by Quinn Loftis
“You didn’t knock,” Costin growled without looking up.
Wrong move, Beta, Decebel thought. “I am Alpha. I don’t have to knock. You are my friend, but you are also my Beta, and that means you will look at me when you address me.” Decebel’s growled words held his power in them, the force of his will. Costin had no choice but to raise his head. Decebel thought he’d see anger, pain, or the other things he could smell, but instead the hazel eyes of his Beta met his with complete submission. This at least meant that the man was still in control. His head tilted enough that his neck was vulnerable and his stare had shifted to something over Decebel’s shoulder. No eye contact, no challenge. Good.
“How is your son?” Decebel demanded, glancing at Titus. He looked back to Costin and an unspoken question hung in the air. Are you a danger to him?
“It’s not bad enough for that, not yet,” Costin assured him.
Costin knew that Decebel would place Titus’ protection as his highest priority. As one of the youngest pack members, the boy would need to be kept safe, even from his own father if necessary. And the time might come when Decebel would have to remove Titus from Costin’s care, at least until Sally returned.
“I apologize for not knocking. I wasn’t sure what I’d find in here and my wolf was already on edge. But you are my Beta and such a position is not without honor in the pack. I would not have placed you in that position if I didn’t trust you. And I trust you to know how to control your own wolf. But more importantly, I trust you to tell me if he becomes too much for you to handle.”
Despite his reassuring words, the exchange troubled Decebel deeply. If Costin’s wolf was reacting to the Alpha out of instinct, and that instinct was telling Costin to challenge Decebel instead of submitting, then the darkness was spreading, fast.
“Please, Alpha, just give me a few more days.”
Decebel could see the sincerity in his Beta’s eyes. The wolf was telling him no, but the man wanted to show some compassion. “Costin, you are still very young. You found your mate much quicker than most of us. I lived over a century before I found my Jennifer. Perhaps, no wolf was closer than I to the darkness before I found her. I’ve wrestled with it, Costin. Day after day, year after year, I fought off the darkness. I know what it’s like. But you…you don’t know how lucky you were to find your Sally at such a young age. You haven’t spent the lifetimes fighting it like most of us have. Now it seems like centuries of darkness are falling on you all at once. They say that having a treasure and losing it is much worse than never having one at all. Can you really control your wolf, Beta?”
Costin breathed heavily as he looked down at Titus. The boy was quietly examining the pieces of the puzzle before putting them in their respective places. “Promise me something, Alpha. If the time comes…promise me you’ll—” Costin’s words choked in his throat. “Promise me that you and Jen will—”
“You know that we would,” Decebel responded. “The boy is pack. We would care for him just as we do for Thia.”
Titus looked up from where he sat on the floor and stared into the Alpha’s eyes without blinking. “You growl an awful lot,” he said pointedly.
Decebel nodded his head. “I do growl a lot, but sometimes people just need to be growled at.”
Titus’ head tilted slowly to the side and his eyes narrowed on Decebel. It was a good thing he was a pup or Decebel’s wolf would be dishing out more than a growl.
“What if growling doesn’t work?” Titus asked.
“Well, it usually works,” said Decebel. The large Alpha crouched down so that he was eye level with the boy. “But if it doesn’t work…you know what wolves do after they growl don’t you?”
Titus’ eyes went wide.
“They bite,” Decebel said jumping at the boy and grabbing him, tickling him under his arms and in his ribs. Titus squealed in delight for a moment, then become suddenly serious.
“Are you going to bite my daddy?” the boy asked.
“You love your daddy, don’t you, Titus?”
The small child nodded his head slowly.
“Well I do too. You see Titus, here in this house, we are more than just mommies and daddies, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. We are something called a pack. And every member of the pack is very special. The pack looks out for each other and cares for each other. Your father is part of the pack, and now you are part of the pack too.
“But all packs have a leader. And the leader’s job is to protect his pack at all costs. And guess who’s the leader of our pack?”
Titus pointed at Decebel’s chest slowly, clearly digesting the Alpha’s words.
“That’s right. That means that I’m going to protect you and your father, no matter what. And I’m also going to do everything I can to find your mother. Does that sound good?”
The little boy thought about it and then nodded his head. “Okay. I guess I understand that Daddy needed to be growled at, but it’s only because my mommy is gone. So if you get her back, no more growling… and no biting!”
“You got it,” Decebel said with a nod and small smile, standing up again.
Decebel turned to go but stopped when he heard Titus again.
“Alpha,” he called.
Decebel turned to face him once more.
“Maybe, if you have to growl at Daddy again, maybe you should growl at me instead.”
Decebel looked over to Costin who was staring at his little boy, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “Why would I need to growl at you instead?” He asked.
“Because Daddy is broken and I don’t think your growls could fix him. But you can growl at me.” Titus was completely serious and believed every word coming out of his own mouth. The boy was smart, that was certain. But the boy’s intuitiveness, very much like a wolf, interested Decebel even more. That’s not something you learn, it’s just a part of who and what you are, the Alpha thought.
“Take good care of him,” Decebel told Titus.
The little boy nodded and straightened his shoulders, proud he’d been given a task.
“Yes, Alpha,” he repeated the words his dad has spoken a few minutes ago.
He gave Costin one more pointed look and then turned, leaving the same way he came, only this time he didn’t wonder what he was dealing with—he knew. If they didn’t find Sally soon, Costin would not be able to fight the darkness. He would become fully feral.
Costin looked down at the crushed puzzle pieces he’d been holding. That’s just about what he felt like, crushed. He looked across the puzzle at Titus who had gone back to searching for the correct placement of the pieces as if he hadn’t just offered to take Costin’s punishment for him.
“Titus,” Costin waited until he looked up.
“Yes, Daddy,” he answered and then looked up at him.
“I’m sorry,” Costin’s voice broke and he paused, wrestling with so many emotions. “I’m sorry that all this has happened and just after you got here too. I’m sorry your mommy isn’t here and I can’t seem to fix it. I’m sorry that you feel you should take my punishment for me.” Titus had become blurry because of the tears flooding Costin’s eyes. His heart wasn’t just broken for his mate; it was also broken for the child they’d been given.
“You’re my daddy. That’s what sons do for their daddies, and you would do it for me because I’m your son.” Titus answered sincerely.
Costin reached across and picked his son up and placed him in his lap. He wrapped his arms around him and held him close. “You’re right, I would do that for you. I will always do what’s best for you.” Costin didn’t tell the boy that there might come a time when what was best for him would be to be as far away from Costin as possible.
If he went feral, Costin would run, as fast and as far as possible away from the people he cared about. He would not let his wolf destroy what he loved.
Chapter 3
“I feel like something is missing. It’s right there, just outside of my grasp. Every time I start to
get close to it, it slips away again. My dreams are filled with an empty void and I don’t know how to fill it. At first I thought it was the death of my parents, but now I’m not so sure.” ~Sally
Sally dried the fiftieth glass of the evening—she’d been counting—as she watched Jericho mix a customer’s drink. She had to admit that Jericho, despite his slightly overeager personality, was a talented bartender. He had mad skills when it came to spinning bottles, tossing glasses, and sliding drinks down the bar to their buyers with uncanny precision. Sally kept picturing herself attempting those same stunts, but her fantasies always ended, probably realistically, with bottles of liquor crashing down around her while glass and liquid splattered the patrons that lined the bar. Yep, she was pretty sure there would be no bartending theatrics in her future. She’d be happy if she ever remembered the names of the drinks and what went in them.
“How you doing over there, Texas?” Jericho shot over his shoulder at her. He’d adopted this little nickname for her when he’d found out where she was from. Sally had been dutifully ignoring all of his insinuations about everything being bigger in Texas and, though she didn’t really care for the nickname, she supposed it could be worse.
“Wiping down these glasses is riveting. I don’t think I could handle much more excitement,” she said dryly. Okay, so she was bored, sue her.
“Wow, it’s only your first day and already you’ve got attitude.” His eyes sparkled with mischief as he smiled at her. “I like it.”
Sally laughed as she reached for the next glass only to grab air. She looked down and realized that she’d finished all of them. Finally, she thought as she stuck part of the towel in her back pocket and left the rest hanging out. With all the pouring of various fluids the job involved, she figured out real quick why bartenders kept a towel tucked in their jeans.
“You ready to try your hand at mixing?” Jericho asked her as he handed the finished drink to the man across the bar and then turned to face her. He leaned a hip against the counter and crossed his muscular arms in front of him. He was pretty, that was for sure.
“Have to learn sometime,” she said as she clapped her hands together and rubbed them as though needing to warm them up.
“I figure it would be better to do it now, before we get to the 5:30 rush. Once people start getting off work, ready to unwind, we won’t have a free minute until closing time at midnight.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” she responded.
He smiled at her then pushed away from the bar and reached beneath it, pulling out a stack of papers held together by a metal ring in the top left corner. They were all laminated and, from what Sally could see, extremely worn.
“This is the master drink list,” he began. “It has every drink we make and the ingredients and how to mix them. In the beginning, it’s going to seem like a lot, but just like having to memorize multiplication tables, you’ll wind up memorizing this.”
“And what if I never mastered my multiplication tables?” Sally asked.
“You’re screwed,” he said without missing a beat. “Alright, let’s start getting familiar with the different types of alcohol.” Jericho motioned her over to the back of the bar where rows of bottles lined shelves that ran up the wall all the way to the ceiling. A mirror behind the bottles and shelves made it look as though there were multiple bottles in each row.
“What do you know about liquor?” he asked as he began pulling bottles down.
“It’s flammable.”
Jericho paused in mid-reach and turned his head to look at her. “Is that all?”
“Too much of it makes people puke?” Sally said, though it came out like a question.
Jericho shook his head and continued to pull down different bottles. “Wow, this is going to be a loooong day. The only saving grace is that you’re hot and I get to watch you mix drinks.”
Sally frowned at him. “Mixing drinks is considered hot?”
“It is when it’s a chick and she’s shaking a mixer causing all kinds of bouncing and jiggling in all the right places,” he answered with a roguish grin.
Sally didn’t know how to respond to that, so instead she picked up the laminated sheets and examined the drinks listed there. She thought maybe that the best way to discourage Jericho’s flirting would be not to acknowledge it at all.
“Let’s just start with the basics,” Jericho began. He held up a bottle with clear liquid in it. “This is vodka. It’s a hard liquor.”
Sally leaned back against the counter and prepared herself for a long afternoon of information overload.
Costin stood under the nearly unbearably hot water. It scalded his skin and he relished the pain. Physical pain was a welcome distraction from the emotional turmoil that was raging inside of him. He was trying to hold it together, for fear of Decebel being true to his word and for the hope of Sally coming back, but he felt as though his sanity was slowly slipping away from him. The darkness that she’d kept at bay for so long was returning. He’d almost forgotten what it was like living with the darkness as a constant companion—always there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to wrest control from the man. He hadn’t missed the feeling. Sally’s absence had left a void that the darkness was all too happy to fill, and he honestly didn’t know how long he could hold himself together. It had been a little over forty-eight hours since they’d realized she was missing, and if it wasn’t for Titus, Costin would have been a raging lunatic by now.
And if the man was bad, his wolf was even worse. The beast paced inside of him, yearning to be set free. But Costin knew that he couldn’t allow the wolf out, not right now. If he gave his beast even a little bit of freedom, it would take over completely. Costin had overheard the others talking about Drake and he knew that the situation was dire. The last thing the pack needed was another feral wolf to deal with.
With a heavy sigh, he shut off the water. Though he didn’t want to leave the quiet space, Titus needed him. Gavril had been generous enough to keep an eye on him while Costin took some time to deal with his emotions, but Gavril wasn’t the boy’s father. Costin was, and he needed to be the one caring for him.
Costin dried off and dressed quickly. For perhaps the hundredth time since Sally went missing, Costin glanced in the mirror to make sure that his mating marks were still there before putting his shirt on. Nothing had changed. The marks that had climbed up his neck when Sally had come of age were still there. So where was she? Why couldn’t he feel her? And how in seven hells was he supposed to find her if he couldn’t feel her through the bond? With a growl, he threw on his shirt and stormed out of the bathroom.
Those were questions that weren’t going to be answered by him wallowing in his sorrow and rage. He went to the playroom that Jen had insisted Decebel put together for Thia—a jungle gym of toddler play equipment and toys which, of course, the tiny infant couldn’t even yet play with. When he reached the room, he took a deep breath before entering. He plastered a smile on his face and then stepped through the door.
Titus was sitting on the floor playing with the large blocks that looked like Legos. There didn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to his construction. Then again, he was three. What did Costin expect?
“How’s it going in here?” he asked as he glanced over to the chair where Gavril sat.
“He’s been great,” Gavril said in that deep voice of his. “Been playing with those blocks since we got here.”
“Are you having fun, Titus?”
The little boy looked up at him and smiled, causing Costin’s chest to ache. Titus had been through so very much in his short little life, and he’d somehow come out of it. Wounded, yes, but not broken.
“Mr. Gavril said I could build anything I wanted. But right now all I know how to build is buildings.”
Costin grinned. So that’s what the stacks of blocks were—buildings. “You’ll get better and better the more you do it,” he encouraged him. He glanced at his watch and realized that they’d nearly missed lunch time.
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“Are you hungry?”
Titus nodded. “I’m always hungry.”
Gavril and Costin chuckled. He was a growing boy with a dormant wolf inside of him; of course, he was always hungry.
Costin helped him put the blocks away and then told Gavril thank you. Titus gave the large man a hug and then followed Costin from the room.
Two hours later, a very tired Titus climbed up into his bed without any protest to take a nap. Costin watched as the little boy drifted off quickly to sleep. Costin envied him. His own sleep was fraught with nightmares of all the things that could be happening to his mate. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face, he heard her voice, and he felt her touch. But every time he opened his eyes, she was gone.
He reached in his back pocket and pulled out his phone as he stepped out of Titus’ room and into his own. Costin dialed Wadim’s number and waited for the historian to answer.
“Hello?”
“Anything?” Costin asked without preamble.
“Nothing yet. Jen and Decebel are on their way over and they’re going to help me search for anything that might give us a clue as to what could have happened. Hang in there, Costin. We’re going to find her.”
Costin appreciated his friend’s words, but at the same time he wanted to roar that he shouldn’t have to hang in there because his mate shouldn’t be lost.
He ended the call without another word and collapsed into one of the chairs in the small sitting area. Two days, that’s all the time that had passed since her disappearance and he was already coming apart at the seams. Two damn days.
Vasile didn’t bat an eye when two females suddenly appeared in Decebel’s office. The Serbian Alpha had been kind enough to give Vasile the use of his office while the older Alpha’s crew was visiting. Vasile had decided that as soon as Jacque and Fane were back—because he had no doubt that they would be—the Romanians would be heading back to their own territory. He was ready to be home. Vasile could think better in his own land, where the scents were more familiar. Decebel was like a son to him, but he was also an Alpha of his own pack now. The dominance battle was always just beneath their skin as their wolves constantly strove to find out where they fell in regards to one another. Vasile would never allow that to happen. He would never fight Decebel, nor force his submission. His wolf would just have to accept that.