Heartsblood (Dark Hollow Wolf Pack 10)

Jax angled a skeptical look at Cade. “Oh really? And you had this figured out all along?”

Cade smiled and shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Liar,” Jax said, leaning over to brush his lips against Cade’s.

Cade laughed and the sound was like a balm on Jax’s frayed nerves. “Well, maybe it did kind of occur to me right in the middle of things when Casey started to get belligerent. It all worked out in the long run, though, right?”

“Lucky you.”

“It’s skill, baby, not just luck.” Cade pulled Jax closer to get a proper kiss, his hand gentle on Jax’s cheek, his fingers trailing down Jax’s neck as he pulled away.

A noise coming toward them from the woods made Cade get to his feet and pull Jax along with him. They were standing in the moonlight facing the trees when Zack and Casey, back to their human forms, came out of the woods.

Both men were winded, as if they’d been running under the moon, but Zack actually looked unwell. He was pale and his hands shook as they came closer.

“What is it, Zack?” Cade asked. “Did something happen in the woods? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I think I have,” he said, shaking his head. “Nicky’s wolf? I’m almost positive it was Tim.”

“Tim?” Jax said blankly. “What do you mean? Who the hell is that?”

Zack glanced over at him miserably. “Tim was my cousin. I killed him myself over two years ago. He’s buried behind my lodge.”

* * * *

Marco paced up and down the length of his office, upset and angry. He still hadn’t forgiven the other alphas for what they’d put Nicky through, and he wasn’t sure he could even trust them anymore. He sure as hell didn’t want them in his office so early in the morning, before he’d even had breakfast.

They sat at the long table he set up as a conference table and all of them looked uneasy. They had reason to. All of them, with the exception of Jax, had aligned themselves against Nicky. That meant they had aligned themselves against Marco too.

Marco glanced over at Nicky, who sat beside his desk in an armchair, looking much calmer than Marco felt. This latest story Zack had come up with was insane, and Marco wasn’t sure he even wanted to listen to any more of it.

He stopped his pacing and fixed an angry gaze on Zack. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I think this is just another attempt to discredit Nicky.”

“I’m telling you, that wolf is—was Tim’s. The minute I saw him last night, I knew him. He was my cousin. We grew up together, damn it.”

“You said he was dead.”

“He is. And buried on my own property. I told you. I killed him myself.”

“Explain to us all again what happened, Zack,” Cade said quietly. “Maybe it will help us to understand better.”

Zack sighed and ran a hand over his face. “Tim and I were first cousins, on my mother’s side, so you probably wouldn’t remember him. We were raised together, both alpha males. We always knew, I guess, that one day we’d face each other in the ancestral ring. A pack can have only one leader, after all. Whichever one of us didn’t win would have to go out and start a new pack.”

“Like you did back in Louisiana, Cade,” Jax spoke up for the first time. He’d been standing quietly beside Nicky, leaning up against the wall, showing solidarity with his nearness.

“Yes,” Cade said, “but you mustn’t think it’s easy. All wolves love their pack land, and all have a close emotional attachment to it, so starting up a new pack is not only difficult, but almost unthinkable. And that’s pretty much what Tim and I did when we were younger—we just didn’t think about it. Neither one of us wanted to think about leaving our home. It’s not that either of us would have made the other one leave, but it’s just too hard to accept the domination of another alpha. That’s why there are so many young rogues roaming the woods at any given time. Sometimes they’re literally left homeless until they can either find a new pack or swallow their pride and go back home.”

“And that’s what Tim did?” Jax prompted.

“Finally, yes. Being alone is an almost foreign concept to wolves, you know, so most of the so-called rogues eventually go home. They need the pack. Tim was gone for over a year. We’d tried to find him, but it was as if he’d disappeared off the face of the earth. Just when we had almost given up hope, he reappeared. He said he’d been living as a wanderer, doing odd jobs and just drifting. Finally, he said, he couldn’t take being away from his family and his home any longer, and he asked to be allowed to come home. I welcomed him back with open arms. I truly did. He was my best friend as a boy, and I made him my lead gamma, giving him a place on the council. I tried to help him fit back in, but all of us could see how different he was. Not just quiet and moody, because he was that, for sure, but…off. Growing up, Tim was my best friend. My closest companion. But he was changed. He couldn’t seem to assimilate back into pack life again. He’d go off by himself for days at a time. We were all worried about him, but I thought if I gave him enough time, he’d be okay.”

“But?” Marco asked abruptly.

“But he wasn’t. When I brought Gabe home, he began acting even more hostile and strange. The whole thing culminated when he tried to poison me and then brought trumped up charges against Gabe, accusing him of having done it. When I refused to believe him, he lost it, grabbed Gabe and held him at knifepoint. He admitted to being the one who killed Gabe’s mother and who bit Gabe and turned him feral. He was interrupted before he could rape Gabe, but he was obsessed by him, claimed he was his mate.”

“Oh my God,” Jax said softly and glanced down at Nicky. He didn’t appear to be surprised at the story of how Gabe was turned, and Jax wondered if it was because Gabe had already told him or if there was another reason altogether.