Red
He waited until he heard the click of the door upstairs before whirling on Ejo. The warlock had emerged from Henry's office to meet the Alpha and Beta pairs and Red on the porch. He was pale and shaky. Even now, it looked as if he was using the side of the house to keep himself standing upright.
"Is she okay?" Henry asked Red.
Red was surprised by the level of concern in Henry's eyes. He shook his head, remembering the easy joking Blake had used after Victor and Deacon had attacked her outside of pack territory – the way that she'd been half-mauled but managed to keep her typical dry humour.
"No," he said. "Blake is very much not okay."
If he concentrated, he could hear her sobbing upstairs. It made his heart hurt – the bond between them growing tight with pain.
"I've never felt anything like that," Ejo gasped.
"You could feel what she felt?" Monroe asked.
The warlock nodded. "I don't usually get asked to help someone go into their worst memories. More often than not, I help others relive their happiest days. Even then, the memory isn't often intense enough to pull me into it. To make me experience their emotions alongside them. It was..." Ejo shuddered, trailing off. His silver eyes were round and wide.
Toby was frowning, his arms crossed over his chest. More often than not, Red only saw irritation on Toby's face when he was near Blake but now he looked as Henry, Lucy, and Monroe did. As if he cared about the fact that Blake was hurting.
"That bad?" Toby asked.
"Worse," Ejo replied. "All I could sense from her was fear and desperation and loss. I couldn't see the memory itself but...It scared her. Deeply. It was even hard to access the memory. Like unlocking a vault behind impenetrable doors. She's buried her feelings about that day. It's a miracle she didn't fall into a memory trap."
She almost had. Red had felt her slipping; the bond weakening. As if the Blake that existed with him here and now was gone, replaced by another, older copy. Red had been terrified as Blake had begun to fall into the abyss, so scared that he'd been across the room and pulling her into his arms with hardly a thought.
Blake's nails had torn through the skin of her palm by then. Hands clenched into tight fists. When he'd unfurled them, it had been to small cuts and droplets of blood pooling. So he'd held her and whispered to her, begging her to come home to him.
Because the idea of losing her now was an impossibility. Perhaps he'd be able to bear it, find a way to move on, had she never kissed him. Had they never moved into this area they'd yet to define. Not quite Mates but...more than partners investigating these murders.
Something other.
And he loved her. Loved her beyond comprehension. It had been true for a while and not just because of the bond. The bond was secondary. Red had fallen in love with Blake the moment he'd dropped sticks at her feet while in his wolf skin and she'd asked if he wanted to play fetch. They'd sparred after that, play fighting as the mountain loomed before them.
A stupid, minuscule moment but Red had felt the laughter bubbling up and realized that it didn't matter that he was a werewolf and she was a human. It was the first time that he'd felt like that – as if the distinction between them wasn't as broad as he'd once imagined. Not a chasm but a small crack. Easy to cross.
They'd played and laughed and Red had thought that he might be satisfied doing that with Blake every day for the rest of his life.
The love he had for Blake transcended the bond. The bond was nothing. It was base-level attraction. It didn't know of their scars, their histories and hurts. It was all of those things that made Red love Blake. Made him want to be hers forever. To have and to hold and never let go.
"What happens now?" Lucy asked. Henry led her over to the porch swing and she sat, one hand on her baby bump and the other grasped in Henry's hand.
Everyone turned to look at Red.
"I'm going to give her a few moments," Red said. "And then I'll go talk to her. Just...everyone here knows about her scars or has seen them first hand. Remember those and know that the memory she just relived was from the day she got them. Her parents were butchered that night. She almost died. I don't even know if she'll be able to stomach being in the same room as a werewolf right now. Be patient if she needs time."
Henry offered Red a grim smile – the kind that said he was sorry for what Red and his Mate were going through. Apologetic that there was nothing he could do as an Alpha to ease that pain. Red knew that Henry would want to. He was a busybody like that. This situation was likely driving him nuts.
Red nodded back, thankful at least that he had his brother's support. He couldn't imagine doing any of this with another Alpha.
Everyone dispersed. Henry and Lucy went off for their weekly visit at the clinic to check on the baby's progress. Monroe and Toby disappeared to run some training drills with the warrior wolves – usually Red's job but he wasn't leaving this house unless Blake ordered him to go.
Besides, most of the warriors had been the ones that had signed up for Blake's classes. Red knew that a few of them would be worried when he and Blake didn't show up. Phillip and Li and Deacon. Carson and Shayla and Brandt. Chandra, Juliet, and Jenny.
Several wolves who Blake had won over. So many others that had begun to trust her these weeks. Who would miss her today and wonder if she was all right.
Miraculous that she'd had that effect when just a few months ago, most of them would have been clambering over themselves to slit her throat. There was just something special about Blake and he didn't say that simply because she was his Mate.
Maybe this human is what our pack needs, Monroe had said to him shortly after he'd first met Blake. As she'd been rotting away in that cell – too stubborn and reluctantly to let them help her. We just need to figure out what it is that we need her for.
"Did you get the DNA results back yet from the epithelial cells beneath the human's nails?" Red asked Ejo to pass the time and to keep himself from heading up the stairs before Blake might be ready to see him.
They were sitting in wicker chairs on the front porch. The warlock had a steaming mug of peppermint tea he'd conjured up from somewhere and was sipping from it slowly. A bit of colour had returned to his face, banishing the stricken look of fear and pain.
Ejo waved a hand and there was suddenly a file on Red's lap. "Came in this morning. We weren't able to identify who the cells were from but the results were interesting. That boy got in a fight with a human before he was shredded apart by werewolves. Curious, don't you think?"
"Very." Red opened the file and read over it quickly. The details were scant but Ejo's summary was correct. A human – just like how Martin Chapman had been stalked by a werewolf and a human into that dark alleyway moments before his death in Denver. "Blake knew the kid. He was a hunter, like her. They worked a job together a few months back."
"Shit," Ejo swore. "Your girl has been through the wringer, Red."
"You don't have to tell me that."
Ejo cast a worried look up and lowered his voice though Blake, in her room on the third floor, definitely didn't have a chance at overhearing. "Will she be okay?"
Red hesitated and then murmured, "Did you feel her fading away into her memories? The bond it was going... dark. Like I was losing her except she was still breathing. Still alive."
"I felt it."
"Then that's the most I can say right now. I don't know if she'll be okay. Maybe reliving it – maybe it broke something in her. I just don't want to push her too fast, too soon. Her parents were killed by werewolves. She was nearly killed by werewolves. And now she's Mated to me?" Red shook his head. "That has to be all kinds of traumatic for her."
Perhaps it was the kind of trauma that Blake could never recover from. Red told himself that he would understand if she was never able to bear touching him again.
But Ejo's expression turned thoughtful. "I told you that I felt fear and desperation from her. Those were the dominant emotions in Blake until you drew her back. The second you held her and she heard your voice, darkness was the last thing that I felt. You strengthened her. Almost like it made her remember who she was."
The warlock stood and clapped Red on the shoulder. "I don't think you traumatized that girl, Red. I think you saved her."
Red watched as Ejo stepped off the porch and walked towards the centre of the lawn. Lavender sparks shot from his fingers, creating a rotating circle through which Red could see the interior of a plush living room – a well-worn couch and scuffed coffee table and a chihuahua in a coat wagging its tail excitedly.
Ejo didn't look back as he stepped into the portal and in a flash, he was gone.
For another minute, Red didn't move as he thought over the warlock's parting words. Then, slowly, he picked up the file Ejo had given him and walked inside. After a quick detour to drop it in his office, Red ascended the stairs, not pausing until he reached the closed door of Blake's room on the third floor.
He hesitated outside of the door and leaned against the doorframe of his own bedroom across the hall. Debating if he should knock or give her more time to make the decision on her own to come to him. She deserved the courtesy of not having a werewolf intrude on her space, Red thought. The only space in the pack that was hers. Where she could shut the door and pretend that she wasn't the sole human in a community of werewolves.
So Red turned to head into his own bedroom, the brown-painted walls warm and welcoming, just as the door behind him opened.
"Are you going to stand out there awkwardly all day?" Blake's voice, dry with humour – even if it was a little strained.
He glanced back. She was standing on the other side of the threshold. Blake had let her hair down, loosing it from its tight braid so that it hung around her shoulders in gentle waves. She still seemed pale and a bit shaky but some spots of colour had returned to her cheeks. The grey eyes were clouded and smoky like ash from a fire. As if there were some things behind that screen she didn't want him to know.
"I was thinking about it," Red replied cautiously.
Blake only smiled. A small one that quirked the edge of her lips and didn't touch her eyes but it was there. "Just come in, Red."
His knees wobbled with relief as he followed her into the room. Blake went directly for the bed, crawling up towards the top and sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. Red took up a seat at the far end of the bed, leaving a few feet of space between them.
"It wasn't Victor," Blake said. "I saw their faces and it wasn't him."
"You're sure?"
"Very."
"Did you recognize them?"
She shook her head and grabbed a pillow that she clutched against her chest. "No. They were just...monsters. All of them. None of them were from this pack. I know it."
Red swallowed thickly, his chest tightening at the pain in her voice. "Are you okay? Don't answer that – stupid question. Of course, you're not okay. I—"
Blake reached across the bed and grabbed Red's hand. She latched onto him like a drowning person gripping a life preserver. "I'm not okay but you make me better."
"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, trying not to show his relief at that hand on his. Red stared at where she'd joined them, the brown of her scarred skin against the golden tan of his unblemished one.
Her eyes traced the planes of his face and then she gently tugged on his hand and patted the spot next to her. Red slid up the edge of the bed so that they were sitting side-by-side with their backs against the headboard. Their hands stayed clasped but as he settled, Blake leaned her head against his shoulder.
Warmth spread through Red, chased by surprise. He'd expected distance and silence – the likes of which she'd dealt him with all those months ago. His heart calmed in his chest, the racing anxiousness dying out.
This was comfortable and right. This was his Mate and he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. Holding her, comforting her, keeping her safe.
Red couldn't protect her from the dangers and scars of her past but sure as hell could protect her from a future of them.
"When we talked about what happened to my parents before...Did I ever tell you that it was my birthday?" she asked quietly.
"No."
"November tenth." Blake released a breath. It whispered across the skin on his neck. "Before he came home, I was annoyed that my dad was late. We were supposed to go for a hike down to this river behind our house and I was mad that he wasn't home because it had gotten dark so I knew we'd have to wait for the next day. Which meant it wouldn't be special anymore because my birthday would be over. You know, I never saw that river again after that night. I never even went back to the house after I woke up in the hospital."
There wasn't anything he could say to make it better. Her lips trembled and her next exhale was low and shaky. Red reached out with his free hand to stroke her hair.
"I wanted to die when that werewolf was ripping into me, Red. It would have been so much easier if I'd just died. So much easier. Maybe it would still be easier. Better for everyone else if I was gone."
Red didn't like this talk of death. Especially not where she was concerned. "Don't you remember what I told you? If you died, Blake, I would die too. The fact that you survived is a mercy. You were meant to survive that ordeal."
"For what purpose? What have I done, Red, that's worthy of being spared? I spread death and destruction in my wake. Those monsters...they hunted my father. They butchered him and my mother and would have done the same to me except..." She shook her hand and said instead, "They hunted my family and I've done the same thing to everything that isn't human in retaliation. Even those that had no hand in what happened to my parents. I revelled in it. I thought I was doing the world a favour but..."
"But?" Red prodded.
Blake cleared her throat thickly. "After reliving that night, I don't know what the point of all this is. I don't know what I've been doing with my life. There's been so much pain and for what?"
He stayed silent. Through the bond, he could feel tension, almost as if she were on the verge of saying more but was uncertain about what.
"I've got so much blood on my hands, Red. And now I'm looking back on every hunt I've ever been on and realizing how little I knew about most of the creatures I was hunting. I mean, I know about each species, what makes them unique or dangerous but...I don't know anything about their families or their lives. Hell, I don't even know the names of the twelve wolves that died when I attacked with the other hunters four months ago. I never bothered to learn their names."
She lifted her head from his shoulder and there were tracks of tears on her face. "What does that say about me? What kind of person am I?"
"The kind that wants to be better," Red told her. He brushed away her tears with his thumb. "The kind that is learning every day that the world is not divided into humans and monsters. It is more complicated, I think, than either of us ever realized."
Blake fell silent for a long moment with those tears streaming down her face. She leaned her cheek into his palm where he held it against her skin and Red felt a burst of surprise jolt through him. It only heightened as Blake reached to wrap her arms around his waist, folding herself into the curve of Red's body.
"Their names," Blake murmured quietly. "Tell me their names."
Red swallowed the lump in his throat. "Floyd Johnson, Gabrielle Duncan, Henrietta Lawe, Bud Valcolm..."
On and on, he continued until all twelve werewolves had been named. Their names were a pain in his heart – twelve stars gone forever, their bodies burned and returned to the earth. Blake repeated each name back to him and Red knew, somehow, that she had memorized them. That each of those names was engrained in her the same way that they were in him.
When he was finished, she said, a bit hoarsely, "Thank you, Red."
The fight had drained from Blake. An air of heaviness settled over them and Red worried that he'd never be able to get her back. The woman who he had found broken and scarred; the woman that had taken those broken parts and created something stronger. Someone who could laugh in the face of pain and anger and hurt – and could teach a werewolf child how to defend herself against the horrors of the world. A woman who, nearly four months ago, had cringed away from him in fear but now only stared at him as if he were someone she cared about.
He cared about her too, more than he could ever express, and all he wanted to do was see some of the lightness and life return to her eyes. To remove the shadows and sorrow and heartbreak.
The Goddess only knew what Blake was feeling. He couldn't comprehend the depth of it – knowing her history, feeling her nearly fall into a loop of her own trauma – and knew that even his worst day was a drop in the ocean against what she had endured. Especially now that she had endured it twice.
And it had been for nothing, it seemed, except her own peace of mind knowing that no one in Sanguis Ridge had been behind the attack that killed her parents. Red couldn't deny that it satisfied some anxious part of him as well, even if it did leave them at another wall in the investigation.
"I know this is probably the last thing you want to talk about but Ejo got the DNA results back on the epithelial cells from beneath Caden's nails. They couldn't match it to anyone in their databases but it was human. He fought with a human before he died. The file is in my office if you want to read it later."
Blake pulled away from him slightly to look him fully in the face. The skin around her eyes was puffy and red and there was something else there, something unreadable. "I don't want to talk about the investigation now."
"Okay. What do you need, Blake? Tell me and it's yours."
The bond between them pulled taut. Red inhaled sharply, his breath catching in his throat as Blake's eyes darted from his eyes to his lips and back up.
"You," she said and there no hesitation in her voice, but there was need blossoming in her eyes. "I need you, Red. I need a distraction from all of this shit and I..."
He cocked his head to the side even as he felt hints of lust begin to trickle down the bond. It was an effort to clamp down on it. "What?"
Blake's face was fierce. "I've been in a cage for a long time, Red. Anger, hatred, grief, fear...They've all been a cage of my own design, admittedly. I locked myself in it when I woke up in that hospital and I swore that I wouldn't get out of it until I'd gotten retribution for my parents' death – for what had happened to me. But after going through that again today...I'm tired of being locked away like that. I don't want to be that person anymore. Not here, not with you."
"What are you saying, Blake?"
"You let me out of that cage. Every day, you show me that there's a better way. That I can put faith in people to be better than we were the day before." Blake swallowed and he watched her throat bob.
She brushed her fingers through her hair, messing it up a little. A nervous habit but she didn't remove her gaze from his face as she added, "I like who I am here, with you. I like teaching your pack weapons training and joking around with Phillip and Deacon and Juliet. I like working at the Diner with Reba and Shayla and getting to spend time with people in a space where I'm not the hunter or your Mate and I'm just Blake. I like bantering with Monroe and even with Toby when he's not being a total ass. I like spending time with Lucy because she's the kindest person I've ever met and I respect Henry and what he stands for. I love spending time with Annalise because she is the purest soul I've ever met.
"And I—Hell, I can't even believe I'm saying this," Blake said and fresh tears had begun to slide down her face fully now. Pooling at the corners of her eyes and dripping down onto her cheeks.
He was swept up in her, entirely captivated by this extraordinary woman, but he froze as Blake added, "And I think I might be falling in love with you, Red. I've never been in love so I don't really know. But I do know that sometimes I look at you and it takes everything I have in me to keep the barriers between us up. You're a werewolf and I'm a human and there is nothing easy or simple about that...But sometimes it feels easy. There's so much about this I still don't understand. I'm not sure I'll ever get soulmates and magic but... you called me home today when I was slipping into a place that I don't think I could have crawled out from. You called me home."
Gently, Red reached out and brushed her tears away as he had moments before. Blake trembled at the touch of his fingers on her bare skin and Red shuddered in response. He clamped down on his instincts, fighting against the roaring in his ears.
"You want a home here? With me?" Hope. That was hope racing through his veins, chasing after the rampant desire.
Blake nodded. "I do."
It snapped his control to hear those words and before he could rein himself in, Red was on her. His mouth slammed against hers and Blake kissed him back immediately, neither of them holding back. He threw himself into that kiss, Blake's lips parting beneath his as he swept his tongue in.
The noise she made in the back of her throat was a breathy little sound and she arched beneath him, exposing her neck which he took the time to run his lips down as she caught her breath. Slowly, he kissed his way up her throat, caressing the column of her throat with his tongue and the slightest edge of his teeth.
"Red," his name was a moan on her lips and when he pulled back, it was only to see a heady look enter into her eyes.
He reclaimed her mouth even as her fingers began to roam, tracing patterns along his chest as her hand slid up and under his shirt. The fabric slid up and he removed himself from her only long enough to pull the garment off completely. He threw it over his shoulder and didn't care where it landed, not as Blake tugged at the hem of her own top.
Red's mouth went dry as her shirt was tossed away. Clad only in her bra and jeans beneath him, Blake writhed. Her scars were on full display – bullet holes and stab wounds, bites and claw marks. Some pale white, others red and raised. All of them beautiful.
She flushed as he told her as much and her eyes burned with smoke and ash as she said the words that would be his undoing. "I'm yours, Red. And you're mine."
There was only truth and love echoing down the bond, mixed with a hint of fear – but not fear over him. No, it was more as if she were scared of voicing those words aloud, terrified of the vulnerability that came with it.
He would stay here with her until the end of time to assuage those fears, slowly unravelling them from her guarded heart until they were tatters fluttering on the wind. Red would start from the same place that she had, giving her the same open vulnerability that she'd shared with him.
"I'm yours, Blake," Red said and rough emotion crossed her face. It scrunched up her nose, lips trembling just slightly. Her hair was a dark spill of ink against the white pillowcase beneath her head. "And you're mine."
Slowly, Blake drew him back down, her fingers winding in his hair as she pulled him back to her lips and his body slid into place above hers.