Chapter 5
Chapter Five
CHRISTIAN
Back in their motel room, Christian couldn’t settle. He’d stripped down to his T-shirt and jeans but kept his boots on, pacing across the carpet in the hope that movement would stop the itch under his skin.
They’d agreed on the drive back not to mention this on WhatsApp, where Jesse would be blindsided.
As Dave had pointed out, although Jesse knew they might find something, there was a difference between abstract knowledge and actually hearing the details of his long-abandoned home, where everything had been silent and dead.
Instead, Christian called Matt and told him what they’d found—the tunnel, the hidden basin, the remains of a life long ago interrupted, but with no evidence of what had happened there.
“No signs at all?” Matt asked.
“No.” Christian dragged a hand through his hair. “Just emptiness.”
Matt breathed out a long sigh. “Even with no definitive proof, that has to be where Jesse’s old pack lived.”
Christian hesitated. “So we stood in what’s left of his home.”
Matt was quiet for a moment. “You good?”
“I’m fine. We’re meeting the local pack tonight, but I can’t tell you more, because you know the first rule of fight club. Still the only decent part of that movie.”
He was glad Dave was in the shower so he didn’t have to see the eye roll he’d have given.
“You sure that’s the smartest way to make contact?” Matt asked.
“It works.”
There was a pause. “Just don’t end up killing any of the local pack, okay?”
“You spoil all my fun,” Christian muttered.
Matt didn’t comment. “Let me know how it goes.”
Christian ended the call.
He hadn’t said the part that stuck in his throat—that Jesse had been seven. Seven years old, and orphaned by what had happened in that place. Christian had known that, intellectually. But standing there earlier, in the silence of those abandoned homes, it had become real.
Jesse had been someone’s son. Someone’s pup. And then it had been taken away from him. He’d had no warning, no choice. Everything had just been gone. He’d been hauled away…
No, wait, it hadn’t happened that way for Jesse.
Jesus. Showed how badly it had unsettled him. He hated this kind of grief—the kind that came from too far back to be fixed.
The bathroom door opened, and Dave stepped out, unconcernedly naked, skin still damp from the shower, golden in the low light. Christian watched him, the tightness in his chest loosening.
Dave had a year-round tan, probably because of the amount of time he spent communing with nature or whatever it was he did out there when he did his butt-naked yoga.
It varied enough that Christian had learned to tell the seasons by the color of Dave’s skin.
Right now, it was just beginning to lose the rich, brown depths of summer, turning to light gold as they headed toward winter.
“You still want to go ahead with this tonight?” Dave asked, as he finished toweling his hair dry and threw the towel onto the bed. “We could just go and watch. We’d be able to talk to more people if there were two of us asking questions.”
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” Christian said, as he moved forward until he was standing in Dave’s space. With an effort, he lifted his eyes from where Dave’s chest was beginning to rise and fall a little unevenly and looked into those familiar blue eyes. “’Sides, you know I need it.”
There was an instant of what might have been sadness in Dave’s expression, but before Christian could identify it for sure, it disappeared. Maybe because Christian’s hands were now on Dave’s hips.
He kissed him slowly and thoroughly, letting himself be pulled into something physical, something alive.
It wasn’t just about need, though that burned hot in his gut.
It was about stopping the reel in his head of the empty homes fading into dust, of Jesse, too small and helpless to stop what had happened.
Of everything Christian hadn’t been able to stop.
Dave didn’t ask what was wrong. He never did. He just pulled Christian closer and met him where he was, quiet and steady, his hands cradling Christian’s face like this wasn’t just sex—it was shelter.
Christian didn’t say a word, because he didn’t know how. But in every movement, every breath, every kiss, he gave everything he couldn’t say aloud.
* * *
The old canning plant sat two miles out of town.
Low and squat, it was made of weathered red brick with a rusting corrugated roof.
It looked long abandoned, but the trucks, bikes, and beat-up cars parked outside told a different story, as did the laughter and music that swirled out into the night each time the door opened.
The shifter at the door was built like a fridge and narrowed his eyes as they approached, evidently clocking them as shifters. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Christian, that’s Dave,” Christian said. “We don’t want trouble.” He grinned, just enough to show teeth. “Not outside the cage, anyway. Who do I see about getting in there tonight?”
The guy’s eyes ran over him, and the slight scorn that had been there because, well, Christian wasn’t exactly the tallest person in the room, faded as he took in the way his nostrils were flaring. Christian was running hot with excitement and the first stirrings of violence.
“You need to see Tony,” he said finally. “No cover charge if you’re fighting.”
“Told you,” Christian muttered to Dave as they stepped inside. He wasn’t sure what the cover was here, but people would pay a fair bit to drink, to bet and to watch blood hit the floor.
Inside, the cavernous interior had been stripped down to concrete floors and exposed steel girders, with floodlights strung up haphazardly.
There were probably a couple hundred people gathered, the crowd skewing heavily male and non-shifter.
The makeshift bar in one corner was doing swift business, but the real crush was at the next table over, where two shifters were running a book.
In the middle of the room, bounded by a black chain-link fence, was the reason Christian was here. His body thrummed like a tuning fork at the sight of it.
Then something else caught his attention. Not a movement, but a presence. A shifter stood on the catwalk above the cage, his arms folded, unmoving. His face was in shadow, and his stillness was somehow ominous.
“Hey.” A tall blond shifter appeared beside them, broad-shouldered and unsmiling. “Tony wants to see you.” His voice carried threat under its even tone. Christian’s hackles lifted, and his wolf snarled.
But Dave stepped forward, easy and polite, with just enough deference in his smile to take the edge off. “Sure. Can you point us in the right direction?”
It worked. Of course it did. Whoever said that soft words turned away anger must have had Dave in mind. The guy relaxed as he gave them a nod, and led them across the floor.
Tony stood waiting near a half-walled office that overlooked the floor.
He was older, salt-and-pepper hair buzzed short, the kind of man who probably hadn’t fought in years but could still end someone in two moves.
Christian’s instincts pegged him instantly as dominant—not an alpha, but close. Maybe the pack beta?
Christian flicked his gaze upward, drawn again to the man on the catwalk. Still watching, still silent. He wondered if Tony was under orders or under surveillance.
“What are you doing here?” Tony asked, circling slightly. Not pacing, just angling for advantage, like he couldn’t help himself. The air between them thickened, and Christian’s wolf snarled again. “This is our territory.”
Technically, they weren’t on pack territory. But that wasn’t what Tony meant, and he and Christian both knew it.
“We’re just passing through,” Dave said, calm and unruffled. “Met a woman in a bar who told us about your fights. Christian wanted a go.”
Tony stared at Christian, eyes hard and assessing, as Christian clenched and unclenched his fists, trying to stop the adrenaline inside him from bubbling over. His nerves were singing with anticipation.
“Fee’s fifty bucks,” Tony said finally. “Winner takes home a hundred and gets a shot at the next round. You in?”
“Well, hell,” Christian drawled. “Didn’t know we’d make a profit tonight. Sure I’m in.”
He used to fight for cash, back when a steady place to sleep was a luxury, and dinner wasn’t guaranteed. This felt cleaner somehow, doing it only because he wanted to. And the basic feeling hadn’t changed, the anticipation of that moment before everything else fell away and only the fight remained.
Dave bumped his shoulder briefly, then disappeared into the crowd to start mingling. Christian didn’t watch him go. Couldn’t, or he’d start feeling again, and the cage didn’t want feelings. It wanted focus.
But he felt steadier knowing Dave was somewhere nearby, anchoring him.
And Dave would be better at getting information out of people than he was.
He’d talk to people, listen like their feelings mattered.
Christian couldn’t do that. Couldn’t fake interest, couldn’t sit still long enough. Fighting was simpler.
Tony led him to a battered table staffed by Mal, a small, wiry shifter who had two others looming behind him.
“Got a cage name?” Mal asked. “Crowd eats that shit up. We’ve got Bear, Tank, The Terminator—”
“Christian Taylor.” God, what was with those people that they needed to hide behind childish names? Like he was going to fight better if he called himself Verminator. Huh. He kinda liked that one.
Mal blinked. “You sure? You could go with Wolverine, or—”
“Christian. Taylor.” He leaned forward. He didn’t need a gimmick. He was the danger.
“Got it, got it.” Mal swallowed and made a note. “Fifty bucks. Colt’ll go over the rules in a minute—basically, there aren’t any, except try not to die unless you really have to—and then we draw the first card.”
Christian handed over the cash, eyes flicking once to the cage.
The adrenaline was humming now. It would drown out everything else soon.
And he wanted it to, because something in him, something small and quiet, still hadn’t let go of the abandoned homes they’d found that morning.
The ones where a seven-year-old pup had once lived, happy and loved. And no one had paid for that. Not yet.
He turned away before the thought could catch hold and walked toward the cage.