The answering smile on Justin’s face was like the sun coming out. Dave froze. He’d missed it, damn it, but he could see now as clear as day that Justin thought this was something it wasn’t. Something it could never be, not when Dave had already given his heart away, and Christian—stubborn, flawed, wonderful Christian—still hadn’t handed it back.
He pulled out his phone, buying a moment to think. Should he say something straight out? Or if he just backed off, maybe Justin would get the message.
He was also curious who the text could be from. It wouldn’t be Christian. He knew Dave’s routine by heart, knew that he’d have taken himself off to do hippie stuff, as he called it, no matter that his discipline drills did almost exactly the same thing—“but that’s a martial art, emphasis on themartial”—and there wasn’t anyone else who’d call. Except for the pack. Suddenly worried, he unlocked his phone.
It was from Tristan.Matt told me to send this.Possible suspect for that thing.Shame you’re not here—Councilor Steadman’s awesome.Colby says hi.
Thisturned out to be a photograph of a burly guy with very short hair, standing in what Dave instantly recognized as the living room at the ranch. As he looked at the bulging biceps and pecs straining a tight black T-shirt, he wondered just who this was and what he was doing there. But Tristan sounded relaxed, so it probably wasn’t anything heneeded to worry about.
He sent back a quick thanks, making sure to say hi to Colby—Tristan was still beaming with pride and pleasure about the fact they were mates, and he managed to work that detail into almost every conversation. Dave shook his head as he hit send. He and Christian had never been like that. When they’d realized they were mates, they’d had celebratory sex, then carried on as if nothing had changed. And maybe that explained where they were now, because they hadn’t tried to work out what it meant for them.
“Everything okay?” Justin asked, and Dave realized he was frowning.
“Yeah,” he said, turning his phone off. Then he thought again, and turned it back on. The best way to shake the ludicrous idea about staying here out of Christian’s head was to get on a plane back home as fast as possible, and the only way to make that happen was to get an answer to their question. Screw subtle—it had turned up jack shit.
He opened the attachment to Tristan’s text and passed the phone over to Justin.
“Recognize this guy?”
It was a one-in-a-million chance, and he didn’t really expect a reaction. He sure as hell didn’t expect the reaction he got. All color fled from Justin’s face as he stared at the phone, then he pushed it back at Dave as if it had burned him.
“Whoareyou?” he asked, voice low and raw, eyes wide with something close to fear.
Chapter Seventeen
DAVE
Dave snapped the phone off and slid it into his pocket to buy himself time as he tried to figure out how much to say.
“Like I said, we’re from a pack in Colorado. We know something bad happened to the pack that used to live out on the cliffs. We’re trying to make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Justin’s tongue flicked over pale lips. His whole body was rigid.
“You need to sit down?” Dave asked.
Justin took two steps to the nearest tree and sank down like his legs had given out. He couldn’t stop staring at Dave. “What do you know about that pack?” he asked, voice raw.
Dave took a chance. “A friend of ours used to be a member. He escaped when—when things went wrong.”
“Oh God.” It was muffled because Justin’s head was buried in his knees.
Completely confused, Dave crouched beside him. “Justin?”
It was a long time before Justin looked up. He seemed lost.
“I don’t know if it makes it better or worse that one of them lived,” he said wretchedly.
Anger rushed through Dave until he was almost shaking with it. How could that even be a question? He pushed it down, hard, and concentrated on what he needed Justin to tell him.
“You evidently know what happened,” he said carefully.
Justin’s hands clenched around his knees, drawing himself in. “It’s my fault,” he said at last, staring out over the empty pool. “It’s my fault they died.”
Dave couldn’t speak. Jesse’s face flashed into his mind—pale and gaunt, eyes dark with grief and horror, the way he’d been for days when his memories had returned.
Justin glanced at him and curled tighter.
Dave slowly sat beside him on the baked earth at the bottom of the tree.
