Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
DANYAL
T here was something to be said about sleeping after a battle. I wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. My dreams were intense and powerful, sucking me deep into the pit between reality and delusion, but I also slept deeper than I ever had in my life.
I wondered if that’s what it had been like for all of the Wolves who had gone to war. I remembered how exhausted Zane was when he’d come home, and how many times he’d gone without sleep. Maybe he needed the rush in order to reach that point he could truly rest, and that was a terrifying thought.
But the worst of it was the sleep had claimed me hard enough, I didn’t wake when Arturo returned. And I hadn’t woken when he picked up Mari, the baby, half the supplies, and disappeared.
What dragged me out of the slumber was Mikael’s swearing, the way he was flinging stuff around, and then the quiet roar of frustration. I bolted upright, my eyes squinting in the dim light that was barely filtering down the tunnel from the mouth of the cave. I fixed my gaze on him, and then I realized what was wrong.
There were only two heartbeats.
“He drugged us,” Mikael spat. He shook his head, then dragged both hands down his face. “He fucking drugged us and left.”
I realized the truth of it after he said it. It wasn’t just the adrenaline crash from the night before. My limbs were sluggish, and my brain was still struggling to catch up. I tried to stand, but my legs weren’t eager to cooperate, and when Mikael noticed my struggle, he hurried over.
His hands were powerful, but his grip wasn’t what it had been before, and I could only imagine his frustration with it. He managed to get me to my feet, though, and then he produced a water bottle and shoved it into my hands. “I tested everything else,” he said, waving his hand at me. “I think Arturo had some sort of gas. I don’t think it was the food.”
I was frustrated, but a part of me understood. After everything Mari had gone through, she wasn’t about to lie low—with her newborn baby—with two Wolves she didn’t trust. Especially since that baby was the product of her and an Alpha who would not stop until he found her. I knew she wouldn’t make it easy for Kor, but that wasn’t my problem now.
“Do you want to go after them?” I asked after drinking my fill. My head was finally starting to clear, and I stepped away from him when I was sure I could stand on my own.
Mikael stared at me as his hands dropped to his sides. There was something in his gaze—almost hurt—but I couldn’t read into it. Not now. “What’s the point? He left us enough to survive on.”
That wasn’t very comforting, but Mikael was right. We couldn’t blend into a human crowd, and there was no doubt that if any of Kasher’s men had gotten away, our faces would be everywhere. Without knowing the terrain or a place to lie low, it was only asking to get caught.
“The Wolves in Paris,” he said, then stopped and let out a small, tense laugh. “Fuck, they were Wolves, weren’t they?”
“Who?”
He waved me off. “Never mind. I was staying with some Wolves in Paris. They had a flat there, and we might be able to get sanctuary with them if we can make it. But it’s a long journey, and I’m not sure I want to risk stealing a car.”
I started to pace, trying to get my blood flowing so I could shake whatever Arturo had drugged us with. “We could leave at night—run as wolves. We’d have to leave everything behind though. We can’t risk being slowed down with supplies.”
He bit his lip, then let out a long, slow sigh. “Let’s wait a little while. If we don’t get some communication from the others in a few days, we can try it on our own.”
I let out a small laugh and ruffled my hair, realizing how filthy I felt. I was still bloodied from the gunshot and from all of Mari’s afterbirth. “Do we even have a way for them to reach us?”
Mikael walked over to the small pile of supplies that Arturo had upended, and he sifted around until he came out with a phone. “I already tried to make a call on it, but it won’t go through. I’m assuming Kor will activate it when he has something for us. I could have kept trying, but I don’t want to waste the battery.”
I nodded, feeling only slightly better knowing that our Head Alpha had at least planned this far into the future. We were alone, but we weren’t abandoned. With another glance around, I saw canvas bags full of food that Arturo had clearly left—maybe his way of apologizing for what he’d done.
“He didn’t want to hurt us,” I said.
Mikael scoffed. “No, he just didn’t trust us. I want to be relieved that he took the baby off our hands, but…”
But we’d have to explain that to Kor, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. “There’s nothing we can do now.”
Mikael nodded, then he looked at me. “We should bathe. The water’s freezing, but I found some soap in one of the travel kits. You’re still wounded,” he pointed out when I opened my mouth to argue.
I passed my hand down my side and realized he was right. I was healing, but the wound wasn’t entirely closed. There was little chance of infection, but I was also a doctor, and letting it fester like this went against everything I had ever been taught.
“Okay,” I said finally. I wasn’t looking forward to getting naked in front of him. I was softer than him in all ways, unlike my body when I was younger, and he first took me in that heat. But I supposed if he still didn’t remember, there was no reason to be bothered.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he grabbed one of the packs, then he jerked his head to the side and led me through a small exit hole carved into the rock. It wound through a long tunnel, and the sound of water got louder, and then the room exploded into patches of sunlight.
High above, there were small holes, and I could see the overcast white-blue of clouds and sky. I stepped into a stream of sunlight and took in a deep breath of fresh air. I hadn’t realized how starved I was for it. Kasher hadn’t kept me for that long, but I supposed it was the promise of his little prison being all I’d know for the rest of my life that made it feel like an eternity had passed.
“Danyal,” Mikael said quietly.
I blinked, then turned to look at him. His expression was something close to curious, though he was as hard to read as ever. “Sorry. Lost in thought.”
He nodded, then gestured to the pool of running water, which was clear, but dark from the stone beneath it. “Can I ask,” he began, then cleared his throat. “Sorry, I just… How bad was it? With him?”
I took the pack from his hands and rummaged through until I found the soap, gathering my thoughts. “He didn’t hurt me the way he hurt others,” I finally said. I set the small bottle down on the side of the pool, then began to strip down without looking over at Mikael. “He needed me in one piece to help him with his research.”
Mikael hummed in thought, and I startled when I heard his own clothes hit the ground. “Why you? If he’s a genius that managed to turn Misha…why did he need you?”
“He’s dying,” I told him. I set a foot in the water, which wasn’t freezing, but it was far from tepid. I braced myself as I waded farther in, and the sharp smell of it overwhelmed my senses. “He’s losing cognizance right now. He would have known Mari was a Wolf if he hadn’t been sick.”
“But you didn’t know,” he pointed out.
I laughed, shaking my head as I finally submerged myself to the shoulders. An uncomfortable growl rolled up from my lungs, and I ignored the way he was smiling at me, his feet hanging in the water. When I scowled, he tossed me the bottle of soap and gestured for me to get on with it. “I’ve spent my life studying us, and they’re not the same. Kasher has spent his life comparing humans and Wolves. If I’d had enough time, it would have become obvious, but I’m not really sure I wanted to know.”
I lathered some of the liquid, the clean scent of lavender and spice soothing me almost instantly. I didn’t have anything to scrub with, but even the palms of my hands felt like a luxury. I could feel Mikael watching me, I could scent his arousal, and I didn’t let myself fall for it.
It would be foolish.
He and I had been through something harrowing—it was only natural that he wanted release. I just couldn’t be the Omega to give it to him.
Turning my back, I startled when I heard the sound of his body hitting the water, then a palm—cold from the spring—brushed down my arm and plucked the soap out of my free hand. “I’ll appreciate running water and hot showers for a long while after this,” he murmured, too close for comfort.
I felt my dick twitch again—my desire a long dead thing being rekindled. I wanted to rage against the unfairness of my biology, of the idiot beast inside me who couldn’t help but react to this Alpha I’d had once and continued to want to desperately. But there was no point in fighting it. He could smell my desire as clearly as I could smell his.
“Danyal?”
I didn’t turn, but I let out a small hum as I ducked low to rinse my arms off, letting him know I was present. Mostly.
“Did he hurt you?”
The fear and raw vulnerability in his voice had me turning in spite of myself. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his mouth turned down, and he was rubbing one arm absently over the other, brushing bubbles over his skin.
“Yes,” I admitted. “I was starting to wonder if I was going to make it out alive. He kept me locked up, and drugged, and half starved for two weeks. Then when he brought me here, he used Mari as a way of getting me to cooperate.”
Mikael’s eyes flared bright yellow for a moment. “How?”
I obeyed the command of his voice, my words flowing easier than I expected them to. “If I did as he asked, she was allowed to eat and sleep. If I didn’t…”
He swallowed thickly. “If you didn’t?”
“I found Yasin,” I told him, my voice very soft. “Kasher was keeping him as a dog. I knew,” my voice cracked, and I cleared my throat. “I knew that’s what they’d done to Zane. Some sort of infusions to keep him in a half-shift. He was torn to pieces, but he was alive. I don’t know how much of him was there, but I could see in his eyes he wasn’t lost. I fed him, and Kasher took it out on Mari.”
I could feel the fury rippling off Mikael in waves, like crackling electricity in the air between us. “I will kill him.”
“I think you’ll have to get in line,” I said quietly. Against my better judgment, I reached a hand out and laid it on his shoulder. He stiffened, but only for a moment, and then he leaned ever so subtly against my grasp. “Why did you come for me?”
He turned his head, staring at me for a long second, but I couldn’t read his expression. “We should get dressed,” he said after a beat.
My heart sank to my toes, but I nodded anyway. He was right. This was no time to be analyzing why he was there. I waded to the edge of the pool, then pulled myself onto the ground. We had no towels, so I did the only thing that made sense, and I shifted.
My bones ached with how long it had been, but the moment my paws hit the ground, it was like a breath of relief. All the aches in my body immediately began to lift, and I was comforted by the scent of my mate.
He was close, but not close enough—still human.
It was easier to process, though, as I shook myself over and over. My fur settled, damp but not soaked, and the sun coming through the holes in the roof warmed me to the skin beneath my coat. I stiffened when I heard his bare feet padding across the cave floor, but when he sank fingers into my fur, I rumbled.
He spoke, the words of a human tongue lost to me, but it didn’t matter. His tone told me he was glad to be there—that he wouldn’t have been anywhere else. I could taste him in the air as I opened my mouth and panted. He was pleased. My mate was pleased.
Fatigue stole over me again, the healing deeper than I realized it would be, and I sank to the ground. I felt him stretch out beside me, and when I rested my chin on the cut of his hip, his long fingers stroked along my ears.
For the first time in so long—in decades—even trapped in a cave away from my family, I was content.
I woke from my unintended nap with human arms and legs and entirely alone. Mikael had been kind enough to ball the pack up under my head, and sleeping in the stream of sun had kept me warm. The last vestiges of Arturo’s drugs were finally out of my system, and all that was left from the bullet was a fine scar that I knew would fade with time. Pushing up to sit, I sniffed the air, then trained my ears toward the caves, but I couldn’t find Mikael’s heartbeat. I knew he wouldn’t have left me, and I knew that if he’d been taken, they would have found me too.
I hoped he wasn’t reckless enough to venture out, but I didn’t know whether or not he was. He was a stranger to me—mate or not. I had connected to him in that perfect way most Wolves never got to experience, but it was severed too soon.
My heart ached a little again, but it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. I opened the pack to find a clean set of clothes—a t-shirt and a pair of sweats. It wasn’t the most realistic outfit for hiding out, but the fabric was soft and smelled a little bit like Kor.
Hugging my arms around my body, I gathered our supplies, then made my way back to the main cave just in time to see a sleek black Wolf dragging the hind of a deer along the ground, past the mouth of our sitting area. The scent of death and blood was overwhelming for a second, but I followed him anyway, to the second cave where I heard the very start of a crackling fire.
I stepped in just in time to see Mikael assume his human form—changing shapes with a grace most Wolves didn’t have. He didn’t bother dressing either, though he knew I was there.
“Can you cook?” he asked after a beat.
I laughed. “Not well.”
He frowned at the deer, then shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Kor didn’t leave us with seasoning.” He reached into the pack by the side of the fire and pulled out a long knife. “And at least that asshole left us something to defend ourselves with.”
I lifted a brow at him as I crossed over and knelt down. There was the smallest hole in the ceiling of the cave, and the smoke was gathering at the top. “Won’t someone see us?”
He followed my gaze, then shrugged. “I did a little exploring, and we’re in the middle of nowhere. Unless it looks like a forest fire, I think they’ll leave us alone.”
I wished I’d been able to share some of his confidence, but every time I breathed out, fear of being captured again gripped me. They might still go easy on me, but Mikael…
“Your heart is racing,” he said softly as he began to skin the meat.
I swallowed and shook my head. “I wish we knew whether or not they had Kasher. If he got his hands on you…”
“I’d rip his throat out,” Mikael said, like it was as simple as that. “You said he’s dying.”
“He doesn’t work alone,” I reminded him. “I let myself think our problems would be solved if they caught him, but…”
“He’s manipulated governments all over the world into thinking we need to be tamed. His version of tamed,” Mikael said flatly.
I bowed my head and let out a breath. “They’d use me for everything they could, and then they’d kill me. They’d turn you into an attack dog, just like they did with Yasin and Zane.”
Mikael bit the inside of his cheek so hard, I could see the outline of his cheekbone. “Before I left Mexico, I found out Alexei Kasher was making a bid for president. He’s running on the platform that the current president is too weak to do what is necessary—to combine governments.”
My stomach twisted. “Marion…”
“He’s likely in Kasher’s pocket,” Mikael said. He pulled a long roasting spit from behind the fire, then threaded several chunks of meat around it before resting it just above the flames. “Kasher probably promised him immunity so long as he conceded.”
“Has he?” I couldn’t help but ask. I hadn’t been gone long, but it was long enough for all of these dominoes to begin falling.”
“I don’t know,” Mikael admitted. “When I left, he hadn’t made a public statement, but that won’t last. Kor and Misha were listed as public enemies, and they’ve gone into hiding. Kor has some plan up his sleeve, but this one he’s refusing to share.”
I sucked in a breath. “What about Zane?” I’d been too afraid to ask for details, but the fact that Kasher hadn’t used my brother to taunt me spoke volumes. He’d escaped.
“He’s still in Canada with Orion, and the last time I spoke with Kor, he said he and Orion were planning to head back to Corland.” Mikael went quiet a long moment. “Kor wants Zane to take over as Head Alpha until he returns, but Nadya sent footage of your brother…” he stopped, but he didn’t need to finish.
I’d seen what happened to the feral Wolves under Kasher’s command.
“I’m sure they’ve already come to this conclusion, but there will be problems if that goes public.” Mikael stretched his legs out, then leaned back on his arms.
I regarded him, trying to read him, but he was once again entirely closed off. “Would you follow him?”
“Knowing what I know about him—knowing what kind of fighter he is, knowing what Kasher put him through?” Mikael shrugged. “Without question.”
“But not if he was a stranger,” I said. I felt defensive of my brother, but my logic understood. It was impossible for me to separate that from Zane, though. He had been there from my birth, and I had never known a world without him. I didn’t want to know a world without him or Talia. And it didn’t matter what he had done, or what he might do. I would follow him to the ends of the earth.
“I will be there to support him,” Mikael said, clearly reading my face. “Unless he chooses to step down, he has my loyalty.”
I stared at him a long time, trying to reconcile this man with the indifferent one whose gaze had passed over me like I was nothing. I had already lost the war trying to forget the Alpha in a rut that had made me feel like I had ascended to the heavens, but he was not that Wolf now.
He felt even stranger to me than before.
Mikael pulled the meat from the skewer. It was rare, but it appealed to the animal side of me, and it was oddly comforting to eat with my hands, to allow my fangs to drop and tear the flesh with them, and know the man watching me wouldn’t think I was a beast.
I was allowed to exist as both sides of my shift, and to Mikael—for all that he had rejected me as a mate—I was still whole.
“I’m sorry you suffered,” he said when his plate was clear.
I looked up at him in surprise, but I nodded all the same. There was no point in telling him that I could have suffered much worse—that other Wolves around me had. I knew I would feel the effects of my capture soon, once I was safe again.
There was a long road again. This was no more than the calm before the storm.