Chapter Nine #2
Clint didn’t reply, but his mate didn’t budge either, just hovered a step behind with his hand tangled in Mabel’s scruff. Maybe the cat was meant to be an emotional support companion in case Bayne lost his mind during the altercation.
Hopefully he wouldn’t need it.
Pounding at the door rattled the hinges. Hell of a way to wreck a postcoital nap.
Bayne pressed his palm flat against the wood, body blocking the entrance. From the other side of the door came silence. Whoever this was, they waited with the patience of someone who’d spent years on stakeout.
Shifting his weight, he let his voice drop to a threatening tone and barked out, “Who the fuck is it?”
A pause. Then, a voice said, “Zeppelin.”
Not a trace of nerves in the voice, just solid calm and the kind of confidence Bayne recognized from the mirror every morning.
Zeppelin Mafari.
Vaughn had mentioned that name. Alpha. Supposedly Bayne’s.
He nearly snorted. The thought alone made his stomach knot.
No way was anyone outside this door his alpha.
That wasn’t how this worked. Even if the wolf in him responded with a flicker of recognition, Bayne could ignore it the same way he ignored spam calls.
Hand braced tight on the trim, Bayne kept his stance wide. “You’ve got ten seconds to get off my porch, Zeppelin, before I gut you.”
On the other side of the door, wood creaked. Zeppelin shifted his weight, boots scraping against the step. The scent rolling off him grew sharper, blue smoke over old leather, dust and pine needles stuck to denim. It shoved at Bayne’s resolve, as if the fucker wanted inside every molecule of air.
But there wasn’t any panic, not even impatience. Zeppelin spoke with the same, slow calm. “Heard you’d made it out of there alive. Good to know.”
Bayne watched his own hand flex on the doorframe, knuckles gone white. Control was a joke. The wolf in him wanted to rip the barrier off its hinges and end things in one clean snap.
Instead, he ground his teeth and kept his voice even. “I’m just fine where I am. Not interested in whatever version of the truth you’re selling.”
Clint’s voice, nervous but determined, sounded from just behind Bayne’s shoulder. “Maybe you should let him talk,” he said, not quite a whisper, not quite an argument. “He came all this way.”
Bayne didn’t dignify that with a response. Human logic had no place here. If anything, it made him want to dig in deeper.
Still, the last thing he needed was his mate getting caught in the crossfire. Bayne’s hand remained on the door, keeping Clint safely behind him.
Out on the porch, Zeppelin’s tone stayed measured. “I’m not here to hurt you or your mate, Bayne. I just want to bring you home where you belong.”
Bayne let go of the last shreds of politeness. “This is home now. You want to bring someone somewhere, try the stray dog shelter. Otherwise, get the fuck off my property.”
To his left, Clint made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a curse. “Look, I don’t know your history,” he said, stepping closer. “But you don’t have to slam the door on every old connection. Maybe you could listen, just this once. For me…please.”
Damn it. How could Bayne refuse his mate anything? Just staring into those beautiful brown eyes had him ready to comply with whatever Clint wanted.
I’m down bad.
Fine. If the universe was going to conspire against him, he could play along for a minute. That’s all Zeppelin was getting. One minute and no more.
Bayne drew in a shaky breath, lungs burning with equal measures of anger and the alpha’s scent worming its way in.
Fragments of memory danced around, just out of reach.
He caught a flash: a night like this, porch light buzzing overhead, hands stained with blood, voices shouting from the dark.
Another image, less vivid but sticky with fear—the sickly chemical tang of something being injected, the way it numbed his limbs and blurred the edges of time.
Bayne didn’t want to remember.
But his wolf did.
Out loud, he growled, “Last warning. If you walk away now, I’ll let you go with your pride intact. You make me come out there, I’ll bury you under the flowerbeds.”
“We don’t have any flowerbeds,” Clint whispered.
Bayne glanced at his mate, ready to glare at him but winked instead. Just because Bayne was ready to go to war didn’t mean he had to take out his anger on his mate.
Clint blushed. “Just saying.”
Zeppelin’s reply came steady. “I’m not leaving. Not until you remember where you truly belong.”
It was like talking to a stone wall. Bayne would’ve appreciated the stubbornness any other time. Now, it just made things worse.
Another glance over his shoulder found Clint with his hands fisted. So much for flirting. “Maybe you should just face him. Neither Zeppelin nor Vaughn came at you crazy, Bayne. If they were the enemy, they would’ve shown some kind of aggression, even if it was microscopic.”
Every instinct said this was a bad idea. Maybe the worst idea.
Still, Bayne’s hand found the latch and twisted. The old door groaned open, sunlight spilling across the entryway. He stepped forward, pushing Clint just inside, where it was safe.
If one of them went down today, it wasn’t going to be his mate.
Wind brushed over the sweat on his chest, cooling it so fast his skin prickled.
At the end of the porch, Zeppelin waited, arms folded, posture loose in the way of someone who knew tension only when it was time to kill.
Sunlight carved deep lines into his face and caught the highlights in his hair.
He could’ve been anyone’s threat, but the wolf in Bayne whimpered instead of growled.
One look at the guy and a switch was thrown, Bayne’s mind blown open so hard it hurt.
All the stuff he’d thought was wiped clean came stampeding back in.
Not one thing at a time either. It ripped through him all together, memories crowding in, a rush he’d have given anything to keep out.
But there it was, impossible to stop, impossible to forget, and no time to brace for the flood.
Junkies in a rotting house, windows cracked or broken. Hands holding him down while something burning hot jammed into his side. Pain. Excruciating pain. The taste of blood in his mouth. He’d fought. Lost. Fought again, and this time he’d made it hurt for anyone who touched him.
Blinding light. Broken leg. Running, desperate, chest ready to tear. He remembered shifting, the world shattering and settling back again. Every limb had felt leaden, every thought scrambled.
Chemical heat burning up his veins and not the good kind. Not the kind that brought a wolf to the surface and fixed what was broken. This was dirty, sticky evil, made by men who didn’t care what happened to bodies once souls had moved out.
A skip in time. Forest gone, replaced by a living room. Clint’s hands, steady on the wound. A voice, low and soothing. That had kept Bayne anchored, somehow, until the worst of it passed.
He only realized now how close he’d come to forgetting everything, not just the faces of strangers in a drug house but his own damn existence.
But Zeppelin…yes, Bayne knew him. Maybe more than that. Not friend, not lover. Pack. The word soured on his tongue.
“Stop!” Pain stabbed the back of his skull hard enough to buckle his knees. He gripped his head, trying to shut it out, but the memories kept coming. Glass on the floor. Growling, not his own. Hunger. Rage so deep it hissed behind his teeth, ready to bite down on anyone who tried to chain him up.
They were making him pay, making him suffer for trying to deceive them. The syringe. The drug. The pain. Bayne didn’t want to remember. Didn’t want to think about how much he’d enjoyed the high, even if his body had been crippled.
Not liquid wrath. Something else. Something stronger.
Something that had wiped his memory clean.
The world folded in on itself, black dots crowding out sunlight. Bayne dropped, knees cracking against the porch, hands on his head, eyes squeezed shut.
Loud as a gunshot, Clint cried his name, voice shaking loose some corner of Bayne’s awareness. Maybe that wasn’t enough, because the next sound he heard was another voice, this one low and carrying the edge of command.
“Bayne. Listen to me. Follow my voice.”
His wolf recognized the command, trembled under it. That was what being alpha meant. Not some ceremonial title. Authority. Comfort. A way out of the spiral if you cared to take it. The tone carried right through the mess in Bayne’s skull, snapping every strand of panic.
He drew air into his lungs, ragged and hot, and forced his head up. Shadows danced over the porch, but Zeppelin crouched in front of him, one hand outstretched like he was about to steady a wounded dog and didn’t want to lose his fingers.
No attack. No gloating. Just patience, brown eyes locked on Bayne’s face. “You’re not alone,” Zeppelin said, softer this time. “You made it out. You survived enough hell for one lifetime.”
Tears stung Bayne’s eyes. Salt clung to his lips. He spat, surprised at the tang of copper there. He’d bitten his lip, his teeth sinking deep enough to draw blood.
Clint’s voice called again. Louder. “Bayne! Please come back.”
He managed a nod, though it cost him. His hands shook as he pressed them to the porch rail, forcing himself upright. Zeppelin didn’t move, just knelt there like a patient idiot, waiting for Bayne to stop acting like a rabid animal.
Ten years he’d fought for his sobriety, white-knuckling through every craving, and those assholes had shattered it in a single night.
Now Bayne knew why he didn’t want to remember. Wished to god he hadn’t. His brain had been protecting him, but Vaughn and Zeppelin forced him to face what happened.
“See?” Zeppelin said. “That’s what pack is for. Getting you out when the rest of the world wants you dead or brainless.”
Bayne shook his head. “I’m not interested in pack.”
Not when it had been Zeppelin who’d sent him into that horror show.
“Believe it or not, that doesn’t change the facts.” Zeppelin eased back, resting on his heels, his voice dry as winter. “Doesn’t matter if you deny it. We’re in your blood, same as you’re in ours.”
Sunlight burned off the last of the black spots crowding Bayne’s vision. Next to him, the door eased open, and Clint crept onto the porch, eyes wide but hands steady. The man held a roll of gauze in his fist, as if he planned to patch up the universe if things went south.
The pain in Bayne’s head started to settle, replaced by the rush of memories that might actually belong to him. They were ugly, but they were his.
Bayne refused to let go of the porch rail, but he could feel the adrenaline leeching out of his body, leaving him empty and maybe a little pissed off at himself.
A quiet fell in the yard. Far off, a lawnmower droned. Zeppelin looked like maybe he’d stay here all night if that’s what it took.
Finally, Bayne straightened and squared his shoulders. “I don’t need you here. You did your job, Zeppelin. I’m safe. You can leave now.”
Zeppelin studied him hard, as if reading every flick of pain behind Bayne’s eyes. “You’re a stubborn ass, Bayne Farina. Always have been.” He took a step back, giving Bayne space as if that might fix anything. “You may run, but you’re not lost. You’re just on pause.”
If the moment hadn’t sucked so completely, Bayne might’ve laughed. Instead, he wiped sweat from his brow and drew in the scent of his mate behind him. Lavender. Bayne’s anchor.
“Leave,” he said to Zeppelin. “I’m where I belong.”
Bayne laced his fingers with Clint’s and walked his mate inside the house, closing the door on a life he no longer wanted.
Now that he knew the truth, knew how he’d ended up in Clint’s yard, he felt something inside him settle for the first time in years.
Bayne was perfectly content right where he was. With his mate and a judgmental cat.
* * * *
Zeppelin stood motionless on the porch, teeth worrying his bottom lip. The door’s slam still echoed in his ears. He’d run through a dozen scenarios for this reunion, but Bayne’s cold dismissal hadn’t been among them.
A knot formed in his chest. He deserved it. He’d been the one who’d signed off on sending Bayne undercover, despite knowing the guy’s history with addiction. Bayne had insisted he could handle it—could wear the junkie mask without becoming one again—and Zeppelin had believed him.
His mistake. His responsibility.
Pack meant protection, but it also meant respecting choices.
If Bayne had found his place with his vet, Zeppelin wouldn’t force him back into a life he’d rejected.
Time might heal the rift, or it might not.
Either way, the bond remained. Silent, invisible, but unbreakable.
If trouble came, Zeppelin and the others would be there, whether Bayne acknowledged them or not.
That light in Bayne’s honey-colored eyes, though… Even through the anger, Zeppelin had seen it. A contentment he’d never witnessed before in Bayne.
Something real and precious.
His exhale felt like sandpaper against his lungs.
He crossed to his motorcycle, swung his leg over the seat, and kicked up the stand with more force than necessary.
The metallic clang split the afternoon quiet.
The engine roared to life beneath him, and Zeppelin let its rumble drown his thoughts as he pointed the bike toward home.