Chapter Fourteen
DAVE
“You said what?” Dave’s usual calm deserted him, and the words came out sharp and loud.
Christian looked up from where he was leaning over the sink, dabbing alcohol onto a split knuckle. “I told Barton we’d think about joining his pack,” he repeated.
Coldness twisted in Dave’s gut. He remembered how Christian had described Barton—like Matt, only meaner. And Dave had seen it too, felt it in the air like static around him. Barton wasn’t just powerful. He was dangerous.
“Why in the hell would you say that?” Dave demanded.
“Because he’s offered us good terms, and it’s something I’m actually good at.” A small grin tugged at his mouth. “I’ll get a decent cut of the take from every fight, and once they start streaming, which they’re doing tomorrow night, we’re talking serious money.”
Dave’s stomach churned at the way Christian said it, as if it were already decided. “Did you happen to mention we’re already part of a pack?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Christian said. “Matt will let us go.”
Dave’s knees gave out and he sank down on the bed. In those few words, he heard just how much Christian wanted this.
“Why?” he asked, his voice hoarse. “I thought you were happy in Elk Ridge.”
Christian’s gaze flicked up from where he’d been concentrating on cleaning his knuckles. “Yeah, well, that was before everything went to shit.”
Dave stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Before Matt started inviting strangers to poke around our home, and taking in enemy pack members,” Christian said, his words ending in a snarl.
“This is about the politicians? And Colby?”
Christian shook his head impatiently. “It’s about Matt not even thinking how the rest of us feel about any of that.”
Except something in Christian’s voice told Dave that wasn’t true.
It wasn’t Matt’s actions that were the problem—they knew he’d made the best decisions he could for all of them, in an impossible situation.
And Matt was one of the very few people who Christian respected.
It was Colby who was the problem, and hell if Dave could understand why.
“Everything’s different there now, Dave,” Christian bit out. “Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
“Maybe, but different doesn’t mean bad. And Colby’s a good guy.”
“He was part of the pack that attacked us.” A growl rumbled under Christian’s words. “They hurt you. But it’s not just him, it’s everything. Everything there’s so damn complicated now.”
The worst thing was, he meant it. Dave’s stomach clenched in cold panic because Elk Ridge was home. He didn’t want to leave. He certainly didn’t want to be part of a pack whose only entertainment was beating the crap out of each other.
Christian’s gaze was suddenly pleading. “Dave, they want us.”
Oh God, how was Dave meant to deny him when he wanted it so badly?
“Matt, Bryce, everyone at home wants us, too,” he said, knowing it was true.
“It’s not the same there now,” Christian said doggedly. “We only ended up there by accident anyway. Barton’s offering money and a place for us both to live. Once I prove myself, he wants me in his guard. I’ll be one of the top shifters in the pack.”
Dave had no answer. Money and status didn’t mean anything to Christian by themselves, but they were symbols of how much he was wanted.
They were evidence of something that Christian, stubborn and hard-headed, didn’t think could be matched by Matt’s easy acceptance of them into his home, his family.
Christian still didn’t really understand kindness or love, and so he sought something tangible to measure people’s intentions by.
And what Barton was offering was exactly that.
Dave sat in horrified silence as everything he’d thought he had unraveled in front of him. He didn’t have a clue how to stop it.
He couldn’t understand how he’d missed Christian becoming so unhappy in Elk Ridge that he wanted to leave. He hadn’t breathed a word of it to Dave, but then, it wasn’t as if they talked about things that mattered. He wiped his hand over his mouth, and was dimly aware he was shaking.
Christian nodded as if Dave’s silence was agreement, then stripped off and disappeared into the bathroom. Dave’s heart twisted as he watched him walk away.
He didn’t want to leave Elk Ridge, and he definitely didn’t want to live here, which for all its apparent straightforwardness would do more damage to Christian than anything else. Dave could see how it would seem easy to him, because it was how he’d spent most of his life, surrounded by violence.
All the things he’d slowly learned over the past five years, to trust, to show even the tiniest chink of vulnerability, would be lost. Dave had watched him learn to follow someone else’s lead, and not to always pivot to attack if he didn’t understand something.
That Christian—the one who curled around him and held him in sleep, who joked and softened and let his pack see his heart—couldn’t survive this place.
The Christian who Dave loved so much would be beaten down into a tiny corner of his heart, buried under aggression and brutality, and Dave was scared he’d never find him again.
Christian was flattered by Barton’s offer, that was all it was.
He hadn’t been wanted by anyone his whole life before Dave had come along.
Come tomorrow and the light of day, everything would be back to normal.
Tomorrow, Dave was going to grab the first pack member he saw and ask them outright about Jesse’s pack, because that way they could get out of this hellhole and back to Elk Ridge, where Christian would settle again and everything would be as it should be.
But the hollowness in his chest told him otherwise. He didn’t have the heart to wash or to brush his teeth. He stripped off his clothes, rolled into bed, and when Christian came out of the bathroom, he closed his eyes and pretended he was asleep.