Chapter Twenty-One

Captain slammed his front door and paced the room, made his way back to the front door, opened it, and then slammed it again.

He hated everything!

The entire trailer park was full of smoke. He coughed, made his way to his thermostat, and turned off the air conditioner. He couldn't filter freaking Wreck's poisonous smog in here.

He fucking hated the Fastlanders.

He probably needed to eat to heal so he could fight again, but when he went to his fridge and looked inside, he realized he hadn't gone shopping this week. God, he'd just paused his entire life lately, and for no reason he could understand.

He'd gone to work and back, and repeated every day like a robot.

"Fucking Gunner," he ground out.

He hoped he died of his injuries.

Owen and Wreck too. And Ace too, for jumping in at the end when he got off work.

His phone rang, and it was such an annoying, grating sound. He ignored it, but after a pause, it started ringing again.

He strode over to it and checked the ID. Silver.

You know what? Fuck Silver too. She was a Fastlander, and the only feeling he felt over the Fastlanders was dislike.

He let it ring to nothing as he pulled on a pair of gray sweats. When it rang a third time, he roared and pushed a blender off his countertop, then answered the phone. "What!"

"Unblock her."

"Unblock who?" he demanded.

"Sloane! Go check her messages, asshole. They'll be in a hidden folder because you blocked her. You fucking owe me!" she screamed. "Do it!" and then hung up.

Silver was such a pain, but easily ignored. He wasn't doing what anyone told him to do. He owed her? For what?

Gah, he was bleeding bad. He'd just noticed the laminate wood floors he'd installed in his single-wide trailer were dotted with drops of crimson. Crap.

He moved into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. Oh God. He was hurt bad. Why didn't he feel any of this?

He looked down at the claw marks and the burns, and he didn't understand. He hadn't always been like this. He used to feel. Perhaps his nerve endings had been burned off thanks to Wreck?

Captain punched his fists onto the counter and glared at his reflection in the mirror. He didn't recognize himself anymore. His eyes were so empty.

What was wrong with him?

Disgusted with himself, he ripped his gaze away from the mirror, pushed his grey sweats off and onto the floor, then turned the shower on as hot as it would go.

He didn't feel it, but he knew it was hot from the steam that wafted from his skin.

What the hell?

The heavy, devastated sound that wafted from his lungs stunned him. He huffed breath and his eyes burned, and he didn't understand. Captain went to the shower floor, squatting as he gripped the back of his hair and praying this awful moment of weakness would pass.

Something was wrong with his insides.

Unblock her.

Silver's words read across his mind so smoothly, and he opened his eyes. Water was streaming down his hair to his nose and running off to the shower floor.

Unblock her.

Do it. There was the bear, but his gruff voice was pleading for the first time Captain could remember.

The water was still running pink, but who cared? Not him.

He dragged himself out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist, sauntered back into the living room where his phone sat on the coffee table, and did as Silver asked.

He unblocked the woman she'd asked him about earlier, found the messages she'd sent him while she'd been blocked, and then he sat there and toggled back and forth between the two pictures she'd sent.

That was him.

He was in these pictures.

He was kissing her cheek in the first one, and he was grinning like he understood true happiness in the second one, with a woman and a young boy of maybe six or seven. He knew that kid from somewhere, but his memories were so blurry. It was like trying to see through muddy water, and the more he tried to remember, the more his stomach ached.

Something had happened to him to make him forget those moments of happiness, but when he tried to reach for the reasons why, he felt like retching.

I know you . Send.

A wave of pain sliced through his middle. He doubled over, sank down on the couch, and put his phone down face-up. Perhaps if he wasn't touching the phone, the ache would lessen.

We were happy for a little while , she texted back.

How long ago? Send.

A week.

Captain scrubbed his hands over his face and tried so hard to remember. Was she messing with him? Another wave of ache cut through his middle.

What is the boy's name. Does it start with an R? Send.

Yes. Ruger. You were helping coach his baseball team.

A flash of him giving a kid a high five, and then the kid throwing his baseball glove into the air and trying to catch it, washed across his mind. His echoing laugh bounced around his brain, and he winced as the hurt pierced his head in the beginnings of a migraine.

This was either an Alpha order or a witch's curse. He would bet on the former, knowing his fuckface brother. What else could mess him up like this?

There was one last question he needed to know the answer to. One that mattered very much.

Did I sleep with you? This one doubled him over with a splitting headache, so he had to rush to hit send.

You really don't remember?

He grimaced at the pain that was racking his body. Now he could feel his injuries. He tried so hard to remember the woman in the pictures, but he only remembered her younger face with a different hairstyle. From high school. He'd Changed in front of her at homecoming. Homecoming. He'd kissed her…and then…and then…fuck!

Yes or no? Send.

Yes.

He was going to finish what he'd started and kill Gunner. With a snarl, he stood and pulled on a pair of jeans as fast as he could before he bolted out the front door.

He jogged over to Gunner's trailer and pounded on the door. No answer.

"Gunner!" he roared, pounding on the door again.

"He's not here," Owen said in a tired voice from a chair on his porch.

He was pale as a sheet and his black T-shirt had wet marks on it. He smelled like iron.

"Where is he?" Captain demanded.

"He's headed to the lair of the dragon."

"Why is he going to Damon's?"

"The girls are there." Owen shrugged. "He's probably needing to be closer to Hallie while he heals."

"If your mate is there, why didn't you go with him?"

"I was waiting for you," Owen said simply.

Captain didn't understand. He parted his lips to say as much, but he didn't like admitting when he was confused. He'd always seen that as weakness. Instead, he asked, "Where are Ace and Wreck?"

"Ace is waiting on a late inventory delivery, and Wreck is, I dunno. Probably freaking camouflaged in the yard, waiting to pop up and strike us all with lightning for funsies."

Captain snorted. Wreck did have a tendency to camouflage well and appear at inopportune times. Including today. Captain still didn't understand where all the fire had gone. There had been blistering heat and billowing smoke, and then nothing was left but some burned trees and ash piles in the woods, like the fire had been weeks ago.

"Will the woman be there?" Captain asked.

"Sloane?"

Captain folded in half and nearly retched. "Gah, shit," Captain said queasily. "Yeah, her." Sloane. That was right. Pretty name. Sloane and Ruger.

"Gunner did a number on you," Owen said, standing.

"I want to fight him."

Owen chuckled. "Again? You just did." He grunted as he made his way down his porch stairs. "You're driving. Silver has my truck."

****

"Do you need anything else?" Clara asked from the open doorframe of the sprawling guest room. It had a four-poster bed and a kitchenette, and was bigger than her entire apartment.

"Oh, no, I'm all set. Really. Thank you so much for offering me a room for the night. It's a long drive back. I didn't want to make Silver take me back to my place and then drive all the way back to Laramie."

"No worries at all. Mason is already home for the night or I would ask him to drive you out. He can first thing in the morning."

"Thank you so much."

"It's a lot to think about, huh?" she asked.

"It's overwhelming," she admitted.

Clara gave her a sympathetic smile and leaned on the doorframe. "It's going to be okay, you know. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason."

Those last five words hung in the air as Clara turned to leave. Sloane had always hoped that saying would apply to her life someday.

There was a commotion down the hallway, and Clara muttered a curse as she disappeared out the door and down the hallway.

Sloane set down the bag of toiletries Clara had given her and stuck her head out the door, listening to the masculine voices that were ramping up in volume.

Ope. That was Captain's angry voice. "That one is mine," she said apologetically as she jogged past Clara. She didn't know why she'd said that. He wasn't hers, clearly. He hadn't even remembered sleeping with her.

Everything was on fire.

The yelling got louder as she picked up her jog to a run, her sneakers squeaking against the white marble floors, and now she could make out some of the words.

"You couldn't wait, could you, brother?"

"That's not what this is about!"

"I know what you did!"

Sloane rounded the corner of the big room just as Hallie started yelling for the Walker brothers to stop.

She skidded to a stop at the sight of Captain. He looked different. It looked like he'd never smiled in all his life now. His eyes were hollow and blazing silver, and the veins in his neck were popping out as he yelled at his brother. Owen was trying to keep them separate, and the girls were pulling on the Walker brothers' arms, trying to yank them apart, but those two titans acted as if the Crew wasn't even there.

Sloane bolted forward as a growl rippled through the room. A man with dark hair gone silver at the temples sat at the head of the long dining table with Lucia. Damon? He looked on at the fight without moving or blinking.

She skidded to a stop beside Captain.

"Hey!" she yelled, but he didn't seem to hear her.

A snarl ripped from him as well, and oh no. This was bad! They could bring this entire room down with the brawl she knew they were both capable of.

"Stop him!" Silver yelled at her, and she hesitated. Stop him? How could she, a human, stop these monsters from doing what monsters did?

She clenched her teeth and looked up at Captain. As Silver and Corey pulled on him, Owen pushed, and she had just enough room to slide in between him and Gunner and wrap her arms around Captain's neck.

She clung to him, wrapping her legs around him.

"Stop!" Captain barked, holding his hands out like he didn't want to touch her. He staggered backward with her clinging to him. "Lady, stop! Something's happening." His words sounded strangled, and in a panic, she let go, afraid she was hurting him somehow.

Captain fell to his knees, wrapped his arms around his middle, and folded over like he couldn't breathe.

"Take it back," Hallie demanded.

"Take what back?" Sloane asked, panicking. "What did I do?"

"Not you!" Hallie yelled. "Gunner, take it back, or so heaven help me, I will make you sleep in the woods for the next month."

"It's for his own—"

"Fuck off," Sloane yelled, rounding on him. "You took me away from him. Fix it!"

"To protect your son."

"I will protect my son! Captain can protect my son. You had no right to rip him from me!" Her scream surprised her, and so did the thickening of her throat and the tears that burned her eyes. She advanced on Gunner and pushed him in the chest. "You had no right. Fix it."

Captain was trying to drag in breath, still curled in on himself.

"You're poisoning him," Gunner murmured.

"You're poisoning him!" she screamed in his face. "I love him. Can you say the same thing? You're his brother. This is not an act of love. It is an act of hate. Undo it, or I swear to God when I Turn into a lion, my first act will be to kill you."

"Truth," Owen pointed out.

Gunner's eyes cooled and flickered over to Silver. "Traitor."

"Traitor for good reason," Silver said unapologetically.

Gunner looked terrifying as he slid his angry, bi-colored blue-and-silver gaze back to Sloane. "You love him?"

"Very much. I probably always have."

"Your son's safety is on you then. Guarantee it. If anything happens, you will not pin it on me as the Alpha of this Crew. I tried to stop it."

"My son's safety is on me," she gritted out.

"And me," Captain uttered, his voice hoarse.

"And me," Silver said.

"Yep," Owen said low.

"Me too," Corey said.

"And me," Ace murmured from where he appeared in a cloud of dark purple smoke behind Gunner.

"Me as well," Hallie whispered from beside her mate, her eyes on Gunner.

Damon's voice rang through the room, deep and gravelly. "The boy will have the protection of the blue dragon as well."

Chills rippled up her spine as everyone in the room turned their attention to Damon Daye. His silver eyes with the elongated pupils stayed steady on Gunner.

The enormous rock-walled room was heavy with the silence that fell upon it.

Gunner slid his gaze back to Captain. "I need the room."

Silver grabbed Sloane's hand and quickly tugged her to the door. "Before he changes his mind," she whispered as she led the way down the hall. The other Fastlanders were with them, all but Wreck, Gunner, and Captain. When Sloane dared a glance behind her, Damon was closing the door to the big room, and he and Clara and Lucia were making their way into the hallway.

The Fastlanders had pledged to keep Ruger safe in whatever war was coming.

Damon Daye, the motherfreaking blue dragon himself—the most famous shifter in the world, the shifter in charge of policing the entire species—had pledged to keep Ruger safe.

For her?

For Captain?

The tears that had been burning her eyes spilled to her cheeks as Silver slowed and then stopped in the long hallway. She squeezed her hand and nodded at Sloane like she could read every tumultuous thought.

"The lion?"

Her bottom lip quivered, and Sloane bit it to stop the show of weakness there. "I choose the lion."

Silver lifted her chin higher into the air. "You mean you choose Captain?"

Sloane nodded, unable to speak out of the tightness in her throat now.

"You just took every one of Gunner's arguments away," Corey said softly, resting her cheek against Sloane's shoulder in a sign of affection that perhaps shifters needed in emotionally chaotic moments like this.

"You told Gunner your first act as a shifter would be to kill him," Owen said, and when Sloane looked at his face, she didn't miss the lopsided grin that had taken over his mouth. "That was awesome."

Corey let off a giggle, and Silver laughed too. Even Hallie was pursing her lips against a smile.

"The blue dragon said he would keep Ruger safe," she whispered as low as she could. Was this real life right now?

"I bet Lucia had something to do with it," Corey said softly.

"Me too," Silver murmured, eyes down the hallway as Damon, Clara, and Lucia spoke softly amongst themselves by the great room's door.

"You have a mating bond," Silver said. "Captain wouldn't have gotten sick if you didn't have that with him. He would've just forgotten you with the Alpha order and moved on. Gunner fucked with a mating bond though."

"His intentions were good," Hallie told them. "He didn't know about the bond. He was looking out for Sloane and the boy."

And in this moment, Sloane had a newfound respect for Hallie. She was a newly-Turned shifter, still learning the ropes, loyal to her mate, but aware enough of his mistakes to pledge her protection over Ruger, and remain understanding for her mate's tough decisions.

It was a tightrope to walk, and Hallie was doing well at it.

Begrudgingly, Sloane even respected Gunner for what he'd done, if it meant he was trying to protect her son, whom he'd never even met.