Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (13 page)

Jack glanced over at Axton.

"Dana didn't quite say it that way," he allowed. "Said your human was in the past."

"Well, that's a lie," Axton said.

"I'm not surprised," Jack said. "Dana did sort of imply--"

"Did Dana
imply
that he nearly killed him?" Axton demanded. "Did Dana imply you that part? The part where he broke the legs of the man I love, just because he loved me back?"

Axton stood with his feet apart, ready to fight, gaze directly on Jack's face. The wind blew his hair away from his eyes, making his expression all the easier to see.

"No," Jack said quietly, refusing the challenge. "He didn't tell us all of that. Didn't specify who or how. Said she was taken care of. That's all."

"
She
," Axton echoed, lips curling back from his teeth. "No."

"I'm really not surprised that Dana would lie for you," Jack said mildly. "Tryin' to help."

"You gonna run back now?" Axton asked, still in his squared off stance, "and tell your usurper alpha that his nephew dragged a human loving cocksucker home?"

"No," Jack said, raising his head, meeting Axton's eyes in a gesture more human than lupine, calming rather than challenging, "I'm not."

"Why?" Axton pushed, not satisfied, itching for the fight.

"For one," Jack said, gesturing back at the direction them came in, deliberately turning his back on Axton despite his combat ready bearing, "you've got the relationship between me and Dru all wrong. He don't trust me that much and with good reason. I'm not going to report any damn thing to him unless it's a direct threat to the physical safety of anyone in the pack. Two: you say
man I love
like you expect it to get a rise outta me, like I'm gonna react with anger and disgust. I'm older than you by a good many decades, but we're not all hateful sons a bitches just 'cause we're
old
. Three: I don't really care that your man was human, either."

"Then why am I here!" Axton yelled. "If the world isn't full of fucking bigotry, why am I here? Why am I prisoner of my promise?"

"Well, I was speaking for myself," Jack pointed out. "Can't speak for the world as a whole, or even just our corner of it here. I'd wager Dru would care a hell of a lot about your human being a man, and obviously Dana cares that your man was human."

There it was again--the undercurrent of something that was almost laughter, a kind of knowing slyness.

"Your phrasing there--" Axton said cautiously, shoulders lowering slightly in his confusion.

"I chose my words carefully," Jack said.

Axton eyed him mistrustfully, but his predatory hunch was uncertain now--he no longer looked ready to lunge for Jack's throat.

Jack smiled a little sadly.

"Dana thinks he's subtle," Jack said.

Axton inhaled sharply.

"Oh, look, you're still worried about him," Jack muttered, looking Axton over. "Sweet of you."

"Can everyone tell?" Axton asked.

"Nah," Jack said. "Just me. I'm sure. Most of them don't have much experience with humans so they don't know--wouldn't know a clear cut case of closeted if it was right in front of them. They don't really get that things like that happen. It's not their fault, though, mostly. They're pretty isolated...sheltered, if you wanna be nice about it. Dru keeps it pretty traditional here...not extremist, compared to a lotta packs, but..."

"You say traditional like it's a bad thing," Axton observed.

"So do you," Jack pointed out.

"Well, I mean," Axton said sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. "Packless for ten years or so. Self-identifying as gay from an early age. Human lover. No--human boyfriend. Lived together in Los Angeles for a while. Carpenter and handyman for hire. Undergraduate degree in Wildlife Management." Axton shrugged.

"Anything else?" Jack asked drily.

"I'm a big reader and I draw a lot and I can live off of sandwiches and I have a few fixed feral cats back home," Axton added. "And I spend all my time worrying about their impact on my native songbird population. I don't think I could say
traditional
with affection in my voice if my life depended on it."

Jack regarded him quietly, obviously weighing a decision in his mind.

"I was packless for a lot longer than you," he said carefully. "Decades. Lived nearly a whole human life, all told, in a normal town, down South, away from any other wolves. I was a Unitarian Universalist minister and..." he smiled, "a carpenter and handyman for hire."

"Anything else?" Axton asked, echoing Jack's earlier question. And there was just a hint of--something--Axton knew Jack was holding back.

"I'm also a big fan of sandwiches," Jack said evenly. "Speaking of. You hungry?"

"Always," Axton said. "Am I allowed to hunt here?"

"With company, I'd imagine," Jack said. "And if not, I'll make sure I take the--"

Axton shifted shapes before Jack could form the next word.

Jack swallowed thickly and cocked his head to the side.

"Fast," was all he allowed, before he dropped down to the ground and let his own, slower transformation take place.

By the time Dana came down the meandering path to his house, it was sundown, and Axton was chewing an elk antler he'd dragged into the living room. Jack had a hoof. As far as days as a prisoner went, Axton was counting it as a good one. Life wasn't too bad so far. Jack had been good to hunt with, quick and efficient at darting in and out.

The door opened and Dana wandered in with a blank look on his face. There was blood at the side of his head, and his ear was slowly reattaching itself to his skull. The angle was strange, and Axton guessed that the ear had been almost torn out while Dana was a wolf and the switch back to human had taken care of the worst of it.

"You," Dana said numbly, pointing at Axton, "can't sleep here tonight. Hunt with the rest of us even if you've eaten and then to the bachelor's house. Jack'll take you." He flopped down into a chair and looked at no one.

Jack and Axton glanced at each other. The polite thing to do, probably, would be to switch back and talk with Dana--but neither of them seemed particularly eager.

Then again, Dana didn't seem interested in talking, given that he was currently staring a hole into empty space. Axton observed the rate of Dana's healing in a detached sort of way, because half of him wasn't in the room. Axton was remembering a different night, seemingly a lifetime ago, when Dana had torn through the shadows like a monster despite bullets and broken bones. He knew Dana could heal faster if he wanted, even if he was already healing faster than Axton did most of the time.

How did that work?

In a distant sort of way, Axton sometimes still idly fantasized about killing Dana. The hospital parking lot, in retrospect, would have been a good time, or any of the long empty stretches of road. But sometimes Axton thought about killing Dana in the present, wondered about how much damage Dana could really take before he couldn't fix it faster than Axton could inflict it. Here, now, distracted and tragic, spaced out on a recliner that he wanted to be a throne--Dana would be an easier kill than usual, wouldn't he?

It wasn't that Axton didn't feel for him. He did, particularly now, when so much of Dana's obsession with hierarchal structures was starting to make perfect sense. But Axton suspected that being torn away from Leander had changed him, fundamentally, deep down--because he could do both. He could feel for Dana and still want him dead. He could see how Dana was a product of his upbringing, and he could still imagine the taste of Dana's blood in the back of his throat. He could remember all the times Dana had been sloppy drunk and rutting against his thigh and whispering
we could go somewhere, just you and me, a new pack, start over
and he could still ache to close his jaws around Dana's neck and shake until the spine broke.

Axton exhaled slowly. All those emotions were so far away--the pity, the anger, the resentment, the fear, the memory of love. Maybe the anger and the empathy were equally distant.

Dana was leaning into an armrest, chin propped up on his fist while his eyes still focused on nothing.

"Go," he said. "Both of you." Neither of them moved--

"
Now
," Dana said.

Jack and Axton escaped gratefully into the dark.

The pack hunted without Dana that night, and Axton learned smells and faces. Names would come later. With Jack, he'd hunted much as he was used to, working as a pair to tease and then tackle their prey. With the pack, Axton ran with them and nipped at a buck's heels once or twice, but he wasn't invited to deliver any of the killing blows, or even really allowed to get a bite in while the prey was still alive. There was enough to eat; Axton had his full--but still, they made it clear they didn't trust him. Axton bore this status display with stoic grace; he knew it was done to convey his rank in the pack. Fine. It didn't matter. Axton could live a long time without making friends. He'd managed it before.

It wasn't even how wolves did it in the wild, but
whatever
. He could play along with the human construction.

As a wolf, Drusus was huge--Axton could see that Dana got his size from his father's side of the family. He was powerful in the hunt, and a single swat from one of his big paws could send prey sprawling. He moved with purpose and--power, Axton thought again, power.

Strong. Definitely strong. Very strong.

But not that fast, Axton thought, and he looked away quickly in case the gleam in his eyes gave him away. Dana was big, too, but Dana was pretty fast. He trained for it, pushed himself to be faster.

Not as fast as me
, Axton whispered to himself, as he kept careful pace to run exactly at the middle of the pack, barely noticeable.

Three days later, Axton came to the official conclusion that he was bored. It was strange: he was being watched, basically all the time, by nearly everyone, but not that carefully. Everyone was vaguely suspicious and curious, but apparently not enough to harass him. No one trusted him, but no one was kicking the shit out of him. It was pretty tedious, really.

He kind of suspected that if he ran off, no one would come after him--except Dana. Someone would go tell Dana, and Dana would drag himself out of his cocoon of frustrated resentment and tear after him like a rabid dog.

Which, fine. Axton didn't care, exactly. But Dana's threat was still that he'd go for Leander if Axton ran, and Axton understood, now, that Dana had a lot of pent up anger to use up however he could.

The only consistent relief Axton had from the tedium was the reoccurring Jack visits. The strain of being watched by everyone was tiring, and he still wasn't officially allowed to wander off into the woods by himself, but while he was accompanied by Jack, he could get away from everyone else. Together they'd run through fields of wildflowers, catch and release rabbits just for the joy of pouncing, or swim through streams. The lack of scrutiny washed over Axton like rain on crops after a drought, and it was the only time he felt he could really breathe, the only time that the thing that clenched tight in his chest loosened.

They rarely spoke--they were rarely together in bodies that could speak in words. But still, they moved comfortably together, and Axton was grateful for company that wasn't tensed and ready for him to commit some sort of betrayal.

Dana was useless for company, even if Axton had wanted to seek him out. After the initial confrontation, Dana's anger seemed to have cooled into a sullen, uncomfortable simmer. He was restless, distracted, and completely uninterested in leisurely pursuits in his sparse free time. Dru held meetings pretty often and Dana seemed to always be in attendance but not particularly pleased about it. He kept Dana busy, though Axton doubted that Dana's efforts were strictly necessary--but Dana met with their point of contact for the next pack over to make sure the territorial boundaries were clear, and Dana went to town to get supplies, and Dana took the time to be a human face when he was told to.

Axton wondered if Dana knew he was being herded.

There was a heavy wooden rocking chair on Jack's front porch. Axton looked down at it gravely, considering his options.

He sat.

Yes, good. It was study and well built, a beautiful piece of furniture. He rocked back on it carefully.

Everyone else in the pack was busy with some sort of official business. Axton was not invited, and Jack, apparently, was appointed babysitter as usual. Axton wondered if Dru
or
Dana had any idea that Jack curled up for a snooze in a patch of sunlight and let Axton wander off half the time. When Jack came to Axton for the pleasure of company, he was attentive--but he was a terrible jailer.

Whether it was by nature or deliberate inclination, Ax wasn't sure.

"I made that one in '75 while drunk," Jack said, opening his door.

"Nice," Axton said approvingly, and Jack disappeared inside the house, letting Axton follow.

Axton liked Jack's house, because it looked like the home of an absent minded historian. He'd never met a wolf that was prone to collecting art or knick knacks before, and Jack's house felt like a human lived there. It made Axton wonder exactly how long Jack had been packless. More practically speaking, there was a steady supply of books to read.

"So how's the census going?" Jack asked, moving around the kitchen. Jack was a tea drinker with a great need to provide all people who entered his home with a hot beverage, and it reminded Axton of Leander, master host and caffeine pusher--but then again, everything reminded Axton of Leander.

"All right," Axton said, "I really need to get a bit further out to get a good estimate of the deer population, but I feel pretty good about most of the data collection."

"How worried should we be?" Jack asked, putting a kettle on.

"I think there's a couple of more years before the crisis really hits," Axton said, "but the pack's going to have to move or renegotiate boundaries soon enough."