“I won’t let anyone else have Steve, you know that. He’s my little brother. Trust me that I know what I’m doing.”
The words seemed to get through to John. He relaxed his shoulders and stopped glaring, looking merely disgruntled instead.
“Fine. As long as Steve comes home and falls into line, we can do this your way.” He stomped toward the door leading out of the apartment. Before he turned the corner, he looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes. “If he doesn’t, we do it my way.”
Marcus nodded, and John disappeared around the corner. When they heard the door out of the apartment open and close, Marcus and Dylan both relaxed.
With John gone, the living room suddenly felt twice as big, and Dylan found it a lot easier to breathe. He’d never met anyone with such a menacingly oppressive aura before.
“Shower is down there,” Marcus said, sounding tired in a way he hadn’t when he was talking to his dad. He pointed at a hall leading deeper into the apartment, past a small kitchen.
Dylan hesitated. “Can I really go home?”
“Probably.” Marcus shrugged. “It depends on Steve, and on your alphas.”
“But you said-”
“I know what I said.” Marcus sat down on the couch and crossed his arms, his ripped jeans exposing his thighs and part of his thick cock. “And I think I can make that happen, but if your alphas have done something stupid, then things might get a little complicated.”
Dylan kept his gaze firmly above Marcus’s chest when he asked, “Stupid how?”
“Taken my brothers hostage to get you back, for starters, or getting the alpha council involved.” Marcus leaned back, moving his head from side to side like he was working out a kink in his neck. He spread his thighs, jolting when he looked down and realized that he was exposing himself. Acting casually, he grabbed a pillow and put it over his lap. “Barring that, we should be able to negotiate some sort of solution to this mess.”
“Can we call them?”
“Yeah.” Marcus looked down at Dylan’s soiled jeans. “That’s the plan. Do you want to shower first?”
Dylan did not. He could sit in his own piss if it meant that he could go home sooner. He shook his head.
“All right. We’ll call Steve first.” Marcus leveled a stern look at him. “Would you be willing to let Steve claim you?”
Dylan thought about it for a minute, not wanting to just say yes, but after a while he nodded. He was already Steve’s omega. That was a far more severe bond than being claimed, at least on his end.
Besides, he liked Steve, and he knew that Ryker and August liked him, too.
“Good.” Marcus reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a phone, grimacing when he saw that it was bent at a thirty-degree angle and that the screen had shattered. He tried turning it on, but nothing happened. “Military grade my ass,” he mumbled, tossing it to the other side of the couch. He held out his hand. “Give me yours.”
Dylan reached for it before he remembered that Bruce had taken it. He was about to explain when Marcus waved him off.
“I know, I know, they took your phone when they collected you at the airport.” He rose up from the couch with an annoyed grunt. “Go shower while I find a new one.”
Dylan watched as Marcus stalked out of the room, leaving him alone for the first time since he’d been kidnapped. His heart started pounding, and once again the certainty that he should be trying to escape rose up inside of him.
He pushed the feeling down. There was nowhere to go, and even if there was, he was certain that he would be hunted down within minutes and carried back in the jaws of some nine-foot monster.
Dylan wouldn’t even think about escape, he decided. Not until he heard what Steve had to say. Instead, he would do as Marcus had instructed and take a shower. He rose to his feet, his legs feeling like jelly, and made his way down the hall. He walked around the bloody section of floor where the fight had taken place, the stench of cooper making him gag, and ran the last stretch to the bathroom.
He slammed the door shut and bolted the lock.
Trying not to think, Dylan stripped off his clothes and climbed into the shower. As he went through the motions of getting clean, he couldn’t stop thinking about the fight he’d witnessed. He kept flashing back to the moment when John bit down on Marcus’s neck, the image seared into his brain. The way John’s teeth had sunk into his son’s flesh, Dylan had been sure it was a killing bite.
He’d never been so scared before in his life.
A knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts. He turned and slipped, sending him crashing elbow first into the wall and landing on his ass.
“I brought you clothes,” Marcus said from the other side of the door. When he didn’t get a reply, he asked, “Are you okay in there?”
Dylan took a second to assess his body. His elbow was bruised, but he wasn’t hurt. He pushed to his feet and turned off the shower.
