What Destiny and Markus decided upon was an enormous gathering of both packs in the same place so they could share what they had learned. It was to be done immediately the next day, and neither of them would say that the other pack was going to be there.

Destiny didn’t know what difficulty Markus might have had in convincing his pack to come to the agreed-upon spot—maybe he had lied to Brock, roping his brother into it—but the only problem that he himself experienced was getting the members of Shadow Claws to agree to meet at a place other than the garage. They wanted reasons for going to William Bartram Memorial Park, especially considering the location was outside of their territory.

He didn’t know how to explain. He didn’t want to say anything about Lethal Freedom, especially not to hint this was going to be a demonstration of some kind. That would put all sorts of wrong impressions in the minds of his members.

Instead, he just stressed over and over that it would be worth their time to invest in attending the meeting. As much as they trusted him, they still might not have agreed had it not been for a sudden outpouring of support from Cain. And even then, not everyone agreed.

But it did happen. Shadow Claws arrived, members filtering in at around the same time as the wolves of Lethal Freedom. He broke up so many potential fights that he was exhausted before the actual meeting even began, struggling to convince his former enemies to behave peacefully when their own leader was nowhere in sight.

After nearly all the wolves arrived, at least those who were going to attend, Brock and Markus finally showed up.

Brock, as always, managed to look stoic and unimpressed. Destiny watched him, watched the way the other leader looked at his younger brother with a condescending expression.

Do your worst, the look said.

Markus had done just that. They both had, standing by the twisted green sculpture with all eyes on them. Taking turns, they shared what they discovered, exactly as it happened.

Leaving out the kissing parts, of course.

Now they were finished, Destiny waited for the outrage and dismay, declarations of murder and war. He waited for the cries of revenge, fully believing with all his heart that these gathered men and women would want to set right all the wrongs that had been committed against them by that unexpected third party.

Instead, there was only silence.

Perhaps one hundred wolves, maybe more, just looked at him. They were all of various ages and backgrounds and nationalities, Caucasian and Italian and Latino and Asian. Gray wolves, Arctic wolves, red wolves, and timber wolves. Tentative teens, testing out their newfound desires, and 40-year-old seniors who would probably be on a bike up until the day they died.

Shadow Claws. Lethal Freedom. Two sides of a coin, the structured and the unregulated.

They were joined now, completely as one, in their state of utter disbelief and confusion. The atmospheric blend of moods and mindsets each pack had was now so similar that there would never be a way to tell them apart.

And that wasn’t a good thing.

This was not what he had thought would happen. These were not packs united by the common goal of eliminating the threat against them. Instead, they both felt absolutely betrayed by him and Markus. Accusation was written across all of their faces, etched into their features so permanently he found himself suddenly afraid that no one would ever look at him normally ever again.

His heart stuttered in his chest. He was overcome by a sudden, maddening urge to reach out and hold Markus’ hand for support. He could feel that Markus felt the same.

Horribly, he could feel that both packs could tell. Omitting all the parts about kissing had done absolutely nothing. The fact they had gone behind their packs and acted out on their own meant that they were labeled as harlots.

Cheaters.

Betrayers.

Destiny tried to clear his throat, but he was suddenly so dry—so parched, so utterly shriveled under the combined hellish heat of so many accusing gazes—all he could do was make a weak purring sound. “This is important,” he said.

Not a single fucking person believed him. He felt their mistrust actually triple at his declaration, a rolling wave of sour and bitter that damn near knocked him off his feet. As it was, the unpleasant sensation made his thoughts go reeling away. His mind went blank. His heart skittered around. He couldn’t breathe. It was too much. Too much pressure, too much hate.

He had fucked up. Oh, had he ever fucked up. Wolves were such strong and opinionated creatures. Why had he ever saw fit to bring them all together like this, so they could feed off each other, instead of addressing them one by one so he might stand a chance at having an actual conversation?

This was only dialogue. He was talking at them, and they weren’t listening to a single damn thing.

“We know who has been doing all this,” Destiny said, managing to find his voice again. “We found them. We know where they are. We can make plans to fight back against them. We can make sure the city stays ours.”

“What do you mean, ours.”

Destiny was pretty sure his heart stopped beating altogether at this point, because the speaker giving voice to his bitterness was none other than Brock.

The leader pushed forward from where he had been standing with the rest of the crowd, his gaze sharp and intense. His solid form drew attention and focus like the moon pulled the tide, wrenching it around in his direction whenever he moved.

“You mean that you want it to belong to you,” Brock snarled. “Coming in here and telling your stories, trying to convince all of us that we should listen to you and a random omega that isn’t even in a position of authority.”

Markus’ shoulder twitched, the barest sign of a flinch at the words that must have wounded him deeply. Destiny moved forward, aiming to give Brock a piece of his mind, and then Markus cut him off by standing in front of him with one arm held out. The meaning was clear. Back off.

Heart aching, knowing this was as intensely against his better judgment as anything would ever be, Destiny moved back again.

Be careful, please.

Another slight twitch from Markus, though this one seemed different somehow. It was almost as if the other wolf heard his thoughts and reacted to it.

Markus’ strong, clear voice rang out through the park, bringing all the attention upon himself. The few humans who still lingered in the area, despite the threat of so many bikers in one spot, even turned in his direction. It was a command any alpha would have been proud of.

“I think I’m in exactly a position of authority, because I am one of the ones who was attacked. I know who attacked me. I saw him there. I heard the scheming, same as Dusty did. In fact, I think I know more about this whole thing than you do, Brock.”

Brock forced himself even further through the crowd, finally emerging through the last layer of bodies so he could stand directly in front of Markus. However, instead of addressing his brother, he spun around to face the assembly.

“These wolves have lied to both of us. I don’t care what side you’re on. They lied. They went behind our backs to do this, instead of confiding in us. And they did it for their own selfish gains.”

Destiny squared his shoulders, trying to hold back on the rage flooding through his entire body. The wolf inside him knew that it was being challenged, and it so desperately wanted to respond. Doing so would earn him no favors, it would in fact make Brock seem as if he was right. But goddamn, how good it would feel to give in to his instincts! They could battle this out, wolf to wolf, man to man, and the victor would have his way. That was, after all, the way of animals.

But, so was taking over territory, invading better land for the personal betterment of a pack.

They couldn’t go about this just as wolves, just as they couldn’t answer the challenge while relying only on the calculated thoughts of their human halves. There needed to be a balance struck here, somehow.

Markus growled softly, deep down in his chest. “That’s not fair, Brock. And that doesn’t matter right now. So, we did this together. Who else was going to? Not a single fucking one of you even tried to figure out what was going on. You just both blamed the other side. But Lethal Freedom isn’t the other side. Shadow Claws isn’t the other side. Those wolves, the ones who are responsible for the attacks, are the other side. You should be blaming them.”

“So says someone with a vested interest in all this,” someone muttered from the front row of the crowd.

Destiny turned in the direction of the speaker, horrified to recognize the voice as belonging to one of his own. “Excuse me? We have lost three wolves. That’s from both of our packs. We would have lost five if Reuben and Markus hadn’t survived this most recent attack. This isn’t going to stop. They’re going to keep attacking. Any one of you could be next. Shouldn’t all of you have a vested interest?”

He swept his gaze across the crowd, trying to judge reactions. A few wolves here and there looked appropriately bashful, like children scolded for being rude for no reason; also like a child in that situation, they didn’t seem regretful. They weren’t changing their minds, weren’t even considering listening.

This was all a lost cause. He was never going to get them to listen.

“I think Brock is right,” someone else said, to a scattered murmur of agreement. “This should have been both leaders. But it’s a leader and an omega.”

“Destiny’s trying to take advantage of us,” a Lethal Freedom wolf said.

“Shouldn’t listen to that fucking liar. He only wants to get laid.” This declaration was met without much support, unlike what the others were saying. Everyone knew this was more serious than a matter of sex.

“You’d think Destiny would know better than to deal with that jerk after what happened last time.”

More and more murmurs broke out, which might not really have been a problem if there weren’t so many wolves all trying to speak at once. They all wanted to be heard, to have their opinion come across as the most important. They meant well, Destiny knew. They all did. Each and every speaker believed wholeheartedly in what they were saying, believed that they were doing what was right. He wanted to love them for that, love the defense coming his way, but it was all so misguided. There were too many of them. They couldn’t think properly. The noise level rose as the members of the gathered crowd tried to speak over one another, though speaking quickly escalated into shouting.

Later, no one would be quite sure who threw the first blow. Even when asked directly, there was no one who professed to have seen or done it. Maybe it didn’t matter afterwards, though it damn sure mattered to Destiny at the time. He would have liked nothing more than to be able to grab the instigator and smack them upside their thick head for being so stupid.

Then again, that would have made him no better than them.

Either way, someone threw the first blow. A fight broke out, an alpha and a beta grappling so viciously they dropped to the ground. They rolled over and over together, fists flying, bodies writhing. Fangs flashed. Claws ripped. Fur appeared, and suddenly they were no longer men but animals. Where they knocked into other people, those people immediately dove into the fight to try and back up the person on their side. Like a droplet of water falling into a puddle, ripples of aggression radiated outwards until the crowd had become a chaos of motion. Everyone was fighting, throwing blows, biting, clawing, shoving. It was impossible to tell who was who. There was no separating one pack from another, no guessing who might once have been friends or foes.

Destiny stepped back as a beta wolf from Lethal Freedom careened in his direction, saliva trailing in strings from his open maw. The wolf sailed by with only inches to spare, landed, and then whipped back around with the extreme, careless sort of grace that only adrenaline can inspire. His gray fur bushed out, his hackles spiked up. His tail rose up high over his back in a subconscious display of aggression and dominance.

Destiny moved further back, holding out one arm in front of Markus as if this could possibly provide some form of protection for him.

Bracing itself, haunches bunching up, the beta wolf leaped through the air again.

Twisting around to the side, Destiny wasn’t quite fast enough. Claws sliced through the material of his shirt, barely nicking his skin between two ribs high up under his armpit. The scratch burned.

And he burned.

The rage burst outward from where he had been clutching at it, trying to hold it under wraps. His vision was swamped in a veil of red, turning the battle into a horrific vision of a crime scene where none had survived.

Omen, he thought, the single word slashing through his mind. In the next instant, he wasn’t thinking at all. His hackles were up, fur sprouting rapidly across his entire body as he dropped to the ground and careened forward to tangle his claws in the beta’s fur.

He felt so fucking alive, so goddamn powerful. He could feel every tense muscle in his entire body, his bones like steel, his tendons like pistons. He was a machine of death, a beautiful design crafted all towards the purpose of killing.

He was alpha, more right now than he had ever been in his entire life.

A blur of fur and muscle shot out in front of him, as black as night and just as massive, shoving the beta away before Destiny could reach him.

The black wolf snarled, shouldering the beta roughly away. The size difference between them was more than a little substantial. Rather than pick a fight he couldn’t win, having regained some of his senses, the beta jumped back into the fray to find someone else to ravage.

Swinging around to face his new opponent, Destiny pulled his lips back from his teeth to expose the blunt, ripping curves of his fangs in all their glory. He pressed his ears back flat against his skull, narrowing his eyes.

The black wolf drew his head up, ears twitching forward for a moment in a gesture that Destiny almost missed, lost as he was in the midst of a storm of his own emotion. He drew back a step, uncertain, hesitating, struggling to figure out what that brief flicker of peaceful expression could possibly mean. The park had turned into a fucking war zone. There could be no peace, not even as much as he had wanted that to begin with.

He had wanted that, hadn’t he?

Stepping backwards again, Destiny blinked. Red rage pulsed in front of his eyes before abruptly dropping away, like a filter being removed from a digital picture. The black wolf snarled at him, no longer possessing any friendliness, and advanced on him to make up for the extra space that had been put between them.

Destiny blinked again and the fuzziness of the world went away, solidifying into the version of reality it should have been. His blood was still up, heart pounding so hard he could feel it shaking through his entire body, but things were no longer soaked in a red glaze of anger.

He recognized the black wolf now. Cain.

Cain advanced on him again, bringing their bodies so close together they were nearly bumping snouts. Cain twisted his head to the side, then thrust his shoulder at Destiny’s chest.

Just before contact was made, Destiny realized what was happening. He staggered back with the shove, moving with it instead of being propelled by it. He kept a snarl plastered to his lips and flicked his ears forward to mimic the gesture Cain had made.

Bit by bit, Cain pretended to force him back from the main body of the battle. Destiny pretended his second-in-command was being successful in these attempts, staggering back and allowing himself to be knocked over when the feint called for it. By some miracle, no one seemed to notice this was happening.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t much of a miracle at all. Everyone else was fighting for their own lives. Why should he consider his to be important to them?

Cain pushed at him again. He wasn’t prepared for it this time and really did stagger, dropping down momentarily before he was able to push himself up again. As he was getting his paws underneath himself, Cain dashed around and swiped at his haunches with his blunt claws. No contact was made, although Destiny was so distinctly aware of those nails sliding through his fur that he could almost count exactly how many strands were pulled out.

Then, Cain darted back around in front of Destiny and shoved him again. His green eyes were open wide, filled with pleading.

It was the pleading look, the glimpse of fear, the shine of concern emanating from deep within Cain’s gaze, that really drove home what Cain was trying to accomplish. His loyal pack member, the voice of his second opinion, wasn’t just trying to keep him from getting hurt.

Cain wanted him to run, leaving this mess behind.

Destiny let out a soft whine, a plea in return. All the fight was draining from his body in the face of this conundrum, to the point where he couldn’t even pretend he was mad anymore. His fur flattened. His tail went down, brushing against the grass. His tight, impressive muscles suddenly felt like they were made of jelly.

Cain snarled. He whipped his head around, just in time to catch a fierce blow from another wolf who had apparently noticed the charade. His head snapped back in the other direction so hard that Destiny actually heard the joints creak with strain. Cain wasn’t one to take something like that lying down, and he whirled his body around with the motion of the blow so he came back and landed a fierce bite on his attacker’s flank. Blood sprayed from the bite wound, gushing into his face. The other wolf squealed, thrashing its body around furiously to try and dislodge Cain; tangling together, the two rolled over and over on the grass, biting and clawing without finesse or planning. There was only savagery, which could have been appropriate when given Cain’s last name of Savage. The only problem with that was Destiny didn’t know who was winning.

There couldn’t be a winner.

Not like this.

Throwing his head back, Destiny let out a howl of despair, whipped around in the direction of his motorcycle, and ran as fast as his four legs could take him. He felt others notice his escape, their eyes training on him like lasers from a sniper’s rifle, and they took off in pursuit. His breath started to rasp in his lungs almost immediately, his chest aching, his body rebelling against this action that it didn’t consider itself to be meant for. Teeth caught at his tail, ripped chunks of fur off his ass. Some wolf behind him kept getting so close that he could feel their breath on him, hot and foul, and their claws kept clipping against the backs of his rear paws and legs.

He didn’t dare turn around. He didn’t want to know exactly who might be chasing him. If he saw familiar faces back there, it just might kill him.

But, at the same time, it seemed like he just might be killed anyway. He hadn’t thought of the park as being so big, hadn’t realized how far in they were until he had to run for his life. He didn’t know if he could keep going like this.

His front paw came down hard on a pointed rock, puncturing straight through the pad. He hardly noticed the pain, wouldn’t have noticed the way blood spattered the grass now with every step, if he hadn’t also stumbled on the damn thing. He was going so fast, was so frantic to escape, that he kept going for nearly 20 feet while in the middle of falling the entire time.

His shoulder collided hard with the ground, grass ripping up at the roots with the force of his collapse. He tumbled, slid, and ended up facing back the way he’d come.

There was no one following him, because they were occupied with pouncing on top of an omega wolf a short distance away.

Destiny gave a snort of relief and was about to use this as his chance to get away when he realized exactly who that omega was. Silky dark brown fur, splashes of milk-white.

It was Markus, lying on his side, struggling to break free of his attackers. He nipped at one, shoved furiously at another who was bent over him with jaws parted for a devastating bite.

Lunging back around, Destiny raced to save the fallen omega. Red fury flooded over his gaze once more, and he sank into it like a frozen man into a hot bath, relieved and hurting all at once. Before, it had taken so much of his strength to keep running away, and now he felt so full of energy, so completely and utterly purposeful.

He hit the first attacker like a runaway freight train, shoving them with the broad side of his chest. The attacker flew through the air, entire body off the ground, before dropping back down hard. They lay there, chest heaving, unmoving.

Spinning around, Destiny lashed out with his paw and knocked away another wolf. This one was an omega, incredibly light on her feet; she twisted around in the air, landed, and then threw herself right back into the fray.

Snarling, Destiny lunged at the omega, slamming his paw down on her flank and then ripped his claws across her flank so deep and hard that he saw a flash of rib before blood welled up to disguise the bone.

Shrieking and squealing, her voice almost human in her despair and anguish, the omega fled. She left a trail of crimson across the grass.

Destiny didn’t stop to watch her go, didn’t feel any regret for what he’d done. In fact, the only thing that he was feeling now was satisfaction like nothing else. He had done what he had to, to protect what belonged to him.

Mine, he thought, while biting another wolf’s tail nearly in half. His claws scored through muscle, strips of flesh and fur littering the earth in a pile by the time his victim managed to escape.

Mine, he thought, wrapping both paws around someone’s head and smashing their face against the ground. Something in their snout shattered with a sound like shattering glass.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

Suddenly, Destiny went to face another opponent and there was no one there. They had all fled. Throwing his head back, he let out a howl of triumph.

A hand clamped around his muzzle, cutting off his howl. He shook his head and stared in the direction of this new attacker, opening his jaws to bite.

Markus held his hands up, jumping back. He was smudged with blood, simply so much blood that there was no way of knowing how badly injured he was. “Don’t attack! It’s just me!”

Destiny stared up at him, mentally battling the fog of anger so thick in his thoughts. He blinked and the fog cleared. It really was only Markus, not yet another attacker. He wanted to ask Markus what the hell he was doing, being a human right now when he should have been relying on his wolf speed to get out of here.

Markus seemed to either be able to read his mind, or else decipher whatever look was on his face right now. “If you kept howling, you were going to bring attention to us! Look!”

Destiny turned to look in the direction where Markus was pointing. He saw the furious battle still raging in the middle of the park. No one seemed to notice that they were gone anymore.

“We can get out of here. But I’m not going to leave without you. Are you going to come?”

Destiny hesitated, suddenly torn. He remembered thinking of Markus as his, as something that belonged which needed protecting. But Markus wasn’t the only thing that belonged to him. There was his pack to think about. Cain and everyone else, all of them fighting like they had forgotten they had any humanity.

Just like I did. Markus was the only thing that could snap me out of it. That was only after I got it all out of my system.

There was nothing else he could do. He couldn’t go back and take each wolf aside and talk them down, and repeat the process for everyone. He knew Brock wouldn’t do that for his own wolves.

All those fighters had to get this out of their system. They wouldn’t listen to reason until then.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Destiny made himself become a human again. The switch ran completely against his instincts, though it aligned quite readily with his sense of logic. He straightened up, reaching out to grab onto Markus’ hand as the omega offered it to him. Their fingers tangled together, good and right.

“I’m with you,” he said.

Always. Even when he shouldn’t be. His wild, uninhibited thoughts during his little freak-out back there had told him that much. They would have to deal with that sooner or later, but not right now.

Markus held his hand tighter, and they ran together to their motorcycles, though they had to let go of each other to retrieve them

Going their separate ways to retrieve their bikes made him feel like he had lost a very important limb, one imperative to his survival. Their fingers sliding apart, fingertips brushing together, then only encountering empty air...it was like a physical ache.

They joined together again at the entrance to the park, having navigated through the maze of other bikes that had clogged up the parking lot. There was no way for them to hold hands, not while they were on separate motorcycles, but seeing Markus again made him feel better.

They rode off. Destiny took the lead automatically, then glanced over with a dull throb of surprise as Markus sped up so they were nearly level again.

“We’re equally deep in this shit,” Markus called over to him, his voice nearly lost beneath the roaring of engines and the constant background ambiance of a bustling city.

Tears of gratitude jumped up into Destiny’s eyes, torn away by the wind. The warmth that rose up inside him at the real meaning of this statement, that they were in this together, that they would figure it out together, was there to stay. No amount of wind could push it out of him, not when he would always keep that warmth tucked away right next to his heart.

Now they were together, through better or worse, there was the little matter of exactly where they were going to go. Markus couldn’t return home.

Destiny didn’t think that he would be able to walk up to his pack in the garage, lest he be ripped to shreds. Wounded animals were incredibly dangerous, and his pack had certainly been wounded mentally and physically by his actions. They would need time to heal.

“Hotel?” Destiny called over.

“Sounds good to me!”

Probably the best thing to do would have been to head up north using the interstate, putting some distance between them and the battle as fast as possible. However, Destiny found himself balking at the idea. He didn’t want to be anywhere near the third pack who was causing so much havoc, and he also didn’t want to be far away from his own group. They might decide they needed him.

Making a sudden snap decision, he took them to a Days Inn hotel in the historic downtown area. It wasn’t much of a historical area, as far as such things went. A lot of older buildings. Some plaques to read about what minorly important figure had done here or where they had visited.

Pretty sad when your only claim to fame is that some third-rate senator stayed here to visit his relatives, about 50 years ago.

Pensacola did have its fair share of interesting sites, including a naval base and a wildlife reserve, but those had their own unique histories which weren’t to be told here.

The hotel wasn’t historic at all and didn’t even make an attempt to match the theme of the area, its modern design and crisp cleanliness sticking out like a sore thumb.

Destiny parked in the rear lot, which was quite empty. He had to remind himself that it was still quite early in the day, no matter how late it felt to him. Everyone else was out and about, enjoying their time.

With Markus at his side, he went in and walked right up to the counter as if he belonged there.

The receptionist, a balding man who was nearly old enough to retire, balked hard at the sight of them. His gray eyes went from friendly and warm, like a light summer rain shower, to being as frigid as the foamy ice which sometimes formed on colder beaches in the winter.

Destiny winced inwardly, doing his best to keep this from showing on the outside. He should have stopped at a gas station on the way so they could clean up, or else just chosen a cheaper hotel which might be used to seeing weird things like this.

“Can I…help you, gentlemen? Are you all right? Should I call an ambulance?” The man reached for his phone as he spoke, probably already halfway through the call with a 911 operator in his mind.

“No,” Destiny said. He said it low and calm and pleasant and also with the undercurrent of an alpha command. A human might not be able to feel the true power of his command, wouldn’t feel as if they had been compelled to obey by some force outside their understanding, but the way he said it was still enough to catch the receptionist’s attention.

The man paused, his eyes flicking back and forth between Destiny and Markus. “Sir, I really should…You look very hurt.”

“Just wiped out on my bike, is all,” Markus jumped in. He spoke with the breezy lightness of someone who really couldn’t give a shit. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, in the direction of the double doors that they had passed through to enter the building. “My hog. My motorcycle.” The bald receptionist probably didn’t need these clarifications to understand. Markus gave them anyway, because that was exactly what an obnoxious, skinny biker would do in this situation.

In other words, Markus was a far better actor than Destiny would have given him credit for.

Or maybe the old man with the kind gray eyes was really gullible.

“Rode straight through the night,” Markus went on, quite literally yapping now. “We wanted to get here as fast as possible. No sense wasting those vacation days, right?”

He was laying it on thick now, a little too thick. Destiny prepared to hear those apologetic words: sorry, they were all full, can’t help you. That was pretty much bullshit, as hotels were never actually full at any given time due to a rotation schedule they followed. Nevertheless, this geezer would give them the usual spiel and send them on their way. As soon as they were out of hearing range, he would alert his manager that a pair of bloodied strangers had tried to get a room.

The manager would spread the news to the managers of other hotels. Suddenly, every place that Destiny tried would be unable to help him. They would end up having to find one of those really skeevy places, the sort that make deals with prostitutes, drug sellers, and questionable suppliers in order to stay afloat.

“One room or two?”

Destiny stared, stunned and also delighted at being proven wrong for once. “One is fine. Give us the cheapest, crummiest, most terrible room you’ve got. The one with all the leaking pipes and the TV that doesn’t work.”

“All our rooms are perfect here at Days Inn,” the old man replied while tapping away at his computer screen. Meaning, of course, he had already been planning to do exactly that. “It’s $70 a night. How long will you gentlemen be staying with us?”

“If we need to stay for longer than we originally thought, can that be arranged?”

An irritated look briefly flashed across the man’s face. He was no doubt thinking of the rotation schedule, the way guests were booked in a staggered way so one could come in to occupy a spot that another had just left. What Destiny was asking would throw a wrench into their perfect system, creating a blind spot of uncertainty.

“I would have to speak to my manager about that. Would you like for me to summon her? She can answer your questions better than I can.”

“No,” Destiny replied.

We’ll just have to deal with that when it comes to that.

“Three nights.”

$210, plus tax, was quite a bit more than he had been planning to spend today. He might end up shelling out even more before this was over with. He paid with a sigh, then accepted two copies of the room key.

The receptionist wished him a good day, then turned around and pretended to busy himself with something that required his immediate attention. He was rather good at the façade, so much so that Destiny might have actually believed it if he hadn’t caught a glimpse of the man at a different angle as he was going down the hallway in the direction of the elevator. The man was fiddling around with the leaves of a potted plant, lifting them up and then letting them flop back down into their natural position. His expression was of a person who was trying very hard to figure something out.

Destiny supposed the guy was still struggling with the decision of whether or not to alert his manager of the presence of two bloodied bikers. His choice would make itself known eventually. If the police showed up, he’d told. If they never did, then he had decided to just put this behind him in hopes that it never happened again.

Their room was small and cramped, too much furniture shoved into not enough space. The pipes in the bathroom did indeed look as if they were prone to leaking, though there were some signs that makeshift repairs had been performed in the past. Mainly duct tape.

So, Destiny had to give them some credit for that.

The television worked, which was a nice surprise. The image was permanently stuck on negative, which wasn’t.

Markus perched on the bed and flipped through the channels until he found the news, where a couple of blue-skinned alien people were jabbering about some scandal or another. Some teacher who had punched a parent.

“What are you doing?” Destiny asked. “Are you really so calm about this that you’re watching TV?”

Markus flicked him an annoyed glance. Blood was drying on his face, flaking off in little patches that left him looking distinctly reptilian. “We caused a whole hell of a lot of havoc out there. Wolves, right out there in the middle of a park where there were humans. I’m watching for breaking news, live updates. Anything.”

Destiny sighed and rubbed his face. “Good idea. Sorry.”

Markus flashed him a little smile, which made him feel better. Not a whole lot better, but a little. “You’re okay.”

Destiny watched the omega for a moment, his heart squeezing tight in his chest. He turned and went into the bathroom, where he ran warm water onto a washcloth.

Markus accepted the gift, using it to remove some of the worst of the bloodstains. Destiny sat down on an armchair nearby, which had been squished up between the air conditioning unit and a full-sized desk. He listened idly to the TV with one ear while watching Markus.

The wounds Markus had sustained in the fight were superficial, already scabbing over. There were a lot of them, shallow lacerations that covered his arms and legs, a few fang-marks on his side, but they weren’t very devastating in the grand scheme of things.

Markus glanced over, noticing him watching. His eyelids lowered, his expression softening. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be a lot worse off.”

Before Destiny could reply, his phone rang. He snatched it out of his pocket and jammed it against his ear. “Hello?”

“Hey,” a tired voice replied.

Destiny stood up, his nerves jangling. Like a caged animal he couldn’t be still, so he started to pace around the room. “Cain? Are you okay? What’s going on? Is anyone…dead?”

“Everyone’s fine, more or less,” Cain said. The words came hard, as if he was having to rip them out of his throat. “Lots of injuries. Nothing life-threatening. Right around the time that everyone realized you had left, the fights started breaking up.”

Thank goodness.

“I sent everyone away. Worst injuries are on their way to the hospital, supposedly. Lesser injuries are here at the garage, patching each other up. Everyone else, I told them to take their asses home and think about what they’d done.”

“It wasn’t their fault,” Destiny said.

“No. But they need to see that there’s no way that you betrayed them like Brock said.” Cain let out an enormous sigh into the phone, making Destiny feel like he’d been caught in a hurricane. “Most of them just look stunned. Like they can’t believe this happened. I’m right along with them. But a lot of them also look ashamed. Which serves them right. Fucking idiots.”

“How is Ralphie? And Knox?”

“Knox doesn’t have a care in the world.” Cain’s voice momentarily softened with love for his son. “Ralphie’s making sure of that. He’s worried, though.”

“Take care of them.”

“You know I will. To my last breath. But what about you jerks? How are you? Are you okay?”

Destiny quickly filled Cain in on where they were. He could feel his second-in-command’s disapproval filtering through the phone.

“I wish you would have gone further. But you’re a grown man. You can take care of yourself.”

Destiny snorted, and Cain laughed.

“You two should probably just stay low for a while. Switch hotels a bit if you need to. Maybe find one that has people living there. This is all going to blow over, but I don’t think it’s going to go fast.”

His heart sank so low he could feel it sitting on the bottom of his stomach, sour and heavy. “Will you take care of the pack while I’m gone?”

“You know I will,” Cain promised. “I’ll keep you updated. I’m going to do what I can to convince people that you’re right. We’ll do some investigating of our own.”

“And Markus and I will keep doing the same.”

“No.”

Anger rose inside Destiny at being denied, especially in a firm tone so reminiscent of an alpha’s command. He was on top here. He was the one who gave the orders. Not the other way around.

“I can feel you being pissed off, so back off and let me explain,” Cain growled. “I don’t have much longer. I need to go. So just hear me out. The packs need to come around to this on their own terms. You need to lay low and let them do it. If you don’t, you’re going to get your scent everywhere, and they’ll just keep being suspicious.”

“So, just do your own thing for a little while, Dusty. Maybe patch things up with the omega you’re sharing a hotel room with.”

“How the hell could you have known that?”

“I can hear the TV. And you are definitely not the kind of person who would think to turn the TV on right now. So, tell Markus I said hi. And treat this like a vacation. Because when it’s over, you aren’t going to get a break for a very long time.”

Cain hung up. Destiny lowered his phone from his ear and just looked at it for a long moment.

Markus glanced over, holding onto the washcloth that was now so covered in blood that Destiny could almost be convinced red was its natural color. “Well?”

“Cain says hello.”