Page 11 of Wolf Lost

Dez, who had protected him from those betas without so much as a pause, ignoring the fact that he was injured. He had a cane, so the injury was almost certainly long-term, if not permanent. It felt shameful to admit that Sawyer’s instinct upon seeing the injury had been to leave.

Not for the reasons he would have expected of himself. He’d always been taught that such injuries were a symptom of human weakness, and to be avoided, but Dez hadn’t seemed weak. Hadn’t he been through enough, though? He was hurt, and here came Sawyer to bring a killer down on him and his pack. They didn’t need to deal with that, much less for the sake of a stranger.

“But I’m a strange wolf, invading your space. I know, I’m an omega, and you’re all constantly—”

“Again,” Asher interrupted him. “Those two don’t know anything about that. They don’t want to coddle you because of some double standards wolf society made up. But we’re all kind of on the outside if you look at it like that. Dez doesn’t have any family left. Me and Gavin haven’t talked to ours in years. We know what it’s like to be alone.”

And that—well, that resonated with him in a way little else had in his life. Sawyer was alone. His father was dead. His friends and pack had all abandoned him because he’d been inconvenient. And here were these complete strangers, offering him a place to stay because they knew how it felt to be alone.

Ignoring Sawyer’s silence, Asher continued. “I grew up in a pack of traditionalists. Humans are weak. Bitten wolves are only marginally better, but they still can’t be allowed into our packs, because they weaken us.” He snorted and rolled his eyes. “My last straw was when my father told me I could be gay on my own time as long as I married a woman and had pups ‘for the good of the pack.’ Like going into a marriage planning to cheat was any way to live.”

Not long ago, Sawyer would have said such a pack was even more backward than his own, but then they’d allowed Mark to challenge his father.

“It was like that story everyone reads in school,” he said, and it felt like the words were coming from someone else. Heck, sometimes it still felt like the whole situation had happened to someone else, because it couldn’t be real. “You know, where they all draw lots and then stone that woman to death because it’s what they do.”

“I know it,” Asher agreed. He gave a wry smile. “I didn’t read it in school, but I know it. My pack homeschools. They don’t read ‘human literature,’ so I’ve spent the last few years catching up on as much as I can.”

“Sounds like our packs should get together.” Sawyer offered a tentative smile of his own.

Asher threw back his head and laughed. “Ancestors forbid. Imagine how much worse they could be together.”

“They’re both pretty mad at me now, huh?” Sawyer asked, motioning toward the other half of the house, where Desmond and Gavin had gone. Maybe they’d mistaken the reason for his concern, but he wasn’t sure thinking Dez incapable of protecting himself was any better than thinking he was weak, and therefore unworthy. It was practically the same thing, just dressed up differently.

Asher leaned toward him and lowered his voice to a bare whisper. “Nah. Gavin’s fine with your explanation. He’ll take you at your word until he catches you lying to him. And Dez? Maybe you hurt his feelings, but that’s because he likes you, and he’s not used to liking anybody.” He pulled away, winked, and hopped up. “Want a tour of the house? It’s pretty awesome. We only moved in a few weeks ago, and unless your pack has way more money than mine, you’ve never seen anything like it.”

“We definitely do not. This place is like a palace.” Sawyer had grown up in a bungalow built in the fifties that only had one bathroom.

With a bright grin, Asher nodded. “Right? No joke, it’s got six bedrooms and seven bathrooms.”

“How does that even make sense? Why would you need more bathrooms than bedrooms?”

“I have no idea,” Asher answered with a shrug, still grinning. “I shared a room with two little brothers—and just one set of bunk beds—until I was so tall my feet stuck off the end.” He lifted his arms to indicate the house around him. “This place is the freaking best. I have the whole basement to myself. Wanna see? I have every game system I could find.”

“Seriously?” Sawyer grinned back. “You’re so about to get creamed in every single game ever.”

Asher punched the air. “I knew eventually we’d find someone who wasn’t”—he raised his voice and aimed his words to the other parts of the house—“‘too grownup for video games.’ We’re keeping him, just so you know!”

Dez’s voice echoed out from elsewhere in the house. “Good, maybe you’ll stop bugging us to play kid games now.”

Somehow, it felt more like acceptance than like the slight insult it was pretending to be. Maybe because it sounded like he was smiling when he said it.

8

The End of the Innocence

Three hours later, Dez felt like himself again. His leg had calmed to a sore throb instead of cramping with every motion, and his hurt feelings had been soothed. As Gavin had quietly pointed out when he’d joined him in the hot tub, Sawyer hadn’t said he had a problem with Dez’s leg. He didn’t think Dez could protect him, but was that such a shock?

For a while after the injury, Dez hadn’t felt so very different about it. He’d needed time, distance, and the realization that not only was this the new normal, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d thought.

From the sound of it, Sawyer spent the hours playing video games and trash-talking with Ash. It was cute, in a strange sort of way. Dez hadn’t ever been much of a teenager, playing video games and eating junk food. He’d gotten a job when he was fourteen, because his grandfather had told him it was time to start paying his way.

Sure, the old man had plenty, and he’d been given custody of Dez at twelve when the cancer had taken his mother, but he had reminded Dez at every possible turn that he hadn’t approved of her choice in husband. Desmond had never met his father; he had died in an industrial accident before Dez was born. But sometimes, when he’d been a child wishing his grandfather loved him, he’d cursed his own father’s existence.

The sky had long gone dark when he saw Sawyer slip out onto the back deck. He took a seat on one of their cushioned Adirondack chairs and stared up at the sky.

Dez knew the feeling. He’d been overwhelmed by it when they had arrived in Kismet a few weeks earlier. The sky in Kismet was a darker black than anywhere else he’d lived, and the stars were brighter, closer—it felt almost like he could reach out and grab them.

Sawyer had that same look of wide-eyed wonder he imagined on himself when he’d first sat on the balcony of their hotel room the night they had arrived in Colorado. It wasn’t something beautiful like the majestic snow-capped mountains. It was ordinary, something a guy saw every night just by looking up. But something about being in the mountains made it extraordinary.

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