Page 48 of Wolf Found

He leaned down and gave Graham a peck on the lips.

There was no way to ever know the truth, so Ash opted to believe in him and Graham. Mates, not mates, it didn’t even matter. They belonged together.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Graham’s eyes went round, but he pushed up onto his toes to reciprocate the kiss and then whispered against Ash’s lips, “I love you so much.”

“Well, isn’t that just sickening?” asked the next-to-last voice in the world that Ash had ever wanted to hear again.

This time, though, he had no reason to be nice. No reason to pretend to be respectful, to protect the reputation of his own pack. No, the Martingales had kidnapped a member of another pack, and there was no reason to try to make nice with them.

Even if he wanted to, he’d kind of broken into the enclave, so it was a little late to mind his manners.

“Hiya, Dad,” Ash said sardonically, giving the asshole a manic grin. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I should expect you to make a joke of your own crimes. Breaking into a pack enclave? Trying to steal one of our pack members?”

Ash scoffed aloud and looked at his father disbelievingly. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Language,” Amos replied, as though by rote.

Ash offered him his best snarky Sawyer smile. “Fuck off.”

Graham’s hand tightened in his, but Ash didn’t have the time to find out why, because that was when Amos rushed him.

If he were being honest, part of him was surprised. He knew his father was a monster—he did. The man had stood there next to Ezekiel when the alpha had torn Ash’s pack bonds. He’d watched his own son retch and sob, and hadn’t so much as said a word to him.

But there was still a wide gap between not helping and actively attacking.

Amos speared him directly into a wall, and he felt the old drywall buckle behind him. He brought his knee up in time to catch the old man in the chin as he pulled away, using his foot to throw him back against the opposite wall of the hallway.

“We just want to leave,” he told his father. “Graham isn’t in your pack, and you know it. He’s in mine.”

“You don’t have a pack,” his father sneered, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “You have a band of feral alphas living together. One of them can barely even walk.”

Ash had to laugh at that. “Are you kidding me? Dez would have kicked your ass by now. He’d have been the first to do it, in fact. He wanted to do it the night you met.”

Amos took a swing, a wild haymaker, and Ash should have known it was a fake. In the moment, though, he underestimated his father, and the wily old bastard threw his whole body at Ash again.

This time they literally crashed through the wall, landing on the floor on the other side, and Ash could barely breathe, given a hard floor at his back and two hundred pounds of werewolf on top of him.

He wheezed at all the dust the wall collapse had thrown into the air, and his father took advantage of the moment to land a right hook straight to his face. His head snapped to one side, but he didn’t think his jaw broke. Probably.

When his father’s hands went around his neck, that was when he started to panic.

The old man knew him too well, knew his weaknesses. Knew that if there was a single thing in the world Ash was terrified of, it was not breathing. His mother had been knocked unconscious and fallen into the river behind the enclave and drowned. Ash still had nightmares.

His mind rebelled and pulled away, but before he lost consciousness, the most horrible sensation dragged him back to awareness. It was burning hot and itchy, and he wanted to cry and sneeze and run the hell away, and whatever it was, his father had taken the brunt of it.

Ash breathed for a few seconds, heavily and grateful for that opportunity. He realized someone was talking, as his consciousness reasserted itself.

“. . . never been anything but a damned bully, Amos Martingale. No one in your pack likes you, not even your own shadow.” There was another hit of the horrific smell-sensation, and Ash realized that somehow, Graham had gotten his hands on one of the vials of pepper spray.

His eyes stung, but he couldn’t help sending a smile at his mate. “That was so badass,” he said. He wasn’t sure if anyone understood him, since his voice was so hoarse.

Amos roared and launched himself at Graham, slamming him into an ancient-looking armoire, which broke into pieces. Graham let out a pained whimper, and the smell of his blood was renewed in the air.

And that, unlike when the bastard had choked him, made Ash see red. The man had hurt his mate. Father or not, Ash would destroy him.

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