Hector
He stood in the doorway until long after Rachel had disappeared down the sidewalk.
It was for the best, he told himself. She would go back to her place, and call up some of her friends, and they would have a cry session or two, but she would move on. It was the nature of humans. They were far more adaptable to change than his kind were. In time she would give birth, and find someone else, a new man to be a part of her life. To give her the partnership, happiness, and love that she so richly deserved.
But it wouldn’t be Hector. He would be back in Cadia, where he would live out his days alone, constantly longing for the mate that he’d had for a brief moment in time, but been unable to keep. A mate who had been torn away from him by an unfortunate set of circumstances far beyond his control.
Eventually Hector sighed in defeat, closed his eyes, and retreated back inside the embassy. There was little purpose of staying there. Rachel wasn’t coming back; he’d seen to that by forcing her away. She would hate him for a time, but eventually she would come to understand that he’d done what he’d done for her own good. That she would be better off with a clean break. By giving her something to fixate on, a reason to be angry at him, it would come easier than a long, slow goodbye spent in each other’s arms before he had to go away for good.
It just wouldn’t feel like that at first.
His footsteps carried him to the back of the lobby and down the hallway to the left. One of the unused conference rooms had been converted to a makeshift bar and lounge area until the renovations on the ruined one could be complete. Nobody was there now, which wasn’t a surprise. It was evening, and they would be out in Cloud Lake enjoying what parts of their vacation he hadn’t ruined.
Hector plopped himself down at the bar, which he had all to himself, and then reached over and snagged a bottle of amber liquid. He didn’t even look at it, simply ripping the top off and downing a good portion of it. The thick booze burned its way down his throat, causing him to cough and shake his head, caught off guard by the strength of it.
“Wow,” he muttered, looking at the bottle thoughtfully before taking a slightly more restrained gulp the second time. It still burned, but he was ready for it this time, and it didn’t bother him as much.
Nodding in appreciation of the maker, he sat on the bar and proceeded to have a solid mope about his situation and how there was little he could do about it. He was there for an unknown amount of time until he heard footsteps at the doorway. Hector didn’t bother to acknowledge whoever it was, preferring to stay hunched over his bottle, absorbed in his own self-misery. The faceless intruder into his personal time came up and took a seat next to him. Realization slowly made its way through his alcohol-infused brain that whoever it was had come in specifically to talk to him, not for their own reasons.
“Whaddya want?” he asked, surprised at how slurred his words were. Glancing at the bottle he realized with a start that there was perhaps a finger or two of liquid left. “Damn. Gonna need a refill soon.”
At least, that’s what he thought he said.
The newcomer grabbed the bottle from him. “Fireblaze? Ouch. How much of this have you had?”
“It’s mine,” he said. “you can’t have any.”
“You opened it, didn’t you?”
Hector nodded. “Yep.” He didn’t quite have to squint at the newcomer to make out who it is, but it was close. “What do you want, Gray?” he asked, forcing himself out of his drunken state.
That was the downside of being a shifter. His metabolism burned so fast that he needed a constant stream of high-strength booze to both get drunk and stay drunk. A little effort of will to force his body to work extra hard and he could burn off enough to sober up in a double handful of seconds.
“This had better be worth me losing a good buzz,” he half-snarled, though it was mostly devoid of any real anger. Gray was too good of a guy to treat that way.
“I heard.”
Hector wasn’t surprised that Gray had heard, being Andrew’s right-hand man. But it made him realize that word was probably spreading like wildfire amongst all the shifters. If they didn’t already, they would all known soon that he was being sent back. They’ll probably be happy too. I’ve ruined all their vacations. Hopefully it gives them some satisfaction to know my entire life has been ruined.
“I’m sorry,” Gray said. “I don’t think it’s fair.”
“Of course it’s not fair,” he snapped. “But since when has it ever been about being fair? It’s not like it was fair to Corvin either. He paid the ultimate price for my lapse in judgment.”
Gray rolled his eyes, but Hector just ignored him, taking the bottle of Fireblaze back and downing the rest of it in one long swig, coughing as it seared his throat.
“I’ll leave you be then,” Gray said after a minute as Hector reached for another bottle and popped the top, not even bothering to read it. It was similar-looking, but it went down a little smoother.
Good. I can drink it faster then.
Gray got up. He stood next to Hector for a second before giving his shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll be here if you need me for anything. Just let me know.” And then he was gone.
Hector let him go. It would be better if they stopped talking too. It wasn’t like Gray was ever going back to Cadia. He had a mate in Cloud Lake, a house, and was starting a life there. Hector was unlikely to ever see him again, unless things went wrong for him too. It would all be better this way.
He looked around the room, at the dull gray paint on the wall and the terrible layout, old furniture, and all the half-assed effort that had gone into making the room serviceable, but not nice, until the official lounge was finished. He was going to miss it. The room was ugly as sin, but it was part of the embassy, part of the place he’d called home for nearly an entire year.
How was he supposed to just accept going back to Cadia? A place he’d never truly fit in. Just up and move his entire life back there, and for what? He’d probably be drummed out of the Green Bearets, the military arm of the bear shifters. That would leave him jobless, homeless, and without any real upward prospects to succeed. Maybe he’d be able to find work as a contractor or something.
Didn’t that just sound exciting?
There was a noise from his left, at the entrance to the lounge. “I thought you said you were going to leave me alone, Gray,” he said, irritated.
“Pathetic.”
His head snapped around as Martin spoke. “What did you say?”
The third embassy guard gave him a scathing look. “I said this is pathetic. Look at you. Drinking yourself stupid while you mope around, waiting to be recalled. It’s pathetic. At least accept your punishment like a man.”
Hector just stared. “Got anything else to say from way over there?”
Martin’s eyes blazed angrily, but he didn’t come any closer. “I still owe you for the other night.”
“Oh come on, Martin. I barely touched you. If you’d just moved aside like I said, then it wouldn’t have happened. Your devotion to duty is admirable, but sometimes you need to know when to let things slide, man. You’re too serious.”
“Ah,” Martin said with a shake of his head. “Maybe I should take lessons from the Hector school of how to do his job. Because we all saw how well that worked out last time.”
Hector seethed, but he didn’t rise to the bait. Martin was just pissed that he’d been unable to keep Hector at the embassy, and then after he’d reported him, Andrew had effectively sided with Hector. It was tough to blame him for being mad. It was true though; he was a little too uptight. Hector wished he would go out more, maybe find a mate. It would do wonders for him in allowing him to relax.
He almost contemplated saying something to that effect, but then—in a likely very smart move—decided against doing so. Martin was already on edge, and he didn’t need to be reminded of his lack of female companionship just then. It would likely lead to a fight, and Hector wasn’t interested in fighting his friend a second time.
“Goodbye, Martin,” he said dismissively, waving a hand at him.
To emphasize his point he turned away and lifted the bottle to his lips, taking another sip. There was a hiss of frustration from the doorway and then Martin stormed off, leaving Hector to his drinking. But the encounter had ruined the mood and atmosphere of the lounge.
“I need to get out of here,” he said to no one in particular, snagging the bottle of booze and heading toward a door at the back. He shoved it open into a service hallway at the back of the embassy and then took the first non-fire door that led him out back, emerging into darkness.
Looking around in surprise he realized that the evening had passed and it was well into night. He’d been drinking for a lot longer than he thought.
“Oh well.” He took another swig of the booze, enjoying the tingly buzz he had going on in his limbs at the moment. The liquid swished around in the bottle and Hector grimaced at how little was left. Maybe he should have gone back for more. His head swung back to the embassy in thought.
That’s when something hit him.
Hector spun around, losing his grip on the bottle, which went flying off to smash somewhere in the distance, glass spreading all over the ground.
“You sonofabitch!” Hector roared as he turned on whoever had robbed him of his booze.
The attacker came out of the shadows, hitting with a rapid-fire combination to the stomach that didn’t do him any favors. They followed up with an uppercut that rocked Hector back. He swung wildly, missing on his first two punches but managing to graze his opponent with the third, a left jab.
“Take that!” he chortled and advanced on his foe.
Who promptly laid him out flat on his back with a well-timed haymaker to his temple.
“Ow,” he mumbled as he tried to get up.
A kick to his ribs flipped him over and sent him skidding across the pavement, ripping patches of skin from all over his body.
“Double ow,” he said woozily, getting his left arm under him and starting to rise.
A booted foot snapped his arm in half, and he collapsed on top of it, dislocating the elbow.
Hector screamed in pain.
“Good,” someone said through the haze of agony, and then kicked him hard in the head before walking away as Hector rolled onto his back, cradling his ruined arm close to him.
Hector managed to sit up after several minutes, forcing his alcohol-fused mind into action. He had to set the arm, and soon, or else it would be even worse down the line.
“You know the drill.”
He did. That didn’t make it any easier. Scrunching his eyes closed, he used his good hand to feel out the break and the dislocation. It wasn’t as bad as he’d thought, though it was going to hurt like hell. With a deep breath he wrenched his arm around and popped the elbow back into place. The movement shot agony up and down his broken arm, making him see stars, but Hector had been through this before. Setting broken bones, even his own, was nothing new.
He felt out the break, and then grabbed his wrist and began to tug and twist his arm. Bone grated on bone and he broke out into a sweat, clenching his teeth against the pain. As he worked his mouth dropped open and a low sound emerged as he couldn’t quite contain it all. But finally, with one last blackout-inducing noise and vomit-inducing feeling, it set itself back into place.
Hector fell back, lying prone on the ground as he gasped for breath, having held it for far longer than he’d intended, almost to the point of passing out. But it was done now, and he could feel his body trying to start healing it already. The break had been a bad one, and combined with the dislocation his arm was going to be a weak spot in any fights for the next little while, but it would be okay in time.
“Just another chapter in the downfall of Hector Gorchan,” he said to himself, climbing carefully to his feet and looking sadly at the broken bottle. “Off to find more,” he pronounced, heading out into the city and one of the nearby bars that catered to shifters, in hopes of finding something else that would go help restore his buzz.
It didn’t even occur to him to wonder who had attacked him. He simply didn’t care. It could have been any of nearly two dozen shifters who harbored a grudge against him for ruining their time in Cloud Lake. There was no sense in trying to pick up on which of them it might have been.
After all, didn’t he deserve it?
Hector looked around. He had wandered off course into a commercial part of town. There were places open late here, but they weren’t the normal locale of shifters, and likely wouldn’t have any alcohol strong enough for him.
“Not like it’s going to help you with your pity part at all,” he said to himself.
He sniffed in disdain, taking in the scents of the small town for what might be the last time. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized he recognized one of the scents. He’d smelled it before. It was fairly fresh too. Whoever it was, they had passed by recently. Hector took about a millisecond to come to a decision, forcing his body to work overtime as it evaporated the alcohol burning in his system. Then he went hunting for the owner of the scent.
The same owner he’d almost caught the night of the fire…