Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (16 page)

Some nights, if Axton managed to calm the beat of his heart, if he managed to remember how to move, he would slip out of bed and crawl up into the attic and then onto the roof. The feeling of an open sky above him would settle over him like a healing balm, and Axton could feel some of his muscles unclench. Breathing carefully, he'd bring his knees up to his chest, and he'd watch the stars and then watch the slow and tender touch of dawn licking at the edges of the world.

"It would probably help if you learned names," Jack said conversationally to Axton. He'd just witnessed the way the twins gave Axton the cold shoulder, and apparently that made him want to dispense advice.

Despite his lack of human shoulders, Axton shrugged. It didn't matter. He shifted his weight between his paws impatiently, and then inclined his head towards the door:
you coming?

"I'm going, I'm going," Jack said. "Give me a minute."

They hunted together, without the rest of the pack. They didn't need the help.

On the rare occasion that Dru was gone, Dana was one of two wolves left in command. This soothed him, Axton knew, just enough to prevent any true rebellion. But Dana softened when he was in charge, gentle instead of brusque, willing to listen instead of snapping and making flash judgments. Unlike Axton, he seemed to crave interaction with every part of the pack, and he made sure no one felt left out. He would be a good leader, Axton thought, against all expectations.

It also meant that Dana was too busy to check up much on him personally.

As a wolf it was easier to make his way to Helen's den--Axton was swifter and faster and even if he couldn't climb much as a wolf, he could jump. If Helen was feral or near feral, Axton thought, she might feel better with another wolf. And of the wolves available, Axton knew, he was the one most comfortable in his lupine shape.

And he'd been where she was, or nearly.

He understood where she was better than Dana ever could. For all his staunchly pro-wolf rhetoric, Dana spent most of his time on two legs instead of four. It was normal enough, but Axton was--and had always been, minus his brief and beautiful time with Leander--the opposite. He lost human social cues in days or weeks, but he kept his wolf mannerisms for years at a time without seeing another werewolf. So when he came to her, in a clearing, he stood strong and patient but averted his eyes, and bowed his head when she came near, making himself smaller. He felt her sniff him, recognize him, accept or reject him as she desired. Axton waited for her verdict, anticipating either her approval or the quick snap of her jaws in the air, warning him away before lunging to connect.

Jack had stayed away for a while longer, not wanting to make her nervous. Besides--he, too, spent much of his time human.

Finally, Helen glanced at Axton without wariness. She didn't fear him, but she was uncertain about his purpose.

Axton lowered his upper body to the ground, tail wagging in the air.

Helen snorted in scoffing surprise--a very human mannerism, Axton noted--and then returned the play bow.

They chased each other until their tongues lolled out of the sides of their mouths happily, and then Axton took her where Jack waited. She recognized him easily, and then they all went to chase down a moose.

When Axton slipped back into the main cluster of buildings, Dana caught his scent in the air from a distance, looking up. Dana tried to catch his eye and Axton shied away, but--

He ducked behind a building, eased his way onto a path that took him, once again, a little further away from everyone else. Dana had been deep in conversation with someone, but Axton knew that look.

There: the scent Axton had known for almost ten years and only briefly forgotten, the crunch of heavy black biker boots on gravel, leather mixed with the thrilling deep musky smell of Dana's skin hiding under the crisp artificially clean smell of freshly done laundry.

When he was human, Axton had many conflicting ideas about Dana all at once. There was the memory of love, there was a strong vein of hate, there was pity and betrayal and mistrust. Dana had been many things to him in the time they'd known each other, and he could remember them all, so Dana was the sum of all his actions. It was like layering and mixing watercolors to build up a portrait of who he was, or at least who he was to Axton.

As a wolf, Axton's feelings were stronger but fewer--there was less nuance. Feelings were big and blunt and distinctions or exceptions were not surgical in their precision. Sometimes Axton felt merely ambivalent about Dana, and sometimes he felt nothing but a steadily burning anger. He could only feel so many things at once, as a wolf. The contradictions, the complications: those were for humans.

But sometimes, or at least,
this time
...

Dana walked towards Axton and knelt before him in wonder.

"You smell like her," he said, and he hung back for a moment until Axton inclined his head, granting permission. Dana buried his face in the fur around Axton's shoulders and neck, breathing in the smell of Helen at play.

"She ran with you," Dana said quietly as he drew back, hands still stroking Axton's fur. "She was happy."

Axton bore the touches stoically, because they were neither for him nor about him. And he had wanted this, too, to show Dana that it was possible.

"She never runs with me," Dana breathed, blinking. He sat back on his heels, one knee higher up than the other so he leaned against it, one hand still at Axton's shoulder. "I wonder if this means we could--"

In the better shape for heightened senses, Axton heard it first and he turned his head and twitched his ears to the sound a second before Dana did. The crank of a car engine, the smell of exhaust...

Dana straightened, frowning, eyes darkening.

Drusus
, Axton thought.
Back early
.

"Go wash her scent off," Dana said. "It's fine if I smell a little like her, but you...he'd not take it kindly."

You don't want him to know
, Axton thought.
Does she not run with him, either?

Axton turned to go, ready to take a circular route to the house he roomed in to avoid anyone else, leaving Dana to go a direct way.

"Ax," Dana called out, stopping him.

One paw poised in the air, Axton glanced back.

"Thanks," Dana said, and they looked at each other for a moment longer.

Axton nodded, breaking the moment, and ran off.

It was a petty and human urge, but Axton was happy to take up the bathroom on his floor for hours as he soaked in the tub. It wasn't like Dru expected him to come say hello, anyway.

Axton sighed and sank back, rolling his shoulders against the acrylic faux-porcelain.

Maybe if everyone else was called away for another pack meeting, he could stay here and let himself really remember all the times he'd taken a bath with Leander.

Dru's return always left the atmosphere tense for a few days--it might have not even been particularly his fault, but Dana's. The handing back on control rarely went smoothly, and usually Dana stumbled out of the main house with blood dripping from somewhere nonessential but painful.

Axton was fed up with it. Axton was fed up with the beautiful widow living in a far flung meadow, like a crazy wife locked in the attic. Axton was fed up with the way that the gentlest, most intelligent wolf among the pack was treated like an outsider when they should have welcomed Jack as an elder. Axton was tired of being treated like a leper. And part of Axton, a small part he was surprised to discover, was tired of seeing Dana bleed, and even more tired of seeing Dana restrained, confined, beaten down into place...

The pack was on the hunt, all together before splintering off into smaller groups. Dru was at the front, leading even when he shouldn't have to, and Dana, recently beaten into position, was hanging back.

Axton's father had always let the pack hunt like normal wolves did, with the leadership of the hunt fluid, whoever was in the best position taking the killing leap, and no particular order to the eating, besides perhaps: pups first. In his travels, Axton had seen other packs hunt like that, and he'd seen some that hunted more ceremoniously, with the alpha always leading the charge regardless of whether it was the best idea or not.

For most of his life, Axton had considered himself merely uninterested in werewolf politics.

Against the background of trilling nighttime insects, a huge buck lifted his head from a stream. He looked strong and fast, and though the pack could have gotten him, eventually, Dru was lining them all up into their usual formation...

Axton streaked through the night, leaving the other wolves behind and closing half the distance before the buck could ever bolt. Lowering his body to the ground slightly, Axton picked up the speed of his sprint. When he was close to lunged and nipped at the air by the buck's hindquarters, making him jump forward. Axton curved his body to change the direction of his lunge, and in a panic the buck bolted back towards the other wolves.
Now
was the critical part, and Axton's heart bumped fast but smooth as he pushed his legs farther and faster to out run the buck. Just--a little--
more
--

In a flash, Axton threw himself in the buck's path, risking broken bones if he'd misjudged the distance. The buck reared up, unwilling to run into him.

Axton coiled his body low to the ground and then leapt, the dull thud of his paws on the buck's sides lost to the air as he sunk his teeth into the jugular. The kill was quick, and the scent of panic that blasted the air during the brief chase dissipated quickly because it hadn't had a chance to build.

Flanks heaving, Axton turned to face the pack. He stood with his head still lowered in a predatory crouch, and he stared them down, unblinking. He did not eat his kill, did not tear into the sweet yielding flesh. This wasn't about food. This was a message. There was blood on his muzzle, on his teeth, on his paws.

I am not the weakest of you
, Axton said with every inch of his body.
So don't treat me like it.

Everyone was shocked into silence and looking at him, which was good--Axton hoped no one looked at the back of the formation, where Dana still was. Dana's expression wasn't fear or shock or discomfort, or even anger. Dana's chest was puffed out with what was unmistakably pride.

Dru took a heavy step forward--

Jack, of all people, let out a low warning grumble. It wasn't aggressive, but it sounded like a reminder.

Strange.

Axton decided he'd had enough, so he turned around, and without a backwards glance, melted into the woods.

For himself, away from prying or preying eyes, Axton ran hard and howled at the moon but he killed swift and nearly painless until he'd had his fill.

Axton thought about running. More accurately, Axton thought about leaving. There was a chance, he suspected, that Dana wouldn't come after him, or even Leander. There was a chance that Dana might be thrilled enough to attempt an assault on Dru's power, high on Axton's defiance. That would keep him busy for a while, if he won. That might even make him grateful.

There was a much greater chance that Dru would send all the other trackers after him if he ran, now. And Dana had claimed that some of them, at least, knew about Leander--maybe not the how and why of what made him a potential target, but he might have told them enough. Maybe he was lying, but maybe he wasn't. And if he wasn't, maybe even if Dana himself refused, it wouldn't be enough.

But what had the greatest chance of happening, Axton knew, was that Dru himself would find him and beat him into the ground for what he had done, for how he dared to do it in front of the entire pack.

Part of Axton wanted the fight and was already growling and pacing with impatience for it. He had no desire for Dru's authority, not in the slightest--he didn't want the leadership for himself. He just wanted Dru to know that his way was
bullshit.
Axton was a dissenter, not a usurper.

So Axton didn't run. Instead he took his time, waiting until he knew everyone else would be back. Then he returned to the house he'd been staying in, trotting up the porch seemingly unconcerned. He sat down and then sprawled out, completely calm, and started casually licking his paws, grooming himself idly.

Come for me
, he challenged with his nonchalance.
Come for me if you dare
.

No one bothered him, and eventually Axton dozed peacefully under the stars.

When Axton woke up, the scent of Dana's blood hung heavy in the air. It was a smell a few hours old, but he would know it anywhere. With exaggerated cool, Axton stood up and stretched, sneaking a glance around in case anyone was watching. There was no one.

Hm.

It was dawn--everyone should have been stirring awake, and at least a few wolves, more morning inclined than the rest, should have been out and about.

Axton pawed his way into the house through a propped open window that was left open explicitly for that purpose, and he wandered down the halls curiously. Most people were in their beds, and the few that were awake seemed in no hurry to go outside. No one met his eyes, man or wolf.

Since everyone was huddling inside like children trying to ignore the fact that mommy and daddy were fighting, Axton wiggled back out through the window. He hesitated--would it be too obvious, if he went to Dana?

Would
what
be too obvious? Axton wasn't sure.

Still.

It smelled like an awful lot of blood.

A small but insistent part of Axton pointed out that if Dana died, and if he did a good job of covering up his tracks, he probably could just run. Leander was probably still in LA, and they could go to Montana together, to where Axton knew wolves hardly settled. Maybe there'd be a scuffle or two to reclaim his territory, but probably not.