Private Dicks (6 page)

"Come on, Reese," Dorian says. He levers himself up, leaning heavily on the fourth wolf until he's standing. "They're gonna take us home. Are you good to walk?"

"Yeah." I force myself to stand, my side screaming now that I'm calm enough to feel pain. Quinn lets me lean on him, but as soon as I turn to take a step, I double over and heave, my stomach contracting so hard I half-fear I'm gonna throw up something vital.

The scent of wolves surrounds me, and I cringe, but all they do is nose at me and whine. Dorian sighs, and I wince, but can only wait until the nausea passes and I can move again. The wolf Quinn rubbed noses with pushes against my side, and I thread my fingers through his dark brown fur and lean on him as we make our slow, slow way through the forest back to the mansion.

It seems like the walk back to the mansion will never end, and at some point, I just leave my body on autopilot, guided by the wolf under my hand. When we finally, thank you God, get to the mansion, Noelle's in the yard already waiting for us.

She scowls and curses at us, but her hands are gentle, and I realize just why she's the only doctor Donovan tolerates when she gets a good sniff at me and hollers for a stretcher. I try to push her hands away, but she's having none of it, and she doesn't quit haranguing me until I'm lying on the stretcher and two third-tier enforcers start carting me up the hill.

"Stupid pup!" she snaps. I let my arm dangle off the stretcher so I can keep my hand on the wolf, and stare up at Noelle. "You tell people when you have silver poisoning! I don't care if it's just a scratch!" she yells shrilly, and I realize I was protesting. "And you're concussed! This will just make you more stupid!"

She's in rare form today. Do wolf doctors only come in one flavor?

"Stupid pup! What day is it? What time is it and what's your name? Fool!"

I let my eyes slip closed and yelp when she smacks me. "No sleeping with a concussion!" She yammers on and on over my hazy protests, and by the time we get to the infirmary, all I have the energy to do is lie there while she berates me.

They move me to a bed, and I lose my grip on the wolf. I try to sit up to look for him—who was it, anyway?—but Noelle shrieks at me, so I lie down again. She kicks everyone else out, and I have to bear the brunt of her anger by myself until Dorian shows up, trailed by several more wolves and Desmond.

Despite the commotion, Noelle yelling, and the pain, I start to drift off after I figure out that no one's seriously injured. Crazy woman.

There's a dip on the bed next to my hip, and I force my eyes open. Donovan's sitting next to me, a frown on his face. It's much quieter now, and the lights are dim, though Noelle's still grumbling. I must've fallen asleep for a while. I lift my hands to rub my eyes, but Donovan catches my right hand.

"You have an IV," he says quietly. His pets the back of my hand, carefully avoiding the IV, and I watch him, a headache buzzing at the back of my head.

When it seems like he's content to sit there for forever without talking, I shift a little. His eyes flick up to meet mine, but he returns his attention to my hand after a second. "Donovan?"

"I've gotten some preliminary reports back," he says without looking away from my hand.

"I'm sorry I disobeyed orders," I say, "but the gunfire—"

"I would never be angry at you for making the right call," he says immediately, his tone firm. "And even if it wasn't the right call, you did what you thought was best. The best enforcers are the ones who can make that call."

"Then what's wrong?"

"I'm very proud of you, pup," he says, and this time he does look at me. "You did such an excellent job."

"I didn't—"

"You did." He meets my eyes straight-on until I drop my gaze. He nudges my chin, and I look up. He smiles a little. "You probably saved Dorian's life, you took care of Quinn, and Matlin says he would've been screwed if you hadn't shown up."

"Then why are you … " I wave my free hand vaguely, and he laughs.

"I was just worried, pup. You were slurring your words something fierce and kept getting distracted. Dorian said you hit your head, but he couldn't tell if you'd lost consciousness or not." He sighs. "Not to mention you were staggering like a drunk all the way back to the mansion."

I frown. "I don't remember you being there."

He smiles. "You were leaning on me the whole time."

"Oh."

He laughs and squeezes my hand lightly. "If you can still blush like that, then I guess you'll be okay."

I don't know what to say to that, so I stay quiet, and Donovan doesn't say anything else, either. The fuzziness from the headache drags me down, and this time, I don't fight the urge to sleep. The last thing I see before I drop off is Donovan's smile.

*~*~*

"Light duty, idiot!" Noelle yells after me as I leave the infirmary. I wave my hand at her and hunch my shoulders as I walk down the hall. I keep getting stopped by people asking if I'm alright, and it takes way too long to get back to my room.

I close the door behind me and rest my forehead on the doorframe. God, I feel awful, weak and shaky, and my head still hurts.

"Alright, little wolf?"

I whirl around and sag against the door when my head throbs angrily. I grit my teeth and battle the urge to throw up until it fades.

"I'm sorry, pup." Dorian's hovering a few feet away, and I wave away his concern.

"Why are you here?" I mumble. I stagger towards my bed and sink onto the cool sheets. A glass of water and a few pills appear under my nose, and I take both gratefully.

Dorian sits next to me, and I hold the glass to my cheek, my eyelids drooping. Noelle kicked me out of the infirmary cuz it's too noisy, and I kept waking up, and God do I want to go back to sleep right now.

"What do you remember from the other night, after we got back to the mansion?"

I give Dorian an unamused look, but he doesn't yield. I sigh. "I already talked to Donovan and Mika."

"Well, I want to know."

I close my eyes. "Not much. Mostly Noelle yelling my ear off. She wasn't happy I hadn't said anything about the silver, and I didn't want to get on the stretcher." And Donovan, but there's no way I'm telling that to Dorian.

"Where did you come from, Reese?" I frown, and he elaborates. "Your home pack. You don't ever talk about who raised you directly. You've pretty much admitted you have a home pack, but that's it, and that's more than anyone else knows."

"I don't want to talk about it." Standard answer to anyone who asks, though no one's asked in a long, long time.

"Well, you're gonna talk about it now because I want to know." There's a hard note in Dorian's voice now, and instinct has me itching to do as he says. "Who trained you? You're a highly competent enforcer, so why did you do such a shit job on my field dressing? You were panicked, like you didn't know what you were doing."

I shake my head and rotate the glass. "I don't want to talk about it." Ryan told me not to.

"Tell me, Reese."

"No." Ryan's order is still holding. I couldn't tell Dorian if I wanted to. I start to shake with the strain of dealing with two opposing orders, though, and my headache increases tenfold.

"Tell me now."

"I won't," I say through gritted teeth.

"Just make this easier on yourself and tell me."

"I … can't," I grind out.

He jumps on that. "Why not?"

I curl into myself. "Stop," I say.

"I won't. Tell me what you're hiding, Reese." There's a harder note of command in his voice now, and Ryan hasn't been around to exert control for months.

The glass slips from my fingers and breaks against the floor. "Stop it."

"Tell me."

Splitting agony erupts behind my eyes, and I whine, pressing my hands against my ears, but Dorian grabs my wrists and forces me to uncurl. "Stop it!"

"Reese, tell me what you're hiding!"

I do the only thing I can: I shift into my full wolf form, and the pain disappears. I pull my tail down and curl up in front of the beta, whining. Anger and frustration roll off him, and he snarls before stomping away.

I lay on my bed and pant, bury my head in my paws and just breathe for a while. Not good. This isn't good, not good at all.

I spend the next few days as a wolf, partially because I'm too tired from fighting Dorian's orders and recovering to shift back, and partially to protect myself if he decides to try again. I get a lot of curious looks as I trot around the mansion; I rarely spend whole days in my wolf form, though there are plenty of people who do.

Dorian tries to corner me for a few days before giving up. It's a lot easier to sneak around the mansion as a wolf, and I take shameless advantage of this fact. I know, on some level, that things can't stay like this. There's a lot I have to do, but it's easier to avoid thinking about those things as a wolf.

I know I'm failing my mission, but I don't care. I'm not ready to be found out, not yet. I haven't found out what I need to know.

I watch the pups roll around in the grass in the yard behind the mansion, happy for a while to watch them play from the shade of one of the huge pine trees that lines the property. I never got to do that when I was growing up. Playing was wasted time that could have been spent training, and Ryan didn't permit the other pups my age to talk to me much. Just one more reason why they all hate me.

I jerk my head up as Donovan drops down to sit next to me. He runs a hand along my back, and I sidle a little closer to press against his side. It's easier to do a lot of things as a wolf. He smiles and rubs my ears, and I shove my head into his chest. The only person who ever rubbed my ears was Cori, and that was only when the others weren't around. He laughs softly and indulges me till I'm half-asleep in his lap, warm and happy and content.

He strokes a hand down my side and leans over until his mouth's right next to my ear. "Change back, Reese."

With my defenses completely lowered, the order goes straight down to wherever we keep track of such things as dominance and loyalty and shatters Ryan's hold over me. I whine, but shift back obediently, habit guiding the change so I come back with my clothes on. I try to jump up when I'm settled inside my skin, but Donovan's arm across my chest keeps me right where I am. He nuzzles against me and pets me until I'm calm, and when I'm relaxed again, he starts talking.

"I'm sorry Dorian stressed you out like that, but he was trying to keep things from my attention until he knew what was going on," he says. "He didn't realize that your old alpha had such a hold on you still." He leans back against the tree and pulls me with him until I'm settled between his legs, my head on his thigh as he pets my hair. "He's very fond of you, actually. I think he wanted to protect you until he figured out what you're hiding. He just usually doesn't go about these things the right way."

"I'm sorry," I say, and he tugs on a lock of my hair.

"It's okay. I'm not gonna ask what you're hiding, or what you don't want to talk about," he says softly. "I want you to come to me and tell me when you're ready, okay?"

"But …"

"It's okay." There's a smile in his voice now as he traces his fingers along my throat and shoulder. "I trust you. I want you to come to me when you trust me. Okay?"

I have to swallow hard before I can reply, and I stubbornly ignore the burning behind my eyes. "Okay."

*~*~*

Donovan's office is moderately sized and brightly lit by the huge windows against the back walls. There are bookshelves covering all available wall space and more stacks taking some floor space. All in all, it's comfortable and familiar.

Just like Donovan
. I refuse to glance at him and instead keep my eyes very firmly on Mika, who's giving me and the rest of the first and high-tier enforcers a brief rundown of what this meeting's supposed to be about.

Finally, they trust me enough. I should be happy about this meeting. Thrilled, even. This is a huge step towards my goal. I should be proud of myself.

So why do I want to crawl into a hole and never come out?

"Alright." I jerk my eyes up to Donovan, who's leaning against his desk with his arms crossed and a frown on his face. "I think it's about time we tell you all exactly what's going on." He glances at Dorian, who's sprawled in a chair a few feet away. Next to me, Nathan fidgets and nudges me. I shrug and don't look away from Donovan.

"We haven't been honest with you," Dorian says abruptly, and we all switch out attention to him. He straightens in his seat and makes a face. "We haven't been honest with most of you," he corrects. "To get down to it, we've been losing people. A lot of people."

"There've been kidnappings," Donovan says softly. "Whole teams going missing. We've been very careful about keeping it quiet, telling you all they were relocated, or that they're visiting allies. We've increased the ranks to make it easier to hide our losses, but the fact of the matter is, there have been a lot of losses."

"Why haven't you reported it?" Lee asks. "It's no secret that at least five packs have reported kidnappings. Why not tell the Syndicate?"

There's a low murmur of discontent at the idea of involving the Syndicate, but Lee doesn't back down, and we all look at Donovan when it becomes clear Lee isn't going to retract the question.

"Because those packs are our rivals," Donovan says. "Not a single one of our allies have reported kidnappings, to the Syndicate, or to us."

"You think we're being targeted," I say, the words falling out of my mouth before I can stop them. I cringe, but nobody looks irritated.

"Yes," Donovan says, giving me a little smile before he looks at Dorian.

"My spies haven't been able to find anything," Dorian says, and it's clear that he takes the lack of valuable information as a personal affront. "All we can really determine is that we're being targeted, but we don't know by who, or for what. If our allies aren't directly involved, then they can't help us, and I don't much like the idea of going up against Greenfield, Snowridge, and Silverlight. That's just asking for trouble."

"You think the attack last week was a continuation of the kidnappings?" Luka, a second-tier enforcer, asks. "Why would they try to take our beta?"