Primal (Wrong Side of the Tracks 2)

“What? I can help you,” Dane said, sinking to his haunches as the sky opened, pouring water straight on their heads. The downpour was so dense Jag could barely see his mate’s features from a few steps away.

Jag screamed out. He grabbed a wooden box and handed it to him. “Hold it over your head. It’s my job to house you! I can handle it myself!”

Dane held the box to his chest and stared at it before moving his gaze to Jag. “This is fucking insane. I’m not a child,” he roared despite his hair already flat against his face and water drizzling from his nose and chin.

“But you’re my responsibility!” Jag cried before darting into the collapsing house, but while the side walls were still standing the ceiling looked fragile like a yogurt lid that had just been broken apart with a spoon. Rain had already soaked into the blankets and furs and was pooling at Jag’s feet.

Speechless, he stared at the carnage when the wall to his left, the one with the only window, creaked and bent toward him, as if it were made of gingerbread. He didn’t think. Ignoring the roar of the wind and the soaked blankets under his feet, he backed away against it and strained his body to keep his home upright. “I’ve got this! Nothing to worry about by my side!” he yelled to reassure Dane, but his mate was as stubborn as ever and snuck into the den like a kid that refused to understand the word no.

He dropped the box and ducked as one of the sheet metal slabs making up the first layer of the ceiling bobbed toward his head. Water poured in. “Shit!”

Jag stared at him, holding up the wall. “How did you open the padlock?” But he realized that in his haste he must have not secured the chain correctly. A single challenge, and everything around him was falling apart due to panic. His father would have mocked him to no end and slapped him for good measure.

But Dane took a deep inhale, looking around the interior. “Jag, take what’s most valuable and let’s leave. This isn’t safe. The fucking fridge’s standing in the water.”

Jag was now glad for the rain and the wet hair in his face, because it would hide the tears pooling in his eyes. He’d lost many homes over the years. Nature was volatile, and one had to be ready to find new shelter whenever it became angry. At least it was summer, and he wouldn’t freeze without a home to call his own.

“Get out! I’m the man of the house!”

“No,” Dane said through gritted teeth and stepped forward, tugging him on the shoulder. “It’s a lost cause. Let’s hide somewhere!”

Jag slammed the back of his head against the wall in exasperation, but Dane was right. Jag was weak, a failure, and not good enough to take care of his mate.

“Just go then! Aren’t you free?” he cried out, straining his shoulders when the wall pushed at him with increasing force.

Something flashed in Dane’s eyes, and he leaped forward, grabbing Jag’s arm and using all of his weight to yank him toward the door.

Jag didn’t have the brainpower to fight him, and wood cracked the moment he stopped supporting the wall. Within the blink of an eye, they dropped into the mud outside, and by the time Jag glanced over his shoulder, his home had collapsed like a house of cards.

Chapter 7 – Dane

Dane felt as if some invisible force had punched him in the gut.

Despite the frosty sensation tingling on his damp, wind-swept skin, his insides couldn’t have been hotter, and when he stared at the crumbled den, visions of both him and Jag dying under the weight of debris, or electrocuted, coursed through his mind like a phantom riding a monstrous merry-go-round.

If he’d hesitated a moment longer, it would have been over for them both.

“F-fuck,” he muttered, fighting the lightness in his head. “Are you all right?”

“Y-yes,” Jag uttered, staring at the ruined house with wide eyes behind wet hair, like a wolf too confused by the storm to keep up appearances of viciousness. Jag grabbed the chain attached to Dane’s collar, but then let go with a sigh. “Why didn’t you run?”

Dane opened his mouth, because Jag was right—this had been the perfect opportunity to seize. But if he’d left Jag to die, he’d have been no better than Rob. He flinched when thunder growled over their heads again. “We need to hide, you dumbass,” he muttered, rolling back to his feet, hyper-aware of everything around them. He did not survive Rob’s beating to die because of a fucking freak storm.

Jag got up with new determination flashing in his eyes. He didn’t seem to care that several scratches on his back were bleeding. He grabbed Dane’s hand—his hand, not the chain—and pulled him along in a direction he’d never led Dane before.