Page 1 of Never Submit (Bad Wolves #2)

Chapter 1

Torin

“ E arth to Torin.” Noble snaps his fingers in my face.

“What the hell is it?” I glare, growling as he pushes his bronze hair from his face. “I’m busy.”

“I said I want to talk.”

I cross to the window of my penthouse overlooking the glitter of Rochester, the city I basically fucking own. It should be enough. The power, the wealth, the status—I’ve defeated my enemies at every turn…except now.

The Blood Moon pack is a different beast.

“Thing is, I don’t want to fucking talk,” I grind out.

“Too bad, I do,” he says.

I turn and face him, my brain struggling to keep up the way I need it to. “We might be friends, but be very careful of how you talk to your alpha, Noble.”

“Fuck that.”

Noble hunches over like he’s got a fucking mountain on his shoulders.

I narrow my eyes.

He holds up a hand, shaking his head. “We need to talk about what happened at the temple with?— ”

“Stop.” I flick the edges of my pristine cuffs and take off my custom-made suit jacket. “Do you want praise for how you slaughtered those wolves at the ruins of the Moon Goddess’s temple? If that’s it, you can fetch a cookie and shove it up your ass. I’m not in the mood.”

“I did my job,” he insists with a sharp hiss. “Now do yours.”

I huff and turn back to the window. “I said I don’t want to talk.”

“I know how good I was, where I failed.” He’s not making this easy on me. “And this here, right now, it’s just us. Old friends. You owe me an ear.”

I scrub a hand over my eyes. “Fuck, man.” I cross the room, draping my jacket on the sofa. “You did good. I admit it. Even that fucking asshole Mathis and his feral wolfman did a decent job.” But I flash Noble a hard look. “And if you’re not going to shut the fuck up, there’s a bottle of Blanton’s single barrel whiskey with my name on it.”

I’ll need a stiff drink to suffer through this conversation.

When I get to the wet bar, I wave a hand in his direction. “Get on with it then.” An invitation I’m sure I’ll regret.

We all have to play our parts, even when fucking being in touch with my damn wolf is the last thing I want. The constraints and pack fighting, the animalistic urges blotting out pure human logic… I prefer the modern way. Power with money. Power with technology.

Not folklore and temples and magic.

Noble sighs, his eyes tracking my every move. “Mathis was good. We needed him there. It shows how we need to work?—”

“Together?” I cut him off with an arched brow and lean on the bar. “I get it. When shit hits the fan, I see why Mathis is an efficient alpha to his pack.”

I take a moment. Thing is, Mathis was a help. But it wasn’t enough. Not when we lost our girl.

The girl, I amend sharply.

Noble suddenly goes still, like he can smell my thoughts in the damn air. Then he crosses to me, his finger pointing. “You felt it,” he says.

“Felt what?” I grab the bottle. “Whatever you have to fucking say?—”

“Torin.”

Fuck me, he’s gnat-persistent. I shove a hand across my scalp, my claws dangerously close to the surface, the last place I want them to be. Grinding my teeth, I push them back.

I open the bottle and pour a healthy slug. I reach for ice but change my mind. I’ll just take it neat instead. To remind myself we’re home, we’re alive.

“You felt the change between me and Ren, our connection, on the mountain. I know you felt it, too,” he says. “Don’t try to bullshit me.”

“You need a reminder?” I point at myself. “Alpha.” I point at him. “Beta.”

And as the alpha, I’d made the decision to retreat. Without her. Ren. The bane of my fucking existence.

“We need her.”

“No, we don’t,” I say. “And if you’re going to try to convince me she has more uses than the Moonstone she stole, then I definitely need whiskey.”

I take a sip, savoring the complex flavors of charred oak and candied almonds with a hint of vanilla. It’s like pure liquid gold, and if I have enough, the name Ren won’t mean a fucking thing.

For the first time since we were teenagers, Noble looks nervous. Not to mention pissed. Shifting from foot to foot, he clenches his hands at his sides, fingers flexing. “You felt it, too.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“The energy exchange. I know you felt it. I think it was our mating bond clicking into place. Between me and Ren.” His voice is quiet, sure, determined.

When I glance over my shoulder at him, Noble’s still staring me down, and there is nothing humorous about the harsh planes of his features.

Did I feel something on the mountain?

I tell myself no. The entire journey and ambush are an annoying, pestering memory, but still, something inside me falters. I don’t want to think about it, but now I am, and my throat tightens, my stomach churns acid, and my temples throb. A long fucking day, nothing more.

Shaking my head, I try to breathe. If this was just about fucking a human, I’m all for it. But he’s talking about mating. Soulmates. The things of fantasies and lore. I know him. He’s a hopeless romantic.

Or maybe he’s caught up in the web this Ren seems to weave. Maybe he wants something more, something that only she offers. It wouldn’t be the first time Noble has pined for a human, after all.

But I shouldn’t care either way.

I toss back the rest of my drink and pour another, then hold the bottle up to him.

Noble purses his lips, unamused with my drinking. “No, Torin. I want to talk, not drink.”

“Doing both has happened before.” I’m seconds from ordering him out of the room, but I stop myself. He’s determined. “ Speak .”

Quickly, I’d prefer .

“Out of respect to you, we need to discuss this. She’s my mate, Torin.”

“Mate? Practicing your standup routine again?” I resist the urge to clap and smile; it will just grind salt into an already fresh and dysfunctional wound. “Good for you, Noble.”

“I want?—"

“Enough!” Goddamn Ren . She’s a pain in the ass, and he’s a fool to think this. “I never mistook you for stupid before.”

Noble stares me down. “Ren is my mate , Torin. No matter what kinds of feelings you have about it.”

“Come on.” Mate? It’s so damn stupid I can’t even comprehend it.

“It’s true. I feel her.” Noble thumps a hand against his heart. “Right here, I feel her. It’s real. She belongs to me.”

I don’t know where it comes from, but rage, black and tipped with fire, rips through me.

Hearing those last four words, I slam my glass down, and I have to force myself not to crush it in my hand. My fucking wolf inside me roars for freedom.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

But it’s staying where it belongs. Buried under the layers of power, of civility.

“This is the twenty-first century. I don’t think dragging a woman off by her hair and labeling her yours is a good look for our modern pack.” No, but tying her up in private, now that’s a different story.

Hypothetically.

“You know what I mean.”

There are excuses and laws I could make up. Lies, such as she’s human and we don’t mate with humans. We don’t fuck them. But if I fight with him on this, our friendship might not survive if I pull the strings too tightly.

Because he means it. He’s bonded. He sees the fucking little Ren Wexler as his mate.

“I know you’re being a fool. And this is moot.”

“Oh, it’s moot all right,” he says, pacing the room as I lift my glass to take another warming sip. “Because she’s gone.”

The flavor’s suddenly like chalk. I set the glass down.

The wolf in me surges closer to the surface than before, and I clench my hands, my claws extending enough to puncture the skin of my palm.

Thank fuck I’ve had experience at controlling it, and I force it back in.

“She’s gone. Torin…she’s gone.”

She’s gone .

An empty hole yawns open inside of me. They took her. Those fucking bastards stole Ren like it was nothing, like she was barely even a human being.

I don’t have to like her to know she didn’t deserve that. And also… I suck in a breath. She’s not fully human. She’s special.

How long has our enemy known it, too?

Was tonight nothing but a play to get us into position for an ambush?

I want the Goddess’s Moonstone for my own, or maybe a chance to find her second relic, the long-lost weapon, a sword. I want the power and the money those things bring. And, yeah, even the ancient power. Anything to give me an edge against Andras. Instead?

“We let them take Ren,” Noble says quietly, like he’s in my head. Our gazes meet. “We need to plan how to get her back.”

That’s why he’s here, really, not to announce his intentions or push the bond. He followed me in to formulate a plan to get Ren back.

“They can have her,” I say.

His head whips around, and the energy rolling off him is pain, anger, and heartache. His fists clench. But then he sags. “You don’t mean that."

“I’m a selfish prick?—”

“True.”

I tap a hand on the bar, keeping tight control on everything. “I care more about protecting my pack and expanding our resources. She’s just a human. So we need to weigh up the pros and cons.”

“There are none. She’s mine, we get her back. She’s needed and even you know that.”

“Again,” I say quietly, “we might be alone, we might be old friends, but watch your fucking tone with me right now. I’m your alpha, so treat me with respect.”

“Torin, I’ll challenge you.”

I fix my gaze on him until he lowers his gaze, and his shoulders lift and fall, his face turning red. I’m against a line I’ve never crossed. But these are circumstances I never foresaw.

This is over a girl. A fucking girl. No matter how special she might be. That mix of human, of us, of something that gives her a power I don’t quite understand.

Fuck.

I could be the asshat who points out to him he backed down, but I don’t. We both know I won. It’s enough.

But still… They took her. Why?

I prefer this problem solving to problematic discussions over fucking feelings. Ren’s a commodity. She could make us stronger.

And I can just keep my hands to my fucking self .

“Noble? Why do you think they took her?”

He rubs the back of his neck and continues pacing. “How the fuck should I know? Because she’s my mate?”

We both know the mate of a beta is nothing compared to the mate of an alpha, and he’s not the alpha.

“She’s special.”

He stops, cuts his eyes to me.

“Not like that. I’m talking…monetarily.” I shrug, deliberately mocking.

“It doesn’t matter why. It matters that they did. We’re getting her back. I have to believe we’re going to get her back. She’s still alive.” His mouth thins, his gaze promising retaliation. “I feel the bond and it is intact.”

“Can you track it?” I ask.

I’ve heard stories about mates being able to feel the energy of their partner across great distances. But I don’t know what rules apply for human mates. Human, or whatever the fuck she is.

Noble turns in on himself, his gaze growing distant as he follows the energy trail connecting him to Ren.

“Potentially,” he says. “I feel her, so she’s alive, but it’s like…there’s something keeping the signal soft and distant. It’s hard to describe. Andras has her, Torin.”

I almost say no shit but stop myself.

The logistics here are difficult. “Getting her back is a big project. Andras has more numbers. He’s greasy, sneaky.”

“And we’re not?”

“Not against a fight, but we have things to consider, the cost?—”

“You know how close Mathis’s pack is, how they work together and fight together. We can do it.” He sits on the couch, leaning forward, clasping his hands.

“But do we want to work with them or not? ”

“We do, Torin.”

I stop, thinking it over. Andras has Ren. I’ll rip him apart if he?—

She’s got the Moonstone. That’s all. Get her, get the Moonstone and all its power and worth.

Noble lifts his head. “We’ll make Andras pay.”

“We have to find him first.”

“We will,” he says.

His scent changes from the one I recognize, the steady scent of my beta. It’s still Noble, but now I pick up something else. A male wolf coming into his power because he has a strong mate at his side. A wolf who may one day challenge me for my position…and win.

I lift my glass. She’s not with us. Yet.

Noble gets to his feet. “Andras and his wolves have made a calculated move not just against the Steel Claws but against Grey Valley as well. They took Ren for a reason. What’s the reason?”

“I don’t know. We need to weigh it all up, the risks?—"

“I gave up so much for you,” he says with careful, cool control.

Narrowing my eyes, I step away from the bar. “I didn’t tell you to give up shit.”

“You didn’t have to ask. You called for me, and I came. I dropped everything, changed my entire life, to come back to this hellhole. Because you needed me.” Noble bites through every word. “Do it for me, if anything.”

I had needed him, and I’d never forgive myself for dragging him back into a life he’d hated.

A position he’d never asked for but no one else was qualified to take after my father?—

“This is like your father. Money and power over everything else. Everyone else. ”

“That’s not what I’m doing. But storming in unprepared isn’t the fucking answer. We need to take time and think it through?—”

“And what? If she’s not worth it, leave her?”

“That’s not what I said. This, right here, is why I didn’t want to fucking talk.”

“Ren isn’t a deal or transaction. Don’t act this way, Torin,” he says, like he can read my mind. “Don’t be like Sullivan.”

I round on Noble. Hearing my father’s name draws a snarl from me. “Shut your mouth.”

“Make no mistake, Alpha .” He emphasizes the title to push me. “You might be the leader of this pack but Ren’s on the line. And where she’s concerned, I’ll do anything to get her back safe. Anything. I’ll walk. I’ll go to Mathis. Don’t fuck with me on this.”

Noble turns and storms out, slamming the door behind him.

The bang seems to echo in the empty room. I pick up my glass. “Well, that went well.”

I blow out a breath, but I don’t feel any better. That empty sick feeling still grabs at me, and I know I could order him back. He’d come. He’d have to.

Ready for another round of “save the girl here and now.” But I don’t want that.

To him, she’s not a commodity. To me, she’s… I don’t know what the hell she is.

I don’t have to like her to want her back. To understand that no matter how complicated she makes things she’s worth something to him and to the pack.

Noble’s bullheaded. He compared me to my fucking father.

I’ve always done whatever it takes for the good of the Steel Claw pack.

I’ve never treated Noble with such disdain either. Because he’s right. He’s done so much more for me than I can ever repay. He’s been my constant ally and friend.

Then again, I didn’t say no. I said we need to plan it out, weigh up everything to go about this in the best way. I’m right, too. Half-cocked is what they want, and it’s suicide. It’s weakness. It’s just stupid.

With a sigh, I pour another drink.

I’m right. This needs to be done with caution. With our enemies pushing the boundaries of the territory and getting into open displays of aggression, I have to make the hard decisions. I need to plan carefully. Then hit them. Hard.

At the same time, I need to get Ren back. And the stone.

I pause with the glass hallway to my mouth, knowing what I have to do, even if I don’t like it. Not one fucking bit. “Fuck.”