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CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Sascha

When Sascha comes to, he’s dressed and lying on a bed that is not his own.

He’s used to that mostly—when he has a particularly bad episode, he often ends up in Petra’s clinic—but this isn’t there, either.

Outside the room he hears voices, and inside the room, there are two members of his pack, watching him with unhappy expressions.

“What’s going on?” he asks, pushing himself upright. Liam, an enforcer Sascha never liked, snorts. Sascha dismisses him, turning instead to Garrett, the younger of the twins. “ What is going on?” he repeats.

“You’re in deep shit, is what’s going on.” Garrett has his arms crossed over his chest and shifts into Sascha’s space when he tries to get out of bed. “I don’t know where you think you’re going, but you’re not.”

Sascha massages his temples, his head aching. “Get the fuck out of my way, Gare.”

“Can’t. You’re on house arrest.”

Head jerking up, Sascha snaps, “On what fucking grounds?” Then, the events from before he passed out come back to him in a sudden wave, and Sascha braces himself to be raked across the coals for killing Atwood Dennings.

Instead of telling Sascha he just triggered a pack war, Garrett snaps back, “On ‘fucking-a-werecreature’ grounds.”

Sascha goes mute, horror curling inside his chest, great black coils of it that wrap around his heart and squeeze.

Is this worse than the threat of war between the Madisons and whatever shit ass line Atwood came from?

Definitely, because now it’s Avery under the microscope.

Sascha might never have felt this much raw terror—this deep, suffocating dread—not his entire life.

“What do you think you’re fuckin’ doing, Sascha?”

“It’s none of your business,” Sascha replies, lips numb. It’s useless, though. Of course it’s his pack’s business. His cousins have always made his private life their fucking business, whether due to misplaced ‘big brother’ worship or just because they’re annoying little shits.

Garrett snorts. “Tell that to your dad.”

“ No. ” The horrified whisper sticks on its way up, blocking his airway despite being such a small sound. Tears prick the back of his eyes, which drags him down even further, compounded by the surprise on Garrett’s face. Sascha isn’t the crying sort.

“What the fuck?” Garrett says in his own horrified whisper before turning to the door and banging on it. “Uncle Samuel! He’s awake.”

Sascha presses the balls of his hands against his eyes, breaths speeding up even as he begs the hysteria to go away. He needs a clear head to negotiate this.

Avery. Is Avery okay? Did Celeste’s pack?—

“Did they kill him?” Sascha demands the moment his father storms into the room.

Samuel’s expression hardens. “That’s your first question, Alexander? ”

“Yeah,” Sascha responds, barely able to swallow past the lump in his throat. “It is. Did they kill him?”

Celeste elbows her way inside, and Sascha scowls.

There is literally no one he’d rather see less right now.

“He got away,” she says curtly, which does take some of the edge off, though it awakens another form of doubt.

Celeste’s wolfpack are expert hunters, and he doesn’t believe Avery simply getting away is the full truth.

Still, a soft sigh of relief eases some of the pressure in his chest.

“Alexander. Explain yourself.”

“What do you want me to explain?”

It’s alarming to see the rage that crosses Sascha’s father’s face. Samuel is normally so composed, but right now, he looks more wild than Celeste, who’s watching Sascha with an oddly cool satisfaction. “You fraternizing with that creature .”

“Avery’s a person,” Sascha corrects, voice robotic. Like he’s been saying the words to himself every day, every hour, since the minute they exchanged their first DMs on PROWLR. They’ve been waiting for the chance to come out, but as they do, they’re duller than they should be.

“A werecreature,” Samuel says, inflexible. “That thing could have killed you.”

More forcefully, Sascha repeats, “Avery is a person . Not a thing.”

“He’s a parasite, is what he is,” Liam snaps, but Samuel holds a hand up to halt him.

Celeste takes advantage of the pause to interject.

“My enforcers have it on good authority that Sascha has been interacting with the werecreature for weeks. When he disappeared from Dennings farm at the same time Sascha did, I feared the worst.” There’s not even a shadow of concern in Celeste’s tone.

“You should have told me sooner.” Samuel’s voice is gruff, but he doesn’t push when Celeste fails to respond. “ Alexander, I’m… Horrified doesn’t describe it. I’m disappointed. I’m angry . What possessed you to do this?”

All words abandon Sascha’s tongue, leaving it dry and heavy in his mouth. He swallows thickly, trying to summon enough spit to formulate a response. “I liked him,” is the only thing he comes up with. I love him , he doesn’t add.

“That shouldn’t have— You never should have spoken to him in the first place.”

“Why not?”

Samuel growls, his control visibly slipping.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Alexander. You weren’t brought up to be obtuse.

Werecreatures have caused irreparable damage to the shifter way of life.

They’re dangerous, unstable monsters, and they treat our legacy—the centuries spent establishing harmony with humans—like it’s worth nothing. ”

“And why the fuck wouldn’t they treat our legacy like it’s worth nothing when you treat them like they’re worth nothing?”

“I’m not arguing history with you.”

“Good, because I don’t fucking want to. Avery’s just a person who I met, and he’s—” Wonderful. Adorable. Sensitive and sexy and sweet. “—he’s a good person. He’s not anything you’ve said werecreatures are.”

The werevirus had allegedly existed for a long time before it exploded across the globe, but Sascha was born after that explosion.

Prejudice against this new breed of magic-infected humans had already solidified before Sascha even entered the world.

Perpetually sheltered, he spent all his life being told he could tell a werecreature from a proper human because they smelled bitter.

But Avery smelled like a barn before he took a shower, and afterward, he only smelled like any other person.

Like summertime sweat, like the lake, like antiseptic, like the pheromones Sascha rubs on him enthusiastically and often.

Like himself , a scent Sascha’s obsessed with but can’t name because he’s not a fucking perfume expert.

“No one said they can’t be persuasive,” Samuel argues.

“Avery is probably the least persuasive person ever.” Which isn’t true, but Sascha can’t get into how Avery is awkward but genuine in a way that makes Sascha want to give him everything he’s ever needed. “He didn’t trick me, Dad. I don’t know why you’re so scared.”

“It’s precedent. We keep ourselves away from them. You don’t know how he might affect your illness or if he’ll lash out unexpectedly. That’s the point.”

“Screw that.” Sascha has never spoken to his father this way before, but he’s tired , and he wants to see if Avery is okay with his own eyes. “The spinning sickness has existed longer than the werevirus, and they have nothing to do with each other. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

“Watch your tone, Alexander. You don’t have any proof of these claims.”

“No one does. I’m already sick. Now you want me to be miserable, too? More miserable than you’ve spent my whole life ensuring I am?”

“Why would you be miserable?”

Sascha’s face screws up, and he steps into his father’s space, a scant inch shorter than him.

“You don’t get to pretend you don’t know.

My existence is embarrassing to you. You’ll never let me take over the pack, so your legacy is worthless to me.

Why would I care anymore than the werecreatures do? ”

In his right mind, Sascha would have thought better of challenging the pack alpha with his own magic.

It’s not done. The drama Avery faces from unhinged werecreature alphas doesn’t exist in most shifter packs, based on family hierarchy rather than desperate posturing.

Most alphas within family packs know that raising their magic to threaten the leader would result in their swift extermination by the pack enforcers.

But Sascha is his father’s only child, his heir even if not his successor, and Samuel loves his son enough to not backhand him where he stands. Sascha suspects it’s a near thing, though.

Samuel’s alpha magic surges to meet Sascha’s. “You’d spit on your mother’s grave like this?”

“Would you ? Mom wanted me to inherit the pack.” When Samuel doesn’t take the bait, Sascha steamrolls on. “I can love her memory without excusing the bigotry. Don’t you hear yourselves? Calling human beings things ?”

“Werecreatures stop being human when the werevirus?—”

“Garrett,” Samuel interrupts harshly. “I’ll thank you to stop interjecting when I’m trying to handle my son.”

“I don’t need to be handled.”

Samuel’s expression darkens. “Alright, Alexander. I understand.”

An alarm blares within Sascha’s skull. He opens his mouth to do damage control, but Samuel continues.

“Celeste, what is the current status of the werecreature?”

“Unknown,” she replies. “He escaped my pack, and we lost his trail.”

Sascha doesn’t believe that. How would one tender-footed werecreature evade a whole pack of wolves? She’s up to something.

Samuel isn’t fooled, either. “Are you still aspiring to add him to your pack?”

“It wouldn’t be any of your concern if I was.” Her response is a bit too quick, a bit too sharp.

“I disagree. He’s affected my son, so it’s become my business.”

“We’ll discuss it when he’s found,” Celeste allows smoothly.

Sascha eases out of his father’s space, clenching his jaw in an attempt to smother another wave of dread. “Why do you have to find him?”