Page 36

CRUX

“Where are we going?” Rowan asked.

“Just get in.” I jumped into my Wrangler and turned it on. Rowan hadn’t even fully shut the passenger door before I threw the car in reverse, sped out of the driveway and rocketed down the road.

“Can you slow down, please?” Rowan snapped.

I ignored his wishes.

“Please?” He said again, gripping the dash with white knuckles.

I pressed on the gas harder, and jerked the wheel as I wove between vehicles.

“It was a car accident!” Rowan blurted out. “Indigo died in a car accident! Please slow down!”

I took a few long breaths before I eased down into the speed limit and relaxed the death grip I had on the wheel. I didn’t look at him, and he didn’t say anything. That silence lasted for a mile or two.

“You don’t even know her.”

“I know that she likes old horror movies,” Rowan answered. “And that she doesn’t care about wealth. I know she loves the three of you more than anything. She likes dogs.”

“Do you love her?” I couldn’t stop the question from coming out of my mouth.

“The only time that it doesn’t hurt is when I’m with her,” he finally said. “Even before I knew about her heart.”

“I know what that’s like,” I muttered under my breath. Skye had an innate ability to see past all my flaws and rough edges and love me anyway. Make me feel almost okay with myself.

We drove further into Port Haven, and gradually the clean, summer resort streets gave way to cracks and pot holes. Flickering lamp posts and perilously swinging traffic lights. Electrical polls over-papered with missing posters or for sale fliers.

“What are we doing in the Mired District?” Rowan watched the bad part of town run by in a blur as I kept driving.

I headed into an underground parking structure on Pleasant Street and parked. Reluctantly, Rowan got out of the car and followed me back up to street level. We walked around the building that took up two blocks until we rounded the final corner and got to the back of the queue to get in.

“You’re gonna show me exactly how much of an alpha you are.”

Getting into the Pax was easy. I expected an annoyingly long, slow line, especially on fight nights but tonight the line was efficient and fast moving.

“I always thought it was ironic that a place named for the Latin word for Peace had full-on brawls,“ Rowan said.

I looked up at the glowing neon sign that read The Pax as we inched closer to the door. “Huh. I always just thought it was an edgy way to spell Packs .”

We stepped into the warm, hazy establishment and Rowan headed for the bar but I grabbed his shoulder.

“Later.” I craned my neck to look over the crowd, searching for the middle man.

I finally found him, and nodded for Rowan to follow me.

Inside the arena, two fighters were going at it.

Skin shining with sweat and blood, they bare-knuckled one another raw.

Rowan watched, wide-eyed, anxiety coming off him in waves.

“Two v two,” I told the bouncer.

“Pay up,” he said.

In the back-alley fights where I came from, we all put whatever money we had in a pile and beat the shit out of one another until only one of us remained standing. Then, we’d get the claim of the pot. I figured this wouldn’t be much different. “How much?”

The bookie-bouncer stated a number way above my price range. The only way I could hope to afford it was to put up my Jeep or pawn my wedding band.

“Cash,” he added, just to rub salt in the wound. “There’s an ATM by the front door.”

I used to fight a lot. I found it to be a useful outlet for my aggression.

I’m not a big guy, but I’m quick and coiled and have no real self-preservation instincts.

Granted, it wasn’t the best idea for me.

The pain of broken bones and cracked jaws probably contributed to my drug addiction.

Because of Skye, I kicked all these bad coping mechanisms. But just this once would be alright. This time I had someone by my side.

Rowan was anxious, I could sense it, but he didn’t back out or give any of this a second thought. I don’t know if he wanted to prove himself to me, or find out what he was really made of. Either way, he climbed into the cage right after me.

Unlike their namesake, The Angelino Boys were no angels.

Big, mean, violent and not too bright, they were stereotypical alphas and rising stars in the fighting world.

On a positive note, they did what they were told, and if they were told to have a clean fight, they’d keep it clean.

Or at least, keep the cheap shots to a minimum.

That gave us a small chance of getting through this with all our senses and limbs intact.

Besides, for the next ten minutes, Rowan and I were pack.

I took off my shirt because I wanted to be able to move freely, and Rowan followed my example. He removed his necklace and buried it in the folds of his shirt.

We stood face to face with the Angelino Boys. A referee stood between us and spouted the cliches about clean fights. No eyes. No groins. No biting. He stepped back.

The bell clanged, and instinctively I dropped low to avoid a predictable but sweeping bearhug and pummeled the strong, dumb alpha right in the kidney, my fists moving like jackhammers.

It was my signature opening move on the streets.

Arms wrapped around my middle and yanked me away from my prey.

I stumbled back, struggling to control my momentum, half-aware of Rowan kicking the other Angelino Boy in the back of the leg and bringing him down to a knee.

My Boy hooked his arm around Rowan’s neck and slammed him down hard onto the ground. His head bounced off the softened but still painful floor of the octagon. With a sneer I lunged and retaliated by kneeing his partner in the cheek so hard I heard a crack over the shouting of the audience.

An elbow struck the back of my head and my vision went fuzzy but I stayed on my feet until I was brought down by a kick to my back. I lifted my head and saw Rowan doubled over in a headlock, and the Angelino’s knee repeatedly going into his ribs.

At the sight of that, all that my brain registered was the need for vengeance. It wasn’t like Rowan was a member of my pack, but my more feral alpha brain knew he was important to my omega. Therefore he was important to me. He was in danger and I was going to stop it, one way or another.

In an instant, every single bit of fighting prowess that had laid dormant for years returned to me like a day hadn’t gone by without me using it. All my techniques, my tactics, poised and locked and loaded, ready to fucking execute these two numbskulls.

The following eight minutes were a blur of pain and alpha rage. The only moment I remembered with any sort of clarity was being choked from behind, and Rowan running toward me to head butt my captor from over my shoulder.

Reality returned with the gong of the bell and I stood there with Rowan, my knuckles sore and bloody, my lungs burning through oxygen, my skin glistening with sweat, and the Angelina Boys scowling at us while they cradled broken limbs and breathed out bubbles of blood from between their teeth.

We had won.

Clumsily, and swaying like we were walking around on an unsteady sailboat, we took the stairs up and away from the octagon, leaving our blood and sweat behind as an offering. We pushed through the crowd until we reached the bar.

The bartender’s hair was so pale even I could tell. The overhead lights from the many, many fixtures seemed to make it shift in tones and hues. Of course for me that was all just shades of green and– oh look, blue! Back to green.

She looked from me, to Rowan, and back, then she seemed to look almost past us, to the beyond.

“Whisky, neat.” I ordered. I needed something hard.

In seconds I had a ginger beer with a rock candy swizzle stick in front of me.

“I ordered a whisky,” I said.

“I know.” she nodded. “You get this.”

She busied herself some more, before sliding a hot toddy to Rowan.

“You know, you two could have just fucked.” She placed a plate of small pretzels between us. “Instead you chose to go all alpha and fight about it.”

I picked a pretzel from the complimentary bowl. “I don’t fuck guys.” I crunched the snack between my teeth.

“Makes no difference to me.”

“Am I gonna get my whisky?” I asked.

“Nope. I know a designated driver when I see one.”

I rolled my eyes and snorted. The service in this place sucked.

Next to me, Rowan had already finished his drink, and asked the lady behind the bar for another.

On shaky legs and with Rowan’s bruised belly full of drinks, we hobbled back to the Jeep.

Rowan pitched forward and braced himself on my car before he spewed out foamy liquor, enough to drown the painted line marking the boundaries of our parking space.

Vomit splattered out like paint and crawled like some sort of alien across the barely noticeably slanted ground, towards a storm drain.

He heaved again and I rubbed his back. He winced, recoiling from my touch.

“Hurts?” I asked.

Rowan’s clumsy hands lifted his shirt and I saw the bruises blossoming all up and down his back. We won, but we paid for it.

“Oh, man.” I reached out to touch a particularly prominent bruise that splashed across two ribs. Rowan sucked in a breath.

“Sorry,”

“No,” Rowan said. “Do it again.”

I’m not a timid, unsure guy, but I had to be told twice before I did as Rowan asked. I pressed three fingers into the bruise and Rowan let out a choking sound. His breath froze in his lungs and his aura flared as if ready to defend from an attacker. His grip on my car went pale.

“Harder,” he gasped.

And I did, twisting my fingers in the hollow space between two ribs to aggravate and torture and coax out the agony.

Rowan yelled out and buckled, falling down and into my arms where I held him tight as he sobbed through the pain that he had doubtless kept up inside for months.

The pain of the bruises, the pain I inflicted on him in the parking lot, that was tangible.

That had an origin and reason. That could be an outlet to the intangible suffering and torment that comes with loss and grief.

So I held him and teased his pain, pushing his wound like a button, driving my fingers into his flesh as he screamed.

I cupped the back of his neck firmly and he held my jacket in his fists as he sobbed with my chin cradling the top of his sweaty head.

“I know, man,” I said through clenched teeth, blinking back the hot tears that were gathering in the corners of my eyes. “I know it hurts. It fucking kills. Like you’re dying inside. I know. I know.”

I'd never lost an omega, but I had come damn close. As Skye wasted away like a cybernetic Sleeping Beauty on the hospital bed, it was the worst pain I had ever had to endure. What Rowan was feeling was ten fold.

We sat together on the grimy parking lot ground, with me gently rocking Rowan and drilling his bruise as he sobbed.

If anyone asked, I’d deny it. We probably both would, but whether Rowan was pack or not, he needed someone to guide him through this bleak pain and I was the only one around.

Part of me did it for him, part of me did it for myself, but mostly I did it for Skye.

Because she knew the truth all along. Taking care of this alpha was the right thing to do.