Matthew's Chance (18 page)

“Confusing?”

“Hard to understand, not that intuitive, completely and overwhelmingly alien in nature—”

“You’ve made your point.”

Ian grinned.

Craig huffed out a short breath, but Matthew didn’t miss the fond look Craig gave Ian before he turned his attention back to Matthew and Ash.

Matthew tapped the table, glanced at Rick, and then exhaled roughly. “I guess it’s settled then. We’ll head out as soon as you guys get Ash drugged up again.”

“The newest repression drug isn’t working well,” Ian said, “or maybe a better way of explaining it is that it works really, really well, right up until the moment it stops working, and then…” Ian cleared his throat and rubbed his chin. “Yeah, you know.”

Matthew rubbed his hand on his thigh and had a hard time looking at Ian or Craig with the reminder of that morning and what he’d seen. “Yeah.”

Ash’s curious look made Matthew think Ash might not understand why he was fighting embarrassment.

“Well,” Matthew said. “I guess we’re done?”

“Not yet,” Rick said from the end of the table.

Matthew turned.

Rick pushed away from the table and stood, and Craig did the same.

Matthew’s gaze shifted between them, then to Ian and Ash, who both stayed put, looking on without any real expression that Matthew could make out.

“What’s this?” Matthew asked.

“You’ll come with us while
Ashikid
prepares for your mission,” Rick said. “The Diviners wish to tell you your fate.”

Matthew’s heart leapt into a hard thudding beat. He glanced quickly at Ash. Ash’s hands had curled into fists.

“I’ve never met the Diviners. I don’t want anyone trying to tell me my fate.”

Ash reached over and gripped Matthew’s arm. “No one ignores a summons from the Diviners.”

“Then I’ll be a first, because I’m not letting someone fill my head full of bullshit just before I go out and do something as dangerous as this. Fuck that. I’m not doing it.”

Across the table, Ian winced.

The sharp tips of Ash’s claws poked at Matthew’s forearm, while Rick stared at Matthew with an unreadable expression that sent a chill through Matthew.

Alpha Craig wasn’t quite so hard to read. His eyes glittered like the coldest sky Matthew had ever seen and he stared hard at Matthew. “Someday you might attain true alpha status, but at this moment you’re one of my betas, Matthew. You’ll visit the Diviners as they’ve requested or I will personally drag you in front of them and throw you at their feet. The choice of how you arrive is yours. But you will submit.”

Goddamn. Matthew cleared his throat and nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. I submit.”

Craig acknowledged his agreement with a faint nod.

Ash squeezed Matthew’s arm and then released him, while Ian whistled silently, eyebrows raised high.

Three hours later, Matthew stood looking down through a forested ridge at the broken remains of a water recycling plant that hadn’t survived the earthquake over fifty years ago. Abandoned buildings jutted into the air below the ridge and pools that must have been sunk into the ground to hold and treat water had turned into natural ponds, the two closest to the ridge merged together because part of the ground had sunk lower than the rest—possibly during the quake, possibly just because of the passage of time.

“I’m supposed to find him there?” Matthew had trouble keeping the skepticism out of his voice. He looked down at the small tracking device he held, which marked out the location of heat signatures in the buildings. There were only three.

Ash pushed aside a low limb and gestured for Matthew to lead. “Devon said the information’s reliable.”

Matthew tucked the device into his front pocket and they started down the ridge, headed for the building on the other side of the ponds and whatever waited for them there.

Twigs and damp leaves crackled underfoot with their every step.

“I don’t trust Fletcher,” Matthew said. “He hates me.”

“Why do you think he hates you?”

“Because of what happened three years ago, that goddamn bet. He insults me every chance he—Ow! Shit.” Matthew tugged a clingy briar away from his neck and tried to pay more attention. The overcast sky had darkened and although it wasn’t yet evening, the woods had turned dim and heavily shadowed and the air was turning chill.

Fucking great.

“Devon insults everyone at one time or another. He’s learned a lot since
Wentarki
mated him. He’s very good at breaking the codes on their trackers and phones. He assures us Lujan is here. He made contact as Trevor and set up this meeting. Lujan thinks you’ve been looking for him for the last six months.”

“I have been, just not for the reasons he’s probably thinking right about now, not unless Jay’s got to him first somehow and told him Trevor’s the traitor.”

“You’re not a traitor.”

“Not to you. To them, that’s exactly what I am, a traitor to the human species.”

“We’re at peace with your government. Your government agreed to our terms. They’ve left the renegades to us to deal with.”

“Only because the States are barely holding it together and you know it.”

“Things will improve once we stop the renegades.”

“This could go on for years. Until things go back to the way they were before you showed up, someone’s always gonna be looking to blame you for something. The world’s full of a lot of unhappy people right now.”

“Things will never go back to the way they were.”

“Exactly.”

The incline had steepened and Matthew had to carefully slide his way down a steeply slanted rock that jutted out of the earth. Moss crushed under his fingers and his boot heels scraped two long grooves in the earth that had settled over the end of the rock.

He heard Ash coming up behind him and he hopped down onto the flatter ground below. They didn’t have far to go, and he could see the raised lip of one of the pools from where he stood.

Matthew’s stomach hadn’t settled for a moment since the Diviners had spoken to him and the sight of that pool scared the shit out of him. The water’s surface gleamed dark and smooth under the gray skies and he had forced himself to take a deep breath. Ash had asked him what the Diviners had told him, but Matthew had refused to say anything more than, “It doesn’t matter. They’re wrong.”

Ash’s eyes had spoken of hurt and pain, but he had nodded and accepted Matthew’s answer.

Matthew had felt like a total asshole, his regret immediate and intense, but he’d already decided he wouldn’t tell Ash and he wasn’t about to change his mind.

Still, the water rippled, drawing his eye, and he wondered if fish had somehow made it into the ponds. He didn’t see how that was possible all the way out here without human intervention, but the ripples continued to appear at intermittent intervals, rolling slowly outward.

He didn’t like the churning in his stomach as he watched and he didn’t like the way he wanted to turn around and go, flee far and fast and just leave this for someone else, so he clenched his jaw and kept moving forward.

But he’d been right not to want to hear what the Diviners had to say. Their strange behavior and those eyes—he’d never seen eyes go black like that before, not in the wolves, not in a human—they’d freaked him out, and then—then the one had spoken, and Matthew had known—

Sometimes it was better not to know what might be coming.

“My mother was one of the first humans to get to work with the wolves,” he said abruptly. “Did you know that? She was a doctor and a scientist and she was invited to study with the wolves that first year. I never saw her again after that first heat season. I’ve always wondered what happened to her. I mean—” He knocked a spider web out of the way and then yelped when a fat spider dropped down on his arm.

He slung his arm, throwing the spider off him. “Fuck!” His heart raced and he quickly scraped at his arm, trying to get the web off. “I hate these fucking things. If I never see another goddamn spider web in my life, it’ll be too goddamn soon.”

Ash’s hand landed on Matthew’s shoulder and he jumped.

“Goddammit.”

“You’re worried about what the Diviners told you about your fate, aren’t you?”

Matthew paused his movements and then dropped his arms to his sides and turned into Ash’s touch. He couldn’t speak so he just stared at Ash.

Ash raised his hand and cupped Matthew’s cheek. “I was afraid of my fate. I’m still afraid. There’s no shame in that.”

Matthew’s chest was so tight he couldn’t breathe and a sharp tingle burned warm and heavy behind his nose. “It’s fine. What was that Kem told me this morning? You can accept or reject your fate but you can’t ignore it. If I can’t ignore it, then I fucking reject it. They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Look at Brendan. He’s supposed to be some kind of peacemaker. Do you see peace on the horizon? I don’t.”

“He's young. He sits at First Alpha's side during talks with your governments. We’re a patient people. The prophecy is complex but his place is set. He’ll play an integral role in the future of all of our… of…”

Ash stepped close, his hand caressing Matthew’s face. “You’re my life. I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

“What the hell?” What would Ash have said? All of our lives, maybe? But he wasn’t including Matthew in that. Matthew reached up and pulled Ash’s hand away. “So—what? You just accept that I’m going to die? Just that easy? If you care about me—”

“I do.”

“Then don’t act like my fate’s already been decided, goddammit. Because it hasn’t.”

“The Diviners—”

“No, the Diviners are just people. They don’t know anything about me and my future.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Let’s just get this over with so I can prove to you just how much they don’t know.” Matthew spun around and started off into the woods again, toward the outskirts of the facility where the rusted metal fence that had once surrounded the property had been ripped free of the ground as trees grew up around it.

“Matthew, wait.”

Matthew almost didn’t stop, but he couldn’t stand the thought of ignoring Ash. He waited for Ash to step up beside him before turning.

“I’ll never care for another the way I’ve come to care for you,” Ash said. “The Diviners spoke the truth when they said my heart would know no comfort. You’re my true mate and I—I cannot bear the thought of what might wait for you here. Please…” But whatever he’d intended to say remained unspoken.

And Matthew knew he would have to be strong for both of them, because if he let himself live in fear, well, what kind of life was that? He’d been right to say that the Diviners words could have meant anything. What if he gave in to Ash’s unspoken plea and they went back and then he slipped in the goddamn shower and died?

He wasn’t going to go out like that if there was anything he could do about it.

So he threaded his fingers in Ash’s hair and dragged his head forward and he kissed him, because if this was going to be it, he wanted to remember Ash’s warmth and taste and he wanted to feel—

“Goddammit, Ash. I love you so much. Do you know how long I waited for some sign that you wanted to be with me? And now—and now, this. It’s not fair. I hate those goddamn wolves.”

Ash buried his head in the crook of Matthew’s neck and shoulder. “My life,” he said. “You’re my life.”

Matthew clutched tightly at Ash’s head and just held him.

* * *

Cam Lujan was a paranoid asshole who had managed to take over a group of renegades a few years ago to the northwest of the protectorate when the woman in charge had bailed after the wolves captured Brendan. Cam was only a couple of years older than Matthew, but he was broad and tall and a lot closer in size to Ash than to him.

Cam had offered Matthew a blowjob two days after Matthew joined his group. Matthew had thought about refusing, knowing the kind of man Cam probably was, but he’d been new and he hadn’t wanted to do anything to bring suspicion down on himself, so he’d agreed.

Then he’d fucked Cam, and he’d enjoyed that bit of a power trip, knowing Cam thought he was a harmless new recruit who was just excited to have a chance to pound Cam’s tight ass. He’d whispered all the right words.
You’re so hot. Oh yeah, you want it harder, don’t you? Come on, let me go deeper, babe, you’re gonna love this…

Having sex with Cam had turned out to be the quickest way past Cam’s suspicious nature and into his inner circle.

With Sal, he’d always felt guilty for pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

With Cam, he hadn’t felt guilty at all. Cam was a leader and he’d been targeting the people Matthew cared about. He’d fucked Cam up to the very day he’d sold him out to the wolves. Then he’d disappeared into the den for a few weeks to figure out his next move, which had turned out to be Gage Rawlins.

Lucky for Matthew, Gage Rawlins hadn’t been gay, so he wasn’t even tempted to do what he’d done with Cam again. But by then, he’d decided he’d made a mistake letting himself use sex to further his efforts. Seeing Fletcher, remembering how he’d called Matthew Brendan’s knee-boy, and then seeing Ash at the den… he’d been almost sick with the idea of what Ash might think of him when he found out. So he’d vowed to himself that sex was off the table as a bargaining tool.

“I was surprised to hear from you,” Cam said, his oddly pale blue eyes dragging over Matthew.

They stood in front of the only building on the property that looked like it hadn’t been damaged in the quake. The stucco façade had chipped away over the years, exposing the block beneath, but other than a hole here and there where some of the mortar had fallen away, the building still looked solid enough behind the thick grass and the crowd of bushes that had grown up around it.

A sign had rusted over, but most of a large red M was still visible at the far left edge. Probably a maintenance building or something by the look of things. A long pipe ran up the side of the building to the roof along with a decrepit looking ladder held in place against the blocks by rusty bolts.

Cam leaned against that ladder, arms crossed, the white fabric of his t-shirt streaked with brown and red where his shoulder rubbed against one of the rungs.