39. Chapter 39
Chapter 39
Maddox
T he food wasn’t exactly restaurant quality, but the simple stew tasted better than anything I’d eaten for days. Probably because I was tired, happy, and weirdly content with where I was right now.
We’d trained for the past few days, and all of us seemed to be finally coming to grips with what we could do. Although, I suspected we hadn’t touched on our full potential yet. For now, being able to summon the fire at will seemed like a minor miracle. To direct it where I actually needed it to go was something I’d thought impossible just this morning.
The ship’s crew were settled around the deck, eating and lost in their own thoughts, probably of the fight to come. It was all most of us could talk about. We all knew how risky this was, but it was also the first time any of them had made a move against Arik. There was a restless energy buzzing through the air, fuelled by the anticipation and dread we were all feeling.
Alyssa spooned another mouthful of stew into her mouth, furtively looking around at the people sitting with us. Ryder, who was talking to the man sitting next to him, said something, and she smiled. She was finally starting to relax around these people, and it was good to see a genuine smile on her face.
The crew was slowly starting to relax around her as well. But with it came something I hadn’t before realised we’d have to deal with. Because now that they didn’t seem quite as scared of the queen who sat eating amongst them, they looked at Alyssa like she was some kind of saviour. The open adoration on most of their faces was unmistakable to everyone except her.
Alyssa wanted to be one of the people. She wanted to make connections with this group and fight at their side. But she hadn’t realised that it wouldn’t be possible yet. She was yet to see that she could never be one of them, because who she was would always separate her from the crowd. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She had a power that could potentially protect them all. She was a queen who was willing to fight and die for her people. With that came a responsibility I didn’t think she’d considered. Part of being a leader was being a figurehead, and it was always a lonely seat at the top, even if she would always have her mates beside her.
“I’m going to take some food down for Damon,” Ryder said, standing up and brushing the unseen dirt from his trousers.
“You can’t go down there alone,” Dean gruffly told him. He’d finished his bowl of food a while ago and had been lazing against the railing with his eyes closed. But, of course, he hadn’t let his guard drop even a fraction. That was just who Dean was.
“Well, it seems as you’ve finished eating already, you can come with me,” Ryder told him happily as he went to grab a bowl of food for Damon.
I tensed, watching the situation play out in front of me. Dean had been avoiding Damon since we’d gotten him in the cell. I could see how uncomfortable he was, dealing with whatever was controlling our brother’s body. Which meant I could also see how much he’d been avoiding having to do it again.
I watched as he shuffled uneasily, glaring at Ryder. It was easy to see why he’d feel the way he did. Hell, I was right there with him. But the glimpses of Damon that we got when the nightmare’s control slipped was enough to give me hope. I was just about to offer to go down instead when Tank cleared his throat and drew my attention to him instead.
“He needs to do this,” Tank told me quietly, so no one around us would hear.
I knew he was right, but that didn’t mean I was comfortable making Dean do something he clearly didn’t want to do.
Ryder turned back to our group with a steaming bowl of food in his hand. “You coming?”
Dean’s glare only intensified, and for a moment, I thought he’d actually say no. But deep down, I also knew he wouldn’t. Dean would see this as a risk to Ryder, and he wouldn’t let him face it alone. Not to mention that his wolf would no doubt see this as a challenge, and I doubted he’d want to back away from it, either.
“Fine,” Dean muttered through gritted teeth as he pushed himself up to standing.
I watched as the two of them disappeared from view, descending the steps into the hold we were frankly all avoiding, even if we didn’t want to admit.
“I’m worried about him,” I confessed to Tank. “Dean has always put Damon on a pedestal. I don’t think he’s ever going to cope if we can’t get this thing out of his head. He’ll never accept failing him.”
“You’re worrying about things you don’t even know will come to pass,” Tank pointed out. “There’s so much going on that I can see why your mind wants to get stuck with one problem at a time. But don’t fixate on the one we don’t have an answer to yet. Don’t get distracted by the impossible when you can’t afford to take your focus away from everything else. I truly think we’ll find the answer to this. I just don’t think we’re going to do it yet. We don’t have enough information, and unfortunately for Dean, it’s going to take time for us to gather it.”
It was easier said than done. Besides, we weren’t exactly a sit-back-and-wait kind of group. Action was what our life had revolved around before, and it was hard to turn away from that now.
“I just need to figure out how to distract Dean then,” I reasoned.
And Tank sighed.
“You don’t need to distract him. This is his version of working through the shit in his head. Let him brood if it’s what he needs to do. As long as he keeps the idea of the Damon you all remember in his mind, he’s going to fight for him. We all need something to fight for, something to cling to.”
I thought about what he was saying. It was strange how Tank had such a clear view of the man Dean was when he hadn’t known him for very long.
“You’re good at this, you know,” I admitted.
“At what?”
“Seeing what people need. Giving advice.”
“Believe it or not, but I have been around people before. I know what it’s like to have a family,” Tank joked, laughing.
“Don’t you want to go back to them?” I asked quietly.
I’d never considered what life for Tank had been like back in the human realm. He was just the massive bear at the garage. Of course, he had a family. And we’d dragged him into another realm away from them in our desperate need to save our brother.
“Nah. My sleuth moved on before we came here. I have nothing to go back to.”
The way he said it so casually shocked me.
“They left you behind?”
Tank glanced at me, clearly surprised that I was so upset on his behalf. How could I not be? He was fast becoming another man I’d call a brother. I couldn’t see how anyone who could say the same thing would just leave him behind.
“I forget sometimes that you guys knew nothing of our world before we came here,” Tank said wryly. “It’s not easy being a shifter back in the human realm. But the most difficult hurdle we face is that we don’t age the same as the humans do. A shifter can live for a couple hundred years, and that’s not an easy thing to hide when you have friends and neighbours who will eventually grow old while you stay exactly the same. Shifters have no choice but to move on when it becomes noticeable. The whole sleuth was moving to a new home, dropping an entire life and getting ready to step into a new one. It’s what they do to protect themselves. To protect our secret.”
“And you couldn’t do that,” I realised.
He shrugged, his gaze moving to where Alyssa was talking with a few of the crew who stared at her like she was the answer to their prayers. “I never would have left her behind, and I couldn’t ask her to come with us.”
I knew exactly how he felt and it rocked me to the core that in the same situation, I’d probably have come to the same decision. Family meant everything to me, but what was the point of family if she wasn’t in it?