We’d mostly run errands for Rusty. The kind that needed someone who could be or pass as being sober. The fact that he’d “rewarded” us by making us do drugs with them was… yeah.
But we were sober now. Thanks to the vampire sleeping on the couch in the next room. And thanks to our cousin Brodie who had come into town and snapped Rusty’s neck. Which he deserved.
Now Brodie was our alpha, and he was the kind that deserved the title. Brodie was kind and steadfast and so damn loving. We never had to wonder how he felt or if he cared about us. That man would’ve given his life for any of us. That was love.
It just took Max and me a while to trust it and to trust the rest of our ragtag pack. We hid our distrust well, and of course on some level we couldn’t help but to fall in love with every one of Brodie’s strays, but we had a long history of being betrayed by people we’d loved the most, starting with our parents.
That reminded me, I needed to call Mom at some point. Or maybe not. She hadn’t shown any interest in staying in touch with us since she left some eight months before Brodie got into town.
We were happy that she had managed to get out from under Rusty’s thumb, but now it had been over a year and if we didn’t try to stay in touch, she didn’t seem interested. I couldn’t blame her for that. Sometimes you just needed a clean break. But I stillcouldn’t forgive her for the way she’d failed at being a loving, caring mother even when we were young.
There was a reason my brother and I were glued together. There hadn’t been anyone else, really. Brodie and her sister Bella had been part of the pack too, but they were a bit older and well, Rusty had ruined their lives, too.
The difference was that they’d been able to leave, unlike Max and I.
Luca let out a happy little sigh in his sleep, which made Max tighten his grip on my T-shirt. I smiled and tried my best to fall asleep.
Iwoke up to the mattress dipping. Max was going into the bathroom. As soon as he was gone from the bedroom, Luca bolted up, sitting in the middle of the bed, looking wide eyed as fuck.
“It’s okay,” I said quietly, gently grabbing his forearm so I could slow him down if he freaked out. “Max just needed the bathroom.”
Luca’s breathing slowed down—it still felt like a miracle that his lungs had more capacity and nothing was rattling like it had just mere hours ago—and looked at me.
“Sorry, I just….” He gestured vaguely with his free hand before snuggling back up with me.
“It’s okay. It might’ve been your new senses. I think there might be some fine-tuning you need to do to keep yourself from overreacting at random things that spook you.”
He snorted softly. “Like going into alarm mode when the bed moves? I wouldn’t have noticed that before.”
I chuckled. “I can vouch for that.” We’d slept in the same puppy pile before at the pack house, and he’d even slept in our bed one time, although on the edge of it instead of the middle. He’d been a sound sleeper. How much of that was just him and how much had been the cancer exhausting him, I didn’t know.
“Your system needs time to adjust, that’s all.” At least I hoped that was what was going on.
Suddenly he startled at the loudness of the toilet flushing. The tap ran and he relaxed again. Then Max shuffled back into the room and climbed into bed.
“Did you freak out a little?” he murmured as he sandwiched Luca between us again.
“Mhmm….” Luca turned to face him and cuddled up to his front this time.
I moved closer to Luca’s back so he’d be warmer. The way he felt cold now was different, but he also was warmer than right after being turned. It was weird how he’d had shitty circulation while he was human and ill, and now his temperature was all about how recently he’d fed. It was no wonder he gravitated to us, because wolves ran hotter than humans.
Morning came and found us tangled in the sheets and each other. I’d only been able to sleep for maybe an hour or so with how Luca had been too still in his sleep. Max often twitched, especially if he was having one of his nightmares, so having someone’s body be motionless and so cool against mine had unsettled my sleep.
I opened my eyes and looked at the men next to me. Luca, with his shaved head and pale skin, was still as gorgeous as he’d ever been with the longer hair of his rockstar days.
I wondered when he’d call his handler, Marissa. She worked with another one of his bandmates, Mila, who had been carted into rehab the same time Luca had escaped from New York City to come to us in Pennsylvania.
The other two in the band, Will and Q, had their own handler, but the band’s imminent downfall had been triggered by Will overdosing and passing away. It was a shit show that we knew Luca hadn’t processed yet.
We couldn’t blame him, of course. Not with how bad his physical health had been. The fact that the band had gone from hugely successful to one member ODing, one going to rehab, one having late-stage cancer, and the fourth doing… I didn’t even know what, felt like a big fuck you from the universe, if I was honest.
But now, Luca was physically better. I hoped he wouldn’t overcompensate for his lack of contact with his bandmates, because no matter how well he must be feeling now, he was still a freshly turned vampire. He needed time to settle before he could leave the pack house, let alone travel to meet anyone.
Internally, I compared this to a situation with one of the guys I worked with at the garage. He had severe ADHD, but was excellent with his job. He’d been so frustrated with his inability to stick to tasks that once he got the right medication, he’d overdone it and worked himself to a near burnout before we noticed and the boss man told him to take a vacation and come back with reduced hours for a couple of weeks after, just to be sure.
I guess, in this case, Rian would be the one to take Luca in hand and make him readjust his course. I definitely knew neither me or Max should even try. I didn’t want to be any sortof an authority figure to anyone, except Max when he needed it, and Max was never a leader type with me. I didn’t know how it’d go with him and Luca, but I was interested to see.
Yes, I did realize I was a fucking worrier, but it was hard not to be while growing up the way we had. I’d needed to be the strong one, Max’s rock, because I was his big brother.
