“Yes, the demon is back and eating—”
“How many times did you try to break up with me last night? This morning? You don’t think I heard the long pauses and the heavy sighs? You’ve been getting that hangdog look ever since the first possum drank some lake water and died. And now we have a growing dead zone with no answer.”
“I need to kill it—”
“And for some twisted reason, you think that means we’ve got to split, you and me.”
“We do have to—”
“But you don’t talk to me about it. You stare at me while I sleep and then kiss me like it’s never going to happen again.”
“Josh—”
“And then you do that.” He pointed at his family. “You poke and you push until I fucking explode all over my family, so I will hate you.” This time he stabbed him in the chest. “Congratulations! I do! I despise you because you didn’t have the balls to talk to me straight out.”
He watched Nero’s jaw work and his shoulders hunch. His brow narrowed in anger, but he held it back. And when he spoke, Nero invested it with that goddamned alpha power he had. Good thing Josh was too pissed off for it to work on him.
“Wolf protocol encourages a complete break with the past, and that’s never pretty—”
“I don’t care! You wanted to do this. Protocol or not, you wanted to be the asshole so that I would break up with you.”
He held Nero’s glare, matching it with enough hatred to make sure his point stuck. Apparently it did, because Nero’s eyes dropped first. He looked down at a crack in the driveway and slowly nodded.
“Maybe I did. And maybe that was cowardly of me.”
“You think?”
“And maybe I don’t know how to feel about a lover who is a trainee with a genius-sized brain.” He lifted his head. “You’re going to move up fast in the company. All the higher-ups are already clamoring for your time and are willing to pay you well for that. Me? I’m a grunt who is waiting for my next assignment on the front lines. There was never any future for us.Never. And I….” He looked away.
“And you love me, dickwad.”
Nero’s head snapped up. “What?”
“Holy fuck, you think I didn’t know? You think I’d let anybody do with me what we’ve done? It’s not just the sex. There’s nothing you don’t know about me. You’re the first person I turn to in the morning and the last one I kiss at night.”
Nero was shaking his head hard. “That’s not l—” He swallowed. “That’s pack. That’s how we feel in a pack.”
“And that’slove. You love your pack.”
“Yes.” The word cracked as it came out.
“And it sucks when that pack is torn apart, however it happens.” Josh looked past Nero’s shoulder to the house behind him. “But you didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to do it this way.” And with that, he turned away. He still had nowhere to go, but he was done talking. He needed some time alone—time to hate, to rage, to grieve in peace.
So he turned his back on Nero and walked to the rear bumper of the car. And when Nero didn’t move, Josh spoke over his shoulder. “The specs are in your phone. Get my dad to start making the thing so we can get the hell out of here.”
He waited another few moments, his shoulders tight and his breath all but sawing out of his chest. There were tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t want to give himself away by wiping them off. Nero saw everything, and that was a detail he wouldn’t miss.
So he leaned back against the bumper of Nero’s car and let the tears burn cold on his cheeks. In time, Nero sighed and went back into the house. That should have been great. It really should have, except that once his vision cleared, Josh saw a car whipping down the street. A canary yellow Mustang with a dented bumper and a cute brunette gripping the steering wheel as she careened into a parking space.
Savannah.
She slammed to a stop outside his parents’ place, then burst out of the car and ran straight at him. He tensed, and thank God for his werewolf strength, because she was not a small woman as she leaped into his arms. And then she held him, squeezing him tight enough to make his eyes tear up again. It wasn’t pain but gratitude. Someone loved him enough to hug him as if her life had ended without him.
“Josh.” She spoke his name as if it were a prayer. Eventually she took a deep breath and slid out of his arms. Then she slugged him hard on the shoulder.
“Ow!” Now even his best friend was hitting him? What the hell?
“Don’t ‘ow’ me! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. Your parents didn’t know anything, you missed Ivy’s party, and no one at your lab has heard from you. What have you been doing? And why does it seem like you’ve been working out?” She squeezed his arm. “You haven’t been this built since… ever.” Then she peered hard at his face. “And why does it look like you’ve been crying?”
