s one of those wolves lost to the taste of blood. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”
“We don’t know what happened,” Nix whispers, a lie that flows easily over his tongue. He knows it. I know it. Yet I let it go.
“You have no idea where he is, do you?”
“No.”
“When did he leave the pack?”
“A year ago.”
“He’s alive?” I just need to make sure of this.
“Yes.”
Outside, lightning crashes as raindrops unleash hell on the roof. Dad had three rooms, five beds. I smile up at Nix as everything inside me rips to shreds for him. For the others. Because my gut tells me that my dad had a hand in Kade’s circumstances too. I just don’t know how.
Chapter 22
“Favorite color?” Nix leans in as though my answer isn’t just a color, but the key to the universe. He’s been looking at me like that throughout this entire game of twenty questions.
“Sea foam.” I smile right back.
Dakota bangs in the kitchen before shouting, “That is not a proper color!”
“It’s perfect,” Nix says in that chocolaty voice of his.
“Favorite childhood memory?” My fingers twine with his, cool against his warmth. Outside, the storm rumbles on, reaching a crescendo. Lightning flashes beyond the windows and thunder roars across the sky.
In here, though, Nix, Dakota, and I exist in our own bubble of safety. Oblivious to the world outside. Although every once in a while, Nix will glance out the windows and a frown will crease his forehead. I’ll reach up and rub the wrinkle away. It’s now a thing. One I’m enjoying.
“I can answer that!” Dakota yells from the kitchen where he’s been banging around for the last half hour. At first I thought that maybe he went back there to gift Nix and I with some privacy, but he answers more of Nix’s question than the man I yearn to hear speak.
Yet his patience is like an angel’s. Nix just smiles at his cousin and lets him speak, correcting him here and there when he fabricates a story into fantasy.
“It was when he hit puberty and had a crush on a girl in the same foster home.” Dakota swings over the counter and slides into the chair beside Nix, who just chuckles, his eyes lost to a memory. My heart squeezes at the mention of a foster home. “We had only been there a month, and he just turned fifteen. I was thirteen, mind you, and just discovered my love of dick.”
Nix smacks him upside the head, but it’s not hard and done with a smile. I roll my lips inward to keep from chuckling at their antics.
“Tell the story.” Nix reaches back for my fingers, threading them together once again and warming my soul.
“Right, of course, so there we are in a new home. Heather was this perky little blond with a smattering of freckles and a complex.” Dakota shudders. “A princess in a foster home, can you imagine? That little tart thought the world owed her, and your Phoenix had the biggest crush on her.”
“She was kind when it was just her,” Nix mutters, but it doesn’t save him from the wrath of Dakota.
“You have a thing for princesses,” he retorts, then Dakota glances at me, his head cocking to the side before he points at me. “Christian may call you a damsel, but I’ve got a feeling about you, and I am never wrong.”
“Oh, and what is that?” I play right into his hand, diverting from the story though I want to learn more about this Heather. Wait. Yep. That’s jealousy flickering in my gut. I need to trample that bitch.
“You have a steel edge to you.” Dakota nods to himself, tapping his lips as Nix studies me with a smirk, his wild curls falling into his eyes.
“A steel edge, huh?” I reply cynically, because there is nothing steel about me. I’m as squishy as they come. All bubbles and pink gumdrops mixed with the occasional unicorn fart.
Dakota smiles, but this time there isn’t an ounce of mirth. No, it’s full of something deeper, more serious. Inside, my stomach flutters. “I see you, Sabina. These men may not see you just yet, but I do. There’s more to you than just unicorn rainbows and
that smart mouth. You hide behind words, behind that smile and your pouty lips. Your eyes? They reflect the soul that all that other shit tries to hide.”
My fingers tense in Nix’s hand, his thumb moving in little calming circles.
“That so?” But he isn’t wrong. Not in a sense that he’s singling me out. Because people in general aren’t just superficial with their feelings. Not even those who exist in a ditzy sense. Even then, many of those people hold their cards close to their chest, keeping them hidden from the world.
“Oh, it is. I’m sure we will all eventually see just how strong you are.” I’m about to dismiss his words when the next ones make me freeze. “Fate wouldn’t have gifted you four alpha lycan mates if you weren’t strong. Otherwise, you’d get the bottom of the barrel,” he states with an air of arrogance.
“He’s right, Sabina.” Nix pulls my attention to him, drawing my fingertips to his lips where he places a chaste kiss that feels anything but.
“Yep, you can’t break easily.” Dakota wags his brows, telling me exactly what he means by ‘break.’ “Some wolves like it rough.”
“Dakota,” Nix chides.
But laughter spills from me anyway. “Tell me about this, Heather.”
“That floosy!” Dakota jumps right into the topic as though he was bred to gossip. I don’t mind, because his antics keep reality at bay and the storm as nothing more than white noise. “She thought Phoenix here was her ticket out of that home in Arizona. It wasn’t. She offered all kinds of pleasures, but he just wasn’t interested. Thank the goddess! Besides, we have to be careful with the mortals. They’re so breakable. Finally, she decided she would just walk into our room one day naked, offering herself up on a silver platter. Unbeknownst to her, we had met Kade and Athos that day. They each took one look at her and dismissed her.”
Nix chuckles. “It was awful, and honestly wasn’t my favorite childhood memory.”
“She covered herself in whipped cream!”
I laugh, because his story isn’t uncommon. I’ve heard it before, but I don’t dare interrupt Dakota. Outside, lightning flashes a brilliant green and blue, lighting up the entire mess hall. In the next instant, the building rumbles with thunder as a crash resonates around us. The lights don’t just flicker, the outlets spark and flash before the building goes dark.
My tongue dries in my mouth as, in the next instant, the locks all click one by one. My heart beats erratically as I stand. The world slows around me as we’re thrown into complete darkness.
Next to me, the guys shuffle before white flashes again as one of them shifts. A warm body engulfs mine from behind, and hands lace with my own. The scent of fire tickles my nostrils with the unique scent of Nix.
His breath flickers over my ear as he whispers, “Say nothing.” In the next moment, he lifts me up, my hair whipping around me as he sprints through the room. Fear trickles up my spine, only to spike as the doors all crash open at once.
I want to ask what’s happening, but I can’t see. The storm shields the moon, not allowing light to pierce this nightmare.
A snarl echoes all around me as Nix rushes to the safe room, his arms tightening as he runs. I bury my head into the crook of his neck as a whimper echoes through the air. How did this happen? Where are the others?
Nix drops me to my feet where I stumble for a moment before he’s pushing me into a room. Behind us, the door shuts, muting the snarls and howls. My heart beats frantically as I think about Dakota out there alone. By his definition, he isn’t an alpha wolf, he isn’t much more than an omega, as he later explained. Weak amongst the rest of them.
A snap sounds and a light flares, a flashlight that Nix thrusts into my hands. He undresses quickly, his movements shaky. “I can’t leave him behind. They will kill him.” His eyes flicker back and forth between me and the door, the indecision clear upon his face.
I grind my teeth, knowing we agree on this. I would never leave my family behind. Yet the fear of being left alone to just hear the sounds of the fight terrify me. Hopefully Dakota is right, and deep inside me there is a sliver of bravery I just need to find and latch onto.
“Save him,” I whisper, already fond of Nix’s cousin. Someone I could someday call a friend.
“Down those steps you’ll find a steel door.” He drops his pants, and the gun clatters to the floor. He picks it up, checks the chamber, and hands it over. I reach for it, wrapping my shaky fingers around the grip, yet he doesn’t let go. “Shoot first, Sabina.”
“I don’t want to shoot one of you.”
“There are three wolves out there. All lost to bloodlust. You are human, shoot first.” He stands naked before me as fear surges through my veins. He leans in and swiftly ghosts his lips over mine. “Do not leave the safe room.”
Then, he’s moving out the door, slamming it behind him. Just past the threshold, snarls echo and howls split the night, singing along with the thunder and creating a macabre harmony. I stand there, frozen in shock, gripping the flashlight and the gun. My palms sweat with indecision. If I could see, I could just shoot the rogues. Kill them and end tonight. If I’m a good shot, that is.
Yet I fucking hesitate. Tears blur my vision as I try like hell to take Dakota’s words to heart, digging through layers of myself to seek out that flicker of bravery he believes I have.
Nothing exists there but cowardice as I back away from the door.
A body slams into it, and a cry escapes my lips. I slap a hand over my mouth, the one with the flashlight. Instantly, my lip splits open and the taste of blood coats my tongue. I suck on it as I step back again just as another body slams into the door before a cry of pain screams into the dead of night.
Then nothing. Silence wraps around me with suffocating tendrils, easing its way into my lungs. Fear skates through me until my body convulses with it. With my eyes on the door, I slowly descend the staircase backwards. One step, then another as the silence becomes deafening.
I flick the safety off the gun, the sound too loud in the stone stairwell.
Another step. I’m halfway down when the doorknob twitches. I didn’t lock it. Adrenaline floods my system until it’s all I can feel, all I can taste. The knob turns.
In that split second, I have to decide whether to run to the room at the base of the steps or see if Nix is at the door. But the feeling in my gut burns with the need to flee that I can’t ignore, and I turn to run down the stairs.
The door flies open, the wood splintering like a crash of lightning.
I cry out as my foot misses a step, and I fall to the floor below. My breath whooshes out as a roar rocks the stairwell. My chin and knees slam into the hard stone, the coolness of it easing the sting for the briefest of moments.
The flashlight scatters out of my hands, spinning until it lands, the light flickering to illuminate the staircase behind me. The gun remains clenched in my hand as I hold on to it for all I’m worth. My fingers ache as they grip the revolver from where they hit the stone.
I scramble up, my mind pushing my body to move. Laughter echoes around me, and like a scared child, I whimper.
“Alpha will be so pleased with me.”
Like hell.
I scramble and run to the door, leaving the flashlight as I fling my body through it and slam it closed. Yet the lycan on the other side doesn’t stop his laughter, the tone curling around my insides and clawing at my soul. Blindly, I reach for the locks, crying out as I struggle to find them.
One.
Bang! The lycan slams into the door. My body convulses as I try to flip the next lock just as a buzzing begins around me. The room bathes me in red light. Must be a backup generator.
Bang! He slams against the door again, his laughter piercing through the heavy steel. I slide the next lock home now that I can see and back away, my eyes jumping over the door as I look for another lock.
There isn’t one, so three will have to do—one at the top, one in the middle, and one at the bottom.
Slowly, I back fart
her into the space as he throws himself at the door over and over and over again. I sink into a chair, my eyes unseeing as he heaves his body against it again. The next crash has the first lock splintering and a cry leaves my lips.
“I can’t stay here.” Panic floods me as the thumping increases one right after another. There must be two of them.
Reaching deep for courage, I stand to take in the small bunker. It isn’t anything special, just a round room that should keep me safe from those outside the door. But I know it won’t.
Repeatedly, the guys told me they weren’t prepared for me. And over and over again, I didn’t really understand until now, as I gaze around this room. They don’t have women. And I’m guessing the reason is the thumping against the door.
I don’t have time to dive into that train of thought as I look for a way out. The room is enclosed like a bunker should be. The only way in is through that door. The only way out is through that door. Not even a vent exists.
Shoot first.
I swallow past my fear, knowing that these two will get through that fucking door. That they will try like hell to get to me. Steal me. Rape me.
I slide the furniture out of my way just as the second lock breaks free. It won’t be long now, only one lock remains. I press my body against the far wall, the gun still glued to my hands. A red haze halos the room and the furniture. My shaking hands are tinted crimson, creating an illusion of the blood I’m about to spill.
I know it’s about to become my life or theirs.
I choose me.
I raise my hand just as the door begins to peel inward, the steel squealing in the slight space. The third lock at the bottom of the door holds on, but it’s only a matter of time before it gives.
I hold the gun high just as a greasy head peeks over the door they are slowly peeling apart bit by bit. Then I see a naked torso. I raise my gun. My stomach churning.
A calm settles across my shoulders as the scent of tobacco wraps around me. My arms stop shaking as I feel that tranquility wash over me. All emotion flees from my body, and I raise my gun a fraction more.
