Chapter 9 - Dash
CHAPTER 9 - DASH
Trigger warning: mention of a deceased mate.
Lightning flickered and the heavens roared like the liquid fire pulsing in my veins. Father constantly challenged my authority in front of my men. Planted seeds of doubt in my brothers, and made them question every little thing I did. Agony seared to the depths of my wolf that Father didn’t trust me to do anything right. Reminded me of my failure at every opportunity. Scolded me in front of our enemies… my goddamn mate… Fuck, I meant Liv. Compliance forced my attendance at the ceremony. Chaos followed me like a goddamn dark cloud, proving my father right.
Ash Lumbry, upstanding citizen, model pack leader, would have handled tonight’s events differently. Diplomatically and peacefully. Good luck to him. Obtaining a resolution with that Malice mutt would have challenged even the great Ash Lumbry.
Rain pelted down, lashing my bare skin, trickling down my leather cut, triggering the wet dog smell. Taking a moment, I inhaled my surroundings, filtering through the different scents to calm my wolf. Freesia and honey, heightened by Liv’s emotions over her sister, roused my wolf into agitation to get to her and comfort her. Unable to think about her, the way my wolf led her fucking on, I shook off his concern and continued my scan. Wet wood, leaves, and parched soil touched by moisture. Plant oils released by leaves as protection mechanisms to shield from danger from wind and rain. Smoke piping from the log cabin’s chimneys. Broccoli and other brassicas ripening in the winter vegetable garden. Chickens nesting on eggs, feed, poop, and the metallic bite of wire in the coop.
The bitter tang of wary shifters who emerged from their cabins at our arrival on their lands. Members of another pack were not to enter their kinfolk’s land unless invited. At their Umbra’s gesture, the shifters retreated inside their cabins.
I hadn’t visited the Hester pack in over four years, and I took a moment to admire it. The town of Bathurst nestled in a valley of the Great Dividing Range, sitting at lower altitude than Lithgow, the reason it didn’t get as much rain or greenery. The Hesters were lucky to find this spot with lush, dense forest and the privacy of rolling hills when their territory didn’t afford them the quantity we had. Easier territory for enemies to negotiate, though harder for them to hide. Liv’s land’s vulnerability shifted me into predatory mode and my wolf snarled, eager to patrol and defend her borders.
My wolf whined, attuned to his mate and alerting me to Liv’s examination. With my control resumed, I fixed my gaze on the storm, welcoming it. Mother said my wolf carried the spirit of storms, the reason why my eyes reflected them. The night I was born, Lithgow suffered the severest storm in history, toppling trees on parked cars, snapping electricity poles, tearing roofs off houses, flooding rivers and homes. When I was upset as a child, she said my wolf called to the storms to come. Lycans believed in signs from nature, blood moons, falling stars, weather events, and animals heralding news from the Lunar goddess. I wasn’t as sold as my mother. I believed in the tangible. Magick. Shifters. Signs and portents, not so much.
Running in my wolf skin amid the rain, thunder, and crackling light, I could get behind when storms were in my blood. The sound and light eased the chaos in my head. Sinking my paws in wet soil grounded and calmed me. Cool liquid trickling on my skin eased my furious fire once the rain exhausted my coat’s waterproofing.
Motion twenty feet away urged my wolf’s attention: Heather leaving the crowd, touching the ugly red welt on her forehead, and Steele cursing under his breath. Grief tearing at the pit of his soul where his wolf resided. Liv’s father admonishing my brother for hurting his daughter. Steele’s grief twisting into regret and sorrow, taking us all along for the ride on our pack link.
Father’s glare roasted Steele for ruining his plans to strengthen the Lumbry line with Hester blood.
After Father drove away from the ceremony, tires burning the pavement, I paused to catch up with Steele with what went down. What brothers and best friends did.
I threw an arm over his shoulder, stretching to reach his massive six-feet-eight height, two inches on me. “You wanna talk about it?”
“I’m good,” he growled, scrubbing his jaw.
Stupid question. The man kept everything close to his chest. Barely said a word as he watched his wife shrink away from a rare cancer, except for thanking us for rallying around him to feed and care for him and his daughter.
Eighteen months back, the grim reaper came to claim his wife’s soul and took my best mate with him. After her funeral, he never spoke her name again, hid all her photos and deprived his daughter of all memories of her mother. Buried himself in work to avoid spending time with his daughter, the spitting image of his mate.
I knew something major went down when he and Heather returned from the forest, her sobbing and in tears. Rejection cracked down our link and through her heart. Guilt for still being in love with his deceased wife. First loves were hard to get over. I never moved on from Liv.
I thumped him on the shoulder, adding silent support for his decision. “You let her down gently?”
Steele stuffed his hands deep into his jeans pocket. “I told her she deserved better than me.”
Destroying their union couldn’t have been an easy decision, and all of us present at The Grove felt his heartache. All the years we’d known each other, Steele was a gentle giant, respectful of the pack’s women, and never touched the club pussy. The first to defend a woman in our bars if our enforcer was busy dealing with some other dick creating trouble. Loyal to a fault, sometimes to his own detriment.
“I disagree. You’re the best man I know.” I shook his shoulder in an attempt to rattle my words into his thick skull. “Loyal, reliable, respectful… a real fucking champion for women. Everything I’m not.”
Steele snorted, and I tightened my grip on his shoulder, worried I’d lose him again. “Umbra’s gonna put me in the Wolfsbane course for beating the shit out of Malice.”
Fuck. Scars on my wrist played testament to the many days spent navigating the rope course doused in Wolfsbane, punishment for waywardness when we were teens. Father put me through that course for weeks on end after Chase’s accident to discipline me. Daily exposure to the toxin burned my skin and it never healed properly. He claimed it was because I skipped church to ride bikes with Chase, but we all knew it for the torture it was—for Ash Lumbry losing his beloved heir.
“A round in the rope course is worth every minute of pain to avenge your mate’s assault.” I laughed, examining my inflamed knuckles, relishing the sweet crunch of Malice bone under my fist.
Father taught us to take an enemy down fast with blows to select areas or choking them. Less chance of getting seriously injured or contaminated with your opponent’s blood.
Strength diminished by the moon’s glare, I earned more blows than normal, and delivered less than warranted. Missed damn opportunity. When we found Whitney, I wouldn’t go easy on those motherfuckers, taking each one down swiftly and in cold blood, leaving no one alive.
Steele’s brown eyes met mine, paler from anguish. “I could have killed that asshole, Dash.”
I patted his chest, my hands tender from delivering lethal blows. “You didn’t for Whitney.”
He scrubbed his bearded jaw. “I might have killed her.” Fuck. Yeah. Not his retribution. Ours. Another accident to carry on my conscience. “I lost control when he hurt Heather.”
Did he ever. Steele was the calmest guy I knew. Threats to our mate and family brought out our wolf’s instincts to suppress danger before it compromised our pack.
The Wolf Moon allowed my wolf to assume complete control and behave in opposition to my human side. Aggression surged to the surface over losing our mate to that Malice mutt. Damn wolf acted possessive of Liv and declared war with the Malices if TJ touched her. Wolves functioned on instinct, and if one got in a fight, the rest defended their pack and turf, souring tensions further with the Malice mutts, proving again to my fucking father that I couldn’t be relied on.
“We all did, buddy.” I thumped every word into Steele’s breast, striving to reassure myself too. “Nobody hurts our women.”
Steele grimaced at that word. Heather was his, but he pushed her away, clinging to the ghosts of his past. I didn’t just lose a pack sister that day, I lost my best friend. Ultimately, I’d stand by whatever decision he made, but not without first attempting freedom from the shackles binding him to the past. I couldn’t bear watching him so fucking miserable and indifferent. Stand by while Abby, his five year old daughter, suffered because her dad worked like a dog and was never home. It was because I loved them that I would say this whether he liked it or not.
“You deserve happiness, buddy.” I squeezed his shoulder.
Steele’s dark, empty eyes met mine. “Don’t, Dash. Don’t tell me I need to forget her and move on.”
“I would never ask you to forget her. Never ask you to replace her. It kills me to see you so fucking miserable. I want you and Abby to be happy. To be a family again. I think Heather would be good for you. Can’t you find a place in your heart for her?”
Steele peeled himself free of my hug. “Abby’s happy,” he snapped, and crossed to his bike, throwing himself on, the suspension of his Road King bobbing under his weight.
Happy, my ass. My goddaughter told me she missed her daddy the last time I came over for beer. I picked her up and set her in my lap and held her, reassuring her she had me.
Defeated, I moved to my Honda Shadow, sat down on her and started her engine. Only Steele could break his chains. Nothing I said would force him.
Crackling thunder snapped me back to the present, where Joe Hester finished berating Steele and marched to his cabin.
Liv followed pack order, trailing behind him, ass wiggling with every step she climbed. My wolf pawed at me to fall in line behind our mate.
Father sensed my growing unease and growled a warning at me to wait for his lead. “Dash, get your ass inside. The rest of you stay out here with Steele.” His blistering look promised us hell to pay if we made another mistake tonight.
Fate and the Lunar goddess had it in for me, pairing me with Liv. Of all the damn women to match me to. The one woman I had history with. The one I didn’t deserve when I crushed her heart to dust. Bonding her to me endangered her and with more than TJ fucking Malice.
Entering that cabin sealed my fate and hers. Father would force me to take her as my mate. Force my hand to break with the damn pack to protect her and my family. An impossible choice. Love versus loyalty.
Muscles quivered at my wolf’s urging to shed our skin and contest my father. Feebleness remained from the Wolf Moon’s hold over me despite the blanket of clouds shielding me from it. Attempting any sort of challenge with Father while weak dug me an early grave. I preferred my ass alive. On a bike.
A chorus of yes, sirs rang out behind me as I dragged my ass up the stairs and entered Joe Hester’s cramped cabin.
Time to address my Lunar mate and the future that couldn’t be.
Father nudged me into line beside Liv, my elbow brushing her arm, forcing her to put three paces distance between us. Hesitance. Her wolf sensed the bomb I was about to drop. My wolf fought for position but had less of a hold over me since we left The Grove and the magnification of the circle.
Joe stilled his furious rumble at Steele and poured two whiskies, one for him, another for his fellow Umbra, leaving his daughter and me dry. Fuck. What I wouldn’t give for a drink right now to calm my nerves and drown my wolf’s agitation before he did something else we regretted.
Father got right to the point without touching his whisky, and I itched to get that fucker and wash away all the shit from this night. “Obviously, we have a difficult situation on our hands. My son and your daughter are Lunar matched when she’s promised to TJ Malice.”
None of the Umbras called him by his title. Asshole didn’t deserve it when he cowardly killed his father with a sneak attack and didn’t have the guts to challenge him as custom demanded.
“Agreed.” Joe clicked his tumbler with my father’s and threw back his finger. I always took him for a sipper rather than a shooter. “We have to handle this carefully. TJ’s a loose cannon.”
That was being too kind. A TJ torpedo covered in sharp blades that ejected ninja stars cutting down everything in his path.
Father examined his amber drink as if weighing up options before throwing it back. He never was a drinker, not even at celebrations. Sober males defend his pack, not drunken ones, he drilled into me at parties. Exceptions to that rule were meetings such as this, adhering to custom and respect for his peers.
I sighed and lowered my shoulders. Once we returned to our land, bourbon and Coke and I were going to have a nice reunion.
Thunder cracked overhead, a splitting the heavens and shake the fucking cabin kind of crack. Rain pelted the ground outside, and wood creaked as my pack brothers scrambled onto the porch for cover. Trees creaked and groaned at the wind swaying them.
Joe poured my father a deep finger of whisky then himself one, toasted his contemporary by lifting his glass, and downed it in one go. Father matched his peer and hissed, slamming his glass down. To knock back two drinks suggested the ceremony, Lunar matchings, and fight with the Malices deeply troubled Father. I didn’t stop to run through repercussions when my best friend got jumped.
Despite the foreboding of reprisals, I studied Father, curious how many drinks he’d accept. More than six, and he’d need to wait an hour for his shifter metabolism to work off his alcohol faster than a human before he was suitable to drive home. A whole bottle took a good four hours or more.
Whisky trickled from the decanter into the tumbler as Joe refilled it. “Tomorrow I will request a meeting with TJ to annul their contract. If he refuses, we will petition the Shifter Council.”
Liv’s head snapped in his direction. “What about the pack?”
My wolf rumbled with delight at his mate’s sensibility.
I ground my teeth. “Breaking the contract will put a target on Liv. Do you want to lose your heiress?” My gaze zeroed in on my father. “Start another war we can’t win?”