Chapter Five

Thomas stood from the chair, his size shrinking the room, and the two reunited shifters embraced.

"You're alive," Grady choked out.

"You sound surprised. You heard me howling the other night, didn’t you.”?

I listened hard to Thomas, studying him through Sasha who cowered away from him. Everything he said sounded like a command but one you might not mind obeying, and his questions weren’t really questions at all. He didn’t move or gesture when he spoke like he didn’t feel nervous energy or the need to draw attention to himself. His tone did that for him.

His messy hair grazed his eyebrows, a lighter shade of brown than the beard that grew on his chin. His dark pants clung to the long, muscled columns of his legs, and his black flannel strained across the wide expanse of his chest. He was huge, both in size and in natural confidence.

When his gaze shifted my way over Grady’s shoulder, something I didn’t have a name for unspooled within me, the end plucked free with that single look. A connection. Shared experiences. Pasts knotted together. Whatever it was felt powerful.

"Aika," Archer said from the side of the room, "I want you to meet our alpha, Thomas. Thomas, this is Aika Song."

He released Grady and walked toward me then, his strides steady and sure. He had the most interesting eye color, a rich brown with gilded flecks. Intelligent eyes that saw right through me.

"A pleasure," he rumbled, lifting his hand toward me. "You've made quite the impression on my pack."

With poison. My family had played a part in killing most of his pack, and yet he hadn't said it as an accusation. Still, I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so I shook his hand and said nothing.

"Where were you?" Grady demanded. "For two whole years, I searched everywhere—"

"I know."

"You-you know? Then…why? What the fuck have you been doing? Who were those wolves who helped me burn down the barn and led me here?"

I blinked toward Grady. What? What? Wolves that helped him? That had led us here? He hadn’t told me any of this, and I hadn’t even known to ask. I glared toward the sound of his voice.

"I’ve been listening with my ears to the ground,” Thomas explained. “Studying the enemy. Making alliances with other packs. Waiting for the opportunity to attack and take back what is rightfully ours."

"Waiting." Grady spat it like a curse. "That's it? And what were we supposed to be doing, huh? You didn’t tell us a goddamn thing before you left us."

"You were serving your purpose, Grady. Looking but never finding. Spreading your scent over Slipjoint Forest while I covered mine."

"With what?" Archer asked.

"Wolves from another pack. Just like us, they all smell the same."

"You don't," I blurted.

All eyes swiveled toward me, a prickling awareness layered with silence.

"To me, you don't smell the same. Archer smells like wood smoke and caramel, Grady smells like almonds, and Sasha just smells sweet," I said, like it mattered. Why did I suddenly feel like a fourth wheel, completely unnecessary when there were three other, larger, very capable wheels?

"For a human, maybe," Thomas said with a note of curiosity. "To wolves, individual packs smell the same. We can pick rival wolves out with ease."

Oh. I nodded as if I'd always known this, though my cheeks flamed. Part of me wondered what he smelled like, but I instantly scolded myself. Now was not the time for sniffing men I’d just met.

"Why did you sneak away the morning after we met Faust?" Grady demanded. "Why couldn’t you have at least told us where you were going?"

"Because I was too slow to react to what was happening, and by the time I did, most of my pack was gone or severely weakened. Then, it was just us, the six of us."

My heart twisted. The six of them. Him, Archer, Grady, and the three wolf pups—Sasha, Ronin, and the pup Faust had ordered Archer to kill during his cruel game of Catch, Kill, Release.

"Faust planned all of this long before he executed it,” Thomas explained, his voice surprisingly measured. “His pack hasn't bred in five years, and he has no explanation for it. Desperation drove him to the Crimson Forest and our ruby caves for a possible solution."

Archer tried to coax Sasha out from between his feet, but she wasn’t having it. She seemed afraid. Afraid of her alpha.

"Then why drive us out?" he asked.

Thomas stepped toward the fireplace at the rear of the room. "Faust takes. He doesn't explain. That's his way."

"Like you," Grady accused, his voice low and tight. "No explanation and you took two goddamn years."

"Grady," Archer hissed.

"It's fine.” Thomas sat in his chair again, the legs creaking. “He’s pissed, so let him be pissed."

"It's not fine,” Grady shouted, making me flinch. “You could've woken us up the morning you left to explain, but you didn't. You left after Archer chose which wolf pup for Faust to kill. You left after seeing little Brennan die, a fucking arrow right between his eyes. You left after Sasha and Ronin tore their own throats apart as they howled for their lost brother. You left, Thomas."

Grady's words shrank the room with echoes, sharp and painful as a jab to a broken rib. I sucked in a breath, but it snagged on a quiet sob because I felt it—their combined pain from their irreversible broken hearts. It became my own, even more than it already had, and it crushed me. Their loss became my loss, and we were forever joined by it and not just our shared vision.

"You left because I killed you," Archer choked out. "Seventeen times, Thomas. Faust shot you seventeen times with a poison arrow because I took too long to choose which pup…to kill. I killed you too. Me. All because I couldn’t choose, and it didn’t make any difference." His voice broke, and the pain rolling off of him suffocated me.

“You didn’t have a choice,” Thomas told him. “I don’t blame you. I blame myself. I didn't know the enemy until it was too late. I didn't even see them coming. When our pack started dying, I didn't immediately know who to blame."

I screwed my eyes shut briefly and bit the inside of my cheek hard. I was partly to blame, my baba, ama, and me.

"I left the morning after because Faust was coming. Again.” Thomas’s voice turned huskier then, scraped raw with emotions and memories. “I led them away from you, what was left of my pack, the three most valuable things in my entire life.”

Led them away…but then what? What else had happened in those two years? He’d been shot with seventeen poisoned arrows, but where had the many, many other scars carved into his skin come from? No, there was something else, something he wasn’t telling us. I’d just met the alpha, but I could hear the truth buried deep, feel it festering inside him like the poison that had coursed through both our veins.

“And now four, from what you’ve told me, Archer.”

“Ronin,” I whispered.

"We would never have known he had Ronin if it weren't for Aika," Archer said.

Thomas's gaze turned toward me, the powerful force of it making my stomach jump. "Thank you."

It was a curious thing to be thanked with so much pure honesty, like those two words barely conveyed the meaning behind them.

"Archer and Grady have done even more to help me,” I said. “I want them—and you—to get your Ronin back."

He nodded and leaned back, owning the chair like a throne. "We plan to."

"How?" Grady asked.

A thud sounded from above, followed by a creak of a floorboard.

Archer surged to his feet, his gaze following another thud and creak from above. "You didn't tell me someone else is here."

"All part of the plan." Thomas waved his hand like it should’ve been obvious.

"What do you mean?" Grady asked.

"You may have noticed that a certain someone was missing when you went to Old Man's Den." Thomas flicked his finger toward the ceiling. "Care to make a guess?"

At the back of my mind, I had wondered when we were there but never would've guessed he'd be in the same house as the missing alpha. "Gabriel?"

Thomas nodded. "Faust's second-in-command."

"What are you getting at?” Grady stared at him. “You're keeping him here to torture him or something?"

"There's no or something. I dragged him back here by the balls after he stumbled into a bear trap. I offered him a choice—tell me everything I wanted to know and live…or don't." Thomas shrugged, the gold in his eyes flaring in the firelight. "He made the smart choice."

"What did he tell you?" Grady asked.

"The truth. He told me his pack came from north of here and hadn't bred in five years. He suspected the reason was an over-abundance of humans near their land and dwindling water supplies but wasn’t sure. He also told me about the poison and where it came from."

I tried not to squirm or hold too still while the walls in the room squeezed in on me. Grady hadn't handled it well when he found out what I'd been trying to deliver to Faust. What would Thomas do? Torture me too? I had no idea, and somehow, that was worse.

Archer cleared his throat, a careful, deliberate sound. Grady stood rigid as he gazed out the window.

"And what will you do with him once he's told you everything?" Archer asked.

"Insurance. Bait. I haven't decided yet. All I know is that it will be a painful fall for Faust from the top of the Crimson Forest all the way down into his grave. We strike soon. We strike hard. After that, the future is ours."

There was an edge to his voice now, a hint of violence that went much, much deeper. After everything that had happened to him and his pack…had it made him lose his mind?

"I found a map in Faust's office." Grady fished around the inside of his coat and then handed it to Thomas. "Two spots in the Crimson Forest are circled. Could be the ruby caves or a hideout. Whatever it is, it's important."

Without even glancing at it, Thomas rose from his chair. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning. My friends from the other wolf pack are guarding the place and will escort us out of Margin. Until then, rest up. There’s a bath upstairs. Some of you really need it." He strode from the room, easing the knot in my chest somewhat.

Through Sasha, I saw Archer and Grady share a look I couldn’t read. This was a shock to them, no doubt. How many things had changed from the old Thomas to the new?

Now wasn’t the time to think this, but where did this leave me? With Thomas, I wasn't quite sure where I fit in anymore. I would still go with them, still fight this war I'd helped start, but as a human, I was obviously separate from the pack. Now, I felt that more than ever. Before, with just Archer, Grady, and Sasha, I felt free to voice my opinions. With Thomas, I didn't think I was allowed to have one. We were expected to do what he said. Period. But…that wasn’t the way I knew how to be.

Archer crossed toward me and dipped his forehead to mine, smoothing his hand down the side of my face. His touch helped thaw what the fire couldn’t, and I melted into him. "Thanks for keeping her safe, Grady."

He grunted and limped from the room.

“Talkative guy, isn’t he?”

“Let’s not talk about him anymore,” I said, remembering his mention of the other wolves. Why hadn’t he told me?

"I won't." Archer’s breath caressed my lips, and I leaned in so it could touch all of me. He captured my mouth and probed it wider with his tongue, seeking the part of me that yearned for him the greatest.

As it flared to life, it caught my breath and curled my toes. Heat spread over my thighs, and I pressed in closer so he could feel every part of me that wanted him. With a groan, he worked his hand between the buttons of my long coat, between the buttons of all my inner layers, and skimmed his fingers over my breast. I gasped into his kiss, his skin a thrill on mine, and rocked my hips forward.

“Aika.” He brought his hand to my ass and ground me against him, kissing me with desperation. "I never want to be separated from you again."

“I don't either,” I breathed. “It killed me. I'm a part of this now, and a part of you and Sasha. I can't change that, and I don't want to."

He rubbed his thumb over my nipple and made my body hum. "Come upstairs with me."

It took several long moments to unscramble myself and follow his leap. "A bath?"

"Grady's just waiting to walk in on us again. I think he gets off on it. I want you all to myself for a little while." He cradled my cheek, the fingers of his other hand trailing toward my other breast. “I want to forget everything while inside of you.”

“I want that too.” My head spun with need as he kissed me again and again. Heat flushed through my body and gathered at my center, a constant ache impossible to ignore. I didn't want to ignore it, either, was tired of tamping down my urges as two wolves drove me crazy with want. Even Grady. Despite how angry he made me, I couldn't deny that something hung in the balance between us too.

But I wanted Archer to be my first, and I'd known that since the moment he'd become a part of my life and had taken root. There was no letting him go from my heart, the one constant he could call home since we didn't have one to speak of.

"Let’s go," I said, breathless, my whole body vibrating with anticipation.

"Give me five minutes to heat the water. The steps are there to your left." He smiled against my lips and then pulled back, his hands at my waist. “See you soon, Aika."

No one had ever said my name like he had just then, one that curled a promise through me, tight like a corkscrew, and then released it. I shuddered as he left the room, my breaths nothing but ragged spasms.

Slowly, I opened my eyes to peer through Sasha's as she watched him go and then whimpered. "It's fine, sweet girl. I won't take your guardian from you. We're just…"

I didn't even know how to begin to explain, especially to a wolf pup, what we were about to do. I wasn't a shifter, and he wasn't human, but that didn't change anything. Our hearts had entwined, and that was all that mattered.

I felt wanted and so alive, even now while leaving him, still feeling him everywhere like he was still here, touching and stroking and tasting. My smile hurt my cheeks as I angled toward the steps. At the top, one of the baseboards caught my foot, and I tripped out into a narrow hallway like a bumbling, floating fool. Nothing could bring me down though, even though somewhere up here Gabriel was held prisoner by a possible madman. I didn’t feel a bit of sympathy for Faust’s second-in-command.

A sound to my left, and something registered at the back of my mind before the rest of me caught up. I slowed to a stop and repeated the memory of the sound, and it echoed from what seemed like a long time ago. I'd heard that sound before, a wheezing cough that came in threes after a sleepless night. Hack-cough-wheeze. Hack-cough-wheeze.

I whirled and placed my hands on what felt like a door. That sound…a persistent scratchy throat first thing in the morning. It had come from Baba.