Chapter Thirty
Corey
Linc quickly threw open the front door as Baze and Dom came up the porch steps with Jasper between them. They were all but carrying him. The poor kid looked like he had gone through a paper shredder. His clothes were torn to pieces and hanging off him. There was blood everywhere. She couldn’t tell what was still bleeding and what wasn’t. Both his eyes were swollen shut and his bottom lip was twice its normal size. Corey ran and grabbed a sheet from her linen closet, then she put it on the couch and they laid Jasper on top of it. She took a deep breath and sprang into action as soon as his head hit the pillow. She cut his shirt off the rest of the way so she could see how bad his injuries were. There were bruises covering his chest, stomach, and sides. A few cuts that were still bleeding, and a deep gash was on his shoulder that under normal circumstances would need stitches. “He has some broken ribs. Can he heal those on his own?”
“Yes.” Dom ground out between clenched teeth. “Get away from him, Corey.”
She glanced over her shoulder, not stopping what she was doing. Now wasn’t the time for Dom to be all bonded and territorial. Riley was shaking like a leaf and Jasper was beat to hell. There were more pressing matters at hand than Dom’s protective streak. Corey looked over at Keller. “Get him out of here. Take him and go track down Jace, and make sure he isn’t planning on trying to pummel anyone else to death.”
Dom’s jaw was tight and his fisted knuckles were white at his side. Keller put his hand on Dom’s shoulder, pulling him away from Corey and Jasper. “Hey, man, come help me find Jace. We need to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
Dom turned to his friend, his gaze unwavering. “No. Take Baze.”
Baze had gotten down on the floor next to Corey and was helping her clean up Jasper. Keller shook his head. “Nah, man, Baze is already helping Corey. Come on, we have to find Jace. You’re the head coach, the dean’s out of town. It’s your job. Baze and Linc will stay here with Coop. Nothing will happen to her. We’ll be gone like thirty minutes, tops.” Keller put both hands on Dom’s shoulders and steered him out the front door. “Come on, I’ll drive.”
It took almost half an hour to get Jasper cleaned, treated, and comfortable. He was covered in tiny cuts and scrapes. And the rest of him was a road map of bruises. Jace had gone crazy. He’d near killed his brother.
Whether he meant to or not, Corey didn’t know.
Jasper was asleep now. Baze told her that he wouldn’t wake up until his body had healed itself. All his energy was going to that right now. When Linc and Baze stepped out onto the porch to call Dom, she headed into the kitchen to see Riley.
“Hey, kiddo, how are you? Are you hurt?” Riley hung his head and shook it slightly, but didn’t speak. “Riley, buddy, look at me. Let me make sure you are okay. Please.” After a few seconds he finally raised his head. He had a bruise on his forehead and a cut lip, but he didn’t look too bad. “Wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
“Are you sure? It’s me and you here, everyone else is outside or incapacitated.” There was something about Riley that she found endearing. He reminded her of Baze in a lot of ways. He had a veiled calmness about him.
“It all happened so fast. Jace didn’t come with us tonight. I don’t even know where he came from. It’s like he flew out of the woods and started whaling on Jasper. If he was there the whole time—” Riley stopped talking and reached for a beer that someone left unfinished on the kitchen counter. He drained it in one gulp.
“That’s your one free pass on the beer. Now tell me what’s really on your mind.” Corey took the now-empty bottle from him and tossed it in the recycle bin.
“If Jace was in the woods, he uh, god, this is messed up.” Riley took a deep breath and let it out. “If he was in the woods, then he was watching. Ya know, watching Jasper with that girl. And then he saw a bunch of guys jump his brother. He was willing to let Jasper get beat up by six guys, but he wasn’t willing to let his brother get away with losing control.”
“What bothers you more? That he watched Jasper and that girl hook up or that he was willing to let his brother get his ass kicked by a bunch of strangers?”
“Neither. I mean both are messed up. But he beat the shit out of his brother, his twin, because he thought Jasper might lose control and shift. It happens, we are young and this is new to us, sometimes we can’t keep our emotions on lockdown. But Jasper would have made it into the trees before he fully turned. He was headed in that direction already. He was handling the shift the right way, the way we were all taught. But Jace never let him reach the tree line. It was like he wanted an audience. Don’t you get it? He was punishing him.”
Corey’s stomach dropped to her feet. This wasn’t about Jace not wanting Jasper to out them to a group of drunk teenagers. This was about control and dominance. “Riley, did Jace say anything to you? After you guys pulled him off Jasper?”
“Yeah. He said, ‘Clean this up’. He wiped his hands off on his jeans and walked away. He never even looked back.”
“Is this the first time you have ever seen Jace and Jasper fight like this?”
“They don’t even talk, at least in front of us, let alone fight. Jasper has never seemed afraid of Jace though. Whenever anyone questions their relationship or the way Jace is to everyone Jasper always says, ‘He’s my brother.’” Riley looked over her shoulder into the living room. “Is Jasper okay? Is he healing?”
“He’s going to be fine. He’s all cleaned up and Baze assures me that the deep sleep is his body working hard to repair itself. Dom and Keller went to find Jace and ask him what the hell he was thinking.” She reached into her pocket and grabbed her cell, holding it out. “Hey, do you want to call your mom?”
“No, her and my stepdad are on vacation somewhere. I’ll talk to her when she gets back. If she knows something crazy happened she’ll cut her trip short.”
“Why don’t you go lie down? You’ll have to fold in half to fit on the loveseat, but you look exhausted.” Riley stood then headed toward the living room, but stopped and turned around. He reached for Corey, enveloping her into his large body. He hugged her so tight.
“Thank you.”
“Aww, kiddo.” She squeezed him back as tight. “I’m glad you two are okay. Now go get some rest while you can. Y’all are staying here this weekend. No arguments.” He released her and she watched him contort his body onto the small piece of furniture. Dom was probably going to be pissed that she offered to house them for a couple days, but she didn’t care. Like the dean had said, these kids were away from their families, from their homes. They needed help, and they needed comfort.
She went and covered Riley up with a throw blanket, and then headed out front to join Linc and Baze on the front porch. They were sitting in rocking chairs, a small cooler of beer on ice between them. “Y’all drink too much.” She sat down on the steps beside them.
“You want?” Linc asked, handing one to her.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Corey, you did great tonight. Those boys are lucky to have you here.” Linc smiled down to her.
“I don’t know what it is about you wolves. You wormed your way into my heart so damn fast. I couldn’t imagine my life without you guys.”
Baze paused with his bottle halfway to his mouth. “That’s because you were made for Dom. You were made to love him. And I guess, luckily, that spills over to the rest of us.”
They stayed that way, in companionable silence for a few minutes, her mind going a mile a minute. Then she suddenly shouted, “Wolves mate for life.”
“Dammit, Corey.” Linc’s beer foamed into his lap after he fumbled it.
Corey couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry. But I thought of something Dom said about wolves mating for life, and that his mom leaving had pretty much killed his dad. But Riley’s dad left and his mom’s remarried. How does that work?”
It was Baze who answered her in his slow, soothing voice. “Not all wolves mate for life. Some aren’t lucky enough to find their forever, some don’t care to, and some are forced together by their families even though it’s not meant to be. From what Riley’s told me, he was an accident. His dad knocked his mom up and bolted when he found out. They weren’t soul mates, so it didn’t end up hurting him. The woman and kid he left behind were a different story. Luckily for Riley, his mom happened to fall in love with a shifter. He was there for Riley, he recognized what Riley was and took him under his wing. Taught him what he needed to know. Not many boys are that fortunate. Some of the more influential families force matings almost like arranged marriages, to keep the good bloodlines going strong. But those couples are never truly bonded. Not like you and Dom. His family, like mine, believe that you wait for your soul mate, because eventually the universe will send her to you.”
“Oh come on, Baze,” Linc said, amused. “Don’t make it sound like we wait around twiddling our thumbs until our soul mate graces us with her presence.”
“That’s not at all what I said, ass hat. I said that some families still believe in waiting for your forever to, uh, start a family of your own.” Baze thumped him on the ear.
“What Baze is saying so nicely is, it’s frowned upon if you knock up someone who isn’t your mate. Your parents get pissy and the rest of your family judges you. It’s the same thing with humans, right? Your dad wouldn’t be thrilled if you got pregnant and you weren’t married. Well, mating is marrying. Same diff. But we certainly don’t wait ’til mating to have sex. Don’t romanticize it, dude.”
“I wasn’t romanticizing it,” Baze ground out. “I have a better way with words than you do, that’s all.”
Corey couldn’t help but giggle at the two of them. She knew Dom, along with his friends, weren’t saints. Total opposite, actually. They were male whores. Well, maybe not Baze. She hadn’t seen him as much as flirt with a girl.
But, male sluts aside, they were all good guys with their hearts in the right place.