Chapter Three
Ben
Iwatched them sleep for what felt like an hour or so. I just couldn’t fall asleep yet.
For weeks now, I’d been scared out of my mind of Luca not taking the chance Rian had offered him. I’d been afraid that he’d choose death instead. I would’ve been devastated, because I was half way in love with him, but what would’ve killed me was how it would’ve completely broken my brother.
I wasn’t sure if I believed in fate or soulmates—outside the extremely rare werewolf finding their mate kind, because our Alpha had found his—but there was something magical about the connection Max had had with Luca even before they ever met.
Luca had written most of the lyrics and some of the melodies for Kaiju. He’d also been the lead singer and what a voice he’d had. Him delivering his own lyrics about love and death and whatever else had always felt special.
His voice telling us to keep hoping and dreaming in our darkest moments had, quite literally, saved us. Max and I had never put the thoughts of letting go of life into words. But we didn’t need words. Not when it was about something that was important on that soul deep level.
Being in our father Rusty’s pack, although not betas or enforcer betas like the junkies he’d surrounded himself with, had almost broken us.
We hadn’t needed to be his betas to be completely fucked up by it all. The blood connection being so direct tapped into something in the wolf psyche and made disobedience almost impossible.
We’d mostly run errands for Rusty. The kind that needed someone who could be or pass as being sober. The fact that he’d “rewarded” us by making us do drugs with them was… yeah.
But we were sober now. Thanks to the vampire sleeping on the couch in the next room. And thanks to our cousin Brodie who had come into town and snapped Rusty’s neck. Which he deserved.
Now Brodie was our alpha, and he was the kind that deserved the title. Brodie was kind and steadfast and so damn loving. We never had to wonder how he felt or if he cared about us. That man would’ve given his life for any of us. That was love.
It just took Max and me a while to trust it and to trust the rest of our ragtag pack.
We hid our distrust well, and of course on some level we couldn’t help but to fall in love with every one of Brodie’s strays, but we had a long history of being betrayed by people we’d loved the most, starting with our parents.
That reminded me, I needed to call Mom at some point. Or maybe not. She hadn’t shown any interest in staying in touch with us since she left some eight months before Brodie got into town.
We were happy that she had managed to get out from under Rusty’s thumb, but now it had been over a year and if we didn’t try to stay in touch, she didn’t seem interested.
I couldn’t blame her for that. Sometimes you just needed a clean break.
But I still couldn’t forgive her for the way she’d failed at being a loving, caring mother even when we were young.
There was a reason my brother and I were glued together. There hadn’t been anyone else, really. Brodie and her sister Bella had been part of the pack too, but they were a bit older and well, Rusty had ruined their lives, too.
The difference was that they’d been able to leave, unlike Max and I.
Luca let out a happy little sigh in his sleep, which made Max tighten his grip on my T-shirt. I smiled and tried my best to fall asleep.
Iwoke up to the mattress dipping. Max was going into the bathroom. As soon as he was gone from the bedroom, Luca bolted up, sitting in the middle of the bed, looking wide eyed as fuck.
“It’s okay,” I said quietly, gently grabbing his forearm so I could slow him down if he freaked out. “Max just needed the bathroom.”
Luca’s breathing slowed down—it still felt like a miracle that his lungs had more capacity and nothing was rattling like it had just mere hours ago—and looked at me.
“Sorry, I just….” He gestured vaguely with his free hand before snuggling back up with me.
“It’s okay. It might’ve been your new senses. I think there might be some fine-tuning you need to do to keep yourself from overreacting at random things that spook you.”
He snorted softly. “Like going into alarm mode when the bed moves? I wouldn’t have noticed that before.”
I chuckled. “I can vouch for that.” We’d slept in the same puppy pile before at the pack house, and he’d even slept in our bed one time, although on the edge of it instead of the middle.
He’d been a sound sleeper. How much of that was just him and how much had been the cancer exhausting him, I didn’t know.
“Your system needs time to adjust, that’s all.” At least I hoped that was what was going on.
Suddenly he startled at the loudness of the toilet flushing. The tap ran and he relaxed again. Then Max shuffled back into the room and climbed into bed.
“Did you freak out a little?” he murmured as he sandwiched Luca between us again.
“Mhmm….” Luca turned to face him and cuddled up to his front this time.
I moved closer to Luca’s back so he’d be warmer.
The way he felt cold now was different, but he also was warmer than right after being turned.
It was weird how he’d had shitty circulation while he was human and ill, and now his temperature was all about how recently he’d fed.
It was no wonder he gravitated to us, because wolves ran hotter than humans.
Morning came and found us tangled in the sheets and each other.
I’d only been able to sleep for maybe an hour or so with how Luca had been too still in his sleep.
Max often twitched, especially if he was having one of his nightmares, so having someone’s body be motionless and so cool against mine had unsettled my sleep.
I opened my eyes and looked at the men next to me. Luca, with his shaved head and pale skin, was still as gorgeous as he’d ever been with the longer hair of his rockstar days.
I wondered when he’d call his handler, Marissa. She worked with another one of his bandmates, Mila, who had been carted into rehab the same time Luca had escaped from New York City to come to us in Pennsylvania.
The other two in the band, Will and Q, had their own handler, but the band’s imminent downfall had been triggered by Will overdosing and passing away. It was a shit show that we knew Luca hadn’t processed yet.
We couldn’t blame him, of course. Not with how bad his physical health had been.
The fact that the band had gone from hugely successful to one member ODing, one going to rehab, one having late-stage cancer, and the fourth doing…
I didn’t even know what, felt like a big fuck you from the universe, if I was honest.
But now, Luca was physically better. I hoped he wouldn’t overcompensate for his lack of contact with his bandmates, because no matter how well he must be feeling now, he was still a freshly turned vampire.
He needed time to settle before he could leave the pack house, let alone travel to meet anyone.
Internally, I compared this to a situation with one of the guys I worked with at the garage.
He had severe ADHD, but was excellent with his job.
He’d been so frustrated with his inability to stick to tasks that once he got the right medication, he’d overdone it and worked himself to a near burnout before we noticed and the boss man told him to take a vacation and come back with reduced hours for a couple of weeks after, just to be sure.
I guess, in this case, Rian would be the one to take Luca in hand and make him readjust his course.
I definitely knew neither me or Max should even try.
I didn’t want to be any sort of an authority figure to anyone, except Max when he needed it, and Max was never a leader type with me.
I didn’t know how it’d go with him and Luca, but I was interested to see.
Yes, I did realize I was a fucking worrier, but it was hard not to be while growing up the way we had. I’d needed to be the strong one, Max’s rock, because I was his big brother.
“Hey, what are you thinking about so hard?” Luca whispered in a sleepy voice.
I smiled and made a conscious effort to smooth out my forehead. “Him, mostly.” I nodded toward Max who was sound asleep behind Luca.
Something complex crossed Luca’s expression, but I had a feeling it wasn’t about me and Max being as close as we were. Before he could form his thoughts into words, Max let out a small groan and stretched, which always signaled him waking up.
“Morning,” I said, not sure if I was ready to hear whatever Luca had been thinking about.
“Mhmmm,” Max hummed.
Luca snickered.
Rian knocked on the doorframe. “You guys good?”
“Yeah,” Luca replied and stretched his body. “I feel great.”
“That’s good. How about Ben or Max pop out to get you guys some breakfast, and then we figure out what Luca’s feeding rhythm should be for now?
” Rian’s expression was fond, and his words made complete sense.
We wouldn’t know until we gauged the situation, and until we knew, it wouldn’t be safe for Luca to be at the pack house.
“I’ll go,” I said, since I was much more awake.
“I think I want a shower.” Luca rolled out of bed after me. “But you go brush your teeth first.”
I gave him a two-finger salute and went to take care of morning business.
When I got back, the house was quiet, but I could hear them out on the back porch.
I was about to head there when Holden walked in.
“Hey, I got updates from Rian last night, but how did it all go from your point of view?” He hugged me, which felt good.
As Brodie’s enforcer beta, Holden was above me and Max in the wolfy pecking order, and the wolf always wanted to please those above him.
Touches and hugs were something the animal side craved, and if I was completely honest, I didn’t mind it either.
Max and I hadn’t exactly been raised with gentle touches and safety.
“As well as it could’ve,” I replied as I handed him the fourth to-go cup of coffee. Somehow I’d known he was going to appear, because he didn’t seem to be able to stay away from Rian.
They were solid now, which made me feel good, too.
“You got Rian one?” he asked, clearly pleased.
Rian liked espresso. His body tolerated a few tablespoons at most, but he liked the flavor anyway.
“Of course.”
We went to the back and Rian immediately got out of his chair to embrace Holden.
The rest of us concentrated on one another to give them some space. They were so deep into the honeymoon period it was… well, it didn’t annoy me. I was… envious.
“Here you go,” I gave Max his coffee and the breakfast burrito I’d gotten for him.
I’d settled on a meatball sub and more coffee. We had last night’s leftovers for lunch, but I liked my breakfast fresh if I could have it.
Soon enough, we were all sitting on Holden’s porch, chatting away.
Maybe ten minutes in, Luca suddenly piped up. “It feels so weird to look at you guys eating and drinking and not having the urge to do the same.”
“That’s definitely positive,” Holden mused.
“But the birds are really loud,” Luca grumped.
They were, but—
“You just need to learn to tune them out. I’ll walk you through everything. We can go to the woods at the pack house. I’ll teach you how to differentiate smells. It should help you with shutting them out, too. Same with sounds. It’s a process.” Rian was on the case.
Another fifteen minutes later, Luca started to look a bit fidgety. It was barely noticeable, and I could see he wasn’t aware of it himself. The rest of us were, though, and Rian made eye contact with me.
I collected all the trash from breakfast. “Hey Luca? I’m going to take this to the kitchen. Do you need a bite? I can detour to the couch.”
His gaze snapped to me, and again, that flicker of the predator our sweet musician had turned into flared up. He frowned, then seemed to take stock of himself.
“Uh… yeah. I think that’s a good idea.”
Rian checked his cell phone for the time and nodded. “Do you need me to come with you?” he asked, and I liked that he was giving Luca the agency.
He shook his head. “I think I’m good if Max is there.” His gaze flicked to my brother and again, an emotion I couldn’t recognize flitted across his features.
“That sounds good to me.” I got to my feet.
I got rid of the trash and then sat next to Luca on the couch. Max was on his other side, his hand on Luca’s thigh.
“Do your best to take only what you need,” Rian called out from the porch.
To Luca’s credit, he didn’t scoff or roll his eyes. Instead, he looked at me and swallowed hard. “I’ll try my best, okay?”
“I trust you,” I said, realizing just how much truth that sentence held.
Max’s gaze snapped to mine, and his eyes widened. He realized the significance of my statement.
“Neck of wrist?” I asked. “I’m fine with either.”
“Wrist, maybe? I want to practice that for the future. I wouldn’t want to drink from a donor’s neck.”
There were some apps for vampires and people who wanted to donate blood for them.
There was an actual government-sponsored one called DonorMatch that was official and very safe.
Then there were those others that, apparently, were filled with people who wanted to live a bit more dangerously and/or use the feeding as the aphrodisiac it could be.
I held out my wrist and Luca took it carefully, finding the spot Rian had showed him on Max last night. When he finally bit through, I hissed at the sensation, but then the blissed out feeling rolled over me. It reminded me vaguely of the one time I’d tried heroin.
My body reacted, because it was supposed to, and because I found Luca attractive. When he stopped the bite about five seconds before I would’ve asked him to, he looked dazed, too.
“That was… good,” he murmured. Then his eyes widened a little. “Wait. The hot and heady scent. That’s arousal, isn’t it?”
I let my head drop forward and groaned. Luca chuckled. Then he sputtered out a laugh.
“Well, well….” The teasing tone was obvious, as was the reason for it as soon as I looked at my brother on his other side. Max was blushing like crazy.