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~SOLITARY~
A run around the woods was the usual start to Malcom’s day. He spent hours in his human form bounding through the tree lines for no other reason than to allow his mind a moment of peace. There was no other time that he could truly accomplish that. Shifting to his wolf was too dangerous, though he was excommunicated from the pack, he was sure Vincent could still sense a shift. If he did it too often, that would lead the jaded alpha right to his doorstep. Pouring sweat, he returned to his home to find an unexpected visitor. A familiar face, one of a person he had once called friend. He waited in the shadows while he watched her as she circled the perimeter of the house. Long legs as he remembered, but something had changed about her. Not only was she carrying more muscle, but she had filled out in other ways as well. She wasn’t a girl anymore she was a woman. Her movements were that of a warrior, someone trained in stealth. The last time he’d seen her she had just begun her training and was the clumsiest of the students. Things sure had changed since he’d left. She was peering through the small opening that worked as his window when he finally called for her attention.
“What are you doing here?” Malcom stepped into the clearing that surrounded his home. His stance told her not to approach him. If he thought for a moment that she was there to try and kill him, she wouldn’t get the chance to state otherwise.
“Malcom!” The woman turned and ran for him out of pure instinct and ignored the warning in his stature. He grabbed her outstretched arm and flipped her on her ass. “Damn, I was only going to give you a hug!”
“How was I supposed to know that?” He helped her up from the ground. “I haven’t had many visitors around here... at least not ones that I don’t have to kill.”
“Yeah right.” She dusted the dirt from her jeans and punched him in the shoulder playfully. He chuckled in response.
“So how are you Steph?” He pulled her into a hug, but quickly released her knowing that she could be a part of a trap. He just couldn’t resist it. The moment to feel normal, he had forgotten how much he missed it.
“I’ve been better. We all have.” Stephanie started pacing the ground in a slow movement. She wasn’t sure how to continue without upsetting him. She wasn’t there to start a war, far from it.
“I’m sure. So, did your brother send you here to take me out? Ran out of his little errand boys I assume?” Malcom cut to the chase because he was confused by her presence but he didn’t sense any immediate danger.
“No, I am here of my own will. I needed to see you, to talk to you.” She stepped back from him to show her intent at peace. There was no reason for him to be alarmed.
“And how exactly did you manage to find me?” He questioned her.
“I have known your location for a while, I did my own investigating.” She smiled proud of her own ingenuity. Her brother was back home going nuts over their inability to find him, but just by knowing him, she knew exactly where he would be. While Vincent was busy scouring the streets of the city, she knew Malcom would be in a place of total solace after what happened to the people at the inn. He wouldn’t be able to face another slaughter. He hated senseless violence, even more so when innocent people were harmed because of it.
“And what about Vincent? Did you tell him where I am?” Malcom growled and grabbed her arm. He watched her closely under the rays of the sun. If she dared to lie to him, he would be able to tell. Her dark brown eyes could never hold a secret from him.
“If I did, I am sure you would have known about it by now.” She scoffed and shook her arm free of his grasp. “We both know that he would have made damn sure that I didn’t come here.”
“Okay, so what is it that you want? I know you aren’t here just for a friendly visit. It’s too damn risky to be caught with an outcast. What gives?” He pushed past her to head to the door of his home.
“I need your help, Malcom.” She said in a small voice that stopped him dead in his tracks. He knew that tone. She always used this one when she was gearing up to request that he do something he wouldn’t like. Most times, he gave in, but things had changed and she no longer had the same effect on him.
“Help? What the hell could I possibly help you with?” He laughed to cover his anger. How could she expect anything remotely resembling help from him after all he had been through? Granted, it wasn’t her that dropped the proverbial axe on his head, but she did nothing to defend him nor did she attempt to stand by him. No one did.
“Vincent.” She dropped her hands to her sides in defeat.
“What about him?” Malcom held back the growl, she damn well better not be there to ask him to help that asshole.
“I’m not sure what to do. I don’t know how to help him. I’m losing my brother and I need you to help me save him.” She pleaded with him, but could already feel the outburst boiling beneath his surface.
“That’s a tall order Steph. One that I have no interest in trying to fill.” He snapped at her and turned away. Stephanie had always been able to pull the strings of his heart, to say that she influenced him was an understatement, but he couldn’t do this for her. Not this, not for him.
“Why not?” She challenged him even though she already knew what his answer would be. She knew that there would be a fight, that she would have to challenge him to think outside of himself. Vincent didn’t deserve anything from Malcom, and Malcom owed him nothing.
“Hmm...why don’t I want to help the bastard who put me in exile? Tough question!” At this point, Malcom’s muscles were tightening in his body, beating back the shift that wanted to occur. “He took everything from me! Why should I give a shit if he is falling apart now? He deserves whatever hell he is suffering from. It's his own doing!”
“Look, you have to help, it is your duty!” Her voice rose a bit as she approached him.
“Duty? My duty? I have no duty, no to you, that pack, and especially not to Vincent!” Malcom turned on her with a growl that held so much hurt and anger that Steph jumped back from him for fear that he may hurt her. She was unsure of herself around him, so much had happened to change him. She couldn’t be sure that he was the same Malcom she once knew. He’d been away for so long, what had that time done to him?
“It’s gotten worse. He is losing hold of reality. The vamps are coming down on us stronger and Vincent just sends our men, our families, off to be slaughtered.” She lowered her voice and tried to remain calm, hoping he would follow suit. “We can’t survive much longer like this!”
“And I should give two quick fucks why?” He snapped at her and heard the wildlife in the trees scatter away from them.
“Because you aren’t like him, you care about us, about our people.” She hoped her words were still true, she knew that they once were.
“Correction, I used to care. I no longer do. You want me to hop up and protect the same bastards who so easily tossed me away and then hunted me down as an animal marked for prey. Do you know how many of them I was forced to kill, and how few of them showed even an ounce of remorse for what they were doing? Your brother put a target on my head, even after he took everything away from me, it wasn’t enough!” Though he worked to keep himself calm, he could tell that it wasn’t working. His breath had become uneven as his wolf clawed away at his insides, he wanted to break free to run and erase all the pain that Stephanie had brought back to him.
“Malcom, I...” She stepped closer to him with the intent to provide comfort to the angry wolf.
“Don’t Steph, it’s not worth it. You shouldn’t be here. Your brother probably has someone tailing you, which means it’s time for me to pack up and move out.” He huffed as he pushed his wolf back down and forced himself to remain levelheaded. He had to get away from this woman. It was more than just the anger, she did things to him, aroused another side of himself that he wasn’t ready to face.
“So, that’s it? You won’t even consider helping us.” Stephanie had to try again; as long it appeared that he was willing to listen, she had to try.
“Go home Stephanie.” He turned to her, and used her full name to make the point that he was serious and would not continue the conversation. “Go back to your brother.” The look in his eyes told her that her time was up. Malcom would never hurt her but he wouldn’t take much more. There was too much hurt and pain there, and because of who her family was, he laid blame on her shoulders as well. She would never be able to repay him for all that he had given up for them, nor would she ever be able to take away all the pain that her brother had caused him.
As Stephanie left she couldn’t help but feel hurt, and the pain she felt was more than Malcom would ever know. He hadn’t just turned his back on the pack, the family; he had turned his back on her, again. Yes, she carried blame and burden on her own shoulders, but she had her own reasons for not standing by his side. She had her own betrayals to deal with. She regretted not standing up to her brother and doing whatever she could to stop all that had happened. She could have done it; she could have changed his mind. Her brother was a tyrant but at the time, he still had a hold on himself. Losing Malcom by his side was what brought him to his knees. Stephanie could have helped, but if she was honest with herself, she knew she didn’t because she didn’t want to. Malcom had made a fool of her and she hadn’t been able to get past that.
Her entire life, Stephanie was groomed for greatness, the best of the best to insure the Alpha bloodline stayed true and pure. Once Vincent took his place at the head of the pack following his father and chose Malcom as his second in command, it was no secret what her parents’ plans were. They wanted her to be with Malcom. She didn’t protest because she had always adored the man. He was smart, kind, and sexy and he always took care of her and her brother. To be around him now, to see him in such an unbalanced state, it hurt her in so many ways. She thought about the time when the two of them had become so close. It was a time when she would have bet her life that they were going to be together and she had every reason to believe that Malcom was on the same page as her.
They had been spending a lot of time together and to her, it was precious and irreplaceable. In a blink, she went from being the one he adored to just his boss’s sister. There was no part of her that could fathom what had happened. She had been replaced, and by a human! Malcom showed no concern for her after Serene appeared. Not only did he leave her high and dry, he rubbed his happiness in her face, and she hated him for it. Although she didn’t think that he had done it intentionally, she believed that the heart chose what it wanted and the person, the vessel of that love had no other option but to follow where it led them. Just because her logical mind could process it and on some level, understand it, didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt her. No, she didn’t agree with what her brother had done, or how the situation ended. It was a complete travesty and Malcom hadn’t deserved the torture he was forced to live through. However, part of her hated him for his choice, because it meant her rejection and to have a human chosen over her, an alpha female, it also made her look like a joke in front of their pack and in a sense, she felt exiled herself. No man would want her, and no woman would respect her. Malcom had fought for his own happiness but he did it at the expense of hers.
She lingered for a while on the edge of the territory he had claimed for himself and inhaled the scent of him. It was intertwined in the trees and marked on the wind. She closed her eyes and remembered when that scent was hers to claim along with the man it bled from. She lowered her head back and allowed a low howl to crawl up her throat before she freed her wolf and took off towards home.
“Where the hell were you, Stephanie?” Vincent waited in her bedroom for her. Clean shaven, and dressed in a grey suit, he stood from the chair near the window. Vincent looked nothing like her, where she carried the dark skin, and cool temper of her father, he more closely resembled her mother. Fair skin with light eyes and a short fuse. His stature was that of every wolf, strong build, wide shoulders and head held high. Vincent was changing though, and if no one else could see it, Stephanie could. Ever since their father died, he’d taken on a more dominant role in her life, one that wasn’t welcomed or appreciated. Especially since he was the reason behind their father’s death. He thought she was unaware, of the setup, the ambush that had been ordered from his tongue! Their father was an obstacle for Vincent, like anything else that got in his way; he chopped him down and tossed him to the vamps on a silver platter!
“Running.” She pulled the leather jacket from her shoulders and tossed it on the bed. Her clothing had been left behind, outside of Malcom’s home but she had been smart enough to stash extra outside of their boundaries so that she could wash and erase the scent of her run from her body and any lingering traces of her encounter with ‘the enemy’.
“For nearly a day?” He scoffed. “That’s a hell of a run, and funny, you don’t seem to look or smell like you were running. Why is that?”
“What does it matter?” she challenged her brother. “Excuse me if I shower my ass, or if I do not tell you every second of my life. I am a grown woman, an alpha; I can handle myself, brother.”
“It matters because you are supposed to be here! Where I can protect you and I can’t do that if you continue to go rogue. The vampires are cutting our numbers down and I cannot have you going off on your own without a guard!” He walked over to his baby sister and grabbed her face in a tight grip. “I need you to be safe.” The words should have brought her comfort but instead it panicked Stephanie. She was nothing more than property to her brother, something he could keep around so he wouldn’t feel alone in the chaos he had created.
“I am safe, brother, I’m with you.” She said in a soft tone. It was better to soothe the beast than to agitate it more.
“And you will stay with me, forever!” He snarled before he released her face and pushed her back onto her bed. She tried to get up before he could make it to the door, but with two quick strides he was outside and had slammed it in her face. She heard the clicking of gears as they snapped into place, and she couldn’t believe he had done it. He’d threatened to lock her away plenty of times before but she’d never thought he’d go through with it. She banged at the door but it was no use. It had been reinforced “for her protection.” She was trapped; a prisoner in her own home and her brother was the warden and would most likely be her executioner.
Malcom had packed his bags with as much as he could take and hit the road leaving his cabin abandoned. He would return, eventually, once he could be sure that Vincent’s pups hadn’t located him. Seeing Stephanie had affected him much more than he’d been prepared for. Her presence reminded him of a world he wanted to forget and a time that he wished he could erase from the history books. As he hiked across the woods and tried to clear his mind of the betrayal that he felt at the hands of his best friend, he thought about the girl who had just visited him. Stephanie. She had always been the levelheaded one of that family, which is the reason they were always so close. Before Serene, they had been a bit more than close, they were something of a couple. Even in the early stages of their courting. Malcom felt the pressure to be with her from every direction.
The thing of it was, he would have taken interest in Stephanie had they not been on him. She was a great catch, beautiful, strong, and yeah, she was young, but she had the potential to become a great alpha female. Most of the men wanted her and he felt honored that she had obviously chosen him, but it hadn’t been his decision, he was never given the option. Shortly after Vincent became alpha, their father approached him.
“Malcom,” The burly old wolf came to greet him not 24 hours after Vincent had announced that Malcom would stand by his side. “What an honor it is to be second in command, and my son couldn’t have made a better choice.”
“Thank you, sir.” Malcom spoke with pride.
“No, thank you, I can now rest easy knowing that my son will be carefully watched over and protected.”
“I will do my best; give my all to my alpha.” Malcom beamed as he shook the hand of their former Alpha. It was a great thing to have gained his trust and respect.
“Glad to hear that, but enough about your official duties to the pack and my son, I am here to speak to you about other things.” He smiled. “More important things...”
“What things might that be sir?” Malcom had a gut feeling about what the topic was; he’d been expecting it, just not so suddenly.
“Stephanie.”
“Stephanie? I will protect her sir, you have my word.” He chose to play dumb for the moment. He knew Stephanie’s father hadn’t come to him in hopes of securing a personal bodyguard for her.
“Protection is great but I am talking along the lines of things more...permanent.” His smile broadened as if he were offering Malcom the world itself.
“Permanent sir?”
“Yes, I want you to be with Stephanie, mate her and keep the bloodline strong.” He said the words as if they were an oath. This was Malcom’s new duty to his pack and the former Alpha thought nothing of putting it on his shoulders.
“Oh, well, I...” Though he knew it was coming, he didn’t know how to respond. Stephanie had been like a little sister to him for so long. Was he ready to change the way he viewed her? Would she so happily accept him? For all the wolf knew, her father was doing this behind her back. How embarrassing would that be should her approach her only to be rejected?
“Do you not like my daughter? Do you not believe that she is beautiful?” The man mocked the expression of one who might be insulted. He knew that no one could say that Stephanie wasn’t beautiful and it had nothing to do with who her father was. Stephanie was gorgeous.
“No, sir, I never meant that. Stephanie is wonderful, I just believe that this is something for her to decide, she is an alpha female. It is not my place.”
“But I am her father, and it is mine.” The man stared at Malcom, and laid his hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t a request, he didn’t have another option and he knew that about their former Alpha, when he wanted something, he took it. If anyone got in his way, he dealt with him or her in the best way he could, or so he said. Vincent was a lot like his father and the former Alpha did everything he could to be sure that his son had every advantage possible. If only he had known, years later, his own child would all but order his execution.
“Yes, sir.” Malcom agreed because he knew there was nothing else to say. All he could hope was either that he’d fall in love with her, or that she would simply reject him for another.
It was still many years before any of that would come to fruition. Stephanie was a late bloomer when it came to her interest in the opposite sex. It was nearly two decades after the conversation with her father and she had just begun to look at Malcom in that way. She wanted him, and after spending so much unsolicited time with her, he admitted his desire for her as well. He had no idea that Serene would enter his world only a few months later. He would never have fathomed hurting Stephanie in such a way.
They spoke about it, before he made it public. He told her that he couldn’t help the way he felt and she seemed to understand it. Obviously, she was hurt, but she told him that she was happy for him, and that she supported him. That apparently was something that would only occur behind closed doors because when it all came to light, she wasn’t on his side. She mocked him and openly showed her hatred for Serene. He couldn’t blame her, she was taking a lot of heat for his actions and he had to defend her own name on more than one occasion. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say, but he knew in his heart that there wasn’t one thing he would have changed. Serene was the love of his life no matter how brief their time together had been.