Page 4 of Destined Prey
Casey stepped away from the dead alpha and howled, proclaiming his victory. Ben and the rest of the pack joined him for a brief song, very brief as they knew there were two men in the house, and they likely had more guns in there.
Before the last note was sung, they were running, paws making a rhythmic sound against the dirt and grass. Ben didn’t want to leave, but he had no choice. He couldn’t just show up at the door in the middle of the night and it not seem suspicious.
Whoever the sexy, Not-Rhett—and injured, Ben hadn’t missed that—man was, something about him called to Ben.
It wasn’t just scent, it wasn’t just the way the man had stood frozen with a gun he clearly didn’t know how to use. It was something deeper, gnawing at Ben’s chest like hunger. And hunger, he knew, could make a man reckless.
And there was no way Ben would stay away from him for very long.
“What thefuckjust happened out there?” Jack asked, helping Rhett to sit up on the couch. “How’d you get this bump?” He touched the goose-egg-sized lump by Rhett’s right temple.
“I don’t know,” Rhett said, almost whining.
Jack bit his tongue to keep from asking more questions. Seeing Rhett pale and listing made his stomach knot tighter than the fight outside had. Wolves, glowing eyes—he could handle fear. But seeing his brother weak? That gutted him. If Rhett was on the verge of whining, something Jack had never heard him do before, then Rhett had to be hurting quite a bit.
“Okay. Let me look at it again.”
Rhett hissed and tipped his head to the left. Jack carefully parted Rhett’s hair and examined his scalp. “There’s not even a scratch. Where’d the blood on the side of your face come from?”
“Dunno. Fuck!” Rhett listed to the left and would have fallen over if Jack hadn’t grabbed him and tugged him upright.
Saving Rhett caused Jack’s side to ache like a motherfucker. His legs almost gave out on him before he plopped gracelessly onto the coffee table.
Rhett closed his eyes. “Goddamn, but we are a pair, aren’t we?”
“A pair of what?” Jack wondered, trying to keep his breaths shallow and still get enough air into his lungs.
“There were wolves,” Rhett muttered. “Too damn many. Tried to shoot ’em, but something hit me. Figured I was dead meat.”
“Don’t say that,” Jack snapped, forgetting his own physical pain as an emotional one drowned it out. “Don’tsaythat!”
Rhett opened his eyes and held a hand out to him. “Jack. I’m here. I’m not dead.”
Jack was trembling, shaking hard enough that his teeth chattered. He shook his head, unable to get another word out. The weight of it hit him—he couldn’t lose Rhett, not after Mom and Dad, not when Rhett was the only anchor left in a world that kept chewing him up. The tears broke loose before he could stop them, humiliating in their intensity, but unstoppable.
“You haven’t lost me, little brother,” Rhett assured him in a quiet voice, the same one he’d used when Jack would have ameltdown after their mom’s death. And their dad’s. “I’m too ornery to die just yet.”
To Jack’s horror, he sobbed, the sound torn from him before he had an inkling it was coming. He slapped his hands over his mouth and tried to get to his feet, only to have Rhett grab him and pull him down onto the couch.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Rhett said. He wrapped his arms around Jack in a gentle hug. “It’s okay. Whatever’s eating at you, Jack, you can tell me.”
Jack didn’t know how Rhett did it, that big-brother magic of knowing when something just wasn’t right with him. It was one of the reasons why Jack had left home in the first place. He’d been afraid of what Rhett would see in him, about him, afraid it’d put an end to the last familial relationship Jack had.
Rhett touched Jack’s side. “Does it have to do with this?”
Jack swiped at his cheeks. His lips trembled. He hated it when that happened.
“Jackie, tell me.” Rhett hadn’t called him by that in ages. The word cracked something open in him, like being ten years old again and crawling into Rhett’s bed after a nightmare. He wanted to confess everything, the accident, Alex, the gnawing emptiness that made him run. Instead, the lump in his throat only swelled. It undid Jack in a way he couldn’t quite grasp, and he found himself wanting, so badly, to confide in his brother. “If it’s the gay thing, I already figured that out,” Rhett said.
“W-what?” Jack tried to scoot back, but Rhett didn’t release him from the hug. “I-I—” He couldn’t lie, didn’t want to.
Rhett tucked a finger under his chin, and Jack had to look him in the eyes.
Rhett gave him a crooked grin. “Aw, come on. We never discussed sex or…or stuff like that, but I figured… I mean, you would get boners when we watchedSupernaturaland either of the brothers were on. I’m not blind or stupid.”
Jack sputtered. Embarrassment flushed hot under his skin, but beneath it was something else—relief. Relief that he didn’t have to carry the weight alone anymore. Relief that maybe, just maybe, Rhett saw him and still cared anyway.
It seemed that nothing but consonants were escaping him.
