Chapter Two
They called ahead so Mark was waiting to open the gates when they arrived. Griffin pulled to a stop in front of the house to unload their purchases.
“I’ll get a few extra hands to help move this guy down to the basement,” Ronan said.
Griffin stopped him with a hand to his arm.
“I wasn’t thinking of the basement, I was thinking of the old woodcutter’s cottage.”
Ronan blinked. “We need to secure him. The basement is the most secure area in this whole place. The cottage is… really not.”
“If we have any chance of rehabilitating him, it won’t be down in the dark, damp basement, will it? We can secure him in the cottage, for now.”
“Are you sure about that? If he gets out, if he reaches the house or finds the nearest humans… there’ll be blood on our hands.”
“It won’t come to that,” Griffin vowed.
He could see Ronan wasn’t convinced, but they didn’t have time to stand around and argue. The alpha could wake any minute, and Griffin wanted him secured before then. He sent Mark to fetch what they needed and meet them at the cottage, then he and Ronan drove the short distance through the forest along the disused path to their destination.
They’d renovated the cottage a few years back, just in case it was needed, but it had lain idle for the most part. Ronan hopped out of the truck and went inside to check the place out. Griffin stayed with the alpha. Close up, he could see the dirt caked on the fighter’s skin alongside old, dried blood.
“We’d better get him inside,” Ronan said, reappearing in the doorway.
Between the two of them, they carried him in, setting him down on the floor.
“If we’re going to secure him, it’d be best to have him here, in the center,” Ronan said.
“Agreed,” Griffin replied, looking around. They’d need some way to secure his chains so that he couldn’t get free. “But I want the doors open. I want to give him as much free rein as possible. The less he feels like a caged animal, the better.”
Ronan looked dubious but cautiously agreed.
“I’ll get some tools. We can make sure the chain is long enough that he can reach the bathroom and the bedroom.”
“And go outside, even just a step or two.”
Ronan crossed the room to where the range and fireplace were. “This metal ring is part of the foundations. It’s as solid as we’re going to get. If we attach the chain here, it should hold, even with an alpha’s strength.”
Griffin hoped so. They’d be in for a world of trouble if it didn’t.
Mark arrived with what they needed, and they set to work. Rather than risk the alpha awakening before they were ready for him, Griffin gave him another dose of sedative.
As they finished up, they released the chains from around the alpha’s ankles and wrists, wincing when they saw the state of the skin underneath.
“Looks like he hasn’t been unchained in weeks, maybe months,” Ronan said. There was anger in the alpha’s eyes. Griffin laid a hand on his shoulder.
“This wasn’t you, Ronan.”
“But it could have been. Me, or Quinn.”
When Griffin had met Ronan, he and his brother had escaped a training school for fighters like the one he was sure had made this alpha into the beast he was. Some became bodyguards and soldiers for their packs. For others, fighting became their life, their every breath. There was a lot of money to be made in alpha fights, and packs often spent huge sums of money training young alphas with potential.
Kneeling next to their guest, Griffin lifted the new chain into his hands, feeling the weight of it. He wished they didn’t have to tie the alpha down, but he knew there was no better option. At least, this way, he’d have some freedom. He found the end of the chain, the cuff that would go around the alpha’s ankle. He’d chosen it especially because it was lined with a soft fabric that wouldn’t tear at the alpha’s skin. The least he could do to try to make him comfortable.
Fastening the cuff securely around the unconscious shifter’s ankle, he then tested the chain before getting Ronan to check it too.
“It’ll hold, for now,” Ronan said. “We’ll just have to watch carefully. Constant pressure on any one part might wear it down over time.”
Griffin pointed to the corner of the room, where Mark was standing on a chair. “That’s what the cameras are for. We can keep an eye on him without disturbing him, and we’ll know if the chains are at risk.”
He didn’t feel comfortable knowing that they were taking what little privacy the alpha had, but he also had to be practical and think of the pack’s safety as much as their new arrival’s.
They got ready to leave, making sure nothing was left behind that could act as a weapon. Griffin did two things before he stepped outside. First, he set a plastic bowl full of water in one corner, knowing the shifter would wake thirsty. Second, he took a blanket from the back of the truck and laid it over the shifter’s prone form.
“What?” he said when he caught Ronan watching him. “It’ll be dark soon, and it’ll get cold. No sense in making him more uncomfortable than he has to be.”
They stepped outside, and Griffin could see Ronan wasn’t happy. The alpha tossed Mark the keys and asked him to bring the truck back up to the house. Then he and Ronan walked back side-by-side through the woods, the house in the near distance.
“Say what you need to say,” Griffin encouraged. He never wanted Ronan to be less than open and honest with him. That was the only way things worked between them.
“You’re not usually so cavalier about the pack’s safety,” the alpha started.
“Given we’ve just spent hours taking every precaution, I’m not sure it’s fair to call me cavalier.”
“I mean the decision to bring him here in the first place. All we know about him is he was so dangerous they were about to shoot him. It’s not like you to be impulsive. It’s not like you to take these kinds of risks.”
“I took a risk on you and your brother,” Griffin pointed out coolly, resenting the implication that he hadn’t thought this through.
“That was different. We weren’t feral. And we were just kids.”
“Teenagers, escaped from a fighting academy. You were known to have killed. You were plenty risky.”
Ronan let out a breath of frustration. “We weren’t feral. I only killed when there was no other option.”
“I know that,” Griffin soothed, regretting his rash words. “And you’re right. This is different. Which is why he’s out here and not near the house.”
“But why is he here at all, Griffin? Where’s the logic?”
Griffin tried and failed to come up with an answer.
“See, that’s my point. There isn’t a sensible, logical reason why we have a feral shifter chained up in the backyard. Which means there’s only one question left to ask.”
“What’s that?” Griffin asked dully, already knowing what the alpha was going to say.
“Are you and he compatible? Is that why you saved him?”
“Even if we were,” Griffin said. “It would make no difference. Neither of us are in any position to act on it, you know that. We’re bound by the choices made for us.”
The marks on Griffin’s neck were well hidden, but they were there. The feral alpha’s neck had been scarred with a precise hand, just like every trained fighter who made it to adulthood.
“If you’d asked me a year ago, I’d have said that was true. But I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t as black and white as all that. Just look at Noah and me. You’d have said the same thing about us, but he’s got my mating bite on his neck and my son in his arms.”
Ronan pointed through the trees, and Griffin saw the other omega waiting for them, their son, Kieran, cradled in his arms. Griffin remembered back to when Noah had arrived at Briar House. He’d been almost as pitiable as the feral alpha. Scared, confused, and with a weight on his shoulders from a lifetime of being told he was broken and useless. It was such a contrast to how he was now; smiling, confident, his head held high. He knew he had a place here, by Ronan’s side. He’d earned it.
“You and Noah were lucky. One in a million. But you’re right. When I saw that alpha on the ground, when I caught his scent, when his eyes met mine… I couldn’t just leave him to be killed, Ronan. I had to do something. And maybe we’ll fail, maybe there’ll be no choice but to kill him. But at least I’ll know someone tried, really tried, to bring him back from the brink.”
Ronan clapped a hand on his shoulder. “If anyone can do it, you can. I’ve seen you work miracles.”
Though never with someone so damaged, Griffin conceded privately. He’d helped people who the world had trodden on, who’d been almost beyond hope. That alpha, the Beast, he was beyond that, beyond the reach of words. Griffin would need to find some other way to guide him home.