Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
The copper gleamed under the morning light, and his reflection stared back at him from its curved surface. Distorted, stretched, and looking about as rough as he felt.
He'd come straight here from the bakery, grateful to put even a street between himself and Willow. The distillery was work. Routine. Something to do with his hands while his brain sorted itself out.
Gray moved past him to check the temperature gauges, working shoulder to shoulder in the tight space between fermenters. They'd done this dance for years, anticipating each other's movements, working in easy silence that didn't require words.
Cal was across the room, scarred hands moving over the valves with the ease of someone who'd done it a thousand times, the skin mottled pink and white where the burns had healed tight. He never let it slow him down.
"Pressure's good," Gray said. "We can start the next batch after lunch."
"Where's Lily?" Ryker glanced toward the stairs. She usually worked the morning shift with them.
"Greenhouse. She's experimenting with a new recipe for some wild winter ale for the festival." Gray's mouth twitched. "Apparently the Polar Plunge demands specialty alcohol."
"People are going to jump in freezing water," Cal snorted. "They're going to need all the alcohol they can get."
Ryker grunted acknowledgment and reached for his coffee. The first sip hit his tongue and turned to ash.
He swallowed anyway, frowning at the mug. The coffee looked normal. It was dark and strong, with steam curling in the cool air. But it tasted like something had died in it.
"What happened to the coffee? There's something wrong with it." He held up the mug.
Gray grabbed it, took a sip, raised an eyebrow. "Tastes fine to me."
"Huh." Ryker took it back and drank again, grimacing hard. "Are you nuts? It tastes like shit. You need your taste buds checked." He set the mug on the counter and decided he didn't need the caffeine that badly.
Across the room, Cal looked up from his work. "Did that meeting with the witch make you this pissy, or were you already like this when you woke up?"
"I'm not pissy."
"Sure you're not." Cal snorted. "And I'm the Queen of England."
Ryker ignored him and moved to the next gauge, checking numbers he'd already checked twice. He wasn't in the mood to get poked by Cal and the work routine soothed him. Except muscle memory took over and his thoughts began drifting to places he didn't want them to go.
The meeting. Willow's face when he'd—
No. He wasn't thinking about that.
The brewing floor hummed around them, fermenters bubbling, the sweet-sharp smell of apple mash filling the air.
Sunlight streamed through the high windows, catching dust motes and turning the copper equipment into glowing metal trees.
This was his place. His purpose. He'd helped build this distillery from nothing, standing beside Gray through every setback and triumph, and poured years of his life into making it work.
Here, he knew who he was. And everything made sense.
"So." Gray's tone was too casual. The kind of carefully calibrated neutral that meant he was fishing for information. "How'd it really go with Willow?"
Ryker kept his attention on the pressure gauge. "Fine. We covered vendor placement, security positions. All the basic logistics."
"You came back looking like someone kicked your dog."
"I don't have a dog."
"Exactly my point." Gray set down the wrench he'd been holding. "What happened?"
"Nothing happened. We talked logistics. I left. End of story."
Gray said nothing. Just waited, patient as stone, the way he always did when he knew Ryker was deflecting.
The silence stretched. Ryker adjusted a dial that didn't need adjusting. Checked the same gauge for the third time. Tried to think of something to say that wouldn't be a lie or an admission.
"It's handled," he said. "Festival planning's on track. We'll have the final map to the council by Thursday."
"That's not what I'm asking."
"Then what are you asking?"
Gray set down the clipboard he'd been holding and turned to face him fully. The look on his face said he wasn't going to let this go. "I'm asking if you're okay."
The question landed wrong, too sincere, too knowing. Ryker's first instinct was humor, the familiar defense that had gotten him through the past few years of not being okay most of the time.
"Never better," he said, and the words caught in his throat like he'd swallowed a golf ball.
He coughed. Hard. Bent over with the force of it, hacking like he'd inhaled sawdust.
"Jesus." Cal crossed toward him. "Are you choking?"
Ryker waved him off, still coughing. When he finally got his breath back, his voice came out like gravel. "Wrong pipe."
"But you weren't drinking anything."
"I'm fine." The words scraped out rough and wrong. "Just—" He cleared his throat. Tried again. "I'm just tired."
Gray's brow furrowed. "Shit. Are you coming down with something?"
"Probably." Ryker grabbed his coffee, took a deliberate sip despite the horrible ash taste. "And I'm blaming it on Lily's demon cat. Who keeps a cat on an island of wolf predators anyways? The thing sheds everywhere, and I'm pretty sure I'm allergic."
"You've been around that cat for months."
"Allergies build up."
Cal had stopped pretending to work and was watching him now, hands braced on the equipment in front of him. "You think allergies are what makes you look wound tight enough to snap? What really happened at that meeting? Did she reject you or something?"
"What? No. We talked only about the festival. It was real riveting stuff."
"Bullshit." Cal pushed away from the fermenter and crossed the floor toward them.
"You've been like this for weeks. Every time someone mentions Willow, or you happen to see her outside, you get that look on your face like you swallowed something rotten.
Not to mention you take every opportunity to convince the pack to cut those witches loose.
And now you're standing here hacking up a lung for no good reason. "
"Maybe I really am getting sick."
"You're not sick. You're being an asshole."
The words hung in the air between them. Gray said nothing to contradict Cal.
Ryker felt his jaw tighten. "What do you expect? She's the daughter of the witch who wanted to kill Lily. Nobody told me, and she sure as hell didn't volunteer it—"
"She turned against her own mother." Cal cut him off.
"In front of everyone. Helped stop a ritual that would have killed her cousin.
And she's been busting her ass at that bakery for months, proving herself to people who still look at her sideways.
But sure, focus on who her mother is. That seems fair. "
"You don't understand."
Cal narrowed his eyes. "Then explain it to me."
Ryker opened his mouth. The explanation was right there. The logic, the pattern, the very reasonable case for why he couldn't trust her.
She's just like Cara.
He'd started to let his guard down, show some interest, and then the truth had blindsided him. Different circumstances, same result. His instincts had failed him again.
Nothing came out.
He tried again. His throat locked up completely, jaw working around words that refused to form. It felt like something had grabbed his vocal cords and squeezed.
"Ryker?" Gray stepped closer. "What the hell?"
He shook his head, tried to force it out. "She—" A strangled sound. "She can't be—" Nothing. His face was going red with the effort.
Cal turned to Gray. "Is he having a stroke?"
"How do you trust—" Ryker finally managed, voice cracking like a teenager's, "—someone who followed a leader that unhinged?
Who believed in her?" The rest came out in a rush, like something had finally released.
"How can you so easily forget her part in what was almost done to Lily during that ritual?
Especially knowing she believed she was doing the right thing while her mother tried to steal her cousin's magic. "
Gray's face hardened, his eyes going flat. "I didn't forget. But Lily loves her cousin and believes in her change. My mate isn't stupid. If she believes, then so can I."
Fuck. He'd gone too far as usual. The anger in Gray's eyes made it crystal that he was in full agreement with Cal's asshole assessment.
He coughed again, eyes watering, throat raw.
"Okay, that was weird," Cal said. "That was really weird."
"I'm fine."
"You just turned purple trying to finish a sentence."
"I said I'm fine."
Cal looked at Gray. Gray looked at Cal. Neither of them said what they were clearly thinking.
A sudden thud broke the silence. All three of them turned.
Lily's little black devil cat had jumped onto the bar. It sat there grooming itself, completely unconcerned by the three wolves now staring at it with varying degrees of hostility.
A low growl rumbled from Cal's chest. Gray's eyes flashed. Ryker felt his own lip curl back, and beneath that, a faint stir from his wolf. Interest. Prey.
Oh, that figured. Years of silence about everything that really mattered, but a ten-pound mangy cat got a response.
He waited for more. Nothing. His wolf settled back into stillness, apparently satisfied with that single flicker of acknowledgment.
The cat looked up, yellow eyes bored, and hissed at them. Then it stretched out on the bar, rolled onto its side, and started licking its paw.
Not a single fuck given.
"I hate that thing," Cal muttered.
"Get in line," Ryker said.
None of them moved to do anything about it though. Lily would skin them alive if they touched her pet, and they all knew it. The little monster had figured that out months ago and had been strutting around the distillery like it owned the place ever since.
"Forget it." Ryker turned away, grabbing a rag to wipe down equipment that was already clean. "It doesn't matter. Willow and I are running the festival together, that's all. Strictly professional."
No one said anything else.