Breaking Free (City Shifters: the Den Book 6) Read online

  Repeating it didn’t make me feel any better, no matter how many times I told myself he was wrong.

  Even the super comfortable bed didn’t help settle my thoughts or bring sleep closer. It just made me feel lonelier. I picked up my phone and flipped through the address book to Cal’s number. The jackals hadn’t terminated the account. Sometimes I called just to hear his voicemail message, the laughing tone and cheerful farewell. We hadn’t been able to stay goodbye before he died, so each time I heard the message it felt like maybe a bit more closure. Maybe.

  I closed my eyes and let the phone ring, eyes burning with tears in anticipation of hearing his voice. Cal. God, I missed him so much it hurt to breathe.

  “Hello?”

  I shot straight up in bed, almost dropping the phone. The gruff voice sounded just close enough to Cal’s that for a blissful moment, a blinding joy overwhelmed me. Maybe he wasn’t dead. Maybe it was all a terrible dream. Maybe—

  “It’s Harrison,” the voice said, and crushed my hope and my heart at the same time.

  Harrison, Cal’s older brother. I struggled to breathe, unable to form words, but he let the silence stretch without hanging up. No doubt he could hear me trying not to cry.

  The tears came anyway, and my voice cracked and skipped octaves as I forced myself to speak. “I just like to hear his voice.”

  “Me too.” Harrison sighed. “That’s why I keep the phone active.”

  Neither of us said anything for a while, and for some reason, the sound of him breathing turned comforting. Harrison took over as the alpha jackal after their father had a breakdown when Cal died. Their family still hated me, or so I believed.

  “I miss him,” I whispered, and for the second time that night I let my guard down around a man. I had to bite my knuckle to keep from sobbing uncontrollably. “I miss him so much.”

  Harrison didn’t tell me to suck it up and get over it, and he didn’t shout at me that I was the reason Cal died. He would have been right. I had been my fault. Lorraine and Heba used Cal to punish me, to trap me so they could seize power. If only we hadn’t been about to elope in secret—if I’d told someone where Cal and I met, they might have found him sooner and saved his life. He’d deserved more. So much more.

  “I miss him too,” Harrison said. His voice went rusty, and he cleared his throat a few times before going on. “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

  I took a shaky breath and fought back the grief. “It seems a fucking eternity some days. And like it was just yesterday, too.”

  He grumbled in agreement, and once more we let the silence hang. I didn’t know what to say. I could hardly handle my own grief, most days, and it seemed impossible to know what to say to him, either as a comfort or an apology. How could he ever forgive me for getting his brother killed?

  He’d hated me for a while, though it sounded as though Harrison’s feelings had softened a little. I wiped my cheeks with my camisole, sniffling horrendously. “How is your family?”

  “We’re okay,” he said. it sounded more like a question than a statement, though. “Mom and Dad retired down to Florida. They couldn’t take all the reminders of Cal up here, and they didn’t want to deal with everything that happened in the pack. But Zadie and I are getting through it. And you?”

  He’d always been polite for a jackal. Some of the formalities of being the hyena queen closed in around me and created a gulf between us, even through the phone. “One day at a time. That’s the only way I make it through.”

  I didn’t want to lie to him. He could use it against me, maybe, when we met at the Alphas Council. But I owed him the truth more than anyone else in the city.

  Harrison exhaled, and someone spoke in the background. He cleared his throat. “I have to go.”

  “Thanks for talking,” I said, though I wished I’d gotten to hear Cal’s voicemail message just once.

  “I won’t answer the phone,” he said, then paused and restarted. “I mean, send a text message if you want me to pick up. Otherwise I’ll just let it go to voicemail. I’d meant to deactivate the phone, but I’ll leave it alone. You can call whenever you want.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered. It was a kindness I hadn’t expected from him. “Thank you, Harrison.”

  “We miss you too, Lacey,” he said. “We lost you, too. Just…take care of yourself. If you need anything, let me know.”

  That brought the tears back in a painful rush. “I miss you guys. Maybe we can meet up for coffee soon. Just to talk.”

  “Sure,” he said, and noise disrupted the background. Harrison sighed. “Have a good night, Lacey.”

  I tried to whisper a response but barely squeaked out a few syllables before the call disconnected. I hadn’t realized how much I missed Harrison and his sister, Zadie, as well. They were a painful reminder of Cal, but there were so many good memories with them that it hurt to try to forget everything. Maybe eventually I’d be ready to see them both without wanting to cry and curl up in shame. I hadn’t even talked to Zadie since Cal’s death. Maybe she hated me more than Harrison did.

  The clock showed after five by the time I turned off the lights and tried to sleep, but it was much later before the thoughts stopped racing through my head. It wasn’t a restful night at all.

  Chapter Eight

  Nick

  He waited outside the hyena den for far longer than any sane man would have, but Nick wanted to know which room was hers, just in case the windows lit up. Nothing gave away where Lacey would spend the rest of her night, and eventually he gave up. Of course, the dispatch of a small team of hyenas in his direction helped motivate him to get the hell out of there. Nick shadowed them, relieved that the hyenas disposed of the bodies so he didn’t have to call in the bears, and he melted back into the shadows as the hyenas scented the air and growled as they maybe caught wind of him.

  Nick paused for a beer at O’Sheas, even though Rafe O’Shea gave him a hard look when he walked in. The alpha of BloodMoon pack didn’t like him for a couple of reasons, chief among them that Nick had been part of the BadCreek crew who tried to convince Rafe’s mate that she was crazy and magic didn’t really exist. The girl still cringed whenever she saw Nick. He felt badly for it, but it wasn’t like an apology would make up for the mind-fuck that BadCreek pulled. Smith said the girl was some kind of fae, though. Maybe Nick could convince her to help him hunt down Smith. The girl ran the Wild Hunt with him a few times, so she had to know something about where the old man would travel.

  He frowned into his beer, ignoring an arrogant young wolf who wanted to bump shoulders. And Rafe didn’t want a lone wolf like Nick crossing his territory, even if it meant a bit of profit for the business. Only Nick’s association with the bears granted him safe passage. Something else he owed Kara and her mate.

  Nick grumbled and waved for another round. He had to numb the bruises from needing to protect Lacey and not being able to, and the dread of returning to the den and the quiet of his room. The quiet brought unwelcome memories and dark thoughts, and the quicksand despair of the past. He sank quickly if he didn’t have the liquor to knock himself out.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ruby, Rafe’s sister and the female alpha of BloodMoon, sauntered up with her beer and leaned on the table across from him. “The kids are poking at you and you haven’t knocked anyone down. You dying?”

  He arched an eyebrow and lifted his beer in a toast to her. “I have a mission tonight.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Get shit-faced enough to sleep more than a couple of hours.” He winked and downed the beer, then smashed the bottle on the edge of the table to break off the bottom. Nick had the pushy kid shoved up against the wall by his throat and the broken bottle in his face before Ruby could do much more than blink, and Nick bared his teeth in a clear warning to the younger wolf. “Never crowd a man you don’t know.”

  Rafe growled in irritation as the noise level in the bar dropped and the rest of the pack bristled, but Ruby just b
rushed glass off the table. Nick always liked her. “You can beat him up, but don’t kill him, Nick.”

  “Outside,” Rafe called from behind the bar. “I’m sick of buying new bar stools.”

  Nick eased the bottle closer to the kid’s cheek, and the young wolf’s eyes widened. Blood usually settled the demons down as well. His wolf clawed for control and Nick squeezed the kid’s throat.

  “Have one on the house,” Ruby said, and offered Nick a fresh bottle of beer. “Just let the kid go.”

  Nick didn’t care enough to waste the energy to beat the stupid kid bloody, but a fight might have at least exhausted him to the point he could pass out. Beer was still better. Nick pushed his wolf back and dropped the kid in a heap. He relieved Ruby of the bottle and retreated to his table, still on edge. “I might need something stronger.”

  “Vodka or whiskey? The rum is shit.” Ruby tilted her head to direct him to the bar, and Nick warily approached where Rafe mopped up a spill on the scarred wood.

  “Not vodka.” He hadn’t had a drop of it in years. It never tasted like home. And it was vodka he used to forget when his parents died, when the war in Chechnya turned into hell, when he buried friend after friend... Nick cleared his throat and gestured in the direction of the brown liquors, like muddy water. “Some of that.”

  A hint of a smile touched Ruby’s face. “A real connoisseur. Whiskey it is, but I’m giving you the cheap shit since you won’t know the difference.”

  “Fair enough.” She poured him a shot and waited, bottle in hand.

  Nick downed the shot and tapped the side of his neck, signaling for another as he put the glass down. Ruby just looked at him. His hand went to his throat once more and he froze, panic rising in his chest. He’d forgotten. Let his guard slip. Old soldiers in Russia always called for more drinks like that, a custom from when the czar tattooed the serfs as property and gave them free drinks instead of freedom. They just had to show the tattoo, driven into the skin of their neck, to claim their liquor ration. Nick thought he’d hidden that part of his life deeply enough, but it bubbled to the surface. Just like everything else.

  He cleared his throat and forced a smile, tapping the bar instead. “One more.”

  “You sure, Nick?” Ruby eyed him with a touch of suspicion. “We got a couch upstairs you can crash on if you want to finish the bottle, but I’m not sure I should let you out the door with this much booze. You might do something crazy.”

  Maybe she saw the ghosts in him, too. Nick nudged the shot glass closer to the bottle. “I’ll be fine. One more and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Rafe watched with a less friendly expression, but Nick didn’t blame him. Lone wolves only brought trouble to even well-established packs. One that had gone completely rogue and let the wolf take control was just inviting disaster. Ruby tipped some liquor into the glass and Nick tossed it back before shoving to his feet. “Thanks.”

  He turned to go, but Ruby’s quiet question stopped him in his tracks. “How’s Lacey doing?”

  His wolf started growling before Nick managed to silence him, and the rest of the pack braced for a fight. Ruby snapped her fingers and the pack dispersed, though Nick would have preferred being attacked by all of them to having to talk about Lacey with anyone else. But he didn’t want any rumors to get started, more so because they would mean trouble for the hyena queen.

  Nick took a deep breath and returned to his stool at the bar, eyeing Ruby sideways. “Why do you ask?”

  “You smell like her,” Ruby said. “And one of our guys saw you two kill a couple of wolves in an alley and walk away together. Very romantic.”

  The growl returned and Nick coughed to cover it up, though he didn’t fool either of the alphas. “A few BadCreek enforcers were out hunting and managed to surprise her. I stepped in to assist.”

  “Uh-huh.” Rafe gave up any pretense of doing bar work and instead leaned his elbows on the battered wood so he could frown at Nick more effectively. “What’s your intent with Lacey?”

  “It’s not your business.” The wolf said it more than Nick, using more snarl than he would have preferred. Particularly since he sat in the alpha’s bar, surrounded by his pack. Nick shoved to his feet once more, wanting to get some distance before the wolf took over and all hell broke loose. “And on that note, I’ll excuse myself. Thanks for the drink.”

  He slapped some money on the bar, over Ruby’s objections, and headed for the exit before anyone else could get close enough to see his eyes. Nick felt the wolf taking over, jostling for control at the perceived threat to his relationship with Lacey, and he needed to get somewhere less exposed to deal with it.

  Even liquor couldn’t quiet the beast.

  He made it back to the gym without incident, and paused outside his room on the first floor, near the clinic. He preferred the quiet, but he didn’t want to risk going to bed and waking up with the wolf in control. He didn’t have any liquor in his room, but a brutal workout might save him the hangover.

  Someone moved around in the gym, just down the hall. Nick hesitated before he went to investigate, hoping it wasn’t Owen. He liked the kid but he felt guilty beating up on him in the ring. It was like kicking a small and somewhat crippled puppy.

  Sasha, the big Russian bear, lumbered around near the heavy bags, walloping the vinyl in slow but methodical blows. Nick didn’t feel bad kicking the grizzly’s ass, but normally Sasha wasn’t awake at four in the morning. Nick wandered into the gym. “Didn’t expect to find anyone else awake.”

  The bear grunted and stepped back, wiping his arm across his forehead as he made a face. “Girl kicked me out. Of my own apartment. Is ridiculous.”

  “She kicked you out for no reason?” Nick didn’t buy it for a second. Sasha’s mate, Sunny, was a tough chick and someone who could roll with the punches. She cursed more than almost anyone else in the whole building and ran illegal smuggling operations to get abused women away from their husbands and boyfriends. She tolerated a lot of shit without batting an eye, so Nick found the bear’s explanation suspect. Of course, Sunny was also nine months pregnant and completely terrifying. “That doesn’t sound like Sunny.”

  “I call her something nice and she does not like. She tell me to leave.” Sasha made grumbly bear noises that the wolf couldn’t translate, but Nick started to get an inkling of what the problem might have been. Sasha played the “big dumb foreign bear” card when it suited him, though his accent disappeared when he spoke with the children and sometimes his mate. He was a wily bastard to have survived Siberia and the Russian mob.

  “What did you call her?”

  The bear grumbled more and his face reddened as he retrieved a bottle of water from the cooler. “I call her my plump little turnip.”

  Nick snorted. “You’re shitting me, man. You know better than that.”

  “I like turnip,” he muttered. “And she is plump. Very plump. More like watermelon, maybe.”

  “Now I know you’re fucking with me,” Nick said. “Never call a woman plump. Or a watermelon.”

  Sasha shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “Is endearment. Maybe she will like later.”

  “Maybe if I beat the shit out of you tonight, she’ll feel bad for you in the morning.” Nick nodded at the ring and dragged off his shirt, the wolf desperate for combat. He just needed to feel some pain to cut through the fog of everything else. “Tend your wounds or at least let you sleep on the floor.”

  “And maybe I tell your sister you are out wandering the streets, stinking of strange things and other wolves.” Sasha arched a dark eyebrow as his eyes flashed gold. “Coming home with wolf in control. I should lock you in crazy room.”

  Nick didn’t quite roll his eyes, but he forgot about the gloves. Sasha had been a brawler and bare-knuckle fighter back in Siberia, or so Nick’s sources told him. He turned away to get some water and kick off his shoes, tempted to just strip down to his boxers for a real fight, and almost missed Sasha’s grumble.

  The bear clear
ed his throat. “Maybe we fight like in Chechnya. No gloves, no rules. I will kick your Russian ass for all my brothers.”

  “Go ahead and try, crazy bastard,” Nick said, and a heartbeat later froze, realization crashing through him like icy water. Sasha spoke to him in Russian, and Nick answered in kind. Shit. He didn’t face the bear as the wolf roared to the surface. The wolf didn’t like talking about home, either. “How did you know?”

  “You hide it well,” Sasha said, dropping all pretense of the heavy Russian accent as he switched back to English. Maybe their mother tongue brought back bad memories, just like Nick. “But you can’t hide the tattoos. You are small to be Spetznaz.”

  Spetznaz. Special Purpose soldiers. Nick faced the bear, still battling to keep the wolf from seizing control; the wolf didn’t like to be called small. “It has been a long time.”

  He should have gotten the tattoos removed. They were from a different life, and not one he wanted to revisit. He’d moved on to other kinds of suffering from that. “But you’re one to talk, zek. I know what you are, too.”

  “I made peace with my past,” Sasha said. For once, Nick believed him. The bear gestured up toward the ceiling, to where his mate slept. “I have more important things in my life now. But that does not mean I’ve forgotten what you bastards did in Chechnya.”

  “I regret it. All of it.” Nick didn’t bother trying to bullshit the other man. Sasha knew what happened in Grozny. Nick shook his head as his control slipped and the wolf surged to the surface. “There is a reason I left, man. There’s a reason I hide it.”

  “You hide it well.” Sasha grumbled and pointed Nick at the ring. “Most of the time. You slip with your words. And a BadCreek alpha called you Nikolai.”

  He’d forgotten about that. Nick forced himself into the ring, struggling against the wolf, and fur prickled along his forearms as he squared off with the burly asshole. He really didn’t like bears. His teeth grew too large in his mouth, distorting his words as Nick searched for a way to ask the bear to forget what he knew about the tattoos. “I don’t want that part of my life—“