16. Val
Val
The pounding on Harley’s door hits hard enough to rattle straight through the apartment, jerking both of us violently out of the hazy, overheated bliss we’ve collapsed into after sex.
One second I’m still half draped over Harley’s couch, his taste lingering on my tongue while my own body slowly floats back down from the most overwhelming orgasm of my life.
The next, adrenaline slams through me so sharply that my wolf snarls awake for the first time in weeks.
“Get in the bathroom,” I order. “Whoever’s trying to tear your door off its hinges isn’t a friend.”
“I don’t have friends,” Harley says, his eyes huge in his face. “Besides you.”
He stands, then stops after taking a few steps. Turning back toward me, he runs a hand through his hair.
“I have a brother, but we’re not super close—maybe because he’s a lot older than me. Well, eleven years. I don’t see him regularly, but he’s always been okay to me. His name is Ryder. We had different dads, and our mom was kind of a mess.”
A very bad feeling settles in my gut.
Very bad.
“Does he look like you?”
Harley starts back toward me.
“No. He’s a lot bigger.” He frowns. “Why?”
I glance around for my bag, finally spotting it on the floor. The pounding on the door continues, loud enough to rattle my nerves. Whoever is out there isn’t giving up.
I grab the bag and dig through it until I find a pair of sweats.
“The shifter in the alley,” I say as I yank them on. “He said some things...”
The memory is frustratingly slippery. I know he said something important, but the blow to my head muddled more than I realized. I can still picture him—huge, filthy, angry as hell—but the words refuse to come together properly.
Another crash shakes the apartment.
Harley’s shoulders jump.
Mine do, too.
I drag the sweats up the rest of the way and look toward the front door, every instinct I have screaming that something isn’t right.
“Bathroom. Now,” I tell Harley again.
This time I don’t bother trying to soften the order.
Another series of heavy bangs shakes the door. Whoever stands outside isn’t politely knocking. It sounds aggressive enough that instinct immediately pushes me upright despite the protest from my leg and the lingering weakness in my muscles after climax.
“Fuck,” Harley whispers.
I agree wholeheartedly. The pounding comes again.
“Harley!”
The voice on the other side startles both of us. But by the look on Harley’s face the voice is familiar to him, and I’m judging that by the way his expression shifts instantly from fear to mortified horror.
“Oh my God,” Harley groans, dragging both hands over his face. “It’s my brother.”
Relief floods through me so abruptly that my knees nearly weaken all over again. Then confusion follows immediately after, because Harley’s brother apparently believes in knocking on doors like a SWAT team.
“Why’s he trying to break the damn thing down?” I mutter.
“Because he’s dramatic,” Harley hisses back while frantically searching the floor for his clothes. “And because he probably heard me screaming.”
I blink once.
Then twice.
“Well.” I clear my throat. “You were pretty loud.”
Harley throws a sock at me.
I catch it automatically, and the ridiculousness of the situation nearly makes me laugh despite the lingering tension still humming beneath my skin.
A few minutes ago Harley was spread beneath me and over me and around me in every possible way, moaning my name like it meant something sacred.
Now we’re scrambling around naked because family apparently has catastrophic timing.
“Open the fucking door, Harley! I know he’s in there! You aren’t safe!”
“I’m alive!” Harley shouts back finally. “Jesus Christ! Hold up, I’ll be there in a sec! Guess it’s a damn good thing no one else is on our floor,” Harley says. “And what the hell does he mean?”
I move to the door and join him.
“Can I take a look?”
Harley steps aside. The moment I peek through, I get an eyeful of a familiar snarling, angry man.
Shit.
“Harley,” I begin, trying to figure out the best way to tell him his brother is a shifter.
“Let me open the door, Val. Step back, okay? Or, or wait in the bathroom, maybe? He sounds like he’s really angry, like he knows you’re here and that’s just weird.”
Harley starts undoing the locks while he talks, but I don’t leave. There’s no point. Ryder already knows I’m here.
“At least he quit banging on the damn door. Shit, I don’t know what to tell him about what happened to me.”
I step back anyway, and so does Harley when he releases the final lock. The door flies inward with enough force that it would’ve seriously hurt us if we’d still been standing there.
“You fucking freak!”
Ryder’s eyes darken as they lock on me.
“I won’t let you do it!” He lunges.
Harley is shoved aside and then Ryder is ploughing into me.
“You fucking smell like him! What did you do? What did you do!”
I can’t even answer. I’m too busy trying to keep from having my brains pounded out through my ears. Ryder is in a full-blown rage.
The strange thing is, I probably should be furious myself, but mostly I feel sorry for him. His fear for Harley is palpable. Between what he’s yelling now and what he said in the alley earlier, I’m beginning to think both brothers were done very wrong by shifters.
That’s something Marcus needs to know. As soon as possible.
“Get off him, Ryder! Stop!”
Harley launches himself into the fight, and suddenly I’m more afraid of accidentally hitting him than I am of Ryder killing me.
“God damn it, Ry! What the hell is wrong with you? Leave him alone, I mean it! Stop or get out!”
I don’t want to cause trouble between them, but I can’t leave Harley. Maybe I’m not feeling the full force of the mate bond, but I feel something powerful enough.
Ryder’s anger doesn’t ease. If anything, it gets worse. His canines lengthen and death gleams in his eyes. Hoping I can appeal to the wolf inside him, I stop fighting. Slowly, deliberately, I arch my neck and bare it to the stronger beast.
I’d been right before. Ryder is an alpha through and through. He should be leading a pack somewhere. Instead, if my suspicions are correct, he could become a very dangerous enemy.
“No!”
Harley’s scream echoes through the apartment. He tackles his brother and the two of them go down in a tangle of arms and legs.
Only then do I realize Harley is still naked.
I roll to my side and grab him as he straddles Ryder’s chest. Ryder isn’t fighting Harley. He’s glaring daggers at me instead.
“What the fuck have you done to my little brother?” Ryder growls, his massive hands curled into fists. “I swear to whatever damn god allowed freaks like us to be, I’ll kill you.”
“Ryder?” Harley says hesitantly as I help pull him to his feet. “Ryder, what…? What do you mean, freaks like us?”
Harley looks at me. Fear and anger are rolling off him strongly enough that even I can’t miss them.
“What happened to him? He’s one of you, isn’t he?”
I nod.
“I don’t know any more than that, Harley. I didn’t know the shifter following us was your brother. I—”
“Fuck you,” Ryder snarls, surging effortlessly to his feet. “Fuck you, whoever you are. I can see you didn’t bite Harley, otherwise I’d kill you right now no matter what he said.”
What happens next shocks the hell out of me.
Apparently, it shocks Ryder, too because Harley slaps him and it’s fast enough that all I really see is a blur. Ryder’s head jerks sideways. His eyes go wide and he cups his cheek.
“Harley?” he says, suddenly sounding uncertain. “You hit me.”
Harley turns a faint shade of green and shakes out his hand.
“I’m sorry, unless you really mean to hurt Val, then I’m not. I can’t explain it, but you can’t hurt him without hurting me, Ryder. He’s not like the others, like the ones who broke in here and took me. Val, and some of the other shifters I met, they’re…they’re good.”
“Right,” Ryder scoffs. “They’re all fucking animals. I should know since I’m one, too. Fucking doped me at the bar and turned me, left me alone and—”
He cuts himself off and points at me. “You’re one of them.”
“Stop it,” Harley snaps, slapping Ryder’s hand aside. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Are you so lost in your anger you can’t listen to reason?”
“Yes!” Ryder throws his hands into the air.
“I’ve spent years and years screwing up, doing things I’m not proud of and staying away from you so I didn’t taint you with whatever it was that made me the thug I am!
You’re good, Harley, and I never have been.
You’re my brother, and I love you. I know we’ve never been close, but that’s on me.
I didn’t want you to know your brother was a criminal, and that’s all I was.
So I stayed away until I couldn’t stand it, until I had to see someone who loved me, who I loved, okay? ”
His voice breaks. He rubs at his chest and drops his gaze to the floor.
“But would you have loved me if you knew what all I’ve done? I stole, cheated, whatever I had to do to survive and get the drugs I thought I needed. And look how I turned out.”
He spreads his arms and turns his palms upward. Harley just shakes his head.
“Don’t you know I’d love you no matter what, Ry?”
I want to slap the big man. He’s so wrapped up in his own misery that he isn’t even listening to Harley.
“Do you give a damn that a shifter kidnapped your brother and tortured him? Do you? Or that others rescued him, gave him a safe place, a chance to heal, sent me to watch over him?”
“By fucking him?” Ryder snarls.
Then a flush crawls up his neck and all the fight seems to drain out of him. He sinks onto the floor like somebody cut his strings.
“Someone hurt you, Har?”
I nudge Harley gently and he moves to sit on the couch while Ryder settles on the floor beside him.
“It’s okay, Ry. Seriously. But you need to know some things about shifters.
They aren’t all horrible, they’re just like regular people, except they have more strength, I guess.
Let me tell you what happened to me, then I want to hear what happened to you, because it sounds like there’s a shifter out there turning people against their will, and that can’t be a good thing at all. ”
“No shit,” Ryder mutters, glancing at me. “What about him? He makes me nervous. And what happened to his eye?”
“You can ask Val that yourself,” Harley tells him. “And you better be nice to him from now on, because, for all intents and purposes, he’s like, your brother-in-law.”
“The fuck he is.”
Ryder nearly comes up off the floor before Harley thumps him in the chest.
“He is, and you’re gonna listen to me and quit being a hot-headed asshole, got it?”
Harley’s tone leaves absolutely no room for argument and Ryder actually cringes a little before hunkering back down.
“Okay, fine. But I don’t have to like him.” And if looks could actually kill, well…
I snort softly. I understand that sentiment completely, but I’m smart enough to keep my mouth shut and listen while the brothers talk.
Eventually my stomach starts growling loudly enough to embarrass me, and exhaustion keeps trying to drag me under. I stand and head into the kitchen. Coffee comes first. Once I get that started, I decide grilled cheese sandwiches are probably the best option. Simple. Fast. Filling.
Assuming I can find bread.