Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (20 page)

"Dana's right," Jack said. "Dru's not gonna go for you."

"If he was, he'd have done it already. I mean, weird wolf integrating into pack after known human consorting?" Dana said. "That's usually a couple of beatings, at least."

"What's stopping him?" Axton asked warily. "Mercy? Disinterest?"

There was an embarrassed silence.

"No one wants to go to war with the Russian," Jack said finally.

"What?" Axton asked, baffled. "What's that got to do with--"

"And everyone knows the Russian always wins," Dana pointed out.

"What?" Axton asked again, shaking his head. "That's not--"

"Soon as I saw you pull up I said to myself, 'that's the Russian's son, Dana finally went and did it, brought the goddamn Russian's son here,'" Jack sighed. "I knew there'd be trouble."

"I'm not!" Axton yelled. "Father doesn't even--I've been an exile for ten years! No one else I've ever met knows who I am!"

"Jack figured you out when I told him about you this one time," Dana said. "When I wanted to bring you up before. Between us we had a lot of details to go on."

"And how would Jack know a goddamn thing about fa--the Russian?"

"Jack knew him, way back when," Dana said promptly.

"I wouldn't go that far," Jack cautioned. "I met him once. A very long time ago. Decades."

"His territory isn't far, not anymore," Dana went on. "North and just a couple packs over. Been creeping up steadily, the past ten years. Still. I didn't know. Hell, I've never even seen the Russian."

"Then how does everyone
know
?" Axton asked plaintively.

"You hear stories," was all Dana said, and there was silence for a moment.

"Not everyone," Jack said softly. "Not everyone, Ax. Dana and I put it together, but who else would be able to? No one else knows."

"Dru knows," Axton pointed out bitterly. "Apparently."

"I knew to tell him," Jack said, "when I saw you. Or it could have been bad for us."

"How?" Axton demanded. "Who cares?"

"Everyone in a five pack radius knows not to fuck with the Russian's kid," Dana said. "Obviously."

"That is
not
obvious," Axton said, all venom. "I was exiled. I was
disowned
."

"Yeah, so," Dana said. "All the trackers round here know that fucking the Russian's son over is grounds for a pack to pack fight."

"Dru wouldn't risk it," Jack said.

"Since we've established that the Russian wins all his fights," Dana reminded helpfully.

"Why would he even care?" Axton muttered. "He's the one that kicked me out."

"That doesn't mean anyone
else
is allowed to disrespect you," Jack said. "Not on his watch."

"I got kicked out with the whole,
you're no son of mine; I'm not your father
lecture," Axton said.

"Well, maybe--" Jack started.

"No, I mean, he literally kicked me out," Axton said. "He opened the door and physically shoved me out of it and when I went wolf he followed and snapped at my heels until I was clear off the territory. He drew blood. I was alone and lost and howling in the snow. The snow was streaked with red."

No one had anything to say to that.

"I don't see why he'd have any interest in my well-being now," Axton finished, once he'd let the silence ring out for a while.

"Maybe he doesn't want anyone else to use you as leverage. Maybe he still sees you as an extension of himself and therefore he won't tolerate disrespect. Maybe he's changed his mind these past few years. Who knows?" Jack shrugged.

"Who
cares
," Axton repeated. "I don't."

"Where's that misplaced sense of loyalty again?" Dana asked. "You could maybe not be loyal to some human asshole? You could maybe be loyal to your dad, instead?"

"And
what
," Axton snarled. "Go back home?"

"It's an idea--" Dana started.

Jack reached out and put a warning hand on Dana's arm, looking at Axton's bared teeth.

Silence again.

Axton whirled around, going for the door.

"Watch him until sunset," Axton said. "I'm not coming back before then."

When Axton tried to slink back into his room, he was politely told by one of the twins that Dru was looking for him. Axton hadn't bothered to learn how to tell the twins apart and he wasn't sure what either of them were named, but he went along with it anyway. He had half expected Dru to summon him, one way or another, after the stunt he'd pulled in the woods.

Axton was riled from talking about his past, from having to deal with Dana, from seeing Dana hurt, from hunting to send a message, from
having
to hunt to send a message. In short: Axton was pissed. He was gunning for a fight, and he walked towards the big house with his head held high. Distantly, he recognized the call for blood that sang in his veins as the same feeling Leander had called him out for on their last night together, when they lost to Dana--Axton's anger was running hot, and Leander had warned that it would make him stupid. Given that Leander had turned out to be correct...

Hell, even Dana knew anger made you stupid.
Tactical inferiority
, Axton heard in his head.

God, what if he just hadn't shoved Leander into a fucking elevator? Would he even be here right now, separated from the love of his life, mired in the politics of a dysfunctional pack, with his ex making moon eyes at him each time they were alone? Jesus fucking christ.

What would Leander do?
Axton asked.

Not run into an elevator, for starters.

Axton stopped at the foot of the house and squinted up at it. Was this a metaphorical elevator? No. Maybe?

See
, he said to himself.
Anger. Making you stupid.

Probably he shouldn't fight Dru. In the unlikely best case scenario that he won, what would he even do? Axton felt like he was becoming a caricature of a werewolf the longer he stayed in Dana's pack--part of him didn't just want to fight Dru, but kill him. Hunting for food was one thing, but killing another person just because he thought they deserved it...that wasn't who Axton wanted to be.

Was it?

Perhaps it was, now.

I could do it
, Axton thought giddily.
He still has no idea how fast I am. I could shift while he's still human and have my jaws around his throat before he's half way through. I could bite down, or I could rip, or I could shake. It probably takes him, what, a full minute? A full minute to change shapes, a full minute of vulnerability. What couldn't I do, in a full minute?

Attacking between shapes was forbidden in every pack Axton had ever heard of. It was taboo. A wolf who even snapped at another wolf in human shape was supposed to be put down, feral or not.

What was one taboo more, to Axton? He'd already lunged at Dana so many times, when they were in mismatched shapes. Sure, Dana had been upset--but Dana was, in his own way, so indulgent of Axton. He'd take what he could get and he'd take what he could by force, but ultimately, he was mad for Axton any which way. Axton was sure he could make Dana twice usurped and be forgiven--if he took over this pack of wolves he hadn't even bothered to know the name of, if he denied what Dana perceived as his birthright...Dana would let him. Dana would
like it
.

If he lunged at Dru, Axton knew, he would have to fight to kill. He'd have to win. There would be no going back from an attempt.

He put his hand on the banister, lightly, and paused before going up the porch steps.

What would Leander do?

Everything carries me to you
, Axton thought, and he walked up the steps and to the door.

"Beer?" Dru offered.

"Cold?" Axton asked.

"Yeah."

"Sure."

It was still morning. No one commented on the time.

The frosty surface of a condensation slick glass bottle pressed into Axton's hand, and he took the already opened beer with a nod and flicked his eyes up to Dru's. Dru looked back steadily, and they held the gaze only for a second before turning their heads. Axton leaned his hip against the counter, tipped his head back to drink, and took the time to study the wolf across from him.

Dru's jaw was firm and square, even half hidden under his dark beard. It was the first thing Axton had noticed about him after his size, because it was so achingly familiar. Dana was like a portrait painted in a different color scheme, but his blond hair and blue eyes didn't hide the family resemblance. Dru was powerfully built, not as cut as Dana, but probably just as muscular, and his strength looked a lot more practical.

Dana looked a little gym rat vain, Axton reflected, especially in comparison to other wolves. Dana worked at it; Dana was the only werewolf Axton knew who took time to go do bicep curls. Axton had forgotten what it was like, forgotten that Dana was unusual in that way. He had gotten so used to Leander's body, muscular but trim, thoroughly human. Dana had seemed bigger and less lean for the comparison.

The awareness of Dru's own rough manly appeal was distant. Axton's awareness of it, and the musky
masculine
scent of self-assured older wolf, was vague. He looked at Dru, dimly noted his attractiveness, and asked himself:
is this what a killer looks like?
Dru's eyes were dark and cautious, and he was watching Axton carefully. He didn't fidget, he didn't twitch--but he wasn't frozen still, either, and his moments were natural and fluid.

If he was nervous, he was hiding it flawlessly, even down to his scent. He read as merely normal amounts of wary.

It would be so
easy
, Axton suddenly knew, to surprise him.

He had made his choice before he walked through the door, and Axton gripped the bottle a little tighter to remind himself that his anger should burn cold.
Use it
, he thought.
Don't let it use you
.

Axton wondered what he looked like, what emotions spilled off him by scent.

"You don't like how you've been treated here," Dru said, after they had looked for long enough, and taken their measure of the other.

"No," Axton said, putting his beer down on the counter. "But I understand that a young unknown male integrating into an existing pack is--complicated."

"Especially when no one knows any details," Dru said.

"I was told that you had come to that decision," Axton said mildly, with downcast eyes. "Integrating a young unknown male as an outright prisoner is--"

"More complicated," Dru said. "And humans, that's a heavy punishment most of the time. That's a scandal people don't forget. So let them think it's something else. Let them think it's a slap on the wrist, let them make up their own stories--it's easier."

"Is it?" Axton said, eyes flickering back up suddenly. "Is it easier to let people make up their own stories?"

"They'll do it anyway," Dru said, not looking away. "They always do."

Axton kept his eyes up but one of his hands toyed with the beer bottle, fingers running across the slippery surface. What was the right way to break a bottle and stab someone with it? You did it wrong and you just cut your hand up, Axton knew. Then again, for him, that wouldn't really matter. He hadn't minded it last time.

"What story do you want them to tell, Drusus?" Axton asked lightly.

There was a thread of threat there, thin but insistent, and Dru looked at him for a long, hard moment before he pushed off the counter with his hip, turning half away from Axton. It was a deliberate and exaggerated gesture of trust the said:
I'm not going to attack now and you won't either, right?

"A story where you're a part of this place," Dru said. "With us, instead of just outside us."

"That story seems a long way off."

"You haven't really tried to make it come closer," Dru said, taking a polite drink of his beer. His intonation for the whole conversation was slow, calm, reasonable. You couldn't rail against someone using that tone with you--it would make you feel hysterical and stupid. Axton understood that Dru wielded more than one kind of power, and that was nuanced, that was dangerous. "You keep to yourself, you don't look people in the eye unless you're telling them to back off, you don't shift in front of anyone, you don't talk much."

"I hang around with Jack," Axton returned, in the same placid sort of voice.

"Jack's a little weird," Dru said apologetic, just a
touch
rueful, not enough to sound actually disapproving. "That's not going to help you integrate in any, you understand."

He sounded so fucking reasonable.

"I hang around Dana," Axton countered, and the lightness of his tone did nothing to lessen the sharpness of his gaze when he said it. Dana lay spectral and unspoken between them, there without being there, a hovering nameless phantom they were only pretending to ignore.

"Which just makes him look more like your jailer," Dru said evenly, not reacting to the implied challenge, as if violence was impossible for him.

The lie there itched under Axton's skin, grating and unpleasant.

"You can smell his blood on me," Axton said. "You know I've seen what you did to him."

"I didn't do anything he's not going to heal out of," Dru said. "He makes it worse for himself when he tries to fix his body faster."

"You're unfair to him," Axton said bluntly.

"And this worries you why?" Dru asked, still sounding reasonable, reasonable, like he was asking Axton about the weather. "Since he's your jailer and all. You've seemed awful upset at him before."

"That's not the point," Axton said, and he picked up his beer just to have something else to focus on besides his own anger--anger Dru for how he treated Dana, but anger, too, at being called out on his own emotional disconnect.

"Then what is?" Dru asked, as if it were simple.

"I don't know," Axton said, and he was unable to keep the edge from his voice. "You called
me
here. I didn't invite myself in."

"My door's always open if you need it," Dru said. "You could invite yourself in any time."