Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (37 page)

"I knew you wouldn't make it yourself," Axton said. "Not the choice you should."

"So you gave me no choice at all," Jack said.

"I can choose to not let you be hurt," Axton said.

"But it's a choice you made on
my
behalf," Jack said. "It concerns me. You are making it for me, because of me. And that means I should have some say in it."

Axton opened his mouth to respond, but then shut it and cocked his head to the side.

"Are we still talking about you?" he asked.

"Yes and no," Jack said. "But think about how worried and hurt I am, and I can just walk over to check on you and set you straight on how things stand. Imagine how your man felt, because he couldn't. Can't."

"Did you just come over to make me feel bad about myself?" Axton asked. "Because that's unlike you, Jack."

"No, I came to check on you. Of course there's rumors. People are nasty gossips at the best of times, and this ain't the best of times. I've heard, too."

"Then why bring up Leander?" Axton asked.

"It seemed like an apt time for a lesson," Jack said.

"I don't regret doing what I could to save him," Axton said. "I don't regret sparing him further pain. Would you have done it differently?"

"Probably not," Jack said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "but I've made choices for other people and lived to regret it, so I'd at least see what I was doing."

Axton looked him over carefully.

"Something on your mind?" he invited.

"Yeah," Jack said, and that was all.

"I'm not the best at this kind of thing," Axton said, "but if you want to talk…?"

"No," Jack said. "Got nothing to say. But I could do with some company."

"Sure," Axton said. "I can head back to your place."

"I was thinking…" Jack said lightly, "that maybe I could keep
you
company, and we could run together."

"That bad?" Axton asked, with a wry smile lurking at the corner of his lips. "You don't even want to think about it?"

"It's like how you always say, about how going wolf means fewer emotions. Sharper ones. But fewer."

"I guess I do say that, huh," Axton said thoughtfully.

"All the time," Jack said. "It's the wisest thing about you. So--"

Jack blinked, and Axton suddenly sat in front of him, yawning, plush pink tongue curling past his long white teeth, fur rippling in the wind.

"Christ," Jack said. "You're unnerving, you know that?"

Axton sprawled out in the dirt happily.

They ran long and hard, caught prey together, killed swift, but then playfully yanked bodies apart playing tug of war, fur ripping off in stripes when one of them shook hard enough to be the victor.

Besides the hunt, Axton's pack obligation was reporting in to Dru about whatever bullshit reconnaissance he was doing. The research camp was his default assignment, but occasionally Dru sent him on some other errand just to keep him busy. Axton knew motion for the sake of motion and Axton knew progress; Axton knew both well enough to tell when someone didn't care about the difference between them.

Useless, petty busywork.

"I'll say this for him," Axton told Helen one day, scratching behind her ears, "he really doesn't treat me much differently."

Helen chuffed and rolled over.

"I mean, that just means he looked down on me a lot to begin with," Axton went on, "but that's something."

Helen sneezed.

"I guess not," Axton said thoughtfully. "I guess it's not really that commendable."

Nonetheless: Axton dutifully made his rounds. And nonetheless, Axton was isolated, ostracized, and largely unsupervised.

Therefore: when Axton lurked at the edges of the research camp, no one was immediately around to see him stumble over a shiny something half lost in the undergrowth.

It was a watch, heavy and old and Russian made. It looked recently serviced, and the wristband had been replaced. The watch was intimately familiar to Axton, who had found it in the undergrowth before, in worse condition. He'd seen it from all kinds of angles, including catching the shine of it out of the corner of his eye as the watch's wearer planted his forearms on either side of Axton's head for leverage and drove into him--

It was Leander's watch.

There was no distinguishing scent on the watch, even when Axton took a deep sniff. There was nothing to indicate that it had ever been Leander's watch, but it looked exactly the same, and the leather strap had an indentation worn in from the buckle pressing down into the exact same hole that marked the circumference of Leander's wrist.

Heart in his mouth, blood pounding in his ears, Axton whipped his head up and looked around frantically. Could it be, was he here? But how? And wouldn't Axton have caught Leander's scent, long ago? But
how
?

It was the exact same watch, except that Leander's watch had still run. This watch did not.

The face was frozen; the time was noon; and the date was two months into the future, somewhere between advancing cold and true winter.

I'm losing my fucking mind
, Axton thought, but he scooped the watch up in his mouth and then ran frantically away from where he'd found it, until it occurred to him that he should look casual, maybe?

Axton slid into town with his eyes darting around nervously, looking guilty as sin.

Luckily, Dana was off on some other flimsy excuse for an errand--

And who else cared what Axton did, really, as long as he stuck around but didn't come too close?

Axton paced in the confines of his tiny shack, limping around on three legs as he neurotically chewed the fur off the fourth.

Oh, god, oh,
god
.

Leander.

Leander was coming.

Which was amazing!

But also fucking terrible, because he was putting himself in danger again, and Dana would do worse than break his legs this time, and what if Dru got a hold of him instead--

Jesus fucking christ, Axton had delivered himself into the hands of his enemy and promised himself to a life of misery to keep Leander safe, and now Leander was just going to
fuck that up
and just trample all over Axton's sacrifice--

Oh, god, oh god, oh
god
.

Leander loved him. Leander had somehow tracked him down with no fucking clues to speak of. Leander had probably been working tirelessly, Axton thought wildly, to track him down. Leander was alive! And Leander loved him! And Leander was a fucking genius! And brave!

And fucking, fucking, hell. Leander was probably going to get fucking killed. Fucking
idiot
.

It occurred to Axton that the taste in his mouth was blood.

He released his leg and looked down at his paws. Yes, that was blood. He was bleeding. He'd chewed a hole into himself.

Fuck.

But then again,
fuck this place
.

It wasn't like Axton wanted to stay.

"I don't mean to sound insensitive," Sarah said, "but this wall of yours is some serial killer shit."

"It's mostly maps," Leander said, "with potential locations. It's useful."

"Uh huh," Sarah said, "and the blown up version of Dana's ID picture is there for what?"

"Reference," Leander said frostily.

"I'm surprised you haven't crossed out his eyes or something."

"That would be juvenile," Leander said.

"Juvenile delinquent, more like," Sarah said.

"This is a wall of important information," Leander said. "Cops have walls like this for cases. Or at least they do on TV."

"Or darts, maybe," Sarah said. "I'm surprised you haven't used his face as a dartboard."

"Yeah, well," Leander said, and then he experienced a total failure of snappy come back.

"You did, didn't you," Sarah said. "You've had to print his face out more than once because you threw darts at it."

"Look," Leander said, "enough about my wall."

"I'm just saying, I draw the line at helping you if you start murdering lookalikes," Sarah told him.

"I'm not murdering anyone," Leander said.

"You
say
that," Sarah acknowledged, "but you're preparing for war, and your primary motivation these days seems to be a cold burning rage."

"I am perfectly in control of my rage," Leander said.

"Yeah, that's definitely not serial killer shit either," Sarah said. "What could I possibly be worried about? You're definitely not going to murder someone in cold blood or anything."

"It is best to win without fighting," Leander said. "I told you. I'm not murdering anybody."

"Great," Sarah said. "You're quoting Sun Tzu in casual conversation. We're doomed."

"I read
The Art of War
when I was fifteen," Leander said. "Don't act like this is new."

"Yeah, but you're usually
joking
," Sarah said. "I mean, you mean it, even when you're joking, but like, it's light hearted."

"My heart is not light right now," Leander said. "Would you prefer me on the Brooding Poet setting?"

"I think you need to invite your idiot friend down here to make you relax," Sarah said. "He should room with you until this is over. It'll be a sitcom."

"He's not actually an idiot," Leander said.

"Oh, now you're
defending
New York," Sarah said. "You
have
lost your sense of humor."

"You are extra annoyed at me this week," Leander said. "Why?"

"Why does your wall of serial killer bullshit have a huge map of the Pacific northwest on it?" Sarah asked, striding over and pointing angrily.

"It's a likely location," Leander said.

"For
what
?" Sarah asked.

"Where Axton is being held," Leander said. "You know that."

"Then
why
," Sarah asked, "are we looking up deer population numbers?"

Leander shrugged.

"Lots of variables," he said.

"Seriously," Sarah said. "Seriously?"

Leander crossed his arms over his chest even though he knew it made him look sullen.

"And the other
prey animals
we're looking at," Sarah said. "Those are variables?"

"Yes," Leander said.

"And doctor's offices?" Sarah asked. "The lack of doctor, not vet offices, we're looking at?"

"Lots of variables," Leander repeated stubbornly. "And I know you've been snooping around again. I cut you out of this part of the process for a reason."

"Oh, for my own good, fuck you," Sarah said. "Either I'm losing my mind, or you're a gigantic asshole."

"Either way," Leander said, "I'm probably--"

"A gigantic asshole?" Sarah asked.

Leander sighed.

"If I live through this, I will apologize to you a hundred thousand times," he said.

"Until then," Sarah said, "will you admit--"

"That I'm a gigantic asshole?" Leander asked. "Yes. I'm a gigantic, information withholding asshole."

"Thank you," Sarah said. She tore Dana's picture off the wall and crumpled it up. "Don't print this shit out again."

It was 4 AM on a Tuesday night, and Leander had lost count of how long he'd been up. He had billed over eighty hours in the last week, and as soon as work had given him a respite, he had started sorting through a backlog of data. On his desk, Leander had several blown up pictures of Axton, all in his wolf shape, all from different angles. Gold eyes; long lupine face; a distinctive bone structure that was still not
abnormal
for the typical North American gray wolf, because that would have been too easy, of course.

Leander rubbed at his face distractedly and blinked. He hadn't shaved in a few days. He should probably shave. Or eat. Or sleep. Or was it
and
? Probably and.

The only light in the apartment came from his screen.

Leander's chest was tight and something hurt and he wasn't sure he could breathe like this.

It would be a shame to die.

Especially right now.

Leander stared at his screen.

Unless he was losing his mind--

Unless all the stress had caught up to him, unless he'd been awake long enough for the sleep deprivation hallucinations to kick in, unless he was completely fucking unfairly wrong--

That was Axton. The wolf on his screen was Axton. The wolf on his screen was Axton, and he'd been photographed, not once, but
many
times, by one of the research teams in Alaska, though he had evaded their attempts to tag him with a teasing, wily consistency just on the edge of what was attributable to a normal wolf and a fair dose of luck.

Leander felt light headed.

He got up. He paced around. He poured himself a glass of water. He sat back down. He placed the glass of water on his desk.

He had found Axton.

They had found Axton. It was a group effort, right. Dozens of people who had no idea of the true purpose had helped him find Axton.

But.

He had found Axton
.

Had he?

Leander drank his glass of water and blinked repeatedly, still looking at his screen.

Abruptly, he put his glass down. He didn't know what to do--

The sound that burst out of him was laughter, loud and sudden and unstoppable. It was not the noise Leander had expected to make, and it startled him, it startled him more than he couldn't stop, and he bent over and buried his face in his arms and let his body shake with the noise he was making.

Still he did not cry; Leander was not sure that crying was still a thing he
could
do, if this excess of emotion didn't wrench tears out of him. But he laughed like he was sobbing and his body made the full expression of sobbing, all the same.

Should he sleep on it? He should sleep on it. What if he was wrong? Not like, wrong because he'd gone crazy, but just wrong because the features were
close
and he was tired--

No, no, no.