Chapter 4
Wade
My mouth went dry when I woke somewhere around Duluth to realize I’d drifted off beside Dustin.
Not something I’d imagined doing any time in the last seven years.
I’d tried to be vigilant in my seat, to keep my guard up as we rolled along darkened highways, but the insomnia of the night before must’ve caught up with me.
I kept my eyes shut, testing my muscles for stiffness with subtle flexing.
My wolf seemed amused, as if unsurprised that, down inside, I trusted Dustin enough to believe he wouldn’t kill me in my sleep.
Dustin had stopped at a rest area in the Wisconsin Dells at some early hour of morning and refueled the car while I pretended to snore against his passenger window.
He’d apparently kept a full can of gas in his trunk.
No stations were open at that hour, of course, with gas scarce and limited to certain times of day.
It figured Dustin was a think-ahead kind of guy.
Now he said, “Gas gettin’ low again,” and pulled off the highway again. I sat up. Morning had come, bringing a gray, cloudy day with a little breeze ruffling the trees. I had the impression we were in Minnesota.
We found an open station and were behind only six other cars, waiting for the pumps.
The sign said, “Open 8 am to 1 pm” so we’d been in luck, arriving right at the first opportunity.
When our turn came, the attendant hurried out to pump our fuel and clean the bug-smeared windows.
I opened my door, told Dustin “I need to stretch my legs,” and headed into the little, dusty store. “You have a bathroom?”
The cashier glanced out to make sure we were buying gas, then handed me the key attached to a slab of wood. When I’d found my way to the small, odor-filled room and pissed, I peered at myself in the flyspecked mirror. What does Dustin see when he looks at me after seven years?
Like all wolves, I appeared younger than my age, early twenties perhaps. Fit, of course, with new muscles that might catch Dustin by surprise. I’d worked hard for my increased strength, beyond the athleticism that was a gift from my wolf.
Why was the first thing out of Dustin’s mouth to me, “I’m gay?”
Do I look… not straight?
My blue eyes stared back at me from the mirror, an odd contrast to my dark, curly hair. I had kind of puffy lips for a guy, and my chin had that stupid little cleft. Attractive enough, objectively, at least women seemed to think so. They didn’t assume I was gay.
Dustin knew I’d supported Shawn, so his admission wasn’t a huge risk. His words had stopped my anger in its tracks in shock, long enough to listen. Was that his sole purpose? Was there anything more to his reveal?
I’d slept with girls openly and happily through my late teens and early twenties.
But once, a year before Shawn’s outing, in a bar a hundred miles from home, I’d climaxed harder than ever before in the mouth of a bulky, leather-clad man kneeling at my feet.
Had Dustin somehow known? Had he guessed I had a crush on him back then?
Do I have a crush now?
That should have been a ridiculous thought about the guy I’d dreamed of destroying, but Dustin wasn’t the monster of my nightmares. He hadn’t changed much from the man I’d tried not to drool over seven years ago, before he betrayed me… but apparently didn’t.
After seven years of hate, I should’ve needed a long time to adjust and tolerate him in my presence again. Instead, I was impatient, eager to get in his old junker and drive.
Not so fast, not yet. Everything hung in the balance. Until I saw Shawn, until I touched him and heard his voice, I had to lock whatever I thought about Dustin down tight.
I pulled open the bathroom door to find the man right there, waiting on the doorstep.
I slapped the key with its tag against his chest. “Here.” His pectorals were hard as rock under my hand, but warm and alive as no rock ever was.
When he covered my fingers to catch the key, his touch made me shiver. I dodged past him as he went inside.
While Dustin was busy, I paid the attendant for our gas and tipped him the change.
The price was ridiculous— fifty-two cents a gallon where last year, we’d paid thirty-five.
At least the attendant didn’t give us a hard time about filling the spare can too.
I rounded the car and leaned on the driver’s door, waiting for Dustin.
The person in line behind us honked his horn, but I gave him a withering glare and he laid off.
A minute later, Dustin hurried my way. I said, “Hey, keys. I’ll drive. You need some rest.”
He looked me over, then tossed me the keyring. “Wake me at the border.”
“Sure thing.” I ratcheted the seat forward from his ridiculously-long-legs position and cranked the ignition. “I had him fill the spare can. Everything in that trunk is going to smell like gasoline.”
Dustin wrinkled his nose. “Already does. Humans need to get their act together in the Middle East.”
“Like we wolves are so sane and peaceful.”
“True.” He pulled off his sweatshirt, wadded the fabric under his head, and leaned against the window the way I had, closing his eyes.
So much for conversation.
Of course, I’d done the same thing for the last seven hours.
It made sense that Dustin was also waiting, all contact suspended until I saw Shawn with my own eyes.
I believed Dustin in my head, but in my gut, in my heart, my brother was still absent.
Dustin was a smart guy. He probably realized that.
So I drove north and let the scent of Dustin’s body and the sound of his breathing soak into me.
I’d known him pretty well once, despite the fifteen years between us.
We’d shifted together, run together in fur, jogged in sweatpants and sneakers, eaten meals and attended Meets together, played ball at many of Second’s summer barbecues.
We’d been mentally bonded through our links to Alpha, as Sixth and Fifteenth.
If someone had severely injured Dustin back then, I and the others would’ve felt his pain over that bond.
Still, despite my inconvenient crush, we’d been packmates and friends, but nothing more.
Now, in the last twenty-four hours, Dustin had become like water, around me, suffusing my world, seeping through my defenses.
I fought to keep our connection superficial.
I couldn’t let anything about Dustin go deeper.
Just a few more hours till I see Shawn unharmed, with my own eyes.
At the border, I woke Dustin so we could present our driver’s licenses and tell the bored customs official we were visiting friends for a few days.
He waved us through without comment. Yay for the longest undefended border in the world.
Canada didn’t feel much different from the US.
I’d heard they were starting to go metric, but the road signs were still in good old miles per hour.
“Where now?” I asked.
Dustin pointed at the door pocket on my side. “Map in there. Head for Kenora, and once we get close, I’ll direct you.”
He went back to pretending to sleep, while I navigated along the border, then turned north again.
This was pretty country, lots of lakes and trees and wild spaces.
My wolf wanted to get out and run in the fresh air.
Back in Illinois, I sometimes drove out to the state park to run, but it still wasn’t quite this level of clean air and freedom.
My heart lifted, imagining Shawn living in a place like this.
Maybe we’ll run together in fur again. A shiver of anticipation ran through me. Belief slipped a little deeper into my veins, and my wolf rose in me. Soon? Pack, run, soon?
I hoped so, with everything in me.
As we approached Kenora, Dustin straightened away from the window, shook out his sweatshirt, and said, “Next right.”
“Are we close?”
“Twenty minutes.” As my foot went down on the gas, he added, “Unless you get pulled over for speeding.”
“Right.” I dropped our speed to a sluggish, annoying fifty. “Does Shawn know I’m coming?”
“Hm. No.”
That surprised me enough that my foot eased off the pedal, till I sped up again with a lurch. “Why not? Why would you tell me but not warn him?”
Dustin gazed out the windshield. “I didn’t want to make promises. I wasn’t sure I’d find you, and if I did, I wasn’t sure whether you’d destroy my evidence and kill me before I could get you to listen.”
“That’s why you left me just one picture at first?”
“Yeah. I wanted to shake your certainty and buy time.”
“And whose fault is it I was so certain?” I grumbled.
“Yours.” Dustin laughed when I glared at him. “You ran off and vanished very thoroughly. Although to be fair, I could never have told you as long as you were bonded to Alpha. You couldn’t have hidden that change of emotion from him.”
“So it was your fault.”
I’d been kind of teasing, but he said, “I guess,” and his face fell.
“You’re making up for it now.” I pushed the speed limit by a few more miles. “Tell me about my brother. What’s he doing these days? Does he have friends?” A lover?
“It’s been months since I was here. And I think you need to let him tell you about his life.”
“Fair enough.” Let him tell you. Hope sank an inch deeper into me.
“Take a right now. When you see a half-scorched dead tree, turn down the lane on the left.”
I did as Dustin told me, my breath coming shorter with every mile.
When I spotted a tall, lightning-blasted elm, I steered left onto a gravel drive just wide enough for one car.
The narrow ruts led through a gap in a wooden perimeter fence and around a wide stand of pine trees.
On the other side of the pines, apple trees losing their blossoms lined both sides of the drive and a small wooden house stood at the far end.
I drove forward slowly, trying not to rip the bottom out of Dustin’s old car, trying to keep my shit together.
Soon. If Dustin’s not lying.