Arsenal
Ireturned from the woods with my lungs scraped clean, sweat drying cold on my skin and the metallic aftertaste of brotherhood still stinging my tongue. Wrecker and Gunner had peeled off to shower and then pregame at Pearl’s, leaving me to stalk the perimeter in silence, the edge of the run still itching at my bones. The animal in me was sated for maybe a minute and a half before the human side took over, reminding me that tonight was supposed to be a turning point, that I had a job to do, a mate to protect, a future to reclaim.
I trudged up the back steps of the apartment, mud spackling my shins, muscles vibrating like live wires. The sun hadn’t setyet, but the shadows inside my place were already deep and mean. I kicked my shoes off by the door, leaving them where they fell. A fine dust hung in the entryway, swirling up from the entry rug like ghosts off a battlefield.
Empty. The apartment was empty. She was gone. Every muscle in my body knotted at once.
The next few seconds blurred. I flipped the coffee table; books flew across the room. The TV remote vanished into the couch cushions. I crossed the room in three strides. I almost sprinted to the bedroom to look for clues. I flipped the comforter off the bed, the familiar rage driving my actions. A paperback was flattened against the nightstand, open to a page I’d read three times but never dog-eared. A glass of water tumbled to the floor in the aftermath. That’s when I noticed the note on the nightstand, all-caps in blocky, black ink: “OUT WITH PARKER & MADDIE. BACK LATER. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING—H.”
A laugh bubbled up in my chest, so sharp it made my throat sting.
Just another sign I was fucking out of control. She was gone alright, but just for the afternoon, nothing dramatic. My wolf wanted to chase her, to track her, to hunt her down and haul her back by the scruff of the neck. It wanted to remind her who I was, what we were, why she didn’t get to just leave without warning.
I tried to shake it off. I paced the apartment, hands clenched, jaw ticking so loud I thought it might shatter. For a moment, I let myself imagine she’d been taken, that someone had breached the pack perimeter and spirited her away while I was running through the trees, laughing like a dumb fucking animal. It was easier to think she’d been abducted than that she’d simply chosen to be somewhere else.
Then my mind did what it always did: it spat out images, one after the other, raw and unfiltered. Harper on her knees in some VIP suite, Harper dancing for strangers, Harper bent over a velvet couch while a man with too many rings gripped her hair. My stomach turned to lead. I saw her hands—her real hands, delicate and long-fingered—wrapped around the base of a cock that didn’t belong to me. I saw her body, the body I’d memorized down to the smallest scar, used as currency in a room full of monsters.
My canines threatened to drop. A growl rattled in my chest, so deep and ugly I didn’t recognize it as my own.
I wanted to smash my fist into the kitchen wall. But I didn’t. I still had some semblance of control. As small as it was.
The note was still in my hand, balled so tight the edges cut into my palm. I uncurled it, read it again, searching for hidden meaning. “OUT WITH PARKER & MADDIE.” No subtext. No secret code. Just a woman trying to be normal for once in her goddamn life.
I slumped onto the sectional, elbows on knees, and stared at the wall for a long time. In the silence, I heard every memory Harper had ever left behind: her laugh, her moan, the little gasp she made when I kissed her collarbone. I heard the way she said my name. Then I remembered that I wasn’t even the one she had given her virginity to. I missed out on that first. It had only been a few months from the time we learned we were fated mates until she’d fucked me over and left me. I thought I’d have time to claim her officially with a ceremony; to make it special. I’d had years to stew on that.
After a while, I remembered that tonight was the monthly pack barbecue. I was supposed to help set up, haul coolers, keep the new pups from eating the potato salad. I was supposed to be a good soldier, a good wolf, a good brother. Instead, I was sittinghere, choking on the scent of a woman who I might not ever stomach accepting again even though I knew I did want her.
I pushed off the couch grabbed a quick shower and then pulled on some clean jeans. I grabbed a clean Henley from the closet and looked at myself as I brushed and pulled my hair up with a tie. The man in the mirror looked feral—eyes too bright, jaw tight, no sign of a guy anyone would want to be around. I wondered what Harper would think if she saw me like this.
I slipped on my cut and left the apartment, locking the door behind me, and walked toward the clearing where the pack would be gathering. The sky was turning purple at the edges, streaks of cloud lit up like brush fire. I felt the old adrenaline start to build, a sense of purpose returning with every step. There were things to do, jobs to finish, people to protect.
Harper would be there eventually. She seemed like she wanted to be here.
Until then, I’d burn off the anger the only way I knew how; with fire and smoke and the company of men who understood what it meant to hurt.
The pack clearing was already alive by the time I got there. The sun was just a memory, but the sky was still bright at the edges, burning off the last of the day like a piece of flash paper. The bonfire crackled in the center of the yard, thick logs stacked in a pyramid, flames reaching for the sky. Pearl’s boys; the ones she trusted to man the smokers, had bare arms glistening with sweat and barbecue sauce. The whole place reeked of smoke and meat and the tang of a party about to head on into chaos.
I liked the setup. It was efficient. Six long tables lined the north side of the clearing, covered in cheap plastic tablecloths and bowls of potato salad, slaw, chips, pickles, and deviledeggs on ice. Half a dozen coolers were packed with beer and soda and, somewhere at the bottom, the homemade plum wine Juliet brewed in her spare time. There was a makeshift bar by the porch, stocked with every liquor you could imagine and a few you wished you couldn’t. The lights strung up around the perimeter were already blinking on and off, moths orbiting every bulb.
People were everywhere. The cubs—kids, really, but wolves grew fast—were running circles around the tree line, playing some kind of feral tag that was equal parts tackle and shriek. The older teens clustered by the fire, sneaking beers and pretending not to look at the girls. The women of the pack had claimed the picnic benches and were setting up paper plates, arguing over which batch of brownies would disappear fastest. A few of the men were already lined up at the brisket station, gnawing burnt ends and talking shit about the Cowboys’ season.
I grabbed a stack of folding chairs from the back of the lodge and hauled them around the bonfire, ignoring the way people watched me when they thought I wasn’t looking. I set up the chairs in a perfect arc, measured down to the inch, and then stepped back to check my work. Satisfied, I drifted to the edge of the firelight and posted up, hands in my pockets, watching the flames eat through the logs.
I didn’t want to go looking for Harper. I told myself it was because she was not here, or having a good time, that she deserved a night with friends, but the truth was, I didn’t want to face her. Not yet. Not with all this poison swirling in my head.
Big Papa found me before anyone else did. He moved through the crowd like a tank through wet cement, every inch of him battle-scarred and calm. The firelight made the old burns on his face look fresh, a topographic map of every fight he’d survived. He stopped next to me and said nothing for a minute. He finally spoke. “Aspen said the girls had a great time thisafternoon. Said Harper opened up a bit. Mentioned something about how she had wound up where we found her. Said it was a rough story.”
I was running low on compassion at that moment. “We all got our sad stories I guess, huh, Papa?”
I saw the disappointment in his eyes. That just about gutted me. The one person around here you don’t want to disappoint is JT “Big Papa Rice.” The man had been wounded by a roadside bomb and carried scars all over his body, and he was about the best goddamn man you could ever meet. He could kill a man with his bare hands, but he also would pray with you if you asked. I’d never been happier than when he’d found his true made, that little witch Aspen, who remarkably is a hybrid. Her daddy is the King of Angels on the earth. How perfect it that? Papa deserved that woman. Maybe I deserved the hell I was wallowing in. He shook his head and walked away from me.
Gunner was next in the little parade of officers coming my way. He’s the youngest and newest of our crew. He was selected as an officer when Menace became the fucking King of the Midwest Territory. Yeah, I rub elbows with a king. Gunner is way smarter than he’s given credit for. Has a cattle ranch and is a cowboy through and through. He wants to find his mate more than anything and thinks I’m a fucking moron for not grabbing Harper with both hands and letting bygones be bygones. He’d never felt the sting of rejection, though. Never lived through years of gut-spilling emptiness knowing the person created for you didn’t want you, or so you thought. It fucks with your heart, your head, and your soul.
He handed me a beer without comment.
“So,” he said after a long pull. “You gonna stand around broodin’ all night or are you gonna actually enjoy yourself?”
I ignored him.
