JOSH MADE it outside, but then he didn’t have a single place he could go. Nero had the keys to the car, so that was out. He could walk somewhere. Hell, he could go wolf and roar through the streets of suburban Indianapolis, but that probably wasn’t the smartest idea either. So he stood outside, breathed the crisp winter air, and tried to just exist without exploding.
It didn’t work. Because a few minutes after his screaming exit, Nero wandered outside to stand next to him. And when Josh didn’t say anything, Nero eventually spoke, his voice low and soothing.
“I know that sucked,” he said. “But now you’ve broken from your family. Now you can go on with your wolf life however you want without your past interfering.”
It took a moment for the words to slip past his fury and coalesce into meaning. But once it got in, it was like setting a match to dynamite. He rounded on his former friend and let fly with every filthy curse word that flowed from the cesspool of his thoughts. And when those slowed down, he found his real words. And those he spoke with precision.
“Don’t you dare pretend that this was for my own good. You think I don’t know what’s going on? I get the same goddamned alerts on my computer that you do. I know that Wisconsin is dying inch by inch, foot by foot, more each day. I know you want to kill that fucker more than you want to breathe—”
“Yes, the demon is back and eating—”
“How many times did you try to break up with me last night? This morning? You don’t think I heard the long pauses and the heavy sighs? You’ve been getting that hangdog look ever since the first possum drank some lake water and died. And now we have a growing dead zone with no answer.”
“I need to kill it—”
“And for some twisted reason, you think that means we’ve got to split, you and me.”
“We do have to—”
“But you don’t talk to me about it. You stare at me while I sleep and then kiss me like it’s never going to happen again.”
“Josh—”
“And then you do that.” He pointed at his family. “You poke and you push until I fucking explode all over my family, so I will hate you.” This time he stabbed him in the chest. “Congratulations! I do! I despise you because you didn’t have the balls to talk to me straight out.”
He watched Nero’s jaw work and his shoulders hunch. His brow narrowed in anger, but he held it back. And when he spoke, Nero invested it with that goddamned alpha power he had. Good thing Josh was too pissed off for it to work on him.
“Wolf protocol encourages a complete break with the past, and that’s never pretty—”
“I don’t care! You wanted to do this. Protocol or not, you wanted to be the asshole so that I would break up with you.”
He held Nero’s glare, matching it with enough hatred to make sure his point stuck. Apparently it did, because Nero’s eyes dropped first. He looked down at a crack in the driveway and slowly nodded.
“Maybe I did. And maybe that was cowardly of me.”
“You think?”
“And maybe I don’t know how to feel about a lover who is a trainee with a genius-sized brain.” He lifted his head. “You’re going to move up fast in the company. All the higher-ups are already clamoring for your time and are willing to pay you well for that. Me? I’m a grunt who is waiting for my next assignment on the front lines. There was never any future for us. Never. And I….” He looked away.
“And you love me, dickwad.”
Nero’s head snapped up. “What?”
“Holy fuck, you think I didn’t know? You think I’d let anybody do with me what we’ve done? It’s not just the sex. There’s nothing you don’t know about me. You’re the first person I turn to in the morning and the last one I kiss at night.”
Nero was shaking his head hard. “That’s not l—” He swallowed. “That’s pack. That’s how we feel in a pack.”
“And that’s love. You love your pack.”
“Yes.” The word cracked as it came out.
“And it sucks when that pack is torn apart, however it happens.” Josh looked past Nero’s shoulder to the house behind him. “But you didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to do it this way.” And with that, he turned away. He still had nowhere to go, but he was done talking. He needed some time alone—time to hate, to rage, to grieve in peace.
So he turned his back on Nero and walked to the rear bumper of the car. And when Nero didn’t move, Josh spoke over his shoulder. “The specs are in your phone. Get my dad to start making the thing so we can get the hell out of here.”
He waited another few moments, his shoulders tight and his breath all but sawing out of his chest. There were tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t want to give himself away by wiping them off. Nero saw everything, and that was a detail he wouldn’t miss.
So he leaned back against the bumper of Nero’s car and let the tears burn cold on his cheeks. In time, Nero sighed and went back into the house. That should have been great. It really should have, except that once his vision cleared, Josh saw a car whipping down the street. A canary yellow Mustang with a dented bumper and a cute brunette gripping the steering wheel as she careened into a parking space.
Savannah.
She slammed to a stop outside his parents’ place, then burst out of the car and ran straight at him. He tensed, and thank God for his werewolf strength, because she was not a small woman as she leaped into his arms. And then she held him, squeezing him tight enough to make his eyes tear up again. It wasn’t pain but gratitude. Someone loved him enough to hug him as if her life had ended without him.
“Josh.” She spoke his name as if it were a prayer. Eventually she took a deep breath and slid out of his arms. Then she slugged him hard on the shoulder.
“Ow!” Now even his best friend was hitting him? What the hell?
“Don’t ‘ow’ me! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. Your parents didn’t know anything, you missed Ivy’s party, and no one at your lab has heard from you. What have you been doing? And why does it seem like you’ve been working out?” She squeezed his arm. “You haven’t been this built since… ever.” Then she peered hard at his face. “And why does it look like you’ve been crying?”
“That’s a lot of questions,” he murmured as he dug a palm into his eyes.
“Start with the most immediate. Why are you crying?”
He thought about lying, but she was his best friend since high school. If anyone could give him perspective, it would be her. “My boyfriend just broke up with me.” He tensed, waiting for the “you’re gay?” confusion. Instead, she glanced over his shoulder at the house.
“At your parents’ house? That’s lame.”
“Yeah,” he said with a weak chuckle. “It was bad enough that he dragged me here, but then he pulled this douche move.” He shook his head, not wanting to go into details.
“Well, he is a guy, and they’re all morons.” Then she leaned back against the car.
“I am a guy too, you know.”
“And you disappeared on me for six weeks, had a gay relationship, and just ended it. I’d say that’s moronic. Not the relationship bit. We all screw those up. I mean the disappearing bit. So what happened? Where were you?”
He turned to study her face. “What do you remember from MoreCon?”
“I—” She grimaced. “It’s weird. I remember getting there and meeting you in the café, but then it gets all hazy. Were we supposed to meet after the opening event? I think I got sick or something, because I remember waking up in my room the next morning and you were gone. As in not in the hotel, your car gone from the lot, just gone. And nobody knew anything until Bruce texted me that you were here.”
He nodded, having expected something like that. “You can take your pick of answers. I had a meltdown because I’m gay and was hospitalized. I did something shady at the event, was arrested, and became gay in jail. I was abducted by a covert organization and turned gay.”
“Don’t you think covert organizations have something better to do than mess with your sex life?”
He chuckled. “Trust me, they have a lot weirder things to mess with.”
She was silent for a long moment. She studied him head to toe; then she squeezed his arm as she dropped her head on his shoulder. “So covert organization, huh? How much can you tell me?”
He jolted. “You believe me?”
“You’ve bulked out. That wouldn’t happen in a hospital or jail.”
“I could have gotten buff in jail.”
“Not likely. So that leaves covert military something or other, and they probably forced you to do calisthenics. And boy, do I wish I could have seen that.”
He snorted. “I think I would have preferred to die.”
“Ah, so I’m right.”
“Yeah, you are. But that’s about all I can tell you.”
A breeze cut down the street, and she huddled deeper into her coat. “Why aren’t you cold? You don’t even have a coat on.”
Werewolf metabolism? He wasn’t sure, but he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. “We can go inside,” he offered, though that was the last thing he wanted.
“Not until you tell me why you’re here.”
“We need Volcax. Nero insisted we find a way to get it now. There’s a time problem he’s not telling me about. But it has to be now.”
“Nero the asshole?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yeah.”
“Enough to fight for him?”
He paused to think about it. There were so many factors to consider. He’d just become a werewolf and was still figuring out what that meant. He might continue at Wulf, Inc. He might go back and finish his PhD. His future was in flux, and Nero’s was no different. The big ass would probably join a new combat pack and go anywhere in the world, fighting who knew what.
All those thoughts ran through his head, and Savannah, being Savannah, let him mull them over, though she was shivering by the time he finally spoke.
“Not right now,” he finally admitted. “If everything was normal….” He almost snorted that word. Werewolves were not normal. “I wouldn’t let him end things like this. But he’s going somewhere. I might be going somewhere.”
She straightened. “Where are you going?”
He was about to say he didn’t know, but he made up his mind right then and there to share the important stuff. Details didn’t matter. This did. “I really like the work I’m doing,” he said, feeling his way through his decision. “I love it. It’s exciting and different.” Understatement of the year. “And they seem like they really need me.”
“You’re staying in covert land.” A statement, not a question.
“Yeah.” Then he shook his head. “But as soon as I can, I’m writing my dissertation and graduating.”
“What?”
He turned her so they were looking eye to eye. “You may not remember it, but you harassed me at MoreCon for not getting on with my life.”
“That’s no surprise. I do that every time I see you.”
True enough. “That’s because you’re right. I wasn’t graduating because I didn’t know what I wanted to do afterwards. Nothing interested me.”
“And now you’ve found it?”
He thought about the pages and pages of case files he’d been reading through. Demons with plasma fire were just the tip of the iceberg. Vampires and shifters were only a fraction of the world out there. And when the fairies got involved, everything went whacko.
“I love it,” he said.
“But you’re leaving it?”
“Temporarily. I’m going to finish the PhD so the bastards pay me what I’m worth.”
She grinned. “That’s the spirit.”
Then he glanced back at the house. “Nero was a jerk today, but he was right about one thing.”
She arched her brows in question.
“I need to close out my past. And though today sucked rocks, at least I know I won’t be leaving my family in limbo.”
“But you’re still disappearing into covert land.”
He shrugged. “Not to them, I’m not. Nero outed me as gay.” He held up his hand to stop her from making a snap judgment. “He thought they already knew, and I know he was shocked by their reaction.”
“Still an asshole move.”
Josh couldn’t argue that. “So Mom’s going with the mental breakdown, and Dad’s chosen jailhouse conversion.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed. Then she looked at Bruce’s huge truck. “What about your brother and sister?”
Josh exhaled. “I don’t know. They both tried to help, but there’s only so much they could do.”
“Okay, so your siblings are up in the air, but I’m not. I don’t care what you’re doing, I expect an email address and regular communication. And you better get vacation time off for MoreCon every year.” She poked him in the chest. “Every single year.”
“Every year. I promise.”
“Okay. Fine, then—” Savannah cut off her words as her gaze zeroed in on Bruce. He was just now coming out of the house, and his steps hitched slightly as he saw her. Then his jaw tightened as he crossed to Josh.
“Hi, Bruce,” Savannah said.
“Hi, Savannah. Glad you made it before the shit hit the fan.”
Josh gaped at his brother. “Before the shit hit?”
Bruce nodded. “Mother’s called a prayer meeting. They’re headed over now.”
“Oh God,” Savannah breathed.
“To pray away my gayness?”
“To pray for you.”
Yeah. It was to pray away his gayness. “What about Dad?”
“He wasn’t going to make your doggie hoodies….” He looked at Josh. “This is some lame practical joke or something, right?”
“Sorry, it’s real. Unless the joke’s on me.”
“Well, that guy Nero made it clear that the money’s real, but only if the coats get made today. He offered Dad a shit-ton of money. And you know Dad’s greedy. And given that the other choice is a prayer vigil instead of EPSN—”
Josh straightened off the car. “Dad’s actually going to give us the Volcax? Are we headed to the factory, then?”
“Nero and Dad are,” Bruce said. “But maybe you and I could go somewhere else. Maybe have a beer.”
Josh frowned. Years of being duped by his older brother reared up in his mind. “You’ve never wanted to hang out before.”
Bruce shrugged. “We’ve never been adults before. And you’ve never disappeared, come back gay, and mouthed off to Dad before.” He grinned. “And for the record, I knew what ABD means. You’ve had it after your name forever.”
Was that a dig? If so, it was true. Hadn’t he been saying that same thing to Savannah? He opened his mouth to agree. There was no reason he couldn’t try to mend some fences with his brother before disappearing into Wulf, Inc. forever. But just as the words were forming, Nero burst out of the house, flashing his phone.
“Josh, we’ve got to get to the factory. The fairy says it’s now or never!”
It took a moment for Josh to reorient himself from family to weirdness, but he got there. Some fairy had probably located the demon, and Nero was hell-bent on taking the asshole down. Meanwhile, Savannah and Bruce were having trouble following their conversation.
“Is that a slur?” Bruce asked, understandably confused.
“Or a codename?” Savannah asked.
Given Nero’s attitude toward the fae, it was both, but he couldn’t say that. Instead he shrugged. “Classified.”
Meanwhile, Nero gestured to the car. “Get in. Your dad’s going to cut the fabric and then I’ll go—”
“Test it in a lab,” Josh interrupted. “It needs to be tested.”
“No time. Fit it on me and—”
“Make time,” Josh said as he squared off with Nero. “I’m the geek here. I’ll tell you when it’s ready for use in the field.”
“And I’m the boss. I’ll tell you where—”
“You ready to commit suicide? Because that’s what will happen—”
“—we test. In the field. It’s the only test that counts.”
“No way—”
“Damn it, Josh!”
His father’s voice cut through their argument. “You want this fool thing or not?”
They both turned and spoke with one voice. “Yes!”
“Then get out of my way!”
It took a moment for them to figure out what he meant. Sometime during their yelling match, his father had opened the garage door and was waiting to back his truck out, but Nero’s car was blocking him.
“Right away, sir,” Nero called. Then he hauled open his car door.
Josh rushed to the passenger side of the car and made it inside just as Nero turned the ignition. “You can’t do this without testing.”
Nero backed out of the driveway while Savannah and Bruce watched from the lawn. But then he had to pause on the street for Josh’s dad to back out and lead the way. And in that pause, Nero turned to Josh. His tone was level, his jaw firm, and his eyes hard.
“I’m going to do this with or without your shield and hoodie. So, do I wait for it? Or do I head straight for Wisconsin now?”
Josh cursed under his breath. And then he cursed even louder when he realized that Nero was waiting for his answer.
“Fine!” he huffed. “Wait for my dad to make two of them. We’ll go together.”
“Bullshit. You’re not trained.”
“And you’re not thinking straight.”
Nero acknowledged that with a grunt. Then he spoke, his voice low. “I’ve waited six weeks and five days.” He looked at Josh. “I know this doesn’t make sense to you. I can’t explain further, but the longer we wait, the worse it gets. So I leave tomorrow morning, no matter what.”
Josh winced. He could feel the determination in Nero’s tone. There was definitely something the guy wasn’t saying. Something important that had colored his every action since the very beginning. “It’s reckless to go out there alone and unprepared. I’ve read your mission reports—this isn’t you. You’re all about safety with your pack.”
Nero didn’t answer, and as the miles sped by underneath the wheels, Josh put the pieces together.
“You don’t think they’re going to let you in on the kill, do you? You think they’ll give the task to someone else.”
Nero shook his head. “No one else is going to drag paste-covered shields into combat, Josh. Or wear a hoodie. No one but me.”
“They will if they’re ordered to.”
Nero shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s a limit to what some of them will do.”
“I don’t care. That’s not your call and you know it. So what is really going on? Why does it have to be you, right now, taking stupid risks?”
Nero didn’t answer. And as they took the last turn before they hit his dad’s factory, Josh realized the truth. Nero hadn’t answered because he couldn’t. And yet he was still stubbornly, stupidly determined to go into the fight. Which meant his trainer, his lover, and his best werewolf friend was really fucked-up in the head.
“You need to tell me the truth,” Josh said slowly. He invested all his passion, his determination, and his love in his words. Nero had to know that he was serious. “You will tell me what’s really going on right now or I will delete the specs and destroy the shield. I’ll erase everything and you’ll have nothing.” He stared at Nero and saw the guy’s clenched jaw. “You’ve blown up my life, destroyed my relationship with my family, and I still fucking love you. So you will tell me what’s really going on or I’ll do whatever I have to, to make sure you survive. And if that means destroying the specs—”
“Do you know what the number-one rule in the Wulf, Inc. handbook is?”
It took a moment for Josh to pull back from his tirade, and even longer for the words to make sense in his brain. “We have a handbook?”
Nero glared at him. “No, of course we don’t have a handbook. We’re werewolves!”
Right. “Sorry,” he said. “You were saying. The number-one rule is…?”
“Never, ever, under any circumstances, make a fairy deal.”
Oh crap. There was good reason for that rule. Fairy deals never, ever went the way they were supposed to. Anyone who had ever played D&D knew that.
“You have to understand,” Nero continued. “My entire pack was dead, the demon had escaped, and I needed to do something. Anything.”
Cold terror gripped Josh’s spine. “What did you do?”
Nero sighed. “I made a fairy deal.”