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

Dana sighed.

"You're not allowed to die," he said, and he kept feeding Axton ice chips.

Slowly and by degrees, a new desire uncurled wordlessly in Axton, like a plant growing towards the sun. Resentment sparked anew at being held down like this, being forced to participate in light and movement and living. The new resentment reminded him that, yes, it was this person he hated in his memories. There wasn't a long logical sequence of events left in his mind, but an overwhelming association of anger and sadness.

If he was going to be forced to live anyway, he might as well gather enough strength to--yes.

"Oh, sure, now you're feeling better," Dana said, when Axton bit his fingers as soon as they got near his mouth. "Will you fucking drink water on your own now?"

He left a bowl on a nightstand by the bed.

Axton drank.

This time when a kill was brought in, it was fresh, and Dana came not as a man but as a wolf. Axton knew him, knew his scent, and even if he didn't remember exactly the how and why of his hatred--he still hated. He pushed himself half up on the bed, paws sinking into the mattress, and bared his teeth. He was still too weak to fight, but some urgent instinct inside him told him to hide that, to look ready to kill.

Dana growled from his place on the floor, a newly dead rabbit hanging from his mouth. Slinking forward slowly with a lowered head, he put the rabbit down on the edge of the bed--

Axton snapped at him for getting too close, and Dana flinched back before teeth made contact with his neck. It was a threat, not an attack, but he still edged back and showed his teeth in response. This was not enough, no--Axton snarled and shoved himself up onto four paws.

With a parting rumble, Dana edged out of the room without turning his back.

Axton collapsed on the bed as soon as he was alone, and he stared at the rabbit.

Part of him fought to remember--why did another part of him not want the rabbit? He was so
hungry
, now that he was no longer thirsty. He had been so ready to lay down and die--

But the rabbit was still warm. Dana had killed it carefully, biting just hard enough to keep the rabbit in his mouth, snapping the prey's neck with a quick shake of his head. There wasn't even spilled blood. It would feel so good in his mouth, Axton knew, and it would be so nice to pull the stretchy skin off, to lap up the fat under that fur, to bite into the meat and then crack those tiny little rabbit bones...

And he was so
hungry
.

Axton looked away from his potential meal and remembered the soft touch of human fingers behind his ears, the sensation and scent of human fingers lathering shampoo into his fur. There were so many sleepy memories of a human arm thrown around his wolfish neck, and the warmth of that human body next to his, and...and loss and where was
he
now?

Mind and heart may have stayed on the same page, but body had different impulses.

The rabbit was gone in three bites.

Dana left the next rabbit on the floor next to the bed, and the one after that in the middle of the room. Each meal sharpened Axton's hunger instead of dampening it. The mental fog was still there, lifting only
just
enough to let the hunger pierce it.

When Dana returned for the third time, Axton was waiting at the door. They could smell each other through the wood, and Dana paused before pawing the door open slowly. Axton crouched warily, ready to fight for the rabbit dangling from Dana's mouth.

Instead, Dana put the rabbit down about a foot away from the threshold, and backed away. His blue eyes watched Axton with patience, or at least an imitation of it.

Axton edged forward, not looking away from Dana for a second, not trusting him. This rabbit he ate less elegantly than the others, which had neatly been nearly swallowed whole, because he was busy watching Dana. When he was done, Axton was still in an uncertain crouch.

Dana gave him a hard look and then turned away, walking forward a few steps before turning his head and glancing back at Axton.

There was a message there, and Axton understood it before he believed it genuine. But Dana turned his back again, and walked forward, and then waited.

Axton stood up properly.

Dana trotted down the hallway, to the stairs, and then turned to give Axton a long, put upon look. His eyes darted down the stairs, to the front door--

The
open
front door.

Dana went down the stairs and silently Axton followed.

They did not have to like each other to hunt together, and Axton knew this to be true even if he still had no memory for the other wolf's name, and no specific memory to attribute his hatred to. His sense of self-preservation did not need words to tell Axton that he was still weak, that hunting alone would be hard and bad. And the hunger, the hunger was clawing at his insides. He was willing to work with this wolf for big game.

It took a while for the animal scents to crisscross each other, to layer over each other in the cacophonous symphony of life that a properly inhabited forest screamed and sung. The animals seemed to know to avoid the house and the area immediately around it. Axton smelled it first, senses sharpened by hunger--an older stag, already bleeding, but just a little. Silently, he padded after the scent trail, and Dana followed. Soon Dana overtook Axton, who was still moving slowly, and then kept to cover and wound through the tangles of trees for some time. Without even glancing at each other, they parted ways when the smell became stronger, each of them circling widely to cover the stag from different angles. Dana showed himself first, and the werewolves fell in step next to each other as the stag bolted. They kept what was for them an easy loping pace, letting the stag exhaust himself. He'd been grazed by a bullet, just a tiny shallow wound--enough to be painful, enough to slow him, enough to make the scent of blood unfurl behind him like a banner.

Dana moved into position, getting ready to move next to the stag instead of behind him. His head turned, blue eyes searching for Axton to let him know that he should keep running, keep worrying at the stay and nipping at his hindquarters, so that Dana could run ahead and...

And Axton was
already
ahead, sprinting at a speed that would have seemed impossible even a few minutes before when he'd been weak and stumbling. Axton knew what Dana had meant to do as soon as he saw Dana move, and he did not agree with that positioning.

The stag saw Axton, and tried to veer away, to run in a better direction, anything but straight ahead--

Apparently accepting his role in the new configuration, Dana snapped at the stag and kept him in line. The stag made a sharp, scared sound--and in that very instant of distraction, Axton launched his body off the ground, sailing through the air to land hard with his jaws on the stag's neck. The momentum carried them both down--

Axton made it quick once they were on the ground, heart quick with adrenaline but still aware enough to not want the stag to suffer.

Without even looking up at Dana, he began to eat.

Dana padded up slowly, nosing the stag's hindquarters and looking at Axton warily. Uneasily, he ate.

When their kill was just gnawed bones, Axton busied himself with licking his muzzle clean, pretending to be absorbed in the task. Distractedly, he was weighing the option of fleeing. He wanted to, yet he felt he should not. Without words he had no quick and easy way to explain the concept of
duty
or
promise
, but he felt uneasily tied to the hulking wolf next to him, and not just because he wasn't running at full strength. It was not a moral conflict or a rational analysis of his odds of success, but this deep, uneasy feeling in Axton's gut. His muscles tightened to run and then they stilled. No. He was meant to be here.

Axton looked up sharply, knowing he was being watched. His eyes locked with Dana's and then Axton looked away, making a show of rubbing his paws against his face and then licking them clean--the gesture was almost aggressively nonchalant.

For a long time, Dana didn't move. When he got up, he waited until Axton followed suit.

Only then did they trot back to the cabin.

Though they hunted together, Axton took the next kill, and the one after that. He never let Dana move into position to deal the critical wound. Axton still needed help to harry their prey, but he approached each one with his senses sharper, faster, smarter. But part of him grew more possessive, too, growling Dana away from certain parts of the carcass.

Still, Axton did not run.

When Dana tried to come to him as a human, Axton buried his teeth in Dana's arm and didn't let go.

"Mother of fuck!" Dana shouted. "Son of a bitch!" He tried waving his arm around, but Axton was heavy and latched on tight. Eventually Dana resorted to bashing Axton's jaws against the doorframe to loosen his grip. Axton let go only to splay out and then reposition, leaping up for the throat--

Dana snarled and shoved his boot in Axton's chest, knocking him away so that he could slam the door.

"You feral piece of
shit
!" Dana yelled from the other side of the door. Then, sounding offended as if he'd just discovered it anew, "I'm bleeding!"

Indeed, he was. There was blood all over Axton's face and he felt no regrets. He did not waste energy by bashing himself against the door, but lay down, satisfied, and listened to the shouting sounds he did not need to understand in order to enjoy.

"I wouldn't stand for this bullshit!" Dana insisted.

Axton calmly groomed his paws.

Hours later, Dana returned in his wolf shape. Axton could smell him on the other side of the door. That made him less angry, somehow--wolf rather than man. At this point, he mostly associated Dana the wolf with food, though this was just barely layered over the wordless hazy hatred Axton did not understand but did not question.

So what Axton did next wasn't out of anger.

Dana pushed the door open and trotted into the room. Without waiting for any social cues, Axton launched himself at Dana and buried his teeth in his neck, shoving and holding Dana down. Dana's paws scrambled for purchase and his body thrashed around to get free--but Axton held tight, with just enough room in his mouth to snarl. The hold was curiously restrained, for all of the force Axton used--he barely broke the skin. Dana was strong and managed to push Axton off, but Axton didn't let go and then used the momentum to roll them over again so that he stayed on top of Dana. He growled the whole time, steadily, while Dana snarled but yipped in surprise.

Eventually Dana's struggles quieted, though intermittently he would buck up and try again.

It was a long time before he stayed well and truly still. Axton held his grip for as long as it took, and then a little longer. When he finally let go, they were both panting from the exertion--but Dana stayed crouched low and made no attempt at retaliation. Axton stayed standing, looming over him.

Dana tucked his head and looked away.

Satisfied, Axton turned his back on Dana--apparently completely unconcerned--and walked back to the bed. He jumped up lightly, sat, and looked down on Dana from his new perch.

Whatever Dana's business had been, he crawled out of the room on his stomach.

The next hunt they went on, Axton didn't even pretend to let Dana out in front. Axton led the hunt, deciding where they would go and when they would move. He nodded Dana into position, but then didn't even bother to signal when he was about to leap in for the kill. When the buck they'd hunted was dead on the ground, Dana moved next to Axton to eat--

Axton whirled on him, clamping his jaws down on Dana's neck and pinning him to the ground. His breath was hot and heavy as his snarl, and the blood of the buck was still wet on his teeth.

In the new quiet of the forest, Dana's pulse fluttered against Axton's tongue, betraying his panic even as his body stayed still, submitting.

There was something else, too, a scent that mingled with the surprise but wasn't exactly fear--it made Axton want to wrinkle his nose in disinterest, but he wasn't going to weaken his grip for that.

Axton held on, teeth in sweet and terrible suspension right over Dana's pounding jugular. In time, Dana's pulse slowed, almost returning to normal. This was acceptance. Finally, Axton let go.

Once free, Dana shook himself, dazed, but did not move.

Axton ate his full of the kill before Dana was allowed to start.

Their lives continued like this for some time. Axton's reign was absolute, except for the fact that he did not run, did not try to escape. In all other matters, Dana bowed--in fits and starts. Sometimes he had to be taught again.

No one was really happy, but it was livable.

When Dana stormed into his room in his human shape, Axton was surprised. Hadn't he taught Dana that this was unacceptable? Axton roused himself from sleep as quick as he could, because this needed a correction--

"I'm sorry about this, sugar," Dana said, as he pulled out a gun. Axton did not understand, cocking his head to the side, pausing his lunge for Dana's face.

"I know you won't believe me," Dana said, "but I'm really fucking sorry."

Axton leaped--

Dana pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit Axton right in the stomach, right in the soft and vulnerable underbelly. His body staggered back from the impact and crumpled.

Wordless, overwhelming panic. The wound was bubbling. The world was pain. The gurgling sound--the gurgling sound would haunt him forever, if he lived that long. Axton couldn't breathe. Despite his lack of words, despite how he'd been so willing to starve himself before--despite everything, Axton was suddenly and completely terrified of dying. The sharpness of his horror was worse for being wordless; the panic and the desperation of it hit him in waves and threatened to drown him.