From Swamp Wolf
“We need to take a look at
something.”
“What?”
"A bearskin rug in the
lodge,” Brooks replied. “I have a hunch, and if I’m right, it might prove that
we are looking in the wrong direction for our moles.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I’ll explain everything if I’m
right.”
“Yeah, okay, just give me a few
minutes. Charlie is on the way and I need to make certain of something first.”
“Charlie…as in Charlie Cote?”
Baz’s rumble of displeasure was
confirmation enough.
“I’m not breaking up a brawl if
you two decide to get into it again.”
“Then don’t. I don’t give a shit.
After all this time, I more than deserve it.”
Turning to meet his gaze, Brooks
took careful note of the pained, haunted expression on Baz’s face. “Won’t get any argument from me there.”
“Brooks…”
There was a warning note in Baz’s
voice, exhaustion too.
“All I’m saying is there have been
issues between the two of you for the better part of seventeen years, and
you’ve never once told me what the hell it’s about.”
Clawing at the arm of his leather
jacket, Baz undid the snap there, folded over the end of the sleeve, shoved up
the long-sleeved t-shirt beneath it, and untied the leather wrist sheath he was
never without. Now, Brooks could see why. Beneath it was a pale bond mark in
swirls of light and dark grays, the colors of Charlie and Baz’s wolves, now
that Brooks thought about it. Frowning, he
recalled the tense, clipped, and often
hostile interactions between them over the years. Now they were starting to
make sense.
“So all this time…even after you
banned him from the MC…”
“The bond marks came in right as
that mess was jumping off. I couldn’t risk the appearance of favoritism. I had
to take his patch.”
“Taking his patch was one thing.
You let him be tried,” Brooks growled, pacing again. “You let him be convicted.
He spent five years doing community service before they allowed him out of the
detention facility.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I am
more than aware of everything he’s been through. But if this is my second mate,
then the chances are high that this is his mate as well. I can’t think of a
safer place for Kale than with Charlie. I made him a promise back then, that if
I ever found our mate, I would bring them to Charlie and back off, penance for walking away from that bond with
him. Besides, if there is one thing I know with all certainty about that wolf,
it’s how fiercely protective he is of what’s his.
“If you know all that, then why
didn’t you keep him beside you where he could watch your back, instead of
cutting him loose and isolating him among the pack while you carried on with
life like you weren’t abandoning one of the people who was supposed to mean
everything to you?"
“Because I had the club to protect
too, and I couldn’t manage both!” Baz snapped. “I’m beginning to think no one
can, but that’s a conversation me and Cage will need to have at some point,
once the rest of this bullshit is solved.”
The door slammed open then, or the
argument would have continued and no doubt escalated
because Brooks was still feeling salty about the way he and JD were being
forced to choose where their loyalties lay, losing longstanding bonds in the
process. Something their wolves alternately mourned and attempted to ignore.
“This better be a real emergency
fucker, otherwise, you know the deal,” Charlie growled when he caught sight of
them. “If you ain’t bleeding on the floor in pieces,
you don’t call for me.”
“Sorry I can’t oblige your more
bloodthirsty tendencies tonight, but I have something else that might interest
you,” Baz remarked, pointing towards the room where Graham was still tending to
his patient. “If I’m right, you’ll know why I called you soon enough.”
“And if this is some bullshit,
then I swear to you, I will hurt you so badly that nothing Doc does will ever
fix the damage I do.”
“Thought you’d found your Zen or
whatever that mellow shit you’ve been studying is supposed to help you
discover.”
“Yeah well, I guess you breathing just brings the worst out of me,” Charlie remarked as he stalked
past Baz, deliberately slamming his shoulder into the dark-haired wolf’s. There
was no mistaking the hurt and regret on Baz’s face, or how many more grays had
appeared in the man’s hair since the last time they’d talked.
“I knew he wasn’t guilty, you know
that,” Baz said softly. “But what the fuck was I supposed to do when I couldn’t
prove it? I figured that if I pushed hard enough I could uncover the truth,
he’d be vindicated and it would be fine. I’d make up for the way it seemed like
I’d turned my back on him and I’d give him his kutte back.”
"Only something happened to
change your plan. Did you stop looking for answers or did you discover
something you didn’t want to know?”
“More like something he
wouldn’t have wanted to know,” Baz insisted. “It would have broken something in
him to know that..."
Whatever Baz would have said was
lost when the room door abruptly slammed back open. The crumble of broken
plaster trickling down the wall was a sure indication that the clinic was going
to need a construction crew out there to look things over. Charlie stalked over
and secured Baz’s wrists, raising first one,
then the other, inspecting them. Anyone else wolfhandling him like that would
have sparked a confrontation, but with Charlie, Baz just stood there, looking
everywhere but at Charlie’s face and trembling slightly,
his wolf throwing off some of the most mournful vibes Brooks had ever
experienced.
“You found our third…and you kept
your promise. Wish you’d kept the rest of the promises you’d made.”
“Charlie, I swear to you..."
“Save it and tell me what he
needs.”
“A safe place to recover, someone
he can talk to, a protector, basically, you, once Doc clears him to leave
here.”
“What about my duties in the shop?
I can’t be in two places at once, and I can’t trust it, and my staff to just
anyone?”
The way he said it left no doubt
in Brooks's mind that he’d already made a decision and was either baiting or
toying with Baz.
“I’ll find someone who..."
Baz began.
“Not good enough!”
Baz licked his lips, shooting a
desperate look in Brooks’s direction like he actually thought Brooks would
consider helping. Watching Baz squirm was the highlight of his month.
“Brooks, isn’t there someone you
can assign?” Baz asked.
“It’s a busy time of year, what
with planning for the gathering, training my replacement MC liaison, and
designing my new house, seeing as how I have less than four months to relocate
myself and my mates. I don’t really have time to scout someone out for you,
sorry. You have no one but yourself to blame for that.”
Baz tried to glare. It was almost
comical how hard he tried before shaking his head at Brooks, a hint of a smile
peeking through. “Fine, ya bastards, I’ll run the damn thing and the garage
too.”
“Was there ever any doubt?” Brooks
wondered.
“Dealing with you two, no.”
And now, for a little teaser and snippet from Shedding Lies and a glimpse into just what Kale thinks when he learns about the deal they've struck and expect him to adhere to.
From Shedding Lies
“You said all this
happened twenty years ago,” Kale said while steadily drumming his fingers on
the arm of the couch. “And that you two squared off in a challenge ring.
Shouldn’t that have ended things?”
“It did,” Charlie
said. “Baz agreed to stay the hell away from me unless absolutely necessary.”
“So you won the fight
and that’s what you asked for?”
“I didn’t win.”
“Okay, now I’m
confused. If you lost, how were you able to ask for anything?”
“Because he never
fought back, okay!” Charlie spat before taking another drink. “He wouldn’t even
give me the satisfaction of properly kicking his ass. He just stood there, even
after I hit him a couple of times. He made a mockery of my challenge.”
“Sounds to me like he
chose to honor your longstanding friendship and the bondmarks on your wrists,”
Kale said.
“What the fuck do you
know about challenges!”
Reign it in. His wolf snarled a warning in his head,
reminding him that Kale didn’t deserve to be spoken to that way. “I’m sorry,
that was uncalled for.”
“Yeah, it was,” Kale
replied. “Maybe you should think about putting that bottle down for the night
before it gives you a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease.”
Kale was right, and
the last thing he wanted was for his mate to think he was a wolf that couldn’t
control his drinking or his temper. He capped the bottle and put it back on the
bar, along with his glass. It left his hands empty though, and he couldn’t stop
himself from poking at a small hole in his jeans.
“Thank you,” Kale
said, his tone calm, almost bland, despite the way Charlie had spoken to him.
It was a relief not to read fear in his eyes or posture. “Now, did either of
you ever consider how your issues would fuck shit up if you ever found your
other mate?”
“Yeah. We had a deal.”
Chuckling, Kale leaned
forward a little. “Oh, now this I’ve gotta hear.”
“Simple. Since it was
his inaction that left me without my mate, he swore that if he ever found our
third, he’d bring them to me and walk away.”
Kale’s eyes widened
just a fraction, before narrowing at him, his fingers going still on the arm of
the couch. “So let me get this straight. You two made a deal between yourselves
about the future of a mate you hadn’t met yet, and without any input from that
mate, in this case, me, you’ve determined that I should somehow be bound by it
too.”
“Something like that.”
“You two must have
been expecting some simpering, weak-willed wolf as your third,” Kale said. “Too
bad. I’m about as far from that as a wolf can get.”
“Are you saying you
don’t wish to be my mate?” Charlie asked, feeling the cold claws of dread
ripping at his spine. He could not lose a second mate. He couldn’t go back to
being alone again now that he’d found Kale.
“No. I’m saying I
don’t want to be just your mate,” Kale replied. “Baz is my
mate too. Even if you’ve rejected him, I plan to get to know him. If that’s
going to be an issue for you, tell me now, so I can figure out other living
arrangements.”
Charlie was unprepared
for the way the tables had been turned on him. If he said it was an issue, he
had no doubt Kale would gather what little possessions he had and seek out
shelter elsewhere, maybe even wherever Baz was staying now that he’d left the club.
If he said yes, then he’d be accepting a part-time mate. Could he figure out
how to be okay with that?
“You do realize a mate
is not a possession, right?” Kale remarked when Charlie had sat staring at him
too long without saying something. “I’m not an object. You can’t own me.”
All of the things
Charlie might have said about Baz’s lifestyle and position making him a target
had gone out the window when the wolf had stepped down. He had no basis to
claim Kale was safer with him. There was nothing he could say against Baz that
wouldn’t sound like the bitter grudge Kale now knew he carried.
“I see you’re
struggling with that, so we’ll revisit it later,” Kale said dryly.
“When we struck that
deal, there was never any reason to think Baz would ever quit rolling with the
devils,” Charlie attempted to explain. “It wouldn’t have been right for him to
take our mate on the road with him for months at a time.”
“So basically, you
didn’t think it was fair that you be left alone, but it was perfectly
acceptable for Baz to be?”
“As long as he was a
Devil, he was never alone,” Charlie replied. “He was surrounded by dozens of
brothers. I promise you he never lacked attention.”
“That doesn’t seem
like a promise you can make.”
Okay, so maybe Kale
did have a point about that. It wasn’t as if Charlie had ever asked about Baz’s
life among the Devils. He knew what club life was like, even with his limited
exposure to it. There was serious shit, but there were also parties and hangers-on.
Wolves who paraded themselves in front of fully patched members, hoping for a
line or two of color to appear on their wrists. Twenty years, and Charlie
couldn’t imagine how many wolves Baz had taken to his bed, or how many nights
he’d partied without a thought for what Charlie was doing back at the cabin
they’d built.
Maybe he would have if
you weren’t constantly cursing him out and ordering him from your sight.
He might not have
asked his wolf for its opinion, but it sure as hell gave it to him anyway. It
usually did, when it wasn’t howling long streams of mournful, melancholy songs
in the back of his mind.
“You don’t know, do
you?”
“Know what?” Charlie
asked, jerking his attention back to Kale and away from the thoughts and
memories streaming through his head.
“If Baz was alone or
not,” Kale remarked. Damn, the wolf was perceptive, persistent too. He wasn’t
going to let Charlie off with anything less than the painful, absolute truth.
“You don’t know what his life has been like. You don’t how he spent his days,
or his nights, or who he spent them with. The wolf you think you know is the
one you’ve hated for twenty years. For all you know that wolf doesn’t exist
anymore.”
There was truth to
Kale’s words, even if it wasn’t something Charlie was willing to admit to himself
yet. His wolf was looking smug though, prancing in the back of his mind. It was
finally winning the battle they’d been fighting for twenty years. Maybe it had
always been winning, slowly wearing him down until he had little choice but to
give in.
“I’m gonna leave you
to think on that,” Kale said, “and the rest of the shit you’ve been carrying
around poisoning your life with.”
When Kale stood,
Charlie’s mouth dropped open and, in an instant, he was on his feet, reaching
for Kale’s arm. His fingertips brushed skin, but before he latched on, Kale
fixed him with a look that meant ‘back off’ which Charlie did, letting his hand
drop back to his side. “You are coming back, right?”
Charlie knew he
sounded scared, desperate, and worried this mate was going to
walk out of his life the way the last one did.
“Eventually.”
Shedding Lies is Available for Pre-Order Here!
Shedding Lies will be released on Feb. 23rd!
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