Chapter Two
Rocco sat waiting in the main church of the clubhouse. Rose had already reached out and told them she was on her way.
He couldn’t help but clench his hands into fists. Part of him wanted to take off in the woods, to locate her scent and then surround her with him, to tell her it was going to be okay. But, he couldn’t do that. He didn’t have the right to do that.
Rejecting Rose had been a lot easier to maintain when he didn’t see her every day, but right now it felt like the biggest mistake he’d ever made.
Alpha was looking out the window into the night’s sky. There hadn’t been any new Milton experiments lately, which they were thankful for.
The one that had died tonight had arrived two months ago. Since he survived the first full moon, they had thought they were doing something right, but it hadn’t worked. Nothing worked.
Rocco looked around the table, as the guys did seem grim. Enzo, with his endless knitting, was going mad with his needles and ball of wool. Alpha was by the window, and he’d not moved. Boyan looked broody as fuck, as did Wolfe, but they were missing their mates. Gunnar and Gray were silent. Ryker was drinking coffee.
He glanced over at Draco, and saw the other man looked … troubled. Not that it was a new look on him or anything. Draco had lost a mate some time ago. Most men went feral and there were times Draco was on the verge of going crazy. It was up to the club to keep him sane.
Rocco frowned. Usually, Draco tried to cause trouble, or he tried to lure them into some kind of fight or something, but this time the other man was silent as he stared down at the table, and his eyes were closed. He couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with the other man to keep him so calm.
It all changed as Rose suddenly appeared in the doorway. They had several members from the beta team who were attempting to join their ranks. The Poison Wolves MC was not a vast organization, they were a select few men who had the ability to alpha their own pack. Only they had defied the odds, came together, and now worked to protect each other, as well as the pack that belonged to each one of them.
“You took your time,” Alpha said.
Rose took the only available seat at the head of the table.
Rocco tried not to stare, but that was impossible. She looked so beautiful. Her blonde hair was finally out of the tight bun, and she smelled a lot like coconut, which also suggested she’d taken a shower. The dungarees had been changed to a skirt and blouse. She looked feminine and nothing like a woman who’d cleaned body parts from the forest less than a few hours ago.
“And?” Rose asked.
She also had a bad attitude. It was rare for any of them to encounter someone from their pack who was not enamored by them. There were a few groupies that were willing to do anything for them. Rose was not one of them. From what he knew, she didn’t entertain anyone. He’d asked around discretely, trying to build a picture of this woman in his mind.
“Is that any way to talk to your alpha?” Alpha asked.
“Look, I don’t have to be here. I just clean up the mess, I’m not responsible for anything else. You won’t even take my suggestion but it seems to be the only one you’ve not taken!” She glared at him.
Rocco couldn’t help it, he felt arousal at her strength. Rose was a delicate woman, and yet she had a spine of steel and one hell of a backbone, and she didn’t cower.
She raised up, putting her hands flat on the table as she stared down at Alpha, who’d taken a step toward them.
They could all put her in her place, but the truth was, Rose’s suggestion hadn’t been tried because Alpha refused to do it.
“Mixing blood is what got us here in the first place,” Alpha said. “We need a resolution that doesn’t require some of us turning into fucking vampires!”
She growled and the sound went right through his body. It was like he was waking up, he just couldn’t help it. She sounded so sure and so clear.
“What got us into this mess was a guy playing God when he shouldn’t have been. We’re not trying to play God, we’re trying to save them,” Rose said. “You need time to figure out the mess he caused, and you also need to find one of the stupid scientists that worked with him or for him.”
“Not happening. Do you think I’m going to have one of them wandering around my pack?”
“Then why do you even need me here! You saw the mess you made. I cleaned it up, and yes, the bones and fragments appeared to be that of a young transitioner who didn’t make it. The bones that were not destroyed showed the changes, the structure of the start of the change. The blood is like any other blood, but … there were like chunks of black, almost like some parts of the blood were dying.”
“Are we talking zombies?” Enzo asked, lifting his head.
“Unless the mulch you keep getting is suddenly mutating and walking around Poison, then no, zombies are not happening,” Rose said. “She took a deep breath and looked toward Alpha. Why do you need me here?”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
With that, she turned on her heel, and Rocco had to just sit on his ass and not move a muscle.
“Was that really necessary?” Gunnar asked.
“She is disrespectful.” Alpha threw up his hands.
“Disrespectful or not, you know the cleaners are a little peculiar, but they have to be to do the job,” Gunnar said. “Why won’t you take her suggestions? She’s not here to destroy the pack, and she doesn’t work for Milton.”
Alpha pulled out a seat and sat down.
Rocco wanted to leave, to catch up with Rose, and to just be with her. His wolf wasn’t happy, and they knew she struggled with the job.
He was aware she cried as he’d stumbled onto her after a job. A damn fine cleaner she might be, but it came with a cost. He also knew she hadn’t eaten. Rose had cleaned, but not taken care of herself, and he felt this sudden overwhelming need to do something for her.
“I know she doesn’t work for Milton, but none of us know how vast his … experiments were. I don’t want to run the risk of starting something that could in essence destroy the pack.”
“Why would it destroy the pack?” Draco asked, surprising them all by speaking up.
Rose’s idea made sense. It was gross, but it made sense, at least to Rocco. Also, he didn’t like it.
Her suggestion was to feed the wolf some of their blood next time. Milton had used mainly human experiments in the hope of creating an army, or something. None of them were quite clear on his reasons, and they had yet to find anyone associated with him. The paperwork was in the basement, and Agatha was trying to make sense of it all, along with Amelia.
Milton had started to experiment on himself, which is why they believed he got as mad as he did. Only, he’d gone one step too far, which was what made him feral.
“We don’t know the numbers. We don’t know what they’re capable of. If they get a taste for wolf blood, and we offer them up a supply, what happens when it is not enough? Will they overrun the pack? When do we say enough is enough?”
“You fear them going feral?” Rocco asked.
“You’ve seen what they are like.”
“I’ve seen it, and I’ve also made the suggestion that we kill them to show an act of mercy, and you don’t like that option either,” Rocco said.
He truly believed it would be easier for them all if any mutation entered their pack, they took care of it humanely, without causing them pain. Also, it would be a lot easier on the cleanup for Rose. He didn’t want to see her suffer, but he knew she did.
“What do you have to lose?” Draco asked.
“The whole pack. We don’t know what is going on inside their heads. We don’t know anything about them, other than the fact they are not capable of taking care of themselves. They cannot survive the transition, and that is the way it must be for now. I will not risk our entire pack to save them. People can call me a monster, I don’t care. The pack comes first.”
****
The following day, all Rose wanted to do was lay under her covers and hide away from the world, but her garden didn’t agree with giving anyone a rest, so she was out weeding between her plants.
She’d already done the day’s harvest, and her produce was waiting for her at home. After weeding, she’d go and do her prep work, and then at the end of the day, she’d come out and give it a nice big watering.
Standing up, she brushed the dirt from her jeans and turned around to see Draco in her backyard. She pressed a hand to her chest and nearly screamed.
“Draco, you scared me.”
“I knocked on the door. I was knocking for a good ten minutes, but no one answered, and I heard you outside, so I thought I’d come to see you.”
She nodded her head. “Sorry, as you can see, I was busy.” Lifting the barrow, she walked down her path, going toward the compost heap, to deposit her weeds. “What do you want?”
“Your suggestion of the blood, how do you mean?”
She tipped the barrow full of weeds onto the small compost heap, and then turned toward Draco. “Is Alpha considering it?”
“No, but I’d like to know, just in case it is a last resort and we’re desperate.”
“Look, I’m not scientist or biologist or anything like that. Our blood created this mess, or whoever’s blood was used. Either way, I guess in theory that possibly the supply might stop the transition, or it might help them through. Again, I don’t know. I don’t have a clue, it’s just a guess.”
“But it’s a guess that Alpha won’t use.”
Rose shrugged.
“Do you want to know his reasoning?” Draco asked. “We wanted to know why he won’t take your suggestions.”
“I’m guessing it is down to the pack. Alpha must take care of the pack first,” Rose said. It’s one of the reasons she wasn’t pissed at him for not taking her idea. She was only trying to help them all out, and of course stop one of them from exploding so she could avoid the cleanup work, but that was the only reason she had done it. There was no ulterior motive for her.
She walked back toward her house as the weeding was all done, and now she had to start fixing up her produce.
“Is that all?” Rose asked.
“Do you think it could work?” Draco asked.
“I have no idea, but it is a crazy one to have, especially as I’ve seen some of the people who have been fighting this mutation. There is a risk it could go very wrong, and I’m not denying that.” She didn’t want to even think of the possible repercussions of her suggestion. “It truly is a last resort but if Alpha has any other suggestions, then I am happy to listen to them.”
She offered Draco a smile. She knew the details about Draco. The whole pack knew what happened to him. The poor man had lost his mate, it was strange he was asking about the mutations or experiments. She didn’t have a clue what the guys were calling it.
Draco’s mate was killed by humans, and most of the people stumbling into town were human. She figured Draco would be happy to see the men and women dead, seeing as it was humans that killed his mate.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I know this might be hard on you with everything.”
He held up his hands. “I am fine.”
“Does it bother you … you know … with everything that is happening?”
Draco opened and closed his mouth and then nodded. “Yes, it does, but not because I want to see them suffer. There is pain, and then there is suffering. I have felt both, and I don’t feel anyone should have to go through what they are going through. They must all be terrified.”
Rose nodded. It’s part of the reason she couldn’t help the tears from falling. It had been a long time since she went through her first transition, but the pain was unlike anything she had ever experienced in her life. The fear and pain had mingled together, along with that special voice inside her head. Now, she knew it was her wolf finally breaking free, but at the time, hearing a strange voice speak so clearly hadn’t helped with her fear. In fact, it made her even more afraid.
“I’m sorry you have to go through all this,” she said.
He waved his hand. “No, I’m sorry you have to clean up the mess. It cannot be easy.”
She couldn’t deny it, it had to be one of the hardest jobs. Even her parents had struggled through the transitions when they hadn’t gone well.
All death was hard.
“I’ll see you around,” Draco said.
She watched him leave and found it strange that he would come to her for advice. Draco was not a talker.
Heading into the kitchen, she looked at the baskets of tomatoes and zucchini. Even when she tried less zucchini plants, they seemed to constantly be growing. It was like she couldn’t stop them from growing.
She went to the sink, washed her hands, and then began the prep work. She started work on the tomatoes so she could make several different kinds of sauce for the coming winter. The supermarkets always packed great stuff, but her parents had always gardened and canned their own produce, and this was her way of staying connected to them. This is what she wanted to do. It was like following family tradition which had always been so important to her.
With several pots of tomatoes, mixed with herbs, onions, and garlic bubbling in the pot, the next problem was the zucchini. She had a love-hate relationship with this vegetable, or fruit, she didn’t know what the label was. However, she had come to learn that prep work was always necessary.
She loved it grilled and seasoned, which she did, preparing it on trays and then allowing it to cool completely before flash-freezing, then bagging it. This was always a big hit for her. Some she simply grated and portioned out for the freezer.
By the time she had finished doing most of the prep, it was already dark, and she heard her stomach growl.
She breathed out a sigh, and as the loneliness started to creep up, she felt the traitorous tears she tried to keep at bay. This is not what she wanted to do. Crying randomly always annoyed her. Gripping the edge of the sink, she tried to control her emotions. Her wolf was no help, as her body was fueled with feeling as well. Being around Rocco didn’t help.
She stepped away from the sink when the tears didn’t fall. She was able to keep everything inside, and as she went to the fridge, someone knocked at her front door. Rose was not used to company.
She moved toward her door, unbolted the lock, opened it, and there on the other side was Rocco. Neither of them spoke, he just looked at her.
She wasn’t ready to deal with him. Not tonight. She was exhausted, and preserving, doing everything her parents had done. Along with the cleanup last night, and the confrontation with Rocco and Alpha, it was all too much.
“Not tonight,” she said.
He shook his head. “I’ve not come for anything.”
“Then what do you want?” she asked, figuring there was another human about to die, and she’d be cleaning up the mess.
“This.” He stepped toward her and at first, she tensed because she didn’t know what he was going to do. Only, he shocked her by pulling her into his arms. “I’m doing this for me,” he said.
“Rocco?”
“I know you don’t need it, and I get that, but I am doing this for me.”
He held the back of her head, and she knew in that moment he wasn’t doing this for himself. Rocco had come to comfort her.
She hated him. But at that moment, she didn’t quite hate him enough to push him away. Even though her wolf wanted to gouge his eyes out, she also just wanted to be held. It was a strange feeling.
Rose rarely felt this way, but when she did, it felt like her whole world was crashing down around her and there was no way she could stop it. There was only fear and pain, and that terrified her.
Breathing in Rocco, she knew she hated feeling this … need.