BAD BOY ROMANCE: DIESEL: Contemporary Bad Boy Biker MC Romance (Box Set) (New Adult Sports Romance Short Stories Boxset) (123 page)

My pack was my life. When I concentrated on them, I could feel them too. They were all in their separate homes with their wives and children, or with their parents. I felt their absence like missing limbs. We were so bonded to each other, linked like we were all part of one body instead of six separate bodies. We’d been in battle together. We’d been wounded for each other – we would die for each other.

I couldn’t explain to Allegra that coming home was just as torturous as leaving it again. That it didn’t matter where I went, I was always leaving a part of me behind, whether it was her or the pack. I couldn’t explain to her that sometimes, especially after we’d nearly died like this last time, that it was the pack that felt like home, and home that felt like deployment.

I couldn’t explain it in a way that would let her understand, that wouldn’t hurt her and make her think that I wasn’t happy to be with her. My body was torn. If we were all one, then she was the heart, but the pack, my team, were the soul. How could I choose?

I sat on the porch in the dark. The moon was only a sliver, it was still far from full moon, but the silver strip in the sky called to me. I closed my eyes and tipped my head up, feeling the caress of her song on my skin. It made me want to sing back. I’d already gone out and changed once tonight. And I needed it again.

I crept to the bedroom and got undressed, hanging my clothes in the cupboard. It was safer to leave it at home than to leave it in the woods. It was the middle of the night and the base was dark, so no one would see me slip out the back, naked.

When I was outside again the crisp air raised goose bumps on my skin. I walked to the back of the yard, and closed my eyes. I turned my attention to the wolf inside of me, to the restraints I built around it every time I came home. I had to keep the wall up if I wanted to stay as human as possible for Allegra.

One by one I broke down the walls, and the more space it had, the more the wolf thrashed. I could feel my rage climb, wash through my body like a wave of heat and anger, and I threw my head back. I didn’t call to the moon, not yet, but I let the magic spill out of me and crawl over my skin. It drew over my like a blanket, and it burned me everywhere it touched. My body ached, every joint felt like it was being ripped apart on a torture bench.

It doesn’t matter what the myths say. Changing is painful every time.

I dropped to the floor. My hands were already claws, fur on my arms, but it was mottled, not complete yet. Another pain shot through my body and it felt bruised. For a moment I was off balance, I couldn’t find the four legs my wolf was one, or the two legs of my human side. And then, like a baby being born, I slipped into my new form. I stretched out and shook my body. The fur ruffled and then fell back in place, and I was a wolf.

I jumped over the fence into the alley behind the house, and melted from one shadow to the next. I kept my ears open but the night only held the signs of the sleeping. I could hear the rise and fall of peaceful breathing like a dim rush, waves in the distance. Stray cats pawed on cushioned feet between the bins and I could almost hear their caution.

Slowly I made my way back to the far end of the base. The walls were high and thick and laced with electric fencing, but with a run I lunged over. The army had built all their facilities long before lycanthropy had become a real thing, and it was easy for us to get in.

Once I was on the other side of the wall, it was easy to disappear into the trees. The feel of the forest was in my fur, brushing my skin as I ran, and the word ‘freedom’ came to mind. I might not have been free being a werewolf, but as a wolf I was free.

I ran on, weaving through the trees, following a pull that led me like a magnet. It pulled me north-west, and I kept going. My internal compass drew me, and I kept running, letting wild instincts take over. When I finally stopped in a small clearing between the trees, I wasn’t the first. John’s wolf sat on the pine needles like a dog. John’s wolf was white with gray flecks and yellow eyes that got brighter when he was angry. It was a sharp contrast to my golden fur and green eyes. People who saw our wolves together always commented.

I walked over, wagging my tail, and sniffed John’s nose. He dipped his head, acknowledging my authority. I sat down too, and then eased forward so I was lying by his feet. Two minutes later, and the rest of the pack came too. Charlie’s wolf pitch black in the night, with eyes like marbles. A human wouldn’t have been able to pick him out in the night. Harry was a red wolf, like an over-sized fox. Carlos and Abdul followed too, One chocolate brown and one the color of ice.

We huddled together. None of us were cold, but we felt the absence of the pack members and it left a chill in the air. Together we were whole again. Warm. We all had families somewhere, lying alone in bed, trying to be happy about our return, trying to be patient with our inability to cope with being back home. And the six of us had left home less than twelve hours after arriving to be together again.

We lay in the dark, a pile of wolves, drawing from each other’s warmth so we could make it through the cold days that would follow until our deployment.

Just before dawn I got up and shook myself out. I gave two small yips and the rest of my small pack stretched, yawned, and got up, shaking themselves too. It was going to be dawn soon. The bright light of day was already bleeding into the black of night, leaving a confused silver behind. We had to hunt. I took the lead and headed into the woods. The others fell into formation behind me. We’d hunted like this – animals and people – so many times it was second nature.

I lifted my head and smelled the wind. There was fresh meat nearby. The other smelled it too and I could feel our collective energy rise. It was like static in the air, and thick like a hand that stroked each of us individually. I held very still, and soon the brown hide of a deer was visible between the trees. It hadn’t heard us, it was nibbling on something. For two seconds the compassion of my human surfaced and hesitated, but then the bloodlust took over, and I jumped into the clearing.

The deer started running, startled. It would have been easier to stalk it and kill it right away, but wolves loved the chase. The moment something ran, it was on. I felt the fire in my veins, my heart thundering inside me and the rage of my pack as their own anxiety and anger climbed. Werewolves are fueled by rage. We’re almost always angry.

Give a werewolf a gun and you’re set up for aggressive negotiations.

Carlos and Charlie split off from the pack into the trees. Harry fell back. The rest of us kept going, chasing the dear in a curve. Suddenly Carlos and Charlie were in front of it, and we were behind. It backed up, skidding on the pine needles. Out of nowhere Harry attacked, launching and sinking fangs into the deer’s neck. Harry jerked his head and I heard the neck snap.

The smell of blood filled the air, sharp and metallic, and the hunger in me flared up. The other wolves stayed away, Harry stepped back, and they let their alpha feed first.

After I’d climbed into the meat, the others joined in. The sound of flesh ripping and blood squelching was revolting and natural all at the same time. I felt the slick warm liquid on my face. The other wolves looked monstrous with their muscled bodies and blood smeared across their muzzles.

Finally the feeding was over, and the thin rays of the sun reached over the horizon. I turned and led the way home.

Chapter 3

Allegra

I woke up at dawn, and he wasn’t in the bed with me. The sheets were cold on his side of the bed, neatly made. He’d never been there. I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to ignore the gaping feeling of emptiness inside me.

This was going to be harder than I’d thought. I knew that it was going to be hard when he came back. It always was. Being a military wife wasn’t easy. But it was my job to respect and support him in what he did, and I did everything I could to do that. To understand that he might be haunted by what he’d experienced, that being home might be hard to adjust to.

But it just felt like home was the last place on earth he wanted to be.

I heard the front door click quietly shut. Asleep I wouldn’t have noticed. He was trying to be discreet. He was sneaking around. Why was he sneaking around?  God, if he’d just talk to me I would probably accept whatever the hell he was up to. It was the secrecy, the distance, that was killing me. I got up and walked to the door. He walked into the passage just as I walked out of the bedroom. When he saw me he froze in his tracks and a look of guilt crossed his face like he was a child that had been caught.

And the sight of him made my breath catch in my throat. He was naked, standing there in all his glory not trying to cover up. I knew that werewolves didn’t mind their nakedness, it was just another state of existence, but the way he embraced himself… I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I took two steps closer, and the darkness on his face suddenly fell into place.

He had dried blood caked on his face, some in his wheat-colored hair and on his hands like he’d been digging in it. My body went cold, and his green eyes, glowing lights in the dim passage, looked at me with traces of a man I didn’t know.

“Where have you been?” I finally managed to ask. My voice was thin and breathy, my heart was beating in my throat and I realized I’d extended a hand to brace myself on the wall. I hadn’t felt myself doing it.

He looked down at his hands, moving his fingers like he was testing them, and then looked up at me.

“Hunting,” he answered like he’d decided he couldn’t really lie to me.

I nodded slowly. “The whole night?”

He dropped his hands by his side and they hung loosely. No drumming fingers, no clenching fists. NO nothing. He wasn’t going to be sorry about it. I sighed, tried to pull myself together again. The silence stretched thin between us, and finally he nodded as if answering a question he’d asked himself.

“Well, I better get cleaned up,” he said, and walked toward me. He took a step past me, taking care not to touch me. If he’s touched me at all, anything, it might have been better. His absence was making it worse. It was like he’d physically removed himself from me, and forgotten to closet he wound. I stood, feeling him walk away from me, taking the warmth and the forest and the wilderness with him, leaving me bleeding.

I’d like to say the next few days were better, but they weren’t. They weren’t exactly worse, either. They were just very much the same. Distant, painfully polite, empty. I went through my days doing what I always did. I sold my products and went to meetings. I stopped by at Charlene’s place one afternoon after doing my deliveries. She looked as haunted as I felt when she opened the door.

“I’ve lost him,” I said, stepping in through the door. “He hasn’t come home. His body is there, but he’s not home.”

She nodded. “John’s like that too. I don’t know what they’ve seen, what they had to do, but it’s killing them.”

“If it were that straightforward I could do something about it,” I said. “If he were struggling with anything, maybe I could try and help him. But he’s just so switched off. The only person it seems to be killing is
me
.”

Charlene hugged me. I left not feeling much better. When I got home Reid wasn’t home. He was out again, but I’d expected that. He was home so seldom it felt like the only thing that had changed with his homecoming was that I cooked more – a lot more – than usual. I was still alone. I still lived my own life removed from his.

At least he was sleeping next to me now. It had only been that first night that he hadn’t come home. It was as if he was trying to make up for it, apologize somehow even though he’d never said it, by sleeping faithfully next to me every night. I didn’t know what was going on. If he was doing anything wrong I could have pinned his absence to an affair, a drinking problem,
something
. But he was just switched off. Perfectly right in all he did, just… absent.

I woke up from strange growling sounds one night. The red numbers of the digital clock on my nightstand swam into focus and it was just after three. I turned to Reid. His eyes were closed but he’d kicked all the covers off him, and his skin was covered in a film of sweat. He was jerking in his sleep, making very low, growling sounds at the back of his throat – sounds lower than any human should have been able to make.

His skin rippled in a smooth wave from his neck down his arms and over his bare chest. I could feel his presence next to me the way I haven’t felt him in years. It was thick, almost liquid, pressing against me. He arched his back, tipping his head up and back, and his hands curled around the sheets, pulling it up. He was very, very close to his change.

I touched his shoulder.

“Reid,” I said softly. “Reid, wake up. It’s a nightmare baby.”

He didn’t hear me. He was lost in some kind of war zone. Goose bumps crawled over his skin and I knew fur would follow soon if I didn’t get him up now. I gripped his shoulder harder and tried to rock his body.

His eyes suddenly shot open and he roared, a sound so loud the windows trembled. I screamed. He flung around so fast I couldn’t even think about what to do, and he had his arm against my throat. Power rocked through me, slamming me into the mattress and his muscles bulged underneath his skin. I realized how much he’d been hiding from me, how much of himself he’d been holding back.

I tried to breathe I made a wheezing sound. I clawed at the arm against my throat, but it was like clawing metal. I couldn’t breathe, and he wasn’t there. A monster was in his place, strangling me.

His eyes were a translucent blue, the color of a flame at the wick where it burned at its hottest and his face was contorted in a snarl, lips pulled away from his teeth. I kicked with my legs, trying to get free, but I started feeling dizzy from lack of air and white spots flashed in my vision.

And then suddenly it was like he saw me, saw what he was doing. The green flooded his eyes and he was himself again.

“Jesus,” he cried out and jerked away from me, tumbling off the bed. I coughed, pushed my own hands to my throat. Air came in drowning waves and I spluttered and coughed until I could breathe again, even though it came in ragged gasps.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, his hands up in defense. He didn’t come closer to me to check if I was okay, and somehow that hurt more than when he’d been strangling me.

“I just thought… I’m sorry.”

I pushed myself up on my elbow. My throat was raw. When I looked up at him he sat against the far wall, cradling the offending arm. I could still feel him, even at this distance. He was like a live wire in the room, humming with power and something I couldn’t place.

“What the hell is going on, Reid?” I asked, but some of the force was lost because my voice sounded raspy.

“I’ll fix it,” he said like a child who’d broken something he’d been messing with. “I’m so sorry.”

“Just talk to me,” I said, struggling to sit upright. “Just tell me what’s going on. How the hell am I supposed to deal with this if I don’t know what’s going on?”

He closed his eyes, visiting a different world, drawing away from me. I hoped he was trying to find the words to explain, to describe what he was seeing and feeling. Instead he opened his eyes again, the deepest green now, and shook his head.

“Dammit, Reid,” I said in almost a whisper.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he finally said.

“You nearly killed me. And you think it’s a good idea no to talk about it?”

He shook his head and I didn’t know if he meant it’s not a good idea, or that he wasn’t going to do it anyway. I finally decided he’d meant the latter when he just didn’t answer me.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” I asked, and my voice sounded pleading. “What must I do for you to realize I’m here for you?”

He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, but after a moment he closed it again without saying anything.

“Please, Reid. We’re falling apart. Give me something. Anything. I just need…”I took a deep breath. “I just need to know you still want this. I need
you
.”

He looked down at his hands, pumping them open and closed again. He didn’t make eye contact, he didn’t say anything. Finally he pushed up.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, and again I didn’t know what he was saying it for. He walked out of the room. I sat in the darkness, trying to relearn how to breathe, and in the dark of night I heard the door click shut. He was gone again, but I’d lost him long before he’d walked out.