19

clementine

I WOKE UP to my handcuffs being removed by some guy. His face was all scarred up and he barely looked at me. He had a big bin he was tossing all the handcuffs in.

The other women were sitting up around me, some of them looking around with frightened-rabbit looks, waiting for a blow to come from any direction. Others just looked blank, which was probably me, too, I thought.

I still felt numb.

My body didn't hurt. I was a tithe. I was all healed up. Fit as a fucking fiddle.

I looked up at the guy and I had a wild thought about fighting, but that just made me laugh. Stupid, stupid thought.

Fighting.

I collapsed into wild giggles at the thought of it.

The guy glared down at me.

I stopped laughing.

There was a huge plastic bin by the door, and it had clothes in it. Women were standing up over there, sorting through it, putting things on.

No one told me what to do. It was all wordless. I just followed what the others were doing.

I went over there and waited in line, waited my turn, and then I found a pair of drawstring pants that fit and a little tanktop that was clingy enough that it would hold up my breasts. Later, I'd think that I should have worn something shapeless so as not to give them ideas, but that would make me laugh too. As if what I was wearing mattered at all.

I realized that sort of thinking, it was the kind of thinking that people do when they're beaten and helpless, in a situation where they have no power. They grasp at straws to think that they could have protected themselves somehow. Maybe if I didn't wear a short skirt, he wouldn't have raped me.

Yeah, sure, tell yourself a little story if it helps. Tell yourself that you could have possibly done something, anything.

It was almost orderly, that was the thing, the way we all did whatever they wanted us to without them even having to make us do it. They had scared all the fight out of us, and now we were docile and obedient. We wanted to please them now. They had beaten us.

Inside, the part of me that was curled up was angry.

But I couldn't afford anger and I knew it.

We all filed out of the room like proper little drones, and one of the men—just one of them, and there were so many of us—led us into a room where there was a long table lined up with food. There were plates. A buffet.

We served ourselves.

We sat down on the floor and woodenly ate the food without looking at each other.

"Clementine!"

I looked up, startled, fear going through me. Who knew my name? Who said that?

A man came across the room and gestured for me to stand.

Noah .

He gave me a grim smile.

I stood up.

He gestured with his head for me to follow him.

I, for some stupid reason, gestured at my plate, which was down on the floor where I'd left it.

Noah bent over, swept it up, gave me another smile, this one more reassuring, and then gestured again.

He walked. I followed.

We picked our way around the shell-shocked women on the floor in their ill-fitting clothes struggling to taste any of the food they were eating. The women barely even looked at us.

I felt my chest squeeze in a way that horrified me and I tamped it down.

It was like Noah had somehow burst into my fortress, let me out, and I couldn't be out. I could not experience this reality, because if I did, I would shatter into a million pieces.

No, no, no.

In a blind panic, I shuttered myself again.

Noah said something to me, but I didn't know what it was. I shook my head at him, shook it really fast.

He put a hand on my shoulder, his expression concerned.

I ripped away from his touch, practically baring my teeth at him. Do not try to make me feel. I cannot do that.

He pulled back with a quick nod, like he got it.

He set my plate down on a table. Had he asked me about the food?

Fuck it, I was not actually hungry.

It was silent after that.

He took me up the stairs in the house, and then we crossed into a place that was clearly one of the badly done additions to the place, the hallway a little crooked, the ceilings too low.

We went all the way to the end of it, and there was an open door, and a bedroom inside. There was a bed in there, covered in blankets and pillows. It was, wow, fuck, cozy .

We went in, and Noah shut the door.

A man was on the bed.

He had red hair and freckles and a big red beard, and he was enormous. Like, this man was so broad and so muscled that he was taking up too much space. He was sitting on the bed, not wearing a shirt, just a pair of boxer briefs, and he rubbed his face and looked up at Noah with this expression of bemusement .

Red.

I knew it, just knew it, somehow.

"Baby, what did I say about strays?" he said to Noah.

Noah shrugged. "Um, I seem to remember a conversation that went something like, ‘Anything you want, Noah, whatever you want, I'll pull down the damned moon if you want it.' You remember that one?"

Red smirked. He looked me over. "Fuck you, Noah," he said, but it was affectionate.

"Yeah, I mean, I remember a lot of that, too." Noah was coy.

"You turn into Madge on me, though…" Red groaned, flopping back on the bed.

"I want to let her stay in the room next door," said Noah. "And to let her take a shower and stuff. I told you about her, anyway. She's Clementine. She's cool."

"Paladin's," said Red to the ceiling.

"Oh, my God, who is this Paladin person?" said Noah. "What kind of name is Paladin, anyway? It's like from King Arthur or some shit."

"Did you find out about casualties?" said Red.

"It's bad, but I told you this whole thing was stupid," said Noah. "I told you—"

"How bad?"

"Ten dead," said Noah. "And maybe only five on the other side killed. If it comes down to it, Griff told you that wolves fighting for mates wasn't going to be easy, and you—"

"I do not need a lecture this morning," said Red, but he didn't sound angry, just sort of exhausted. "One of them wasn't Paladin, I take it."

"No," said Noah. "No, Paladin and his pack are all just missing. They ran off, let their mate go." He eyed me. "So, that's you. Huh."

My mates were alive. Wow, I hadn't even thought about their safety or their fates, but I hadn't been in any position to do anything other than get through the next moment and the next. I was relieved, but that didn't feel like anything either, I realized. This fortress thing, it was making me all blunted, wasn't it? I couldn't feel any emotions at all.

Red vaulted up off the bed. "Okay, then, thank you for finding that out for me." He shrugged into a shirt and then squinted at the floor, yawning.

Noah fished a pair of jeans off the floor and held them out.

Red took them. "Thank you, baby." He stepped into the jeans and buttoned and zipped them. "Uh, I'm going to be busy, like, all day."

"So, Clementine?"

"Do whatever you want," said Red. "I mean, you always do." He huffed, scratching his red beard, and then leaned in to kiss Noah before leaving the room and shutting the door in his wake.

Then, I was alone with Noah, who looked at me with wide, worried eyes.

I just stood there. I was reeling.

Noah ran a hand through his hair and started muttering to himself. It mostly sounded like swear words.

"You're Red's mate?" I said in a tiny voice. "Red has a mate?"

Noah shrugged. "It's not like I planned this. And trust me, neither did he. And… oh, holy fuck, he's so toxic. He's just the definition of the wrong kind of man, wrong in all the wrong ways, but he's so fucking goddamned sexy, and I…" Noah went back to muttering swear words.

I hugged myself.

Noah turned to me, lifting a finger. "Shower. You need a shower."

I licked my lips.

"Maybe cry," he said. "I miss crying. I mean, I miss basically nothing about being a woman, trust me, but crying, shit . The testosterone, it really does make it harder to cry."

I shook my head at him.

"Cry, sweetie. Trust me, it helps. A good shower cry. A nice, long, hot shower, all by yourself. Come with me. "

paladin

I WAS HAVING one of my dreams when I woke myself from it, flailing and shrieking, but I wasn't in the farmhouse, and I was naked and cold.

Kestrel was there, though, and he was pressed up against me from behind, one arm banded around my chest, his whiskered mouth at my ear, his voice soothing.

"I ate his face off!" I was screaming. "I ate his fucking face ."

"That never happened, Paladin," Kestrel breathed, sure and firm.

"No, no," said Lazarus. He was there, too, his hands all over my face and my chest, insistent and reassuring. "That's just a dream. You're here with us. You're safe."

I liked to let myself believe them, usually, shut all that other stuff away.

But I was remembering where we were, in the quarry. I was remembering that they had taken Clementine, and I was realizing I couldn't forget this morning. I needed that part of myself back from whatever dark hole inside myself that I'd shoved it.

Shit.

I shook, trembling against them, and my stupid body seemed so small and lithe and nothing like their strong and solid selves. I was weak. I was nothing. I wanted to rub into them and do what I usually did, regress into whatever I regressed into, that place where we all pretended like they saved me and that I didn't have to step up and do the things that I sometimes had to do.

But.

Clementine .

So, I let myself tremble until the trembling stopped, and I took several deep breaths, and then I let my head roll back to rest against Kestrel's shoulder and I said, "We all know that actually happened."

They both went stiff against me.

Moments passed, and we all just breathed .

And then, carefully, slowly, I sat up, taking up space, and they shrank from me. I felt it coming off of them, the strange fear and respect that I hated. It made me feel all alone.

I stretched my neck. "You're both probably angry I made us retreat," I said in a low voice.

"No, it was the best call," said Kestrel. "If we all died, we'd be useless to her."

"Maybe if we'd done something else, though, maybe we could have brought her along," said Lazarus.

"No," I said. "No, I ran it in my head five ways, and they all ended up bad. This was the best way. I killed my three, but you two were both overpowered, and she was already being dragged off at that point."

"You didn't go after her?" said Lazarus.

I winced. "I need you both. I can't get her back without your help. So, yes, I let them take her, because they won't kill her. They want her alive, so—"

"But you know what they're doing to her," growled Lazarus.

"Not worse than what we've already done to her," I countered.

Lazarus hung his head, accepting that.

"Bullshit," muttered Kestrel. "Bullshit, you know that's not true."

Maybe. Maybe, yes. Because I'd made certain decisions, letting them treat me the way they treated me, like a tiny, broken thing that they sometimes liked to fuck, and I let that go on because I knew about the alternative, and they were better. But hadn't I thought to myself that they were jerks to me sometimes? Of course, you know, they were my jerks. My pack. My lovers. My men.

"I said she couldn't stay out here," said Kestrel. "I said it and said it, and you went after her anyway. This is your fault. She should never have been here."

I considered that. "You're not wrong," I muttered. "It was selfish of me." She made me feel whole. It was a way that I never felt whole. She made me feel like a person capable of being integrated—the vicious parts of me and the vulnerable parts of me. When I was with her, I felt this shred of hope that I could heal with her. That was why I'd brought her here in the first place. Letting her stay, it had been a sacrifice. I had sacrificed her for my own happiness.

But then, well, I was good at that shit, at necessary sacrifices.

"Oh, whatever, Kestrel, you talked a lot, but you wanted her with us, too," said Lazarus.

"It's all right," I said, touching Kestrel's arm. "I'm okay with it now. I can do that for us. I don't need you to take that from me anymore. I don't need you to pretend that you're responsible. I'm all right."

They exchanged a look, a wary look. Sure you are, that look said. But how long until you fall the fuck apart?

"It's not all your fault, anyway," said Kestrel, shaking his head.

"Doesn't matter, anyway," I said. "What's done is done. We have to accept the situation as it is and move forward."

"What's our next move?" said Lazarus.

"Well, I don't know until we get more information," I said. "Who's the closest pack who had a new mate? We have to assume this was coordinated, the way they did this. They would have had to strike all at once, or else the packs would have formed defenses. So, they took all the new mates last night, I think. And we should go and see who survived. You think Liam's pack?"

"Okay," said Kestrel.

"We should get clothes, but they might have eyes on the farmhouse," I said. I thought about it. "If they have eyes on our farmhouse, they've got eyes on Liam, too."

"Liam has guns," said Lazarus in a gravelly voice.

"Good point," I said. "Straight there, and hopefully, he can spare us a few pairs of pants, yeah?"

They both nodded.

clementine

DID I CRY in the shower ?

I tried.

It wouldn't come.

I stayed in there a long time, though, and I didn't want to get out. Maybe I would have stayed in there forever, but Noah knocked on the door, calling out that he was just checking on me, and I figured that was enough hot water.

I got out, toweled off, and put on the clothes that I'd been wearing before.

I left the bathroom, which was next to the room I'd been in before, Red's room, I figured. There was a bedroom next door that Noah said was going to be my room. But I didn't go in there. I stood outside the bathroom, steam from my shower billowing out, and I was frozen.

Noah poked his head out of Red's room. "Oh, hey." He gave me a bright smile. "Two choices. You pick or tell me to pick if you don't want to pick. We can talk about whatever happened or I can tell you what happened to me."

"Thanks," I said, liking the choices, feeling that like safety. "Uh, you pick?"

"Sure," he said, and we went into Red's room. The bed was made and it was covered in a bunch of pillows. Noah flopped onto it, sprawling out and patting a spot next to him.

I gingerly got onto the bed.

"So, my first gathering, I got it real bad," he said conversationally. "I think they were mad because I wasn't a real woman—or you know, a woman at all." He shrugged, looking up at the ceiling. "Whatever. You know what I mean."

"You're not a woman," I said softly.

"Yeah, thanks for that," he said with a little sigh. "Anyway, so, I got it real bad. There was, like, tearing and a lot of blood and stuff. They took bites out of me. I'm saying this because, like, the next day, when I went back home, I… the way you are right now… like, I don't know what happened to you, and you never have to tell me, and I'm not saying it's the same or something, or that I get it, but, also… I get it. "

I laughed a little.

"Sorry," he muttered.

"Don't apologize." I smiled at him. "I'm fine. It wasn't bad like that. I just, I don't know, I went away. I wasn't there, exactly, and…"

"And you're still not there," he said. "Yeah. That's okay. I get that, too."

We were quiet.

"So," he said, "about Red."

"Yeah, how did that happen?"

"It was that night I met you," said Noah. "He cornered me and other wolves were trying to get at me, but he stood his ground and they backed off. I'd never been with just one of them before, at any of the gatherings, so that was different. He took his time with me, like, real slow, and he did all this stuff with his tongue—sorry, maybe you don't want to know this stuff."

"No, I guess I see why that was important," I said. "Like, he wasn't just using you for himself, he was trying to please you."

"Exactly," said Noah. "It had never been like that before either. And then he wouldn't let me leave. I tried, and he stopped me, and he brought me back here, put me in this room and essentially kept me prisoner, but he was also, like, waiting on me hand and foot. He'd make me tell him things I wanted, like anything I wanted. I told him I couldn't stay out here without my T, because if I can't take testosterone, I'll, you know, not be myself. And he ran his hands all over my chest hair and said we could not have that, and he left and came back with… I don't know how he got it. He must have gone over the wall. He brought me back chocolate cake and my cell phone and all the clothes from my fucking apartment and… it was confusing, you know?"

"Yeah," I said. "I do know."

"What the fuck is this Paladin guy like?"

"What have you heard about Paladin?" I said.

"He's, like, the wolf boogey man," said Noah. "Everyone's fucking terrified of him. "

I sat up straight in the bed. " What? "

Noah arched an eyebrow at me.

"Paladin's the sweet one," I said. "There's this way about him, this boyish sort of vulnerability. They take care of him , Kestrel and Lazarus. That doesn't make any sense."

"Apparently, Paladin led some insurrection. They slaughtered eighteen wolves, like splatter-movie slaughtered them, entrails hanging off the chandelier, blood smeared on the walls, that kind of shit."

I blinked, shaking my head. I remembered what Paladin had told me about him and Kestrel and Lazarus. He had not made it sound that way, at all.

"Red said it was a bad place. He and Griff were just getting themselves established in the territory, and they couldn't make a stand properly against that house of wolves. They were… Red says they were twisted psychos, and coming from Red, well, I don't know what the fuck that even means . Griff felt like Paladin did him a favor, and he let him have whatever he wanted. They let Paladin and his guys have that farm out there, and everyone just leaves them alone."

I was remembering what Madrigal had said about Paladin, how she was sure I was mated to him, and that she seemed to know him, know about how he played people. There was no way she and Paladin had ever interacted, so it must mean that she knew him by reputation.

Shit.

How had Paladin hidden this from me? Because I believed it, actually. All those things he said sometimes, those shrewd and sly observations about human nature, those weren't made by some sweet little boy-man who didn't know anything about the world. No, that was Paladin's mask, and I sometimes saw it slip.

Had he manipulated me?

He'd contacted me and brought me out here, and…

But no. I didn't believe that either, because whatever I could say about Paladin, I also knew that he was vulnerable and he was loving and he wasn't faking that .

Maybe the shrewd, sly man was the mask, actually. Maybe sometimes, he had to slip it on. But with me, I knew , with me, that was real.

"The sweet one," said Noah softly. "Wait a minute, wait. You're not just mated to Paladin, are you? You actually did it, got one of those mating bonds to more than one man. How did you manage that?"

"I don't know. It just happened."

"And yet, all three of them ran off and left you," said Noah.

"No, it wasn't like that," I said. "There were too many wolves, and they couldn't fight back, and I…" I had thought they were dead, I realized. They'd said it often enough, that they'd kill themselves trying to save me, but in the end, I guess that hadn't been true.

I was glad, though. I didn't want them dead. And I definitely didn't want them to be dead if the end result was the same, if Red and his wolves got me anyway.

"I wonder if they'll come for you," said Noah.

"What happened to Griff?" I said. "To Madrigal? She was pregnant. Did your mate kill them, too?"

Noah eyed me, hearing the sourness in my tone. "You're angry with me."

"I'm not…" I looked away. "I get that you don't have a choice, and I don't have a choice, but he's still—you're still—you're kissing him. You're in love with him."

Noah was quiet.

"Sorry," I muttered, hugging my knees up to my chest.

"Griff's still alive. So is Madrigal. Red wouldn't kill Griff, you know? They're close. Or at least they were, before Madge showed up. She came between them, I guess. Anyway, Red locked them up in a wing on the other side of the building. They're comfortable enough, even if they can't get out."

Interesting.

Noah sat up straight and looked at me. "No," he said firmly.

"I didn't say anything," I said .

"But you want me to help you let them out," said Noah.

"I didn't say that," I said.

"Maybe I thought about it," said Noah. "When I got here, things were in flux, and Griff was in the middle of changing everything. Tithes who stay out here, most of them are here because they're mated, and they stay with a mate most of the time. But things happen, like, mates get killed—"

"Seriously?"

"And once the tithe is out here, she can't leave," said Noah. "I think also that there are certain women who were just kidnapped kind of like I was and brought here because wolves wanted them. I don't think they're mated to anyone. They're sort of prisoners. So, when Griff first said that all the women were off limits, most of the women were fine, because that meant they were with their mate—which was where they were most of the time, anyway, except if some higher ranked wolf demanded to fuck her, which she had to do under the original rules."

"It's disgusting," I said, clenching my hands into fists.

"Right," said Noah. "It is. I forget how desensitized I am at this point. Anyway, the point is, there was a group of women that didn't have anywhere to go, because they didn't have mates, and this was a source of contention from the start. The wolves started trying to fight over these women, to claim them individually for themselves, and Griff stepped in and said that it was the women's choice, that no one was allowed to have sex with a woman who didn't want to have sex with him, and that if anyone did, he would personally shoot them in the head."

"Oh," I said. "That's good."

"Yeah, I liked him," said Noah. "I do want to let him out."

"But he used to be just as bad as all of them," I said. "He just changed his mind because of his mate."

"And why can't I change Red's mind, you mean?" said Noah.

"I didn't say that at all," I said.

"He doesn't listen to me like that," said Noah. "He talks about everything he's going to do right in front of my face, though, and he lets me give him opinions, but he never changes his mind or anything. He says that of course I'd think that way, and says I don't understand anything, and then he just ordered the attack last night anyway."

My nostrils flared.

"What'd they do to you?" Then Noah flinched. "Sorry, I promised I wouldn't make you talk about it."

"They brought us all here in a van, handcuffed, and they threw us into that room downstairs and they all, you know, had their way with us." Honestly, I was pretty sure I'd had rougher sex with my mates, but that had been different, because I'd wanted it.

"I mean, was it different than a gathering?"

"You think I'm overreacting?"

"I didn't say that," said Noah. "Maybe it's just different after you're mated. I haven't had to have sex with anyone except him since."

"Maybe," I said. I remembered how we'd talked about whatever scent I supposedly had, how we hoped it would deter the wolves, but it hadn't. I squared my shoulders. "Anyway, I'm going to be fine."

"Of course you are," said Noah. "We're all much tougher than we look, aren't we?"