Red
"This has turned into a fucking shitstorm, man. I'm barely keeping my head on straight," Red confessed to Henry.
They were standing outside of the clinic as Red tried to contain his anger because seeing his Mate on that table, hearing the story of a broken eleven-year-old who had been torn apart by a werewolf...It had wrecked him.
Red had never thought that he'd be the domineering, overbearing type. Yet knowing that she'd been a child when she'd met the worst of his kind, that made Red want to hunt down the monsters that had hurt her just for the peace of mind that they could never do so again. Henry had confessed what Blake had told him that day in Denver. That one of Blake's attackers had escaped. Knowing that one of her demons was still out there in the world only heightened his desire to leave and hunt and kill.
Each time he blinked, he saw Blake's split lip and the blood that had dribbled out of her nose to dry on her chin and the laceration on her temple. Recalled the bruises that had formed around the bite marks on her shoulder from where Deacon's teeth had ripped into her skin as he'd tried to kill her.
Anger that coursed through his veins like an unrelenting river. He'd never felt it so strong before. He'd been mad and pissed off at the world, had snarled and growled and fought. But never had he been so earth-shatteringly furious.
Or so afraid.
Because the marks and the bruises and the blood...The fact that they were still there was a reminder. That Blake was human, not a wolf. She would never heal fast. She would always be susceptible to injury. Something that would be a minor inconvenience to him could end her life. He hadn't realized the fragility of the human life until he'd met her.
And now that she was here...Red was scared that maybe she wouldn't be for long.
Especially if Victor and Deacon and their sympathizers had anything to do about it. Red wasn't ready to lose Blake. Not now, not ever. Even if she left him, retreating back to the human world once their investigation was over, then so be it. At least she'd be alive.
Henry's mouth quirked into a half-hearted grin. "Welcome to being Mated. You'll go out of your mind with worry more than once. Probably a lot more with Blake thinking she's invincible."
"She doesn't think she's invincible," Red refuted and his voice broke. "I think she just doesn't care if she gets hurt. Goddess, she was cracking jokes after she almost got her head ripped off by Deacon. First thing she says to me after she nearly got crushed by that tree is 'if a tree falls in the forest, I guess it makes a fucking sound.' What the hell am I supposed to do with that, Henry?"
"She's tough."
"Too tough."
Henry clapped Red on the back and glanced over his shoulder to where, down the street, some of their packmates continued to linger. Some hadn't moved since they'd seen Red carry Blake into the clinic, as if they were watching for a body bag to be rolled out.
"That's probably not a bad thing given the circumstances," Henry said.
Red swallowed thickly and couldn't help the frown that settled over his mouth. "It's been three days, Henry. That's it. Three days and she nearly died. At this rate, she'll be lucky to last the week!"
"Calm down, man." There was just a hint of a command in the Alpha's voice. An order that settled in Red's bones. He took a shuddering breath, releasing it as Henry said, "We'll keep an eye on her and I'll have Monroe and Toby test out the waters for those who will help us keep her safe."
Even if they both knew that Red wouldn't trust anyone but himself to watch out for her.
"But maybe you shouldn't take Blake back to the house tonight," Henry added. "Everyone knows she's been staying there. Take her to my place instead. It's warded so no one will be able to get in or out without my or Lucy's permission. I'll call Lucy now and have her take Annalise to my parents' place. It's been sitting empty since they went to Germany."
If anything, it would give him a place to think about what the morning would bring without needing to watch his back or listen for intruders at Blake's door.
"Don't worry about food or clothes," Henry added. "Blake should fit into some of Lucy's old things and you can raid my closet. The fridge is fully stocked."
Red pulled his brother in for a hug. "Thank you. For everything. I know that you don't need to do this but—"
"I do. She's your Mate. That makes her family. It's a complicated family, without a doubt, but family nonetheless. We'll figure this out. I promise."
Red had never been more grateful for his family. Not the one he'd been born, but the one he'd found. The one he would fight for, time and time again. His people.
The door to the clinic slid open and Red and Henry turned as Monroe appeared, Blake a half-step behind her.
Red's eyes immediately went to his Mate, a little surprised to see her on her feet so soon. She was wearing Monroe's sweater and her black hair was tangled and knotted yet the blood that had surely dried in it was hidden, though Red could scent its lingering iron tang. The bandage on her head was on full display though the dressings on her shoulder and ribs were obscured. From the way she carried herself – stiff, uncomfortable – it was evident that she was feeling the effects of that wound.
"How are you feeling?" he asked her.
Blake said, "It only hurts when I move or breathe."
"No big deal then." Red tried to lighten his tone, to tease, but he couldn't quite manage it.
"No big deal."
Henry and Monroe offered Red a last parting glance before they turned and went back into the clinic. A phone was pressed to Henry's ear as he chatted with his Mate, informing Lucy of all that had happened and to vacate their house. Red knew that his Luna and goddaughter would be out of there before he and Blake made it to the cabin.
When he glanced back down at his Mate, he saw that she was watching them go. "Are they going to talk to Deacon and Victor?"
"Victor only. Deacon is still unconscious. The wolfsbane will take some time to wear off."
"But he'll be okay?"
"He'll be fine."
Blake's gaze cut to him as she ran a critical eye over him, head to toe and back up again. "And you're fine, right? You seem okay but you and Victor went at it pretty hard."
Red nodded, a little surprised, and pleased, at the concern in her voice. "Mostly healed already. Nothing major." He turned in the direction of Henry's cabin and began walking, Blake barely more than an inch from his side. Her body heat seeped into him. "Why? You worried about me?"
Blake snorted as they ducked into the woods. There were no paths to follow but the trail was as familiar to him as his own hand. "Just worried that I'll lose my bodyguard. That'd be a real pain in the ass."
It was hard to stop the laugh once it started. A rumbling chuckle that rasped past his lips, earning a raised brow from the woman beside him. "I can't believe that you spent six weeks not talking to me and now, after being attacked by two werewolves, you find a smartass remark."
"Believe me, the smartass remarks were always there. I just didn't say them out loud." Blake glanced around the woods. "Okay, maybe it's the morphine talking, but I swear it didn't take us this long to get from the house to the town this morning."
"We're not going back to the house," Red informed her just as they crossed paths with a scent trail. Fresh – and recognizable. Lucy and Annalise. The cabin was close. "We're spending the night at Henry's place."
"You think someone is going to try and attack me again tonight?"
Red glanced at her as she stared at him with a question written in her eyes. He knew that Blake was strong and able to handle herself, but all he saw was a delicate human, breakable – someone who could die on him.
Red didn't think he could handle taking her into that clinic again. Not bruised and bleeding and pained. Dying. Knowing it was his fault. That he could have stopped it if he had just kept his eyes on her like he'd sworn to do.
The gouge in her shoulder, the bruises and scrapes on her face, the cracks in her ribs...They were all his fault.
Which meant that he needed her some place safe tonight – just so he could wallow in his failure and perhaps be a little more overprotective than he had been in the days since her arrival. The kind of overprotective he'd been forcing himself not to be in her presence because he knew how thoroughly she'd rebuff him.
"I think it's likely that someone might try to finish what Victor and Deacon couldn't," Red answered at last. "But they might be nervous about how I'll react and steer clear. To be frank, it's a risk I'm not willing to take today."
He resumed his pace through the forest again and as they neared Henry's cabin, the density of trees began to thin.
"Tell me what would normally happen if someone threatened a werewolf's...soulmate." Blake still hadn't gotten used to the word, it seemed. It rolled off her tongue after a brief hesitation. "Why would your packmates steer clear?"
"It's—it's not an entirely human reaction, Blake. I don't know how to describe it in exact words because it's more of a feeling. An instinctual reaction. When you were hurt, I didn't even think before my body decided that ripping out Victor's throat was the only thing I could do. I would have done it – for you – if that tree hadn't fallen and snapped me out of it. And the thing is Blake, if you were a werewolf and felt what I do...you would react the same way over me."
She blinked at him – the vehemence in his tone. At the raise of her brow, he realized that he'd been leaning in, eyes wild...Red sniffed, positive that he would scent terror emanating off of her – but there was nothing. No beads of sweat or jump to her pulse at his nearness. Blake only stared like she wanted to know more. As if she wanted to understand.
But Red didn't have the words past what he'd already said and to explain the bond would be impossibly. She couldn't comprehend the gravitational pull he felt towards her and the depth of that emotion. Not without feeling it herself and it was abundantly clear after all this time that it wasn't something she'd ever be able to experience.
Which meant that she would never be willing or able to go to the depths that he would for her. Blake's human heart simply couldn't do it. Humans weren't built to withstand what a werewolf could.
Red ripped his eyes from her face and spun on his heel to clear the last of the trees as they arrived at Henry's cabin. A modest place, really, given the grandeur of the packhouse. Built from wood with a simple porch and a green door. Two wicker chairs rocked on a gentle breeze on the deck – a housewarming gift Red had built for the Alpha pair when they'd erected this cabin shortly before Annalise had been born. Red had helped build the cabin too. He and Henry had spent three months working on it, Lucy hovering over their every move so that every little specification and detail was exactly how she wanted it.
He felt it as they passed through the wards that surrounded the cabin – similar to those that surrounded the pack but designed to offer a second bout of protection to the Alpha and his family.
Inside, the cabin was even more homely. The kitchen smaller, the decorations personally selected, the rug in the living room worn and stained from all of the times that Annalise had spilled juice or food on it.
Blake surveyed it all, those guarded eyes flicking to each nook and cranny of the room. "It's cozy," she said and there was a hint of envy in her voice. "Seems more like a home than the other place."
"It's the Alpha's home."
"Henry and Lucy and...their daughter?" She pointed to one of the family pictures that had been framed and hung on the wall.
Red nodded. "Yes."
Blake peered at the photograph and added, "Cute kid. Though I guess they'll need to update this soon once the next one pops out. How far along is Lucy?"
"About five months. Werewolf pregnancies tend to last seven."
"Do they know yet if it's a boy or girl?"
"Boy."
Blake just smiled, the edges of her lips quirking up as she took another look at that happy family photo. "You think they'd mind if I used their shower? I'm still covered in dirt and blood."
Indeed there were specks of red on her face and neck. The worst of it had been cleaned away by Amanda but what remained...Red's eyes settled on it.
"Down the hall and to the left. First door on the right. I'll dig out some clothes for you."
"It's okay, I can just—"
"Alpha's orders."
For a second, Blake looked as if she might try and argue but then she spun on her heel to follow his directions. Red waited until she was out of sight before exhaling, long and slow, as he went in search of clothes in Lucy's closet. He found a pair of sweats, a simple t-shirt, and an oversized sweater and gathered them up to bring to her.
Red knocked on the closed bathroom door, the sound of running water coming from within. "Hey, I've got clothes for you. Want me to leave them out here?"
"No, you can come in."
He opened the door and stopped dead. She wasn't in the shower as he'd anticipated but in the middle of the bathroom. A pretty, clean space with light blue walls and porcelain, accented with gold. Steam from the shower coated the room, rolling over the floor and creeping up the mirror.
Blake had shed Monroe's sweater and was clad only in a bra and her jeans. Red was struck dumbfounded. Not just at the sight of her – strong and lithe and lined with sinewy muscle – which made some part of the Mate bond that had been slumbering awaken. But also at the scars.
They were everywhere. All over her back in a fucked up sort of road map. It looked as if she'd been torn open, stripped down to the very bone, and then stitched crudely back together. He had never seen such marks on a person before but there was no mistaking their werewolf origin.
He'd known – had been told several times but...Red hadn't seen them. And perhaps there had been a small part of him that hadn't really understood the extent of what others had described.
Blake half-turned from where she'd been surveying the bindings of her ribs. "Thanks, you can just—"
The words died on her lips as she noticed the direction of his gaze. She stood and stared, waiting for him to speak as he reeled the wolf back inside, shoved those instincts down that threatened to overwhelm him. Blake only waited as if she knew the internal battle that he was facing. Understood, on some level, the primal thoughts that were running through his brain.
Red closed his eyes and took several slow breaths. When he looked at her again, it was only to brandish the clothes. "Here. Take as much time as you need. I'll go fix us some food."
It was an effort to leave the bathroom, to shut the door and walk away. Red made himself do it. He took a two-minute shower and tracked down clothes for himself from Henry's wardrobe before making his way back to the kitchen where he put on a pot of water and grabbed pasta and sauce from the pantry. Red placed a few chicken breasts in a pan to cook and used the simple tasks to anchor himself until that fury had leached from his body.
By the time Blake appeared in the kitchen, Red felt calmer. Her dark hair was still wet, hanging like spilled ink on her shoulder. But there was no blood on her now. She looked better, refreshed, even in spite of the careful way that she carried herself.
"Smells good," Blake murmured. She pulled out a stool at the countertop and sat. "I love Italian."
"You look better." Red drained the pasta and portioned it onto plates. He stopped it with the sauce and chicken and slid a plate across to Blake. Next to it, he placed a cup of water.
She took a sip from the glass and then picked up her fork. "I feel better. It's always like that after a fight. Usually, I don't feel like myself until after I've had a hot shower. Before that it's like I'm looking in through someone else's eyes."
From the casual way she spoke, he knew it was an emotion she was more than familiar with.
Silence stretched between them, long and frail, broken only by the scraping of forks against plates. Finally, Blake said, "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."
"What?"
"My scars. I saw the way you looked at them and ever since I said that I was a kid when I got them, you've had this look in your eye like you want to ask but aren't sure how. But if we're going to be able trust each other as we work together then you should be able to ask me questions about myself. So I'll tell you but it was the absolute worst day of my life which means that if you're going to get that story then I need the same from you. The worst day of your life."
Red set down his fork, said "Fair enough," and waited for her to begin.
It took a moment. Time he spent studying her face, the way her eyes clouded and darkened.
"I grew up in this little town about an hour away from Seattle. My parents loved the wilderness and hiking so they bought a house that backed onto a forest. I spent my childhood in that thing. Loved it.
"On the night of my eleventh birthday, these werewolves were passing through town on their way to Seattle and on that same day, my dad didn't make it home for dinner. It was weird for him to be late and he wasn't answering his phone. We thought there had been an accident and my mom was getting ready to call the police when he came in through the backdoor."
Blake released a slow breath and stared at the counter. There was an emptiness in her voice now. A bleakness. Red's chest tightened as she said, "My dad was covered in blood and dirt. His arm was broken. And I remember thinking that he seemed terrified – but also a bit relieved when he crossed the threshold. He told us to lock the doors and windows and said that he'd been taken by a group of strangers. They knocked him out and when he came to, he was in the middle of the forest with some other people from town.
"The werewolves said it was a game. Manhunt. The game would end only if the human made it home without being caught, but they lied. Two of the werewolves tracked him to our house and broke in. My parents sacrificed themselves so that my brother and I had time to run. I remember hearing my mom screaming as I hid my brother. One wolf shoved me down the stairs and I broke my leg but then I was thrown into a glass coffee table. After that, the wolf ripped into my back with its claws. I was dying and my mom's screaming had ended so I knew she was gone... I remember praying that they wouldn't take my brother too. That they would just leave. Then, a hunter came in and shot the wolf with silver bullets and I passed out."
Blake raised her eyes back to Red's. They were lined with silver tears and it was only then that he realized that there were tears in his eyes too. Tears for the girl he couldn't protect – tears for the women she'd had to become to survive.
"Two weeks later I woke in the hospital with a really messed up back, broken collarbone, torn muscles, shattered leg, messed up arm... The hunter stuck around to watch over my brother. Told the hospital staff that he was our godfather and had forged documents to back it up so they didn't question it.
"He told us that werewolves and other creatures existed and that he hunted them. Then he told me that only one of the wolves that attacked us was dead and the other had gotten away. He said that he would keep us safe and help me find the wolf that escaped so I went with him and learned how to hunt.
Red had to choke back the bile in his throat, had to quench the anger burning fire through his veins before he could speak. When he finally did find words, his tone was laced with self-loathing. "It makes sense now why you hate us. I would too. I can't believe you're even letting me near you right now."
He reached for her discarded plate and began rinsing it in the sink just to keep his hands busy – and to have somewhere to look that wasn't at her face.
"Three months ago I wouldn't have," Blake admitted. "But things are different now. Not all of you are monsters."
"I'm surprised you're saying that after everything that happened today."
"I'm saying it in spite of everything that happened today." Her voice changed. Just slightly, but he noticed enough to raise his eyes to her. Blake stared at him with intensity – the kind that made the tension coiling in his gut release. Like she was seeing him. Not the werewolf, but the man. As she had once months ago, standing on the side of the road in the moonlight.
It was the first time she had stared at him like that in the past three days. Most of her gazes, even the ones that were softer and more sincere, had been edged with a hate and anger that she couldn't seem to let go of. There was none of that in her face now. Just openness.
Blake murmured, "You came for me. Monroe tried to help me. Amanda patched me back together and your Alpha offered to lay down a command to keep others from hurting me. I know who the monsters are and I know who the monsters aren't. Regardless of what hesitations I have of your species overall, Red, I know that I don't have to watch my back when I'm with you."
Red leaned across the counter and murmured, "I didn't really understand it before. Why people like you hunt beings like me. But after seeing your scars – I get it, Blake. And I don't blame you for it."
It was hard for him to breathe with their eyes locked as they were, but he forced himself to swallow and add, "My turn now I guess." Red exhaled and Blake straightened. "This is something very few people know about me, Blake. In the entire pack, the only people who know are Henry and his parents. Even Lucy and Monroe don't know."
Blake didn't move. Just watched him with those grey eyes. Like steel and ice. Hard and strong and resilient. Waiting. He couldn't meet her gaze and so he went back to the dishes.
"I wasn't born in Sanguis Ridge but to a different pack within the northern region of the Adirondack Mountains. My mother fell in love with a boy her age – the soon-to-be Alpha – but he wasn't her Mate. He loved her back though, enough so that she got pregnant with me. But two months into the pregnancy, he met his real Mate. I know you don't feel it so this might not make sense to you, but the pull of the bond is...Intense. Instinctive. My mother was heartbroken when he left her for his Mate, but she understood and raised me alone until I was five years old.
"The pack was large and our territory went right to the tip of a few human settlements. To avoid my father, my mother decided to live right on the edge of the territory and was one of the wolves who would go into the towns when we needed more supplies. One day she went out and never came back."
He heard the sharp inhale of Blake's breath but only continued, "It was hunters, as you know. They saw her in town and recognized what she was. When they started the hunt, she led them away from the pack to protect us – to protect me. My father took me in but his Mate could hardly stand to look at me because I was the reminder that he didn't wait for her.
"I stayed with them for three years and, though my father had always been kind and cared for my mother, when my mother died, I was just the reminder that she was gone. He turned violent and cruel. He already had another son by that point – a proper heir with his Mate. I was the black stain on the family." Red paused in the washing to pull down the front of his shirt, exposing a puckered scar near his heart. "My half-brother gave me this. Tried to kill me because he felt threatened that I wanted the Alpha title. I didn't but it didn't prevent him from shoving a silver knife into my chest.
"I ran after that, severing ties with the pack so they wouldn't be able to track me down. I ran, and ran, and ran and didn't stop until my first Shift happened. Most wolves go through it around age twelve but I went through mine at eight. And then I lived alone like that as a wolf for a year, not Shifting into my human skin again until I met Henry's father, Adrian, just outside of Sanguis Ridge territory. He took me in and let me live in the pack without question. He knew who my father was the moment that he saw my face – I have an uncanny resemblance to my father except in the eyes, those are my mother's – but Adrian told me that if I wanted to stay, the choice was mine. So I did."
Blake cocked her head. "You have Alpha blood."
He nodded and placed the last plate in the rack to dry. "Yes. Not as strong as if I'd been born to an Alpha and his Mate but it's there. If I wanted, I could probably form a pack of my own but I've never wanted to be an Alpha. Henry knows that and doesn't care now but it did cause some tension when we were younger."
"How did he find out?"
"I told him." Red crossed his arms over his chest. "He offered me the Beta position when he took over as Alpha for his father. We were twenty-one. But I knew that if I accepted it, then I would have to see my father and half-brother again at meetings. There are things that I am not ready to face in this world. That is one of them."
Blake nodded slowly, processing as the story clicked into place. "So you turned Henry down. And Monroe became Beta?"
Red snorted and leaned against the counter once more. "Monroe was almost as resistant as I was to being Beta. It's untraditional for a female to be high-ranking like that but Henry rarely takes the conventional route. He wore her down until she accepted – and then she decided that she liked having her voice heard and has been irritating the rest of us ever since."
"Red isn't your real name, is it?"
"No."
"Didn't want your father to hear it and come looking?"
"Exactly. When they found me, I was, uh, a little feral. Covered in blood and with the russet colour of my fur, Adrian decided that the nickname was appropriate. It stuck after that."
Blake asked, "Will you tell me what it is?"
Red hadn't spoken his birth name aloud in years but she was staring at him and the ice in her eyes had melted. "Edison Donahue."
"You know, I'm not scared of your scars either. And I don't blame you, Red, for not fully trusting me. And for keeping me locked up for a month and a half."
"Technically, that was your own doing. Not sure I should be taking any kind of credit for that."
Her eyes sparkled now – not with tears or sadness, but with laughter. "What do you say we start over? No hunters. No werewolves. Just us."
Red raised a brow. "How do you suppose we do that?"
She smiled, real and genuine. "Like this." Blake extended her hand across the counter. "It's nice to meet you, Edison Donahue. I'm Blake Montgomery."
Red stared at her extended hand a moment before he smiled back and reached a hand out to grasp hers. "It's nice to meet you too, Blake Montgomery."
And it really was.
***
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