Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (14 page)

"No surprise there," Jack said.

"Do you think we can put together a good enough case to get everyone's attention?"

Jack picked up a glass of water and drained it.

"Honestly? No."

"Why not?" Axton asked.

"Well, you're basically treated like an ex-con, and I'm an eccentric bookworm with fringe ideas," Jack pointed out. "No one's going to listen to us."

Axton scowled.

"This is why we get into disputes all the time," he said. "No one cares about sustainability."

"Preach," Jack said, raising his glass, because he was a werewolf who missed living somewhere with recycling bins, as he had told Axton many times.

"And then the pack is hungry so they go attack some other settlement, and then some of us die, and it all happens again a decade later. It's like something about being a werewolf makes you stupid about ecology."

"Bellum se ipsum alet," Jack said, as the kettle went off. "The war will feed itself. Economy by conquest. It's not a werewolf specific strategy. But you might want to try talking to Dana about it--he likes you, after all."

"As if he'd be of any use," Axton scoffed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jack asked, raising one salt and pepper eyebrow. He poured two cups of tea.

"Dana's status around here isn't much better than ours," Axton sniffed. "He's just Dru's errand boy."

"Dana's got more pull with the pack than you think," Jack objected mildly.

"Oh, please," Axton said, sliding onto a stool and scowling into his mug. "He's Dru's bitch boy and he doesn't even see how he's being used."

"Go on," Jack said.

"It's pathetic--Dru keeps him running so that Dana never gets to catch his breath, and he makes it seem like it's
so
important that Dana handle whatever minor crisis pops up. Dru says 'jump' and Dana goes, 'how high?' and fucking performs every damn time, for every little thing."

Jack sighed, a tired and familiar sound that reminded Axton of his own resignation.

"That so?" he asked. "That's how you see it?"

The tone of fatherly disappointment caught Axton off guard.

"Is there any other way to see it?" he asked, immediately defensive.

"Dru uses Dana like a knight," Jack said, "because Dana is effective, and there's shit to do. As an added bonus, yeah, he's making it look like he trusts Dana. Makes everyone feel like he's so
gracious
, right, sharing responsibility with the son of the man he replaced, never mind that Dana was supposed to take over. Then he makes sure to invent problems so Dana's constantly hopping, too distracted to launch a real challenge."

"And Dana lets him," Axton said. "You said what I said, just in prettier words. It's still pathetic, and Dana's still his errand boy."

"It looks bad to challenge someone who looks like he trusts you like that," Jack said. "C'mon now. You know it would be social suicide. No one would follow him even if he won. What's Dana to do?"

"Anything but what he currently does," Axton said.

"You could be a little less harsh on the boy, is all," Jack said.

"Yeah, because I have
such
tender feelings for the jealous ex," Axton said, "who nearly killed my boyfriend."

"That's all you think Dana is?" Jack asked sharply. "You think he brought you here because he was jealous?"

"He
is
jealous," Axton snapped, narrowing his eyes.

Jack took a sip of hot tea.

"Out in Nevada, somewhere in the desert," he said, "there's packs of extremists."

"The desert's a terrible place for a pack," Axton said.

"Maybe that explains why they're so ill humored," Jack said drily. "Why they fancy themselves the self-appointed police of werewolf kind."

"Dana should join their ranks," Axton quipped, but he withered under the weight of Jack's disapproving gaze.

"Dana's a little wild that way," Jack agreed. "He's a little much. But these wolves, Ax, are the type that slaughter whole families for stupid little infractions. They find a wolf being careless, by, say, changing shape indoors instead of out in the woods? He's dead, everyone he loved is dead, and everyone
they
loved is dead...a wolf's mate dies, she gets a new mate, they find out--that's an execution, because widows living on is treacherous modern thought, apparently. Shit like that."

"I wasn't flaunting it," Axton said. "Jesus, it's not like I was taking ads out in the paper or making werewolf puns at dinner. No one was going to find out."

"You don't understand," Jack said. "Packs like that? They roam around
looking
for wrongs to right."

"Fuck, Jack, what are the odds that I'd stumble across something like that? Miniscule. It's a big country. Hell, LA is a big city."

"Big cities is where they look the most," Jack said darkly. "There's a reason you don't see much of 'em up here. Wolves like that? They like the cities, they stay in the desert or the South or anywhere else inhospitable. That's where any wolf living nontraditional goes, and that's who they want to kill."

Axton laughed, a sharp and pained sound.

"So you're telling me Dana did me a
favor
," he said. "Right."

"I don't think he did the right thing," Jack said quietly, "but I can understand why he felt like he had to do something."

"Oh, yeah," Axton said, bouncing his eyebrows up as he knocked back his tea. "I've never heard that excuse before.' 'This bad thing I did is totally justified because these other people do worse things.' Very novel."

"There's much less of those cults than there used to be," Jack said. "The rest of us are safer because of wolves like Dana--"

"Oh, Dana the
hero
, sure," Axton said. "Doing it all for
my
own good. Fantastic."

"I don't know the details," Jack said, "but I know enough to see that Dana would do anything to keep you from harm."

"Hah!" Axton said. "Pull the other one; it's got bells on."

"That boy loves you," Jack sighed. "He loves you enough to risk your hatred. He'd rather have you alive and pissed at him than dead."

"Well, congratulations," Axton said. "I'm alive and furious. I hope it's everything he ever wanted."

"You know it's not," Jack said. "You know that he'll take you any which way. Alive and furious is better than dead, but he'd have you happy, if he could."

"So you've had a heart to heart with him about it," Axton said. "That's great."

"No, it's plain as day," Jack said.

Axton huffed.

"I'd like to leave," he said.

"And I'd like to let you," Jack said, "but us fringe elements aren't invited to whatever meeting Dru's concerned with."

"I'm a prisoner here," Axton shouted, "and you tell me my jailer
loves me
? Fuck you."

Jack put down his cup and looked at Axton slowly and steadily in silent disapproval. It was a tactic that Axton usually employed, and being on the opposite end of it was irritating to no end.

"I'll be upstairs," Jack said shortly. "House is yours to roam."

Axton looked away mulishly, upset at himself even as he was upset at Jack.

"I'll see you when you cool down," Jack said, and he poured himself another cup of tea before he walked away.

"Right," Axton muttered. "I'll be here, I guess."

"Oh, and Ax?" Jack called from the stairs.

"Yeah?"

"Don't you ever raise your voice at me again."

Alone with his thoughts, Axton wandered around the first floor, shuffling his feet and kicking at the ground now and then. The anger had flared up so fast, so hot--

If Dana
really
loved him, then Dana would want him to be happy. And what would make Axton happy was running off into the sunset with Leander. If their lives had genuinely been in danger--and Axton wasn't sure; he'd only ever heard rumors about packs like that, and he'd spent most of the past ten years abiding by their rules anyway, as a reclusive hermit--then maybe Dana could have just
told
them.

Which, Axton reflected, he kind of had, actually? But it had been so wrapped up with Dana's own disgust and jealousy that the warning had been easy to ignore.

Even if what Jack said was true--and it could be; it could be--Leander had still been hurt. And that made Dana's actions unacceptable, and likely beyond redemption as far as Axton was concerned.

How badly had Leander been hurt? Axton ached to know. Would he walk with a limp forever? Would he still be able to fight, to do the sports he loved? Nothing Leander loved was easy on the joints or bones: he even fucked athletically. The grappling, the boxing, the weight lifting...all of that was hard on a body. How extensive was the damage Dana had dealt? How would Leander live? Or had he healed completely, and put his strange past behind him, moving on into the arms of some beautiful woman?

Axton hugged himself, arms tight. The last possibility there was good. That was ideal. Leander should move on. They could never be together again, and Axton wanted Leander to be happy, so therefore: Leander should fall in love with someone else. It would probably be a woman, Axton thought, because as far as he knew, he was the only man Leander had ever been attracted to--a charming and worrying notion when they'd been together. Probably he'd end up with Sarah, who already loved him. Right. That would be fine. That had probably already happened. Right. Fine. Good.

When Jack came down, hours later, Axton was curled up into a miserable little ball on the couch. His muzzle and paws twitched with bad dreams, but Jack sighed and let him be.

One day Dana came to Axton's room, looming huge and dark in his doorway.

"Come walk with me," Dana said, expressionless.

Axton cocked his head to the side, about to be defiant just for the sake of it--but he could hear everyone else in the house, the roaming wolves Axton didn't bother learning the names of, and what he heard was the way they all stopped what they were doing to watch and wait. Axton had no interest in defying what authority Dana had in front of other people. In fact, he took a little unexpected pleasure in denying everyone a fight by rising and putting down the book he'd been reading.

"Sure," he said, as if they didn't have an audience, as if it were easy. Acting too subservient would make it seem like he was afraid of Dana, or guilty, and Axton was neither. But resisting unreasonably also looked guilty, and even more resentful. Axton had resolved to act with dignity--he didn't deserve to be a prisoner, official or unofficial, and he was going to act like it.

Dana turned wordlessly, stalking out of the house and into the street. Axton followed, adopting a politely interested expression instead of grim one. Curtains twitched to the side and people watched them go--

Sweet
jesus
, didn't these people have better things to do? Inwardly, Axton sighed. He knew that everyone was skittish and watchful as a reaction. No one really thought that Dru and Dana were in a stable configuration. And why should they? They lived in constant fear of an explosion, and they were right to.

So it wasn't until they had left the houses behind that the set of Dana's shoulders melted slightly. His step loosened, and he rolled his head around his shoulders for the satisfying crackles, sighing quietly in relief. He turned around, so that they were face to face, and his eyes sought Axton's.

"I want you to meet someone," he said simply, and his gaze was searching.

Axton cocked his head and pressed his lips together, wind ruffling his hair in the silence. Dana looked--younger, almost. He looked like the wolf Axton had met a long time ago, with cool blue eyes but a cocky swagger and a sly, quick smile. There was something hopeful in his expression, and it changed his face. Axton wanted to say
no
to his request on principle, because he couldn't hate Dana in that moment, and that felt like a betrayal of Leander.

"Please," Dana said softly, still looking into Axton's eyes, intent but gentle. "It would mean a lot to me."

And why should I do anything for you?
Axton thought, crossing his arms over his chest. This was in fact a request--it wasn't an order, and out here, away from everyone else, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Axton could have refused a command and had only Dana's anger to deal with as a consequence. But Axton's silence stretched on, and Dana looked so...

Axton shrugged.

"Fine," he said. "Sure. Whoever."

Dana moved closer for a second, like he wanted to hug Axton in his excitement--but he stopped at the last second, even though Axton hadn't had enough time to shy back.

"Thank you," he said instead. He cleared his throat, nodded. "We have a while to go."

Axton shrugged again, but uncrossed his arms.

The day was beautiful and a good one for walking. They passed through fields of flowers and trekked through grassy meadows, and Dana, strong and agile, jumped up on a ledge and reached down to help Axton up when their path got rocky and vertical. It gave Axton a pang in his chest, because on their hikes Leander had always been the one leaping up on things and offering a hand down, despite being human. That man loved to climb.

Would he still be able to? Axton had left unsure of the extent of Leander's injuries.

He took Dana's hand and he was hauled up, but Axton's eyes darkened and he looked away once they were on level ground again. The silence they walked in had become companionable, but now even the sunlight seemed a few degrees cooler. Axton did not want a companionable silence with Dana.

But they walked on, eventually under the shadow dappled canopy of the forest proper. Eventually they emerged from under the trees. Axton could smell water nearby, and then he caught the scent of another wolf.

Female. Not too close yet.

Dana smiled and bounded ahead. Understanding that there was no threat, Axton took his time in following, ambling along slow enough to give Dana some time alone with--

Axton had his suspicions.

He found Dana sprawled out in a meadow, grinning happily. Next to him was a sleek grey wolf: definitely female, and definitely a werewolf. She stood when Axton came into view, and he paused, startled--she was
tall
, even on four legs. He could imagine her as a human woman, tall and regal but with knobby knees and elbows. Dana didn't get all of his size from his father.