They’d agreed on the drive back not to mention this on WhatsApp, where Jesse would be blindsided. As Dave had pointed out, although Jesse knew they might find something, there was a difference between abstract knowledge and actually hearing the details of his long-abandoned home, where everything had been silent and dead.
Instead, Christian called Matt and told him what they’d found—the tunnel, the hidden basin, the remains of a life long ago interrupted, but with no evidence of what had happened there.
“No signs at all?” Matt asked.
“No.” Christian dragged a hand through his hair. “Just emptiness.”
Matt breathed out a long sigh. “Even with no definitive proof, thathasto be where Jesse’s old pack lived.”
Christian hesitated. “So we stood in what’s left of his home.”
Matt was quiet for a moment. “You good?”
“I’m fine. We’re meeting the local pack tonight, but I can’t tell you more, because you know the first rule of fight club. Still the only decent part of that movie.”
He was glad Dave was in the shower so he didn’t have to see the eye roll he’d have given.
“You sure that’s the smartest way to make contact?” Matt asked.
“It works.”
There was a pause. “Just don’t end up killing any of the local pack, okay?”
“You spoil all my fun,” Christian muttered.
Matt didn’t comment. “Let me know how it goes.”
Christian ended the call.
He hadn’t said the part that stuck in his throat—that Jesse had been seven. Seven years old, and orphaned by what had happened in that place. Christian had known that, intellectually. But standing there earlier, in the silence of those abandoned homes, it had become real.
Jesse had been someone’s son. Someone’s pup. And then it had been taken away from him. He’d had no warning, no choice. Everything had just beengone. He’d been hauled away…
No, wait, it hadn’t happened that way for Jesse.
Jesus.Showed how badly it had unsettled him. He hated this kind of grief—the kind that came from too far back to be fixed.
The bathroom door opened, and Dave stepped out, unconcernedly naked, skin still damp from the shower, golden in the low light. Christian watched him, the tightness in his chest loosening.
Dave had a year-round tan, probably because of the amount of time he spent communing with nature or whatever it was he did out there when he did his butt-naked yoga. It varied enough that Christian had learned to tell the seasons by the color of Dave’s skin. Right now, it was just beginning to lose the rich, brown depths of summer, turning to light gold as they headed toward winter.
“You still want to go ahead with this tonight?” Dave asked, as he finished toweling his hair dry and threw the towel onto the bed. “We could just go and watch. We’d be able to talk to more people if there were two of us asking questions.”
“Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?” Christian said, as he moved forward until he was standing in Dave’s space. With an effort, he lifted his eyes from where Dave’s chest was beginning to rise and fall a little unevenly and looked into those familiar blue eyes. “’Sides, you know I need it.”
There was an instant of what might have been sadness in Dave’s expression, but before Christian could identify it for sure, it disappeared. Maybe because Christian’s hands were now on Dave’s hips.
He kissed him slowly and thoroughly, letting himself be pulled into something physical, somethingalive. It wasn’t just about need, though that burned hot in his gut. It was about stopping the reel in his head of the empty homes fading into dust, of Jesse, too small and helpless to stop what had happened. OfeverythingChristian hadn’t been able to stop.
Dave didn’t ask what was wrong. He never did. He just pulled Christian closer and met him where he was, quiet and steady, his hands cradling Christian’s face like this wasn’t just sex—it was shelter.
Christian didn’t say a word, because he didn’t know how. But in every movement, every breath, every kiss, he gave everything he couldn’t say aloud.
* **
The old canning plant sat two miles out of town. Low and squat, it was made of weathered red brick with a rusting corrugated roof. It looked long abandoned, but the trucks, bikes, and beat-up cars parked outside told a different story, as did the laughter and music that swirled out into the night each time the door opened.
The shifter at the door was built like a fridge and narrowed his eyes as they approached, evidently clocking them as shifters. “Who the hell are you?”
