Heart's Price (MxM)

Chapter 47

I pass the day in a sort of haze, unable to clear the mental fog that's come to settle in my mind.

Julian and Dane give up their office room for me, Julian unrolling an old futon he'd had stored in a closet, and then I spend the rest of the morning drying and ironing my rain-dampened clothes.

The ever-thrilling life of a werewolf, you know.

In the afternoon, Dane leaves to 'take care of some stuff,' but I know he's headed for Ambrose's house, to try to talk to him. When he returns, I'm sitting on the back porch, grooming Dougal, but I can hear what he says plainly enough through the open door.

"Any luck?" Freya asks. She'd stayed all day, working on her laptop and phone and generally taking over Julian's house.

"No," Dane answers, sounding unhappy. "The creepy girl answered the door, but wouldn't let me in. Said Ambrose, 'wasn't taking visitors.' When I pressed, she admitted no one's seen him since the day before. He's locked himself in his room and given orders not to let anyone in the house. Even Mathilda's staff have been turned out."

"Why didn't you just bust your way in? That's what you usually do."

"Thought about it," Dane admits, still keeping his voice quiet. "Decided it wasn't likely to be worth the effort. Instead I told creepy-girl to give him a message."

"Lemme guess. Was it, 'you hurt my brother and I'll tear your heart out and make you eat it?'"

"No, he's heard that one already," Dane grunts. "I said... Well, I said that when he's ready for help, we'll be there."

"Oh. That's...nice of you."

I can imagine the skeptical lift of Freya's brow, and it almost makes me smile.

"I can be nice," Dane returns neutrally, "when it suits me."

"Ooh, so it's a strategy, then?"

There's a pause, and then Dane speaks in an even quieter tone, probably thinking I can't hear. He always did underestimate my ears.

"More like...an act of faith," he says.

"Faith? In dragon-man?" Freya scoffs.

"No, in Noah," Dane answers and pauses again for one of his long, deep-lunged sighs. "Whether we like it or not, he's made his Choice; and for better or worse, that Choice is Ambrose Thorne. The best we can hope is that Thorne makes it out of this mess alive, and that he's not a murderer or a monster by the end of it. For Noah's sake, if I can help him do that, then I will."

A few seconds pass in silence, and then Freya speaks in an equally soft voice.

"You're a good brother, and a good man, Dane. A good Wolf, too. But you have a bad habit of taking on other people's problems and making 'em your own. Like you did for me."

Dane starts to speak, but Freya goes on.

"Just listen. I'm grateful. You saved my life, and you know that. But that was years ago, and you're in a different place now. You've got a Mate who needs you and—from what I hear—you might have a rare shot at something more. Now, like you said, this is Noah's choice, which makes it his responsibility. Not yours. You've got to let him live and learn from his own mistakes, whether or not Ambrose Thorne is among them."

I wait for Dane to answer, but after a few minutes, in which my heart and lungs feel increasingly too large for my rib-cage to contain them, I realize he isn't going to, and I get up and start walking.

I'm not angry at Freya, or at Dane, because Freya is right. Dane's protective, alpha nature is exactly what I've been relying on; instead of finding my own strength, I've been letting him shelter me with his, and suddenly I hate myself for that.