DAYNE
Dayne struggled to understand why he was in his human shape when he distinctly remembered being a wolf.
Nor could he figure out why he was lying on top of the most uncomfortable rug in his life with fibers that made him itch like crazy.
Then he caught Talis’ scent, though it wasn’t how she smelled now.
No, this was the way she’d smelled before she’d been pregnant.
His nose twitched as he picked up other scents, stew that his nose told him was a few days old, his sweat, and Talis’ fear among others.
But that wasn’t what had him struggling to his feet with a low growl.
It was Glynn Merrick’s scent. And it was recent.
Like in the same room kind of recent.
Although the world spun around him, Dayne got his feet under him.
Leaning against the wall beside an open wooden door was Glynn Merrick, with a rifle in hand and his eyes widening in surprise.
Dayne didn’t say a word.
There was nothing to say.
He charged.
With a speed Dayne wasn’t expecting, Glynn raised the rifle, but when Dayne tore it from his grasp, Glynn darted out of the room and slammed the door in Dayne’s face.
The roar that poured out of Dayne’s mouth wasn’t human, not even close, and Dayne imagined the sound of fury would have caused the inhabitants of the house to freeze.
But not, unfortunately, Glynn Merrick who snapped a padlock on the outside of the door.
Dayne tossed the rifle away and threw himself at the door.
The solid wood absorbed his force, which only made him more enraged that his repeated blows weren’t getting him any closer to the shifter on the other side of it.
It was also giving him a pounding headache.
“I’d give that up if I were you,” Glynn called out, sounding as if he found it fucking hilarious Dayne couldn’t break the door down.
Only Dayne had caught the brief scent of his fear, and he’d seen enough in Glynn Merrick’s eyes to know he’d scared the alpha. Enough to have him abandoning his weapon and desperate to put a solid door between them.
Dayne slammed his shoulder against the wood, and the motion nearly sent him to his knees. His head spun, and he put his hand on the wood and squeezed his eyes shut as his stomach roiled.
Fuck.
Talis had told him she’d been sick. He’d smelled the sick on her when he’d found her in the forest. Hadn’t she said she thought it’d been the drugs causing her sickness instead of the baby?
He could not afford to be sick right now. Not when he had to find the strength to break this door down and gut Glynn Merrick.
After, he could throw up as much as he damn well wanted.
But even though it had his head pounding and sickness stirring, it wasn’t enough to stop him from slamming his fist hard against the door in frustration.
“You’re not getting through it, Blackshaw, you’re not the first wolf it’s stopped,” Glynn crowed from the other side.
“Is that why you felt the need to drug me first?” Dayne snarled. “To make sure of it?”
Glynn chuckled. “Well, we had to find some way of getting you in here since it didn’t seem likely you’d want to volunteer.”
“I see. And your beta? I take it he volunteered to lead me here?”
At Glynn’s bark of laughter, Dayne gritted his teeth as he fought back his rising sickness.
“Abel had a part to play. As alpha, I’m sure you’re aware not all our cogs can know the whole plan. Still, he wasn’t a bad beta. But not to worry, he’s replaceable. It might even be better you got rid of him for me. He was growing a little too obsessed with that niece of mine.”
Dayne growled. After what Keith had told him about the way Glynn Merrick had been eyeing Talis, he could guess why he’d want Abel out of the way.
“Although, I wasn’t expecting you to be on your feet so soon. Talis was out cold for hours. Yet you… not even an hour later and here you are.”
Not too much time had passed, then. Good.
Which meant he had to get out of here, because he knew Talis, and he knew his pack. They would come after him sooner rather than later, if they weren’t here already, that is.
Talis would want to lead them, and when she pushed, he couldn’t see anyone in the pack standing against her.
She was stubborn when she put her mind to it, and she was alpha.
So, he had to be out before they got here, because there was no way he was about to let Talis fall into Glynn Merrick’s hands. Not again.
He would die trying if that’s what it took.
“And that’s your problem,” Dayne snarled as he leaned close to the door. “You’re no alpha. Someone like you should be at the bottom of a pack, not the top. Just look at how all your plans end up? Look at the state of this pack. It’s a fucking joke. You’re a fucking joke.”
The sound of Glynn’s fist hitting the door, right in front of Dayne’s face made him smile. “Oh, did I hit a sore spot? You need me to kiss it better?”
The snarl Dayne heard from the other side of the door was all wolf, and again Dayne smiled.
“No need,” Glynn said after a pause, sounding a little more in control of himself than he had moments before. “Talis can do that for me.”
Dayne’s smile fell off his face, and he was sure, utterly sure, Glynn must feel the heat of his stare through the door.
And if the man didn’t, then the wolf inside him would know he had death waiting for him on the other side of this door.
“When I get out of here, there won’t be enough pieces of you to form a man,” Dayne said mildly. “Or maybe, I’ll just tear you apart with my bare hands.”
There was silence on the other side of the door.
Glynn would be thinking of what he’d done to his previous alpha.
Owen hadn’t deserved a quick death after what he’d done to his family, and that’s exactly what his wolf would have given him.
“Hmm,” Glynn said as if Dayne couldn’t smell his fear. “All of this proves it’s best you remain here while I deal with your pack. I believe your beta might be more willing to give me what I want when I start sending pieces of you.”
“The problem with that,” Dayne said, letting Glynn hear the smile in his voice. “Is that first, you’re going to have to open the door.”
He waited to hear how Glynn would respond, but the sound of someone rushing up the stairs put a stop to whatever Glynn had been about to say.
“What?” Glynn snapped.
“It’s about Keith, there’s-”
“Not here,” Glynn snarled.
Dayne leaned against the door as he listened to Glynn thump down the stairs.
He guessed some Merrick pack member had found Keith’s dead body Luka and Nathan had dumped before Talis’ rescue.
While Dayne would’ve preferred for it not to have happened while he was a prisoner, he didn’t regret them finding it.
It might even work to his advantage, if it caused Glynn to lose control.
Figuring he had some time before Glynn’s return, Dayne moved away from the door and turned to take in what had been Talis’ room.
Keith had said there were fifteen members of this pack, and most lived at the house, which was unusual.
In his experience, it was more common for a quarter, sometimes a little less for a pack to live in the main house. Especially in a city where it made sense for them to live close to their work and return to the pack house for meetings and runs over the weekends and in the evenings.
But that so many lived here, Dayne wondered if Glynn had ordered them to, or if finances were so bad, they couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.
Glynn was proving to be even more dangerous than he’d thought, and he needed to not underestimate him again. For him to sacrifice his beta like that was something an alpha would never do.
And the thing was, it’d been a good tactic since there was no one else other than Glynn himself who Dayne would have gone after, and Glynn had known that.
But it was wrong on so many levels for an alpha to throw away a member of his own pack like that. Least of all his second.
Dayne couldn’t imagine sacrificing Luka’s life like that. Not for any reason.
It wasn’t the shifter way. And the use of tranqs and scent-blockers?
Dayne had to wonder what the hell was wrong with Glynn because he didn’t know any alpha who would act as Glynn was acting.
He shook his head.
As Dayne took in the room for the first time, he struggled to believe this had been Talis’ life for so many years.
It was threadbare, worn, and tired.
There were no pictures on the wall, nothing personal, nothing warm.
Just an old faded pink comforter over a thin mattress, an itchy rug, and a dresser.
When he strode over to the dresser and yanked open the drawers, the sight of clothes that looked like they should’ve been tossed at least a couple of years ago didn’t surprise him.
He remembered Talis telling him in the car ride from Dawley that she didn’t need much. That she didn’t even need shoes.
The fury at hearing how little she expected, how empty her life must have been, had nearly made him wreck his truck.
It’d only been a miracle that he hadn’t.
This time, he let his fury out.
He tore the room apart.
Talis would never come back here. She would never see this room again.
No. It was a prison. Nothing less.
It didn’t take long before the dresser was lying on its side, a broken shell of itself, the contents spilling out onto the floor.
He’d shredded the mattress and the comforter. Destroyed the bed.
Then he just stood there, trying to stuff his emotions back inside. Struggling to swallow back all his rage.
A flash of blue and pink surprised him, and Dayne blinked at it before he bent to pick through the remains of the mattress to find what had caught his eye.
It was a photograph. No, it was a small bundle that Talis must have wedged in the bed frame for him not to have destroyed it.
As soon as he picked it up, he saw it wasn’t a single photograph, but several held together with a thin rubber hairband as worn as everything else in the room had been.
They were pictures of Talis and her parents. In every one, they looked happy.
She had her mother’s sable hair, though her mother’s was longer in the pictures, and she had her father’s large brown eyes.
He flicked through them, and then he stilled at one of Talis, who looked to be maybe three or four sitting on her father’s shoulders.
Behind them was…
Oh, he realized. That’d been the reason she’d been crying at the sight of the Rockies.
She must have been remembering the last time she’d seen them.
He would take them with him. He wasn’t sure how when he shifted, maybe he could carry them in his mouth, but he wouldn’t leave this place without them.
It looked to be all she had left of her parents.
When the scent of stew once again tickled his nose, Dayne glanced around.
Since he couldn’t see anywhere it could be in the bedroom, he decided to investigate.
Following his nose, Dayne frowned as it led him into a tiny bathroom with a small bath and a shower curtain circling it.
He yanked back the pale blue shower curtain and stared at a small tray with a bowl of stew and a bread roll.
Then he drew the curtain and left, closing the door behind him.
He’d have to ask Talis about that when he got out because… stew in a bath?
Not what he’d been expecting.
When he returned to the bedroom, he dropped onto the floor and rested his head against the door as he stared up at the skylight.
He would sit for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and then he would get up and try the door again.
His body was working at healing from the effects of the drug in his system, and he knew he wouldn’t continue to feel dizzy, or sick, or weak for long.
God fucking help Glynn when he was back to full strength.