Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-eight
COLBY
Matt and Karl were at the kitchen table, mugs and plates in front of them. The normality of it, the everyday comfort, made what had just happened feel even more unreal.
Colby’s ribs ached, and his jaw throbbed. But mostly, he just felt bone-tired. Like even moving was too much effort.
Matt’s eyes rested searchingly on each of them as they came in. Once Bryce had closed the door, he spoke. “Tell me.”
Colby dragged out a chair and sat, before his unsteady legs betrayed him. He wasn’t afraid, not anymore, but he was shaking, and he didn’t know why.
“He showed up, and Bryce ran him off.” His voice felt like gravel in his throat. “He’s gone. For now.” Because in that clearing, it had become sickeningly clear that Nico was never going to stop coming for him.
As if that weren’t enough, he was going to have to deal with the shame that Bryce had seen the depth of his fear.
Matt’s eyes narrowed. “Anyone hurt?”
Colby shook his head. He had to get this out, tell Matt everything, and then maybe he could find a corner where he could curl up and never have to move again.
“He tried to get me to go with him. Said if I brought him the silver wolf, he’d—he wouldn’t make—Tristan.”
His voice broke. He couldn’t say it. To think of Tristan at Nico’s mercy… New shudders ripped through him, and he had to wrap his arms around himself to stop from flying apart.
Tristan reached for him, his hand on his back, steady and sure.
Matt looked between them, jaw tight. “So he’s still after Jesse.” Something flickered over his face. “And even though he’s been chased off for now, he knows we have an Argent here.”
“Shit, Matt,” Bryce said. “I’m sorry—I didn’t think. I just wanted to get to my kid, make sure he was okay, and—”
“I get it,” Matt said. “But the problem remains. If he tells someone…”
A chair scraped.
Colby turned to see Karl pushing back from the table, his expression unreadable. He didn’t say anything. He just slipped out the back door.
Tristan frowned. “Where’s he going?”
Matt didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “To tie up a loose end.”
Colby stared at the door Karl had gone through, a knot tightening in his chest. Whatever Karl was going to do, he hoped it would be enough.
He seemed to lose time, too exhausted to follow Bryce and Matt’s conversation. Tristan’s voice in his ear, his hand on his arm as he urged Colby to stand, broke through, and he let Tristan take his hand and gently tug him away from the kitchen, back to the sanctuary of their room.
And there, Colby needed suddenly to be alone.
He loved Tristan more than anything, but he was falling apart and Tristan would hold him together.
Right now, that wasn’t what Colby wanted.
He craved space just to be. Not to have to think about what had happened, about what Karl was going to do, and not to face Tristan’s worried gaze.
The bathroom door clicked shut behind him, and Colby leaned back against it, keeping his mind empty and concentrating on breathing.
Eventually, he straightened. He didn’t feel ready to, but that didn’t matter. Like he’d told Tristan—one foot in front of the other.
He peeled off his shirt, wincing as pain sparked through his ribs. There was a smear of blood on the cotton that he couldn’t place. Maybe his, maybe Nico’s. Didn’t matter. He’d wash it out before he gave the shirt back to Karl.
Under the shower, he turned it hotter. Not enough to scald, to punish, the way Nico had sometimes done. He just wanted the heat. Wanted it to seep through skin and bone, all the way to the cold place inside him—the one that had been there ever since he’d scented Nico.
His bruises came alive under the water, and his knuckles stung, a constant reminder of what he’d done. He’d said no. And he was still here.
When he turned off the water, the mirror was a blank pane of fog. He wiped it clear with the side of his hand, and his reflection stared back, bruised and pale. His eyes were too dark, his mouth too tight. But he was standing.
He didn’t feel proud. He didn’t feel strong. Just, less worried. Like something inside him had stopped bracing for impact.
When they find out what you really are. Nico’s parting words surfaced briefly, but he shook his head, denying them. That was what Nico wanted, for him to doubt himself. To doubt Tristan. He knew what Colby was, and he was still here. And no words, however venomous, would ever change that.
Reaching for the clothes on the hamper, he remembered that he was allowed a towel now. Nico had loved to fuck him wet from the shower. Very deliberately, he took a towel from the rack and dried every inch of himself. His body, not Nico’s. Not even Tristan’s. Just his.
The bedroom door was still closed when he stepped out. Tristan was on the edge of the bed, back straight, hands resting on his knees like he hadn’t moved since Colby shut the bathroom door. He instantly lifted his head, rising uncertainly to his feet.
Colby didn’t say anything, just walked toward him, and Tristan met him halfway.
They held one another, arms a little too tight, a little too desperate, until Colby’s ribs complained too loudly for him to ignore any longer.
He made a sound, and Tristan instantly loosened his grip. “Sorry,” he said softly.
“Don’t be,” Colby said. “Let’s go outside.”
Outside, where the air was fresh and clean. Where he’d breathed it in and said no.
The kitchen was empty, as was the yard. Porch boards creaked under their feet, and in the distance, a horse whinnied.
Chaos was curled on the porch like a sentry. She lifted her head as they came out, and when they sat down, she settled herself at Colby’s side, nudging his arm until he dropped a hand onto her neck. And then all three of them sat quietly.
TRISTAN
They stayed on the porch longer than he’d meant to—long enough for the sun to swing across the sky, for Jesse to wander past grumbling about goat prints on the roof of the chicken coop, and for Chaos to doze against Colby’s leg like a hairy little heat source.
Tristan went inside when his stomach reminded him they’d skipped lunch. Colby stayed out there, and Tristan was both a little sad and pleased that Colby no longer felt he had to follow his lead in everything.
By the time a familiar truck rumbled up the long driveway, the light had started to change, edging toward sunset. Tristan glanced out the front window and felt something loosen in his chest—Bryce was home.
He went out to meet him, instead of waiting for him to come inside.
He’d like to have this conversation where Colby wouldn’t overhear it.
Not because he was saying anything he was ashamed of, or wanted to keep secret from him, but because he thought Colby might be embarrassed to know they were talking about him.
“Hey.” He descended the front steps before Bryce reached them. Bryce looked worn and tired, with dark shadows under his eyes, and Tristan remembered he’d patrolled through the night before heading to work.
He also remembered the way Bryce had stood against Nico, the cold, pulsating fury and the command in him that—well, Tristan was kind of glad he hadn’t seen it in Bryce before, because otherwise he’d always have done his homework on time.
Bryce was so much more than simply Tristan’s source of comfort, and he’d never really known it. Not until now.
“I’ll get you a coffee in a sec, but can I have a word first?”
Bryce, easygoing as ever, just shrugged. “Sure. Let me sit down—might fall down otherwise.”
Once settled on the porch, Tristan found he wasn’t sure quite how to broach the subject. “Thanks for this morning,” he said, once the silence had gone on a little too long. “I don’t know how you found us.”
“Followed the yelling,” Bryce said with a tired smile.
“How the hell did he get past Matt and Karl?” Tristan asked.
Bryce sighed and rubbed at his forehead.
“You know how many hundreds of acres we have to cover, and he’s pretty damn skillful.
Not Karl-level, but not far off. I guess he waited and made his move when Karl and Matt called it a night.
” The fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were suddenly more pronounced.
“I’m still not sure why I didn’t go back with them, but thank God I didn’t. ”
“Yeah,” Tristan agreed. “If you hadn’t come along, I’m not sure what would have happened.” He shivered suddenly, something cold trickling down his spine.
Bryce glanced at him. “One thing I know, you wouldn’t have been hurt. Colby wouldn’t allow it.”
And there was his opening. God bless Bryce, who always seemed to read what someone needed. “Yeah, about that,” Tristan said softly. “You said he was ‘one of ours’ this morning.”
“Meant it,” Bryce said. “Still do.”
Warmth flowered in Tristan’s chest. Bryce had finally seen Colby for who he was—brave and beautiful in the way that, despite his fear, he'd stood solidly between Tristan and danger. But even with that warmth, Tristan shivered as he thought about that morning.
He thought he’d known what Nico was capable of, but up close, it had been worse even than his imaginings.
Both ugly and intimate, and deeply personal.
That moment when Nico had stepped toward him, when his voice had gone quiet, when he’d promised Colby would hear every scream—Tristan had felt it.
Not just fear. Terror. It wasn’t gone yet.
And he couldn’t say a word of this to Colby, who’d somehow lived with it for three years.
“Nico looked at me,” Tristan said quietly, almost more to himself than to Bryce, “like he was already deciding what he’d do to me.”
Bryce didn’t say anything. He just sat there beside him, his presence solid and comforting.
“I thought I understood what he was,” Tristan added. “But I didn’t. Not until today.”
Bryce let out a slow breath. “You shouldn’t have had to find out that way. Hell, you should never have had to find out at all.”
He bumped Bryce’s shoulder with his, knowing Bryce would understand the gratitude and love behind it.
“Anyway,” he said. “What I meant to say was, you weren’t completely wrong.”
Normally, Bryce would have been all over a statement like that, protesting at Tristan’s grudging admission—they both knew Bryce was always one hundred percent right. But now, he simply raised his eyebrows encouragingly.
“I mean, about Colby,” Tristan said. “You didn’t see him clearly, not all of him, but you saw what I couldn’t. He’s got a harder path to climb than I understood.”
He hesitated, then ploughed on determinedly.
He needed to get this out. “I figure there are things he needs to deal with that I don’t know about.
Maybe things he doesn’t even know yet. And I want to be there for all of it, I do.
But if ever he needs something I can’t help with, or someone to talk to who’s not me, I hope he can have you. ”
Bryce’s eyes were tired but warm and soft on Tristan’s. “Of course he can. And when it gets complicated—and it will—he’s going to need someone who can help him make sense of it. Someone trained, who can walk him through it and steady him when we can’t. We’ll both still be right beside him.”
Tristan blinked back sudden dampness in his eyes. “One thing I know,” he said. “He won’t stop fighting.”
Bryce gripped Tristan’s shoulder. “I saw that this morning. But even fighters need someone who can help them heal, not just hold it together. What you give him—it matters. It keeps him reaching forward instead of just hanging on. But with what he’s been through, he deserves every kind of help we can get him. ”
Tristan didn’t answer right away, but his throat worked like he was trying to swallow something that wouldn’t go down. He nodded, once.
“Thanks, Bryce.” Inadequate words, but he knew Bryce heard all the ones left unspoken.
They sat a moment longer, then Bryce stretched. “If that’s all, there’s a coffee yodeling my name in the kitchen.”
Before Bryce could head off in search of coffee, Tristan pulled him into a hug. Things had changed between them. But not the important ones.