Page 8 of Never Submit (Bad Wolves #2)

Chapter 8

Ren

I t’s the reunion of my dreams, but it’s ruined because there’s no way I’m actually seeing what I’m seeing.

My brain must be scrambled.

You’ve got to be shitting me.

There’s Torin and Mathis standing shoulder to shoulder as Noble guides me toward the two waiting vehicles pulled haphazardly off to the side of the road.

“What is this?” My teeth chatter, and my breath gusts out in front of me.

“This is something you may never see again,” Noble whispers. His warm breath tickles the hair above my ear.

Having him with me is the best gift I could have asked for. Somewhere along the line, Noble became so important to me that even being close to him, touching him, can smooth out the knots in my head.

The exhaustion, though…there’s no running from it. Which must be why I’m dreaming now because there is no way this is happening.

The shock of seeing the two alphas together sends my stomach into a spiraling mess, my chest hitching, my mind weirdly blank. Why are they together? Is it…because of me?

A part of me pulls up short, uncomfortable at the idea. Like it’s some kind of blasphemy.

Torin leans to say something to Mathis, the other man nodding his head sharply, their attention centered on me.

They’re talking. Not trying to kill each other.

“Hey, sweetheart.” Mathis steps forward once I’m within earshot. He bends to press a kiss to the top of my head, like I’m not covered in blood. “How are you holding up?”

“She’s been through hell. What do you think?” Noble answers for me.

Okay, so they may still try to kill each other.

Mathis holds out his arms for me, and I glance at Noble, who’s expression says he doesn’t want to put me on my own two feet yet. But I give him a pat on the shoulder to let him know it’s okay, and grumbling, he lets me down—almost like it would be some kind of betrayal to leave him. I step into Mathis’s waiting arms, absorbing his warmth, his kindness.

My knees sag, and I lock them together, the horror of the last few days dissipating.

Mathis draws in a breath, and I feel the way he freezes. His entire body goes stiff in my arms. “There’s something different about you, Ren,” he mutters. “What happened?”

“It’s the blood.”

“No, it’s not.” He steps back but keeps his hands on my biceps, rooted in place for his scrutiny.

I never thought I’d see them again. In that cell in the mountain, I thought about them, and worried. Wondered.

There’s still a dreamy quality to our reunion, but I’m confused, tired, and throbbing in all the wrong places. The brief respite in Noble’s arms feels too far away to have just happened.

“Andras had me. He tried to force me to change, to shift, and said I wasn’t going to go free until I did.”

“He wanted you to do what ?” Mathis growls.

“Start talking,” Torin grunts, the imperious quality of his baritone achingly familiar. “It will make things easier for you.”

He’s staring at me with heat in his eyes but he’s not trying to touch me. To greet me.

I’m too tired for his wishy-washy bullshit right now.

“I’m, ah…” I trail off. This is harder than I’d thought. “I…shifted. On the mountain. And when those crazy wolves tried to capture me, I shifted again.”

I turn and catch Noble’s molten gaze, holding it until the thrumming of my heartbeat goes steady once again.

“What do you mean, you shifted?” Mathis keeps his voice easy, but I see a tremor pass through him and it unnerves me. “What are you talking about?”

What am I talking about?

A stiff winter breeze rocks through the skeletal limbs of the trees hanging over the road. I don’t feel the bottom of my feet anymore. I don’t feel much of anything, really.

“I mean I grew white fur and claws. My body started to change and my senses were much sharper than usual,” I explain. Poorly.

Now I glance over Mathis’s shoulder at Torin. He’s working hard to shutter his gaze, but he’s worried, too. Confused. Maybe even a little scared.

Of me? That’s ridiculous.

So what is he scared of, then?

A cold mask falls over Torin’s features, and instead of trying to figure him out, I focus on Mathis. On the richness of his brown eyes, the strength in his fingers. He’s rubbing his thumbs in small circles and his heat penetrates through me.

“Where’s Dax?” Mathis asks. He’s woodsy-earthy, his familiar scent seeping into me and wrapping around my heart. It shouldn’t feel this good to see him.

“He’s tracing my path back up to Andras and his hideout.” I nibble my lower lip. “He said he can do it.”

Noble is silent, watching us, close enough for me to reach out and touch if I want. But he’s the one who reaches for me and skims his fingers along my torso.

“There’s this, too,” he tells the others.

Mathis flicks his gaze down to my stomach, and I follow it. “How–”

The black lines of the tattoo stand out starkly against my white skin. “I…I don’t know. It just showed up.”

I didn’t even notice it until Dax stripped me, fucked me, gave me what I needed.

The dregs of adrenaline are still in my system, and I start to shake.

“Did she have that before?” Torin asks. But not to me. To Mathis.

I want to tell Torin to ask me about my own body, but suddenly, forming words takes way too much effort. I’m weak and tired, my knees shaking, and my attention split in too many directions.

“No, she didn’t. Did Andras do something to you? Did he mark you this way?” Mathis squeezes my biceps to keep me focused.

My tongue darts out to wet my lips. “He didn’t.”

“Does it have anything to do with the Moonstone?” Mathis snaps his fingers in front of my face. “Ren? Stay with me.”

“Can’t you see she’s been through enough? Ask your questions later.” Noble steps up and gently pries me away from Mathis, wrapping me in the comfort of his embrace. “We’ve got to get her back home, Torin. She’s got no fucking shoes on, for god’s sake.”

“The Moonstone is the most important thing,” Torin reminds him.

“Her safety is, too,” Noble argues.

How are they going to react? “The Moonstone is gone. It—” I break off, pause. “It absorbed into me.”

“ It what? ” Mathis snaps.

Even Torin goes icier than normal.

“It shrank into my palm, when Andras found me.” It saved my life .

That’s what ended my curse, I know now. The realization turns me to stone.

My parents bargained for twenty-five years of life, had given their everything to the goddess, and her Moonstone gave me more. For how long was anyone’s guess, but the niggling sensation in the back of my mind said it will be a long time before I finally croak.

Unless Andras finds me.

Mathis stares at me with his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Torin refuses to say anything, to me or to anyone else, glaring imperiously at Noble like it’s somehow the other man’s fault for not keeping me in line.

My…my mate?

“We'll speculate about this later.” Noble takes control, nudging me toward the waiting SUV. “Right now, Ren needs to rest. If you want an interrogation, it will have to wait. She’s my priority.”

The door opened from the inside, and a blast of heat belched from the interior .

“Fine,” Torin grinds out.

“Don’t think I’m going to let this go.” Mathis steps after us and stops at the door. “Steel, we’ll be in touch.”

“I promise to update you,” Torin grumbles and takes the front seat.

“No one is saying another word to her until she’s gotten food and rest.” Noble is adamant.

He bundles me into the backseat, crawling after me and keeping me close, nestled at his side.

Miracles do happen. Miracles, or else I’ve been sucked into a parallel universe where nothing makes sense. Hell, maybe I did die up there on the snowy mountain.

The SUV peels away, leaving Mathis standing alone in the gritty snow.

The car ride is one of the worst of my life, tense and sickening. My gut roils, sending a wave of queasy heat crawling up the back of my throat. Despite my chill, a bead of sweat trails down to my eye, burning.

“Maybe you’re content to play this part in front of Mathis, but don’t do it again,” Torin warns.

“Play what part?” Noble asks innocently.

“ You know .”

“I’m not playing. When it comes to my mate, I’m sorry but I’m going to stand up for her.”

The words filter through a haze in my head. My lips are numb when I try to get them to form words, to repeat what Noble said. He’s used the term a few times now, but I’m not sure what it means to him, or what kind of context I need to hold it in.

I know swans mate for life. Is that the kind of deal he’s talking about?

“Just make sure you remember your place in this pack,” Torin continues .

His voice is wobbly, but maybe it’s my imagination.

At once I miss Mathis, with his steadiness and his paternal energy. I miss Dax and his no-nonsense, his brutality, the way he stepped up to protect me. But through it all is Noble with his kindness and his understanding. He’s a marked contrast to Torin's hostile facade, so I lean into Noble, his constant nearness smoothing out my rough edges.

He wraps his arm around me to pull me close. “It’s okay,” he urges. “It’s going to be fine, Ren.”

My lips crack open on a yawn. “I’m just so tired.”

“That’s normal, after a shift. Especially if it’s your first time.” He’s confused; they all are. “We’ll talk about it.”

“It wasn’t an actual shift.” I have to correct him. “Just a partial. I was trying to get out of the cage, and I needed extra strength. I pried the bars apart.”

“Shh, you don’t have to say anything else right now. There’s plenty of time,” Noble continues.

“Stop lying to her.” Torin is ruthless. “We’re running out of time, and she might be delirious but she has to understand it. And the part she’s playing.”

Rather than argue, Noble keeps silent, snuggling me at his side. I draw in one deep breath after another, inhaling his scent, memorizing it. He warms something new deep inside me that I can’t explain.

It’s like I feel him beside me, but I also feel him in my chest, in my head. In my heart. There’s a space inside me that I didn’t realize was empty until he filled it.

I must doze off because the next thing I know, the SUV pulls to a stop with a slight lurching motion.

“Easy does it. We’re here now. We’re home.”

Noble’s voice sounds like it’s coming through a wall of water, and when I yawn again, my ears pop. I’m slightly more awake than I was when I got into the car, but the grogginess makes me nervous.

“Where?” I ask.

“The Steel Claw building. You’re safe here, don’t you worry.”

A chilly blast of air is a contrast to the hazy heat in the SUV. Then Noble is gone and I’m crying out for him, reaching for the place where he used to be. He finally gathers me up in his arms and carries me out of the parking garage and toward an elevator I blearily make out in the distance.

I’m in Noble’s arms, and I’m home. It’s impossible to describe the feeling of safety that filled me the second I saw him but being here with him is everything. I keep my arms looped around his neck and my face buried at his nape.

“I’ve got you now,” he says in a low tone. Like I’m some kind of terrified creature who needs to be talked down from a ledge. “No one is ever going to fucking hurt you again.”

It’s nothing I ever thought I wanted to hear, but the moment those words leave his lips, I sag closer. Clutching at Noble like he’s a rock in the stormy ocean, but damn it, he is.

Something happened to us up on the mountain. An indescribable connection that blazed through me like fire on a cold winter day and infused my dying limbs with enough electricity to keep me from the edge.

“I’ll have one of the omega nurses come up and take a look at her,” Torin says from up ahead. “If she’s a shifter now, then it will be unnecessary.” He strides toward the elevator and stabs his finger at the button. The doors slide open, and Noble follows him outside.

“She needs a nurse, so thank you,” Noble says as if he’s swallowing over every word .

Torin only growls, and his reflection in the shiny metal shows no emotion.

“As to your theory…” Noble trails off, like he’s considering what to say. “It makes sense.”

“It makes no fucking sense, but it’s what we’re working with. If the Moonstone did absorb into her, then she’d be the first of her kind. A wolf, but not.”

“So you believe her when she says she changed?”

I’m right here, boys .

“We’ll see,” Torin hedges.

We reach the penthouse in what feels like seconds. Torin walks ahead and disappears into his office, closing the door behind him. The space smells like him. Rich and spiced and scented with something earthy. Masculine.

I guess Torin’s done with me for now.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” Noble says and turns left, through one of the open doors. A bedroom–his bedroom, I’m assuming. His presence overwhelms the space, from the unmade forest-green sheets on the bed to the dark-painted walls, and a stack of folded sweaters on the wooden desk. It’s all Noble.

He kicks the door shut behind him.

My very own knight in shining armor, right here.

He gently places me to sit on the edge of the bed. I don’t want to let go of him. Not now. Not for however long it takes for me to…I don’t know. Make peace with things.

There are still some blank spots in my memory, but coming face to face with that greasy-haired asshole who kept me chained, well, I’ve got a feeling that will stick with me.

Within less than thirty minutes, an omega nurse comes and examines me, as promised .

“The cuts and bruises are almost all healed already,” the woman says softly.

“It supports our theory that she’s a shifter now,” Noble replies.

It’s all very unsettling to me, the knowledge like a seed lodged in the back of my mouth. Something I can’t expel no matter how hard I try.

I’m not trying hard, yet. I’m as still as a mouse under the watchful gaze of a hawk. It doesn’t matter how kind or gentle the omega is as she skims her fingers over me. How she delicately pushes my hair to the side.

I’m not a shifter.

Am I?

I saw the fur, the claws. That kind of stuff would be stupid to deny.

The Moonstone did something to me; it changed my physical body into something unique. Like Torin said, I probably shouldn't exist. The only one of my kind.

What will it mean?

And man, am I tired of being special. It’s not the picnic everyone thinks it is when they dream of it. It’s isolating and uncomfortable and awkward.

Renee Wexler, alive when she shouldn’t be, a shifter when she was born a dead human.

Life just doesn’t make sense anymore.