Chapter 15

MARKUS

The black hole headed my way was huge. And the only way to avoid the depression was to shift and run. Away from town. Away from Ollie. Away from Lexie, and the pain still cascading through me.

I threw my phone and keys into my truck and took off running down our street, breaking into a sweat almost immediately. As soon as I reached the edge of town, I stripped and shifted, bursting into my wolf body and running into the forest.

I couldn’t believe my own brother, and the woman who was supposedly my mate, thought so little of me.

What happened to trust? And loyalty? And love?

I’d known what the rest of the world thought about me, but to hear the same bullshit coming from Lexie hurt a lot worse than I thought it would.

I should never have left her this afternoon. Never tried to get that money for her. Never tried to test my own resolve with Nancy. I’d been stupid, and now I was paying the price.

So, can you really blame Lexie for hating you?

I ran like I was being chased by demons, and in a way I was. The only thing was, my demons were inside me and no matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t escape their black reach.

The past was coming back to bite me in the ass. I’d just never thought my perfect brother would be on the list of people to despise me.

Lightning flashed above my head and then the skies opened up. Cold rain began to pour down, matching my dark mood. I glanced around, assessing how far I was from home.

Too far to make it back without risk of being struck by lightning.

There was a cave up here in the mountains that my family camped at sometimes, and it would give me shelter until the rain stopped. Not that a bit of water bothered me, but the creek would overflow, and drowning was not on my to-do list today.

I ran hard, around the trees and up the hill, dodging a mudslide and jumping over shrubs and bushes.

When I finally made it to the shelter of the cave, I shook out my fur and walked over to the chest we’d hidden there many years ago. I shifted back to human, shivering in the cold temperature. On opening the chest, I found some old blankets and a sleeping bag we’d left there. A little musty after all this time, but they were dry and would provide some warmth at least.

“Amazing.” I would have thought hikers would have ransacked that stuff ages ago.

I began to shake from the cold and the leaching of adrenaline from my system, so decided to set up properly.

I put a blanket on the ground, then climbed into the sleeping bag and sat on the ground with my back against the wall.

I’d finally accepted the fact that Fate might be right, and I might truly have the mate I’d always feared knowing, and yet... once more, my future was totally uncertain.

***

OLLIE

Lexie wrung her hands and paced the bedroom floor. “Where is he? Do you know where he would have gone?”

I towel dried my freshly showered body. “No idea. Maybe he went to a friend’s house.”

We ate take-out again because Lexie hadn’t wanted to leave the house. She’d wanted to wait for Markus to get back. We called his cell phone, of course, but it had rung out. Then I’d seen it stashed in his truck when I went out to check the vehicle and see if he was sitting out there in the dark.

Either he’d forgotten it when he came home, or he’d put it there on purpose so he could shift and disappear. I didn’t mention that possibility. I wasn’t sure how she was dealing with the whole wolf shifter thing, and didn’t really want to test it out when she was clearly so upset.

“He’ll come home when he’s calmed down, I’m sure.” I tried to speak soothingly. “Shall we go to bed?” I pointed to my large bed that was just beckoning my exhausted body.

I’d had a huge day of stress and multi-million-dollar accounts with problems at work today. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I was mentally exhausted.

Lexie looked at me, at the bed, then back to me. “Can we sleep in Markus’s bedroom?”

I sighed. “Because it’s bigger? I knew I should have gotten the California king.” My brother always made the right choices when it came to comfort.

She bit her lip. “No, I just wanna be there in case he comes home.”

“He will.” I tilted my head at her. “You know this isn’t on you. Markus has worried about sharing a mate with me since we were kids. He hated the idea, and it’s weird, because he shouldn’t have worried. Women have always preferred Markus to me. He’s bigger, more confident, and has more muscles.”

She smiled. “But you’re the sweetheart, and Markus knows that.”

I sighed. “Yeah, and despite the fact he makes as much money as I do, he’s always been intimidated by the white-collar versus blue-collar thing. And looking back, our parents probably made that worse by commenting about college and education.”

Lexie pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows at me. “You think?”

Point taken. “Okay, so my parents are a pain in the ass. I’m not sure how to fix that.”

She shrugged. “Depends how much of your life revolves around them.”

I thought about the pack and the council meetings, growing up around dozens of cousins and friends. “They’re a big part of our lives.”

She rubbed her forehead for a moment. “Well, I don’t know what that’s like. I haven’t seen my mom in ten years.”

I couldn’t even imagine that, and from the look on Lexie’s face, she didn’t want to talk about it.

“Okay, well then, let’s go sleep in Markus’s bed. If the big idiot comes back in the middle of the night, at least the sheets will be warm.”

Lightning flashed white, light illuminating the windows, and a second later, a great big crash of thunder hit the sky above our house.

Lexie ran over to me. “It’s been raining heavily like that for hours. Do you think he’s safe?”

I rubbed Lexie’s arms and stared out the large bedroom window. “Yeah, of course, he is. If there’s anyone in this world who can look after himself, it’s Markus.”

But I wasn’t as certain as I was making out. Markus was upset and liable to do something stupid. He was all heart, even though no one knew that about him. He felt things keenly, more than me sometimes.

And we’d all turned on him. Even me. Shame filled me. Of all people, I should have been the one to support him.

“Let’s go to bed.” I took her hand and walked her to Markus’s room, where the air still smelled like sex.

I smiled as I pulled down the covers and climbed in. “We can never get rid of this bed. It will always be the place we first had sex together.”

She laughed at that, crawling into the bed in a white tank top and some underwear.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked her, mock-frowning.

She stopped crawling halfway to the pillow. “Ah... going to bed.”

“Not like that, you’re not,” I said, pointing at her clothes. “Naked. Please. Now.”

She stared at me for a long time. She was probably trying to figure out if I was serious.

And I waited, naked, in bed.

Finally, she crawled back off, pushed her underwear to the floor and pulled her white tank off over her head.

I got a few seconds of perving on her luscious body before she scampered under the covers and cuddled up with me, her ass to my hip.

I rolled over to spoon her, pulling her naked body against mine. “Damn, you’re sexy.”

She was holding her breath and I wasn’t sure why. “You okay?”

“Yeah... um, did you want to have sex again, or...”

I smiled into the dark and pressed a kiss to her ear. “I wish I could, but I’ve had one hell of a day. Work was insane. How ‘bout tomorrow?”

She released her breath in a rush, and I knew I’d said the right thing. “Oh, yeah, definitely. Tomorrow’s good.”

Lexie fell asleep in my arms, and I lay there in Markus’s bed, worried about my big brother and feeling guilty over my role in the pain he was in.

The truth was, part of me had always been jealous of him. Of his easy way with women. His size and strength, confidence and charisma.

But it seemed that beneath it all, Markus hadn’t been coping as well as I’d always assumed. And now I just wanted him to come home so I could tell him how sorry I was for not believing in him the way I should have.