Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

Asha

In the quiet of the motel room, the heavy silence feels oppressive, laden with guilt, defeat, shock. Exhaustion. Shit, I’m tired . After a hot shower, I’m ready to sleep, but Max is outside on a call and I feel like I have to hear about it before I crash. I won’t sleep well if I don’t know.

Braxton lies on the other bed, staring at the ceiling, probably trying to fill in the gap in his memory. Neither he nor Max remember anything. Orson and I let them believe we don’t either. It’s all one big convenient mystery.

Orson click-clacks away at his computer as always. It only took one simple look in the aftermath of the attack, when the twins were coming to, for him to understand what I wanted. Feign ignorance. Let me handle their questions. Play dumb.

And he obliged me. I think it probably has something to do with the moment we shared in the woods, when I fed on him and there was an unmistakable spark between us. He’s intuitive, clever, and quick. A valuable ally outside the brothers.

The door swings open and Max returns inside, draped in a cloak of solemnity. “High command wasn’t happy we had nothing to offer for the incident report. Enforcers went back in, managed to recover all the bodies. There were no survivors.”

“Except us,” Braxton says.

“Right.” Max flicks his eyes at me, and I sense a hint of contempt. “Except us.”

I slit my eyes and stare daggers back at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Did you let the Enforcers die on purpose?”

I rise to my feet. “Are you serious? ”

Max presses two fingers against his forehead and rubs them in little circles. “I don’t know, Asha. It just seems a little strange to me that only we four survived whatever happened out there, yet everyone else perished.”

“You think I had something to do with that? You think I killed your precious Enforcers?”

“See, when you say it like that, how am I not supposed to assume you have it out for us?”

“ Us? I thought ‘us’ was in this room.”

He glares. “Not this bullshit again.”

Suddenly, Orson pushes away from the desk and interjects. “Look, she came back for you, but it was too late.”

Dammit, Orson. I appreciate his desire to help, but he may have just dug me a bigger hole. Max raises his eyebrows at me. “So you do know what happened?”

Orson has the good sense to look guilty. He glances from me to his bare feet. “A little.”

“And I’m guessing you do, too?” Max asks me, his words biting.

I hold his gaze, daring him to keep accusing me of murdering those people. “A little.”

“Did you fight it?” Braxton is staring at me, probably remembering how I almost let my brother kill me last time, before I let him go, but he doesn’t say so.

“I tried,” I admit, not liking the way this conversation is going at all .

“Why didn’t you use your powers like last time?” Braxton asks with genuine curiosity. “Last time you were winning…”

He doesn’t mention I was winning until I chose to stop, and for that, I’m thankful. I’m already in enough hot water. I don’t need Max learning about yet another poor choice I made. It might be enough to completely destroy the tentative trust we’ve built between us.

I huff, scrambling to think of what to say, then blurt out a partial truth, “Because even feeding on all three of you wasn’t enough!”

Not for the silver magic that doesn’t call me to the darkness. If I had used the other kind of magic… I shiver. I think I could have killed my brother. I could feel it inside of me, calling me, coaxing me, and that scared the shit out of me. But I really thought I had time to keep trying. I just… couldn’t risk trying with my men’s lives on the line.

Maybe that makes me selfish. Or stupid. I don’t know.

“The three of us?” Braxton asks, his voice so cold it’s filled with ice.

Fuck.

This revelation, that I fed on Orson, lands harder than the first, given the looks of shock and horror on Max and Braxton’s faces. My mind goes to when I fed on both of them. When I fucked them. Is that what they’re picturing?

My wolf grows upset inside of me for reasons I don’t understand. She’s not afraid, but she’s disturbed, and shit like this doesn’t usually bother her.

In a soft voice, Max asks, “You fed on Orson?”

“You drank from the nerd?” Braxton paraphrases.

Is that what they’re really upset about? After everything I did? After fighting my brother? After saving them? Hell, I took a risk, and it ended in a bunch of dead people, all of whom would be alive right now if not for my decision to spare my brother. Isn’t that enough for me to handle?

“Fucking deal with it!” I tell them. “I will do anything in my power to save my pack. Anything .”

I realize when I say it I mean them, too, despite how much they’re pissing me off right now. Everything I’m doing is for the chance to save just a few of the people I love. Simon. The town. My neighbors. Luka, the schoolteacher who always gave me candies when I got the right answers. Mrs. Granger, who made the best cookies and always shared them with anyone who visited her. Hell, even creepy Greg, who freaked the fuck out when my brother started dating his ex. All of these people are the people I grew up with. Every memory I ever had was with them. So if I have to feed on every man in the state to save them, I will, and these two aren’t about to tell me what to do.

“Good to know,” Braxton finally says, his voice clipped.

Then, after a brief pause, Max asks, “Was feeding on him like feeding on us?”

I open my mouth to reply, but words fail me at the worst possible moment. Feeding on him was… similar to feeding on them, but that has so many implications that would be bad right now. Implications that would no doubt get these testosterone-fueled shifters even more angry.

The thing is, it’s not like I believe feeding on just anyone would be like feeding on them. I fed on people throughout my teen and adult years. It was a need that I filled, never sexual the way it has been with these three men. There’s just something different about Orson, something I don’t want to look at too carefully right now. That truth would not go over well now.

Max turns and angrily throws open the door, but I pull him back, my heart in my throat. “Max, c’mon, it’s not like you three are the only ones I’ve ever fed on. This doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

He turns around. “There were others ?”

I stammer a moment before answering, “But they weren’t like feeding on you three.” Fuck, I can’t get this right, can I?

Braxton points angrily at Orson. “So feeding on him was like feeding on us?”

The way Max looks at me kills me a little inside. “Are you attracted to Orson, Asha?”

I cut my eyes at Orson, who is pretending as if he couldn’t be less interested in this lovers’ quarrel. He’s pulled back up to the desk, his fingers punching the keys with remarkable speed. Whether he’s actually typing words or not, I don’t know.

“Look, Max, I feel a connection to all three of you, alright? But you know what? None of you are my priority. There are helpless Blood Pack members out there who need me. That’s my mission. That’s my reason for being. Got it?”

“Maybe we should get everything out in the open,” Braxton says, but his tone suggests he’s just going to make this fight worse. “No more lies.”

I turn back and fix him with an intense stare. “Braxton…”

But he continues, “The guy who attacked us today, he’s the same one you let slip through your fingers last time, for some reason, isn’t he?”

“Excuse me?” shouts Max, clearly irate with the both of us. Orson remains unreachable in his hacking bubble. “You let that… that thing that attacked Braxton and myself go?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “And then you told Braxton about it, but not me?”

“Don’t take that personally,” says Braxton coolly. “We didn’t think you’d keep her around if she told you, so I made a judgment call.”

“So it was a conspiracy,” says Max, crossing his arms over his muscular chest, rage flashing in his eyes.

“No, I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy , but it was just another thing she didn’t want?—”

“ENOUGH!” I scream, silencing all but the crunch of keys beneath Orson’s spry fingers. I slump on the edge of the bed, trying to get my thoughts together, trying to figure out how to keep this fight from spiraling even more.

“Asha, tell me the truth,” says Max. “Was that man your lover?”

I laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it. “No, Max. He was—he is …” It’s hard to form the words.

“Who, Asha?” Max’s voice is deathly calm.

I take a deep breath. As much as I want to hold this secret to my chest, right now I think only the truth will help, and I can’t see how the truth will hurt my brother or me further. “My brother. Simon.”

Max and Braxton exchange looks. “Your brother?” Max repeats, his anger falling away like a trick of the lights. “Her brother.”

I take a deep breath, trying to ignore the way tears sting my eyes. For some reason, it hurts to have them know, like opening a wound and showing everyone the mess. This is my mess I’m trying to clean up, and I guess I have no choice now but to tell them everything.

“Yeah. When the Blood Mages attacked, there wasn’t a lot of time to think. All havoc broke out. Everybody was running for their lives.” Images flash through my mind unbidden, and my hands clench into fists. “But Simon needed me then. Instead of helping him, I ran. I blamed it on the chaos, but it was a choice. A cowardly choice. Ever since I’ve been carrying this guilt about him, knowing deep down that it’s my fault what happened to him. If I’d just been braver…”

I hang my head, taking a shaky breath. “I saw my mom die that day, heard my sister screaming for her life in her last moments.” I can still hear her still, as clear as the moment itself. “My brother is all I have left. I’m the reason he’s twisted now. It’s my responsibility to stop him. Only…” Tears prick my eyes. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it when the time comes. I mean, if—if I have to…to kill him. I don’t think I can be strong enough.” I take another breath.

Killing him. I don’t want to do it, but now I see he tricked me. His pleas for me to save him wasn’t to show me that he still existed somewhere beneath the dark magic. It was just a way to survive longer, to do more harm to this world.

“I’ll do what needs to be done.” I look up at Max. “But if there’s any way of saving him, I have to try. Do you understand?”

Max takes a seat on the couch beside me. “I get it.”

“Do you?” My voice breaks.

He wraps an arm behind me. “I do. Because I’d do the same for my brother.”

Braxton comes over, and then Trouble’s head is on my knee, staring into my eyes. Braxton begins to rub my arm. “We’ll do everything we can for you.”

My vision blurs. “It’s just too much.” My brother. All the death. The responsibility of my pack.

A crying fit breaches my composure and both brothers console me as I fall apart. Their anger is gone. Their softer sides are all that remain. Even while I try to fight the thoughts about the many ways I’m broken, unrepairable, undeserving of comfort, I’m amazed by their gentler side. It settles something inside me. Soothes my wolf. Takes a weight off of my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Max apologizes. “I lost sight of what mattered for a minute.”

“Me, too,” Braxton echoes, sweeping strands of hair from my eyes.

I take one breath, then several, my sobbing slowing until I can manage to speak. “It feels good to have that off my shoulders, actually.”

And it does. It seems every moment with these men is another moment where the jagged edges inside of me get smoothed. I don’t understand it, but I love it. Some part of me feels like I need this, or else the darkness would be too strong to ignore.

Orson clears his throat and we all raise our heads. “I don’t know if now is the optimal time,” he says, “but I figure a breakthrough warrants an interruption.”

“Breakthrough?” asks Max, his voice filled with doubt.

“I think I’ve found a way to track your brother Simon.”

So he was listening the entire time. I almost laugh.