Rivals (Shifter Island #2) (9 page)

Abby could feel his pain.

Not in an empathetic sense; the pain coursed through her and settled deep in her gut, so fierce and demanding that she almost ran into the clearing to throw herself into the fray. She clung to Katrin’s hand, pulling it toward herself, and now she thought she might be crushing Katrin’s bones.

A glance toward Aaron’s family reminded her of what Micah had done to Luca, who up beside the stream two days ago had looked as strong as Aaron, maybe even more so.

Now, blood was smeared all over Aaron’s pale fur and was running down one leg. There was blood in the dirt, enough to turn it into mud, and when Aaron was forced to the ground and then came back up, he was caked with that too.

Abby.

She blinked at the sound of her name. Before, the sound had been full of longing and passion, pleasure, satisfaction.

Now it was a cry for help. One she couldn’t ignore.

She tried, almost fiercely, for a minute, because she couldn’t support this. Couldn’t be a part of two men—two men who weren’t really men—trying to tear each other to shreds.

But this was Aaron, and he was calling.

I’m… I’m here.

Part of her still wanted to run, to get out of this place, to have her life make sense again.

But… hadn’t it made sense? With Aaron? Lying wrapped in his arms, feeling as though she’d never been so loved before in her life? Wasn’t that where she’d always wanted to be, a place she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to leave?

Wasn’t that where she belonged?

Of course it was.

It always would be.

She sent her whole self flooding toward him, every bit of the strength of the bond between them. She felt it reach something that momentarily blocked it; then it was as if a door had opened and she was welcomed inside. She felt another surge of pain, but the joy of what was beyond the door washed it away.

Aaron—it was Aaron’s deepest self, the place where the wolf lived, a place of pure emotion rather than logic and thought. That part of him adored her, treasured her, wanted her with him always.

I’m here
, she told him.

Somewhere outside herself, outside of the two of them, there was a deep, braying cry of agony. A yelp. A stuttering growl, then a long, keening moan.

It was unlike anything she’d ever heard before. Otherworldly, she realized.

She forced herself to open her eyes. If she hadn’t been holding on to Katrin, she might not have been able to break away from that place she’d slipped into, but the other woman grounded her, brought her back to the edge of the clearing.

Micah, human again, was lying on the ground struggling for breath. There were deep wounds in his shoulders and neck and one leg, all of them bleeding freely.

Aaron was human now too, standing over his opponent with tears in the flesh of his arms and legs and hip and a gash on one cheek. He didn’t look particularly triumphant; to Abby he looked exhausted, regretful, ready to walk away.

“Finish him!” called someone in the crowd.

Another voice cried out, “Have your vengeance!”

Still another yelled, “For Luca!”

Abby’s gaze went immediately to Aaron’s brother, but he was wearing an expression she couldn’t read. He seemed to be focused somewhere far away, unaware of anything that was happening.

Aaron looked around: at his parents and Luca, at the elders, at the still-glowering Daniel, who had been looming on the fringes of the crowd. Finally, he looked at Abby—and looked quickly away.

“Let’s be done with it!” someone shouted.

That was answered with cheers and… yes,
growls
of support. The crowd wanted final blood, Abby understood. Expected it—because it was their way. That chilled her to the bone, made her feel a surge of despair. She tried to fight it, to convince herself that things were the same everywhere, in one way or another, and in the process let her gaze drift away from the clearing.

When she looked toward Aaron again, she found him watching her.

Slowly, he shook his head and stepped back, away from Micah. Clearly, stepping away from the fight.

“We’re better than this,” he announced to the crowd. “Truly, we are all better than this.”

Then he strode over to Abby and pulled her into his arms.

Before he could do anything else, Aaron had to submit to the attentions of the healer, who bathed his wounds, sprinkled them with a foul-smelling powder, and stitched the largest ones closed. He hadn’t been fully conscious of pain during the fight, but now that his adrenaline had settled down, there didn’t seem to be an inch of him that didn’t hurt.

Quickly, he reminded himself that this was nothing compared to what his brother had endured.

When the healer was finally gone, he slipped gingerly into a fresh set of clothes and sat down on the edge of his bed. That was enough of a signal for Luca to come into the bedroom they had shared for so long, and Aaron was relieved to see that his brother looked better than he had since before he was attacked. Most of the color was back in his face, and he seemed to be able to move more easily.

“I agree,” Luca said quietly.

“With–?”

“With what you said. I couldn’t have brought myself to kill Micah. I didn’t dare say it in front of Father, and there are many in the pack who would never agree, but–” Luca sighed and touched his wounded shoulder. “He’s always seemed so helpless.”

“Hardly helpless.”

“You know what I mean. Confused, then. Lost.”

Aaron thought back a number of years, to the time when Micah’s parents had died. Micah had been a small boy then, one who adored his mother and father. In many ways, they’d been his entire world.

As Abby was Aaron’s world now.

The thought of losing her sucked the breath from his lungs. He knew how much doubt she’d had through all of this, how close she’d come to fleeing, and he couldn’t condemn her for it. He knew enough about mainland humans to understand how alien his life would seem to them, even beyond the fact that he was a wolf, that he could transform himself into another shape. To some degree, into another, separate being. It was a lot to accept. Then, to accept that Aaron could kill another wolf in cold blood?

“He was desperate,” Aaron said.

Luca looked past his brother, out the window at the woods. “I tried to get him to stop, to sit down and talk to me. But he’d gone beyond reason.”

“He probably won’t stop now.”

Again, Aaron thought of Micah as a small boy. He’d been all right at first. He was stunned into near-silence by the loss of his parents, but he hadn’t stopped eating, or sleeping, and would let Granny Sara embrace and cuddle him. But as the years had gone by, he’d become more and more withdrawn, and would speak to almost no one.

Should he be punished, now, for wanting to love Katrin? For wanting her to love him in return?

Was there anyone here in the pack willing to love him in return?

“I’m glad I’m not an elder,” Aaron groaned. “These things are far too complicated to decide.”

“They may remove him. Colorado. Alaska. Maybe farther than that.”

“Do you think that’s what they should do?”

Luca sat down on the edge of his own bed. “No,” he said after a moment. “I think that’s the worst thing they could do—dump him in some strange place where he doesn’t know the land, or the other wolves. He’d suffer there. This is his home. He was born here. We’re his pack, for better or worse.”

He didn’t seem entirely convinced by what he was saying, but maybe he was thinking about what the rest of the pack would say. What their parents would say, after the pain they’d gone through.

“Brother…” Aaron murmured.

Luca raised a brow in question.

“You surprise me,” Aaron said.

“I’m surprising myself.” Luca closed his eyes briefly, and Aaron could see that he wasn’t completely healed yet, that he might have lingering pain or weakness for a long time. Then Luca shrugged that off and nodded in acknowledgment. “I would not have said this if I hadn’t come so close to slipping into the beyond. I could see it, Aaron—just beyond my reach. I don’t know what’s there, but I know what’s here. I know what we have is precious. That the pack does come first—that we should protect each life among us with all the strength we have.”

He was so earnest that Aaron thought for a second that some other wolf had taken over his brother’s body, that this was someone he didn’t know at all. Clearly, there were things going on in Luca’s head that he’d never let out into the open before.

“No punishment, then?” Aaron asked.

“I didn’t say that. But not banishment. Not death. We’ll find another way. A way that will benefit all of us.”

He looked at Aaron then, silently asking for his support.

“You’re right,” Aaron decided—and realized to his amusement that Luca had managed to turn this into his decision, as if Aaron hadn’t even mentioned sparing Micah. That was truly his brother, the oldest son, the one who was always taller, stronger, smarter. “We’re all brothers. And sisters,” he said. “We don’t abandon each other. We don’t slaughter or banish each other. We’re better than that, Luca. Better than the old ways.”

“And you’ll broach that to Father?”

Aaron laughed softly, without humor. “He’s always thought of me as someone who won’t obey his rules. Then I brought a human into our midst, and I let Micah live when I should have sent him off to the beyond. He’s not going to be anxious to listen to anything I have to say.”

Luca was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Your human helped me survive. I… owe her my gratitude.”

“Will you stand with me, then? Help me convince Father and the others that she belongs here?”

“I—yes. I will.”

“Thank you, brother.”

Luca nodded. Aaron thought he might say something, but he didn’t—and there was a sudden shadow deep in his eyes.

“You should rest,” Aaron told him. “We’ll talk more later. But I have something else to do first.”

Because Micah’s wounds were being tended to at Granny Sara’s house, Abby had been sent away from there. Now she was with Katrin, who seemed to have adopted Abby as a friend, a sister. To Aaron, who had always regarded Kat as his own sister, that made good sense—particularly if Abby was going to remain here as his mate. It would be good for Abby to have a friend, especially if that friend happened to be a wolf.

He saw something else when Kat greeted him at the door of her family’s house, something he’d always known was there: how much she loved his brother.

“Go to him,” he suggested.

“He won’t want me there,” she said. “He’s–”

“Talk to him. You’ve always been part of our lives, Kat. Be his friend now. The bonding doesn’t happen in just one way.”

She shied away from him, arms wrapped around herself, as sorrowful as a child who’d been denied a treat. She tried to turn away, but he grasped her upper arms in his hands and kept her in place. He wanted to embrace her, but his wounds were still too tender—and beyond that, he smelled terrible.

“Go to him,” he said firmly.

Her departure left him alone in the house with Abby, who was sorting through the contents of her huge yellow bag. She had spread some of it across Kat’s bed, and to Aaron it looked like a ridiculous collection of things: potions and creams, two pairs of shoes even more fragile than the ones she usually wore, dainty underwear.

Though, as he examined those bits of lace and shiny fabric, he thought he might like to see her wearing all of it. She normally pulled her underthings off quickly during their lovemaking, but if she took a bit more time…

Hmm.
He might be injured, but certain parts of him were feeling just fine.

“We’re in someone else’s house,” Abby stammered.

They certainly were—and Katrin’s parents and siblings might return at any time. In a way, that was exciting. In another way, it was completely mortifying, so Aaron tore his gaze away from Abby’s delicate underthings and focused on the wall behind her.

“I was… concerned,” he said.

She ran her teeth over her lower lip, gnawing on it for a moment before she let it go. “I’m sorry. This whole thing scared me. I don’t—I mean, things like this happen. Where I’m from, you know? There are gangs who shoot each other for no good reason. At least it doesn’t seem like a good reason. And people—God, it happens all the time.” She paused. “She loves your brother. Micah loves her. Is that a reason to kill somebody? With everybody else standing around watching?”

“No,” Aaron said. “It’s not.”

“But you were going to do it.”

Would he have? Aaron wondered. Would he actually have ended Micah’s life, no matter what Micah had done to Luca? Had he ever, for a single minute, contemplated doing that?

Of course the answer was “yes.” At least, the wolf had wanted to do it. The wolf knew only instinct and habit.

But the wolf was only a part of him.

“I don’t know, Abby. I didn’t want to. It depended on what he was going to do. How ready he was to kill
me
.”

She turned away from him and picked up a couple of things from the bed. One of them he guessed was a phone.

“Do you want to leave?” he asked.

“What would you do if I said yes?”

“Grieve,” he said. “It would tear the heart out of me, more efficiently than Micah could ever do. But if that was what you really wanted, if you really felt like you have no place here, then I’d let you go.”

She was silent for a long time. Then she said, barely above a whisper, “I thought you were going to fight for me.”

When she turned back to him, there was something hopeful and pleading in her eyes. Something that begged him to convince her that they could conquer any obstacle that the pack, and the island, and the rest of the world could throw into their path.

That he hadn’t for a single minute thought she didn’t belong here.

“Of course I will,” he told her. “I’ll never stop.”