5. Val #2
“He’s there, I can’t describe it. He just won’t wake up. I think…” I look up, seeing nothing in particular as I search for the words I need. “I think he gave so much to keep this body of ours alive, it took a toll on him and he needs to recover. But he is there, he hears me.”
Marcus stares at me so intently I have to lock my muscles and joints to keep from shivering.
“Come closer,” Marcus orders. He stands at the same time I do.
I take the two steps I need to in order to press my thighs to the edge of the desk.
It simply isn’t possible for me to look into Marcus’ eyes when he reaches over the desk and cups my nape.
A wave of power slaps against me, Marcus exercising some of his strength as Alpha Anax.
I quiver inside and out when Marcus puts his nose to my neck and inhales.
Marcus rumbles a wordless sound as he releases me. “I could barely scent the wolf in you, and only then when I loosed my power. But he is definitely in there.”
“I told you—” I begin, only to cut myself off when I realise what I’m saying and to whom. I still feel a bit stunned by that small example of Marcus’ power. “Sorry, Alpha Anax.”
“It’s fine,” Marcus says, gesturing at me. “Sit back down. I had to check, you understand?”
I shake my head as I sit and fold my hands in my lap. “No, sir, I don’t, not really.” Unless Marcus needed to know if I was lying, but Marcus would have sensed that.
“Sometimes we can deceive ourselves into believing something we wish was the truth,” Marcus explains, which, as an explanation, just sucks. “I needed to make sure you weren’t simply refusing to see that your wolf was, perhaps, gone.”
My insides chill as if I’ve had my veins filled with ice. “That’s not possible, is it?” Granted, I’ve worried about just that very thing, but I hadn’t believed it could really ever happen.
Marcus hitches one shoulder up. “I’ve heard stories, but never known it to happen. It wouldn’t have occurred to me as truly being a possibility except no one has caught even a whiff of your wolf since the attack. It certainly made me start to wonder, and worry. I couldn’t imagine such a thing.”
I can’t either, and now the frigid cold has concentrated in my fingertips and toes.
They feel numb yet ache every few heartbeats.
“Me either,” I manage around a lump of fear in my throat.
What would have happened to me if Marcus had smelled nothing other than human on me?
I discount the thought almost as soon as I have it.
I’d die without my wolf, and that would be that.
“Look at me, Val.”
I drag my gaze up, glancing first at Nathan, who’s been unusually quiet during this meeting. Nathan doesn’t smile, instead staring at me intently. I turn my attention to Marcus and flinch under the hard look in my Alpha Anax’s eyes.
“I have a task for you that may very well last for years, possibly a lifetime, depending, and it is very important that you understand it is not me sending you away or thinking you are in any way inept.” Marcus steeples his hands on top of the desk and tips his chin down, staring eerily at me.
“In fact, I may be placing the safety of all shifters on your shoulders, so remember that if you ever believe I have any doubt in your capabilities.”
I’m terrified and almost overwhelmingly proud at the same time. I want to ask Marcus if he’s sure he should trust something so important to a fucked-up shifter, but that would imply I lack faith in my leader’s abilities. That would never be the case.
Marcus is the man I idolise, as do most of the other shifters, male and female. It isn’t unusual. Marcus is the strongest shifter in North America, maybe even the world, and commands a respect many would envy but very few would challenge.
“Yes, Alpha Anax,” I say softly, straining to make myself keep my gaze on Marcus’. “I am honored and give my word to do the best, to sacrifice anything and everything for you and our pack.”
Marcus nods solemnly then flicks a hand and I feel him reining in his power completely so that I don’t have to struggle to look at him. It still makes my spine itch to do so but it isn’t the almost painful experience it could have been.
Nathan clears his throat and I turn to him.
Nathan looks as serious and stern as he did moments ago.
He crosses his arms over his surprisingly broad chest—for such a short guy, Nathan is quite muscular—and looks down his nose at me.
If Nathan had been sitting as well, that wouldn’t have been possible.
Then again, as I kind of slump under that look, Nathan could probably manage to give anyone that look despite any disparity in height.
“Here’s the thing, Val,” Nathan begins, surprising me since Marcus has been doing all the talking up until now.
“You have probably heard about the man we had here, Harley Johansen. He’d been brought into our world, so to speak, very unwillingly.
Joshua Dobson had abused him, although Harley never trusted any of us to confide just how far Dobson went with that abuse.
Whatever happened, I believe it was bad.
Harley hated every one of us, and we had to let him go home.
Keeping him prisoner was just as wrong as what Dobson had done to him. ”
I can’t remember everything I think I once knew, there are occasional odd gaps in my memory, but I haven’t forgotten that Joshua Dobson abducted Marcus Criswell and held him captive for six months, torturing him daily.
What would Dobson have done to a human? My stomach goes hot and queasy at the thought of it.
Marcus clears his throat, pulling my attention back to him.
“So, I’m sure you understand how…delicate,” Marcus stresses the word slightly, “this situation is. While there was some talk of killing Harley Johansen since he refused to be turned, or turning him against his will, I could not”—he nods at Nathan—”we could not condone any such thing.
The only option, the only right thing to do, was to let Harley return to his world, and hope he doesn’t expose us to those who would destroy us, which would be pretty much every human being alive.
We all know they’d fear us, and what humans fear… ”
“They destroy unthinkingly,” Nathan finishes.
He sighs and rubs at his forehead. “And maybe we aren’t so different, but I really don’t want to be hunted down and experimented on and all that shit.
I want to live my life here, with my mate, with our friends and family, and I want to help Marcus keep us all safe.
But, even so, Harley had to be freed.” And now Nathan looks at me, pinning me with those intense gold-flecked green eyes.
“Someone needs to keep an eye on Harley. Not just for our good, but for his too. There are definitely shifters who would kill him without hesitation if they get the chance.”