Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-two
DAVE
It was dark when Dave pulled up outside the familiar ranch house. As he turned the engine off, the final part of him relaxed. They were home. Safe. Together.
His window was down—Christian’s jeep had no AC—and the air smelled like hay and sagebrush, and something he couldn’t identify but which was like nowhere else on earth. The porch light was out, yet he could picture Matt’s boots by the door and Bryce’s old hoodie hanging on a hook inside.
He turned to find Christian leaning against the window.
Still fast asleep, he was snoring gently, though Dave couldn’t tell whether that was due to his swollen nose or the awkward angle of his head.
Tenderness swamped him, and he wanted to take Christian into his arms and hold him and never let anyone hurt him ever again.
Except Christian would hate that. He tapped his thigh instead.
“We’re here,” he said, and Christian snorted and woke up.
Dave wanted to head straight for their bunkhouse so he could check Christian over from head to foot and be sure that the damage done to him would heal.
He’d also been craving to hold Christian since his words after the fight, words that had caused a strange, wonderful ache in Dave’s heart.
But before they could do anything else, they needed to check in with Matt.
He sighed slightly and got out of the car.
The house was in darkness, except for the kitchen. When Dave walked into the brightly lit room, he found Jason, Riley, Tristan, and Colby sitting around the kitchen table. Pizza boxes were on the table, and they each had a bottle of beer.
There was an instant of surprised silence before Jason sucked in a sharp breath.
“Damn, Christian,” he said, alarm in his voice. “What happened? You look like you went twelve rounds with a grizzly.”
He wasn’t wrong, but Christian obviously had more important things on his mind, ignoring the question and crossing his arms as he stared at the four of them.
“For God’s sake,” he said. “I’ve been dreaming of proper food for days, and you’re eating takeout?”
“Nice shirt, by the way,” Tristan said. “Dave finally rope you into his fashion crimes?”
Christian shot him a look that could peel paint. “Shut up. It’s not that bad.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. “There’s a kindergartner somewhere missing their artwork.”
Christian huffed, then addressed Jason. “Takeout pizza? What the hell, Jason?”
“Jason deserves a day off,” Riley said. Although his tone was light, his chin was up, ready to take on Christian if that was what was needed to defend his mate.
“While the cat’s away,” Dave said, moving forward and settling in next to Jason.
He’d meant to try and smooth over any ragged edges that Christian’s attitude had caused, and only realized what he’d said once the words were out.
“Not that I’m calling Matt a cat,” he added quickly, because their alpha really wouldn’t take that well. Wolves and cat-shifters were like oil and water—far happier if they didn’t try mixing. “What I mean is, while the alpha’s away, the pups will play. Where is everyone, anyway?”
“Karl’s patrolling,” Tristan said. It was a simple enough answer, but something in the way Tristan said it made Dave suspect there was more that he wasn’t saying. Before he could follow that up, Tristan continued, “Matt and Jesse are still in Washington, and Bryce is there too. With Tom.”
“Who’s Tom? And why’d everyone go to Washington?” Christian demanded, dragging out a chair and sitting down opposite Dave.
“Tom is Bryce’s mate,” Tristan said. His grin grew as he saw the looks of incomprehension on Dave’s and Christian’s faces.
“Wait—Bryce has a mate?” Christian said, blinking. “We’ve not even been gone a week. And where’s the rest of the pizza? I’m starving.”
“You can have mine if you want,” Colby said, sliding his box along the table to Christian.
Dave looked at him sharply. Colby still got confused about what was teasing between members of the pack and what was real.
Sometimes he did something because he thought it was expected, not because he wanted to.
Dave hadn’t forgotten the time Matt had wanted another helping, and when Jason had said there wasn’t any more, Colby had quietly passed his unfinished meal to Matt.
But as he looked at Colby now, he thought that he wasn’t doing it out of fear.
It was like he was trying to make some sort of connection with Christian.
Christian’s eyes on Colby were just as piercing as Dave’s. He couldn’t have failed to notice the way Colby had hunched in on himself when Christian sat beside him, but unless Dave was mistaken, it wasn’t as pronounced as it used to be. Maybe their absence had changed more than just them.
“Thanks,” Christian said, and Dave was the only one around the table who understood what it had cost Christian to say that.
Christian took a slice, then looked around. “Where’s the vegan one?”
“Well, you didn’t actually tell us you were coming,” Tristan said. He grimaced at Dave. “Sorry.”
Dave gave a tired shrug. He hadn’t thought past getting Christian home in one piece.
“No worries,” he said, suppressing a weary sigh as he pushed his chair back.
Christian stopped him with a hand on his arm. “What d’you want? I’ll get it.”
And that was new. Before, Christian would have done it in an instant, if only he’d thought about it. The thing was, he hadn’t thought. Not then.
But now… God, Dave must be exhausted, because he had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat at this evidence of how much attention Christian was paying. How much more thinking he was doing.
“I’m okay,” he said, but he gave Christian’s hand a squeeze, letting him know he appreciated the offer. “Your head’ll probably fall off if you move too much.”
He crossed to the freezer, thankful his ankle was better than it had been. And that Christian’s bare-bones jeep wasn’t a stick-shift, or they’d probably still be stuck at the airport, waiting for one of them to be well enough to drive.
As Dave stuck his vegan mac’n’cheese in the microwave, Christian slid the pizza back to Colby. “Seems Williams here is the only one who knows how to treat a packmate. If the rest of you could just see your way to doing the same, none of you would be going hungry, and I’d be getting a meal.”
“Tell us who you made so mad in New Mexico they rearranged your face, and you can have all of mine,” Tristan said. The kid never did have a sense of self-preservation.
Except, Dave saw with a sense of wonder, the new softness in Christian was still there. Yeah, he leaned over and snatched Tristan’s pizza, but there was the suspicion of a smile around the corners of his mouth when he did it.
As he and Dave ate, they gave them an edited version of what had happened.
In return, they got to hear about this Tom guy.
They also learned that Justin’s information regarding Duane Jaxom had led to the person responsible for ordering both the slaughter of Cale’s pack and Jesse’s, all those years ago.
With the mention of that, they all lost their appetites.
“You sure they got the right person?” Christian asked. “Cause we’re not so sure now that our source is trustworthy.”
Dave bit his lip. He wanted to defend Justin, but he had to accept that he didn’t know for sure. Though the way he’d seemed to be hurting… No, Dave was sure of him. He hoped he found peace and a new life, far away from Silver Rock.
“That guy you identified has confessed to it, Matt says, and he told them which councilor ordered the killings. She’s admitted it, arguing that she had no other choice,” Riley said.
“She caught wind of Jesse’s pack and panicked.
She thought the old stories would resurface—that Argents were destined to lead, that they were chosen.
And if that happened, shifters might start seeing themselves as one community, a tribe, almost. And if non-shifters felt threatened by that?
Hundreds of shifters might die at the hands of bigots.
Shifters might even lose their rights again or end up in camps or something. ”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, leaving vexed-looking spikes behind.
“I can’t believe any of that. I mean, yeah, finding out there are silver wolves that glow in the dark would freak some people out, but jumping from that to thinking shifters were going to take over?
The thing is, she believed it would end in disaster for shifters, and that’s why she did it—for the greater good. Or so she says.”
It seemed odd that the only non-shifter among them was suddenly the expert on shifter politics, but maybe that was because Tristan was looking heartsick, Colby was concentrating more on him than anything else, and Jason never did like to say too much in a group.
“So she had them murdered?” Christian’s outrage spoke for all of them. It was all the more powerful for having seen the last remains of what had been a peaceful pack home.
There was nothing any of them could say to that, and before long, Christian and Dave headed to their bunkhouse. Laughter rang out from the kitchen as the door closed behind them. It seemed that the younger members of the pack were well on their way to forming fast friendships.
He bumped shoulders with Christian on their way across the moonlit yard, more than ready to celebrate their own friendship in private and at length. He couldn’t wait to get Christian behind a closed door, away from everyone and everything. No threats, no blood—just the two of them.
“Looks like Barton’s pack had nothing to do with it after all, given the confessions,” he said.
“Yeah.” Christian was silent a moment. “Don’t know what it says about him that we thought it might be him, though.” He glanced sideways at Dave. “I’d be happy never to see him again.”
A shrill neigh rang through the night air. Diablo had either heard or scented Christian and he was running up and down beside the rails of the corral, excited whinnies bursting from him with every breath.
“Oh, God,” Christian said. “We’ve been spotted.”
But the resignation he tried to put into his voice was belied by his evident delight at Diablo’s enthusiastic welcome.
“Go see your horse,” Dave said. “I’ll get unpacked.”
Christian crossed the yard toward the eager horse.
Although his words to Diablo were full of insults at the racket the animal was creating, when he got to him he threw his arms around that strong black neck and held on tight, his hair mixing with Diablo’s mane until it was hard to tell where one finished and the other started.
* * *
Dave had long since unpacked by the time Christian came in. The smell of horse now overlaid all the day’s other scents, and Christian really needed a shower, but Dave didn’t care about that so much as about the new peace that showed in his eyes.
It was the kind of peace Dave had only seen a few times—on Diablo’s back, sometimes, or on a long summer evening in the backyard, surrounded by quietly contented pack. A peace Christian hadn’t known often, but maybe now, he could.
It didn’t mean he’d stop fighting, Dave knew. He probably wouldn’t. But maybe now he wouldn’t be fighting ghosts, trying to bleed old pain out of himself. What had driven him might never fully leave, but it didn’t own him. Not anymore.
Dave manhandled his complaining mate into the shower, keeping the spray gentle because of the bruises all over his body.
So often rigid and tense, tonight Christian was soft and pliant.
He was still Christian, and Dave wasn’t kidding himself that everything from now on would be easy—and he wouldn’t want it that way, because that wouldn’t be Christian—but something had changed.
Something had shifted in Dave as well. He’d let Christian be Christian all this time and had never thought that he needed Dave to stand against the world for him sometimes, instead of always having to do it himself.
Dave thought he’d been treading lightly through life, but he’d really been tiptoeing, scared of being noticed. He’d let Christian down.
The thought made his eyes sting as he concentrated on gently cleaning the damaged body entrusted to him.
Christian had done the unthinkable for him, and Dave didn’t know how he could even express what he felt.
Up until that conversation on the cliffs, when Christian had finally confessed his feelings, he’d been longing for something to prove to him that Christian really did care.
He’d never dreamed that his proof would come at the cost of everything that mattered to Christian.
And now he felt guilty for wanting it so badly, as if somehow, he’d made this happen.
He worked the shampoo carefully through Christian’s hair, and then followed it up with some of the herbal conditioner Christian loved. And by the time Dave had finished massaging his scalp with long, gentle fingers, Christian had melted under his hands.
He dried him off and took him to bed. And it was like it always had been—this part of it, they’d always gotten right. They’d always fit together, Dave’s leg between Christian’s, Christian’s face pressed against his neck, soft breaths against Dave’s skin as they held one another.
“I love you,” Dave murmured when Christian’s breathing was almost the slow rhythm of sleep. He wanted to say so much more, but he didn’t know how.
“You had to wait till I was asleep then wake me up to tell me?” Christian complained drowsily. He nuzzled back in against Dave. “Me too. Now shut up and go to sleep.”
And perhaps they didn’t need to talk about what had happened, after all. They both knew, and the future would be built on that knowing. They hadn’t solved everything. They didn’t need to. They were learning to meet in the middle, one step at a time.
He held on tighter to Christian, buried his face in his hair, and between one breath and the next, he fell asleep.