Chapter Eleven
COLBY
Colby strained his senses for any clue about what was happening to Tristan.
He hadn’t seemed afraid of that Bryce guy, but that didn’t mean he was safe.
There was the faint hum of voices, too low to make out.
No shouts or cries of pain. That was something, at least. But no matter what was happening to Tristan, he couldn’t stop it. He was powerless, like always.
Finally, he let himself sink onto the bale, too heartsick and wrung out to hold himself upright. If he hadn’t kissed Tristan, none of this would be happening. Tristan would still be safe.
But he had. And even through the guilt gnawing at him, a tiny corner of him, locked away somewhere deep that Nico had never been able to touch, was singing with it. Because for one moment, with Tristan, it had felt like something more than fear had lived in him. It had felt right.
He didn’t even know why he’d done it. It was like all his survival instincts had short-circuited at once. But Tristan had looked at him as if he was more than wreckage, and something inside him, reckless and wordless, had reached back.
Now, he didn’t know what came next.
Footsteps approaching the stall had him straightening up again. He stood, muscles tight, waiting.
The door swung open to reveal a muscular, dark-haired guy, broad-shouldered and quietly alert.
His eyes were incisive and assessing, and the moment their gazes met, recognition sparked.
Despite the hair falling past his collar, this man had served.
He moved like someone who’d seen combat, who still scanned for threats out of habit. Like he didn’t know how to stop.
Colby tensed instinctively under the weight of that inspection, certain the man saw more than Colby wanted him to. Everything about him said he missed nothing.
“Boss wants to see you,” he said flatly, standing back to let Colby out of the stall.
Although he’d been waiting for this moment, Colby found he wasn’t ready for it. Not now. Not after Tristan and that moment between them. But there was no undoing what was about to happen, so Colby squared his shoulders and went to meet his fate.
The guy took him into a sprawling one-story house, through a kitchen filled with the aroma of cooking meat, and down a long hallway.
At one point Colby’s step faltered, because Tristan’s scent was strong from the room they were passing.
He knew the guy with him had marked it, but he gave no sign.
Instead, he took Colby to the end of the hallway and knocked on a closed door, pushing it open when bidden.
“Boss,” he said respectfully, then stood aside, indicating to Colby to go in.
Colby had half expected the whole pack to be assembled to hear judgment and witness his sentence being carried out.
Only Urban awaited him in the small room, which was dominated by a brick chimney, with much of the rest of the space taken up by dark wood bookcases and a desk covered with papers.
Colby took it all in with one swift glance, before he lowered his gaze to the floorboards in front of the alpha.
Urban was standing with his back to the empty fireplace, his arms crossed. “That’s quite a story you spun to Tristan.”
Colby screwed his eyes closed and lowered his head further.
Fuck, Nico was right. He was more stupid than a person had a right to be and still be breathing.
Of course they’d have listened. He’d bared his soul, dirty as it was, to Tristan because he was Tristan.
The rest of them had no right to know it about him.
At that, anger started to flicker deep inside, something he hadn’t felt for so long he barely recognized it. He raised his head and didn’t prevent the instinctive curl of his lip. He was dead anyway. He might as well die with some pride intact.
“So there is a wolf in there,” Urban said. “I was beginning to wonder.”
Colby stared at him, flat and challenging. He’d had enough of this messing around. He wanted Urban to get on with it.
“I’m going to ask you again, Colby Williams—why did you come here?”
“It wasn’t by choice,” Colby said. “I didn’t think Tristan would make it back otherwise.”
“And that mattered to you because?”
Colby’s lip curled again, very slightly. Did Urban think he was really that stupid? He wasn’t going to give the man more ways to hurt him.
Urban evidently gave up on waiting for an answer. “Given there’s nothing here for you to discover that Cale doesn’t already know, I can only think you’re here to distract us while your pack mounts a sneak attack.”
What? That made no sense. Cale couldn’t afford a second failure—he’d lose the pack if he did. There was no way he’d risk another direct confrontation.
Urban wandered over to the desk and poured a glass of whiskey from the bottle sitting there. Unhurried, like a man who had nothing to fear and all the time in the world. Colby’s stomach tightened. Was this just a power play? Or some sort of ritual before execution?
Urban took a sip and looked over the rim of his glass at Colby. “Why did you get Tristan out? If there’s a shred of truth to your story, you hadn’t managed to get yourself free in three years. Why now, why him?”
Colby swallowed at the reminder of his cowardice. Hell, Urban already knew what he was. He might as well clear his soul of it before he died.
“He shamed me into it,” he confessed, his voice low but his eyes holding Urban’s gaze. “Both the way he was, even knowing what was coming down the pike at him, and when he said that if I didn’t help him, I was no better than the ones who would kill him. He was right.”
It was true, yet it wasn’t the whole truth. There’d been something else inside Colby, something he couldn’t understand, urging him to save Tristan.
Urban’s lips twisted. “Kid’s got a habit of hitting on some uncomfortable truths sometimes,” he said, before turning away and pacing to the other end of the room. “Why did Cale take him in the first place?”
Colby had already told him, but he knew better than to point that out. “It was an accident they ran into him. Nico was going to slit his throat so he couldn’t warn you they’d been in town, but then he thought he might have some information, so he brought him back for Cale to question.”
“You’re telling me Tristan survived Cale’s questioning?”
Colby shook his head emphatically. No one survived Cale’s questioning unless he wanted them to. “Cale wasn’t there,” he said. “Nico was waiting for him to come back.”
“From where?”
Colby said nothing. It was weird, how the knowledge he was going to die was so liberating.
He’d never have dared refuse Nico’s questions, but not answering Urban was less terrifying because nothing would change his fate.
Didn’t mean he wanted to rush toward it, but it would happen whatever he said or didn’t say.
“Where’s this camp of theirs?”
Colby remained silent and still.
“You want me to believe you’ve turned your back on Cale’s pack, but you’re refusing to pass on information about them. Want to tell me how that works, Colby Williams?”
“I’ve got no loyalty to them,” he said truthfully, looking into those clear green eyes that seemed to be burning into him. “But why the hell would I tell you?”
As he tensed, waiting for the blow to fall, he was startled to see Urban merely quirk an eyebrow, as if in acceptance of that point.
“If I said you’re free to go, what would you do?”
Not again. This had been one of Nico’s favorite games, offer Colby something good, only to yank it away as soon as he believed it.
“I’d leave,” he said shortly. “Get as far away from here as I could.”
“And the silver wolf?” Urban asked.
Colby frowned.
“He could be worth a fortune if the right—or wrong—people knew about him.”
“I don’t give a crap,” Colby said truthfully.
“Tristan?”
Colby stared blankly at him. “What about Tristan?”
“Is there a reason his scent is on you right now?”
Ice-cold sweat prickled down Colby’s spine at Urban’s tone. He couldn’t stop the way his tongue flicked out to moisten his lips before he spoke, even though he knew it gave him away. “It was me,” he said. “All of it. He didn’t do anything.”
He stood for the longest minute of his life under Urban’s steady, cool regard, willing him to believe it, willing him not to punish Tristan.
“I see,” Urban said at last, and wandered back across the room. Colby wondered how he could make a seemingly aimless movement feel so full of threat.
Urban took his seat in the leather chair behind his desk and gestured with his glass toward another chair. “Sit.”
Colby sat down cautiously. He didn’t know what the hell this was. Part of him wanted it to end now, but another, tiny part of him that he tried desperately to quash seemed to be telling him something else was going on here.
“You know when your pack broke in here, they nearly killed Tristan,” Urban said conversationally.
“No.” It burst out of Colby in denial, horror, and shame.
“So maybe that’s why you want to tell me about Cale’s plans and movements, because you don’t want to see him hurt again.”
It was about as subtle as Nico’s fist, but at last Colby understood what was going on. And when he thought about it, why not tell Urban everything if it kept Tristan safe? So he did.
He didn’t have much information, but he was able to tell him about the compound, the number of guards and the timing of the different watches they pulled.
How Cale was still determined to get the Argent but wouldn’t risk another frontal attack to do it, and how things were ramping up with Nico and Spence reconnoitering the town, although Colby didn’t know what they had in mind.
Urban nodded once, slow and deliberate. “Good.” Then he stood and stretched.
Colby tensed. He’d—not relaxed, exactly. But something in him had eased. He wasn’t braced anymore, not like when he first walked in. Urban hadn’t hit him or humiliated him. Instead, he’d disarmed him, and that was dangerous in a new way.
Suddenly, he didn’t want what was coming. Not after Tristan had kissed him. He thought of hazel eyes, Tristan’s lips so soft against his, not taking, not demanding, but giving. And he wanted that again. With an unexpected urgency, he wanted to live.
But it didn’t matter. Nothing would change the facts.
“I want you to shower and get the stink of Cale’s pack off you.” Urban’s eyes were flat on his, giving away nothing.
Colby’s stomach turned. Ritual? Symbolism? Or just the final insult before the death sentence?
Urban paced over to the window, looking out for the longest time.
But even with his back to Colby, he knew—Urban was aware with every part of him exactly where Colby was, what his intentions were.
He wouldn’t get within a foot of Urban before being taken down.
But maybe… maybe that would be better, a swift, clean death.
“I haven’t decided about you,” Urban said as he turned, making Colby jump. “I figure I owe you that much honesty if what you did for Tristan was genuine.”
The words made no sense. Alphas didn’t hesitate. They didn’t take their time over decisions. They decided, and they acted.
This was something else, and he didn’t understand it. What he did understand was that he’d been given a brief reprieve. Time, maybe, to see Tristan again.
“For now, you’re going back in the barn, but we’ll feed you.” Urban’s mouth tightened. “Not precisely how your pack treated Tristan, I understand.”
No, no it wasn’t. Colby’s head sank in shame. It hadn’t been his decision, but it had been his pack.
The stall was waiting for him again. At least he had the memory of Tristan’s kiss, a moment of something good.