Page 31 of Expensive

I need to feel the sting of his love bites on my skin. I need to eat grilled cheese sandwiches in his arms. I need be stretched by his knot until I can’t tell where he ends and I begin. I need it so badly, that I’m willing to risk his safety to have it.

What kind of person have I become?

15

Timber

When I get into my car, I drive north. Andrew said he didn’t want me to worry about keeping him safe from his father and the Monroes, but I’m his Daddy. His safety is important to me. And I happen to know someone who is very good at helping people who are in danger.

It takes me several hours in the car before I get to the wide-open spaces of Upstate New York. By the time I make it to a familiar long dirt road lined on both sides with tall grass, the sun is low in the sky and the crickets have already started singing.

Up on a hill sits a single log cabin I helped build. It was designed in the style of the simple cabins on the red wolf shifter compounds and constructed in exactly the same way. The month I came up here to build it was surreal—like taking a journey back home. I’m surprised Manny can stand living in a space that’s so reminiscent of our childhood.

But there are a lot of things about Manny I don’t understand.

After I was rescued from the pits ten years ago, the social workers placed me in a halfway house with seven other alphas. We were all coming off the virility meds our captors kept us hopped up on for years, and the doctors were honest with us. Those meds were meant to be temporary solutions to fertility issues, they were not intended for long-term use. The doctors feared that once they left our systems, our bodies would simply stop functioning.

So we sat on a rag tag collection of hospital beds and waited to see who would die.

The alpha who had been in the pits longest went first. It wasn’t a loud death. He simply went to sleep and never woke up. Two other alphas died the same way. I had been in the pits longer than both of them, so the others watched me closely as the hours passed.

But I didn’t die.

In the end, five of us survived. We all took new names: Timber, Manitoba, Hokkaido, Steppe, and Kenai. Different types of wolves.

After all, we weren’t red wolf shifters anymore. Not in any of the ways that mattered. We couldn’t take mates, our families forbade us from coming home, and our God had forsaken us. It was better to acknowledge we were something different now instead of dwelling on the lives we’d once had.

I park on a patch of dirt not unlike the parking lots back home. This time of year, the patch is muddy, and my boots sink into the soft earth as I head up the walkway to his cabin. A bare lightbulb shines above Manitoba’s doorway.

In contrast to the rustic nature of the cabin itself, the roof has several antennae and a satellite attached to the top. Inside the cabin, I hear Manny’s voice.

“We need an exact location, or we can’t go in. If they move those kids because of a botched rescue attempt, we may not get another chance.”

I knock on the wooden door. It’s solid and sturdy. Red wolf shifter cabins aren’t outfitted with frills, but they are secure.

“Yes, that’s fine. I have company. Call me back when you know more.”

The front door swings open, and Manny stands there in the long-sleeved cotton shirt and hand sewn denim pants that red wolf shifters wear. No one owns anything on the compound, including clothes. Every Monday of my childhood I picked up clothing in a bin marked with my size and dropped off the previous week’s in a fabric bag. I don’t know how Manny got those clothes. Maybe he’d sewn them himself.

“Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” he says, throwing his arms around me for a hug so fierce, it makes the air leave my lungs. Manny’s much smaller than I am. When he first arrived in the pits, I didn’t think he’d survive because of his lithe build. But he’s a lot stronger than he looks.

“It’s been too long. I’ve missed you,” I say.

He releases me and steps back inside. “Yeah. Come on in. I was about to put some soup on the stove for supper.”

The cabin is one room with a bed in the corner and a makeshift kitchen near the entrance. Traditional red wolf shifter cabins don’t need a kitchen because the food for the entire compound is prepared in the same place. Manny also has a desk with a laptop and several other communication devices that deviates from the traditional design. But much of it is the same. Like the windows lined with wax paper and the set of scriptures on his nightstand. Seeing those slim books always makes my heart ache. The red wolf God in those scriptures declares that a man who has lain with anyone outside the careful mate selection process regulated by the church is damned, regardless of why. It’s one of the reasons none of us were allowed to return to the compounds where our families live. They believe we’re doomed to hell.

Manny’s scriptures are well worn anyway.

Unlike Manny, I don’t believe in the God we grew up with. And I also believe if our people weren’t so quick to abandon anyone who has “sinned,” the problems we have with human trafficking would be minimized. If you were going to kidnap someone, wouldn’t it be convenient if you knew no one would ever come looking for them? That there would be no consequences?

That’s where Manny comes in. There’s one rule of the red wolf God he was never able to follow. It isn’t in his nature to give up on people who have been taken against their will.

That’s why I came here.

I sit on the chair tucked into his desk. I’m exhausted. Constant sex with Andrew was certainly fun, but I’m not as young as I used to be.

Manny squats to look at the bottom shelves next to the stovetop. “Chicken noodle or beef stew?”

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