His Words of Wrath (The Kaldr Chronicles Book 3) Page 5

  “It would’ve been Silverback.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because you would’ve been the wolf and not the man.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Ok then.” I sighed and directed my attention out the window. Here—on the outskirts of central Texas—the terrain was beginning to change, rising to flushes of hills and bursts of gnarled juniper trees. “At this rate, we’ll be there by nightfall.”

  “Are you ready to see him?” Aerick asked.

  “Honestly,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  Aerick didn’t push me further. He just left it at that.

  14

  The sweep of wildflowers and the chrome shine of metal fencing was what greeted us that sunset as we pulled up to the Winters’ family ranch to partake in what would undoubtedly be the meeting of the decade. Chest heavy, breaths strangled in my throat, I exited the vehicle to unhinge and then open the gate that led into the grounds and waited for Aerick to drive through in Elliot’s blue truck, all the while dreading what would occur within the next few moments.

  “You getting in?” Aerick asked from the driver’s side window.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “Just let me lock the gate.”

  He waited, per my instruction, and leaned over to open the passenger side door when I made my way around the vehicle. “Nervous?” he asked.

  “More than you could ever imagine,” I replied.

  With that said, he rolled forward and began to make his way toward the ranch house.

  At this hour of the evening, the working Kaldr were just beginning to leave the fields, bearing in their arms and hands hoes and sickles used to tend and harvest the fall crop. Upon noticing the vehicle, most paused to look, but none stopped to stare upon seeing one of Elliot Winters’ signature blue vehicles. If anything, I imagined, they expected that I was returning victorious. The way the sun was hitting the window, they couldn’t see who was driving. Pierre could’ve been in the vehicle and no one would have even known.

  For this reason, I suspected, Elliot Winters and Amadeo Castellano appeared on the expansive front porch. I immediately took notice of Amadeo’s worried eyes and Elliot’s wrathful expression.

  I exited the vehicle.

  Aerick opened the driver’s side door.

  I held my hand up to motion him to remain inside as Elliot began to descend the porch. “Jason,” he said. “What the hell do you think you—”

  “That’s Packmaster Jason DePella to you, sir,” I said, steeling myself for his impending assault as he continued to approach me. “And this is me returning victorious.”

  “And who is he?” Elliot asked, jabbing toward the window.

  “Jason!” Guy said, vaulting down the porch and taking me into his arms. “Thank God.”

  “It’s good to see you too,” I said, surprised at how comfortable it felt to be in his arms.

  Behind me, the driver’s side door opened and Aerick stepped out. The moment Guy and I parted, he whistled. “Shit,” Aerick said. “You weren’t kidding when you said he was hot.”

  “Who is this?” Guy frowned.

  “Guy,” I said, gesturing Aerick forward. “This is Aerick Harper. Aerick, this is—”

  “A Howler?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. Aerick—per his usual self—merely smirked and offered a hand. “Pleasure, stud.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m your boyfriend’s liaison to the Howlers,” Aerick replied. “Or, should I say, his companion on this little journey.”

  “What,” Elliot growled, “the hell is a Howler doing here?”

  “Relax, Mr. Winters. Pierre is dead.”

  Elliot paled. “Pierre LeBlanc is… dead?”

  “Killed by my own hand,” I said, lifting my fingers and forming upon their five tips a dagger made of ice. I allowed Elliot to view the spectacle of my competency before letting the ice and moisture slick free of my palm. “As packmaster of the Hill Country Howler clan, I come here with an offer.”

  “For what?” Amadeo asked, stepping forward.

  “Peace between the two parties.”

  Elliot snorted. “Peace?” he asked. “Peace?”

  “We should go inside,” Aerick said, glancing up at the quickly-setting sun. “We don’t want to risk being caught out in the open.”

  “By what?” Guy frowned.

  “Banshees,” I said.

  “Let us go inside then,” Amadeo said, turning toward the farmhouse.

  15

  Guy, Aerick, Elliot and I either sat in barstools or stood around the kitchen island as Amadeo dispensed lemonade amongst the four of us. Though I wasn’t thirsty, Aerick made quick work of his glass and gladly took mine when I offered it, licking his lips at the sight of the freshly-squeezed and properly-sugared lemon juice within.

  “You said you were being followed by banshees?” Guy asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “Care to explain what happened?”

  “Yeah,” Aerick said before I could even begin. “We stopped, I took a wiz, had a creepy guy give me the once over, then follow me out of the visitor’s center and turn into a banshee.”

  “I thought banshees were only female,” Guy replied.

  “Only in legend,” Amadeo replied. He stepped forward and viewed Aerick with curious fascination as he drained yet another glass of lemonade. “Are you… thirsty?” he asked the Howler.

  “Sorta,” Aerick replied. “Lover boy here wore me out last night.”

  Guy frowned.

  I grimaced.

  Aerick looked indifferent to the whole thing. He looked between the two of us, asked, “What?” then followed up by saying, “I thought you broke up?”

  “We never broke up,” Guy said, casting a glance in my direction. “And as to this ‘romp’ you were having…”

  “I needed to feed,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Aerick piped in. “Feed off a face-full of my jizz.”

  I slapped a hand over my face and groaned. Elliot—who, up until this point, had remained quiet—chuckled, a sound that did nothing to clear the air or settle my nerves.

  When I looked up at Guy, I expected to see disappointment—or, worse, hurt. Instead, he had that stupid look of amusement plastered over his face that he got whenever he said something particularly lewd around me.

  “So… we’re cool?” Aerick asked, wagging a finger between himself and Guy. “Even though I jizzed on your boyfriend’s face?”

  “We’re cool,” Guy replied. “Even though you jizzed on my boyfriend’s face.”

  “You guys,” I groaned.

  “Can we please focus?” Elliot Winters asked.

  Everyone in the room turned to look at the Svel Kaldr.

  Expelling a breath, the very-annoyed man crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “The pair of you were attacked by banshees?”

  “At least one,” I said.

  “If not two,” Aerick added.

  “And this was in broad moonlight, am I right?”

  “Yes sir. Broad… er… moonlight, it was.”

  “Why do you ask that?” I frowned.

  “Banshees don’t normally attack people unless it’s under the guise of a very dark night,” Amadeo said. “Much less so close to potentially-populated areas.”

  “So you’re saying this was out of character?”

  “What I’m saying is that this was very out of character,” Amadeo agreed.

  “Banshees feed off the fear they instill within others,” Elliot said, crossing the brief distance in the kitchen to stand beside his son. “There is no need for them to physically attack an individual in order for them to feed. Their presence alone is enough.” He glanced out the front window, toward where the truck was parked. “I see my vehicle has sustained damage.”

  “And me,” Aerick said, pointing at his head. “Don’t forget me.”

  No one responded.

  Growling, the Howler stood and pinwheeled his arms, grimacing as he reached up and to f
inger the spot on his temple that’d been bothering him all day. “You mind if I lay down?” he asked, opening only one eye to look between Elliot and Amadeo Castellano-Winters.

  “There’s a couch you can use for the time being,” Amadeo said. “Let me show you.”

  The two disappeared into the living room, leaving only me and the two Winters men in the kitchen.

  Sighing, I leaned forward, braced both hands on the table, and said, “I want to make a truce between the Kaldr and the Hill Country Howlers.”

  “Why?” Guy asked.

  “Because I don’t feel like they have the resources to sustain themselves on their own.”

  “Let them rot,” Elliot said, casting a hand up as if to dismiss the notion entirely. “I won’t sleep for worse at night.”

  “That’s the thing, sir—I can’t.”

  “Why don’t you just leave?” Guy offered.

  “Because I’m afraid they’ll do something drastic if their under control other than my own.”

  Guy nodded. His father—whom, until that moment, had refused to acknowledge my existence—returned his eyes to me. “You… believe we would be better allied rather than apart?”

  “I know we would, sir. Especially if one of the more aggressive Howlers decided to contest reign of the pack.”

  “And the others have agreed to this?”

  “Some have, sir—at least, to the idea. Others have said they’d reconsider if there was something set in stone.”

  “This is… a predicament I would have to consider very carefully,” Elliot said.

  Guy turned. I’d never seen him look so shocked. “You’re actually considering this?” he asked.

  “Jason makes an excellent point,” Elliot replied. “There are some within Pierre—pardon… Jason’s… pack… that would be ill-suited to rule the Hill Country Howlers. At least this way, we would have some control over their actions while they remained on this property.”

  “I would give you full authority over any matters you deem necessary,” I said, placing my hands flat on the countertop. “Your land. Your rules.”

  “Have you considered how you would house the wolves during the moon cycles?”

  “We’d have to build a bunker,” I said, “with at least twenty individual cells.”

  “Which would require labor and materials I could not afford to part with.”

  “Would someone at the Agency be able to help?”

  “That’s an idea,” Guy said. “I don’t see why they would refuse to cooperate, given that it is uniting at least two of the clans.”

  “You forget that the Agency does not like to deal with external affairs, my son,” Elliot said.

  Guy frowned, but didn’t bow to his father’s rebuttal. Rather, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at him head-on. “It’s something we need to heavily consider.”

  “The other option is that we relocate to the facilities they were previously housed within,” I said.

  “How would you make that work?”

  “We’d clear out the ferals, repurpose the rooms, reinstate command and work to better disguise the land it lays beneath. This would require further assistance, Mr. Winters, sir, which I think would be just as comparable—”

  “If not more expensive,” Guy added.

  “—than moving onto your property.”

  Elliot frowned.

  “I’d also stated that we would have to pull our own weight,” I said. “This means you’d have more hands in the fields, at the aviaries. You could even start raising livestock.”

  “Animals might not take kindly to being herded by predators,” Elliot said.

  “Either way,” I replied, “you benefit more from us being here than you do if we weren’t. I can’t possibly maintain the business Pierre was performing. He was smuggling drugs, selling weapons, dealing in… other things I’d not mention. We’d collapse without that income.”

  “I see,” Elliot said. He reached into his pants and pulled a smartphone from his pocket, thumbing across it until he came across what he was looking for. “Would you be able to maintain yourselves in your current facility while arrangements were being made?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “It should not be too difficult to arrange for someone to hollow out and then construct the bunker you speak of. What I am concerned with, however, is the transportation of your people, as well as the interventions the Agency’s Wipers will have to run to ensure the end of the drug and weapon smuggling rings.”

  “So you’re basically stuck,” Guy said, “until things get settled.”

  “Which could be?”

  “Months, maybe even a year.”

  “A year?” I groaned and cupped my face in my hands.

  “I’ll begin making the necessary arrangements now,” Elliot said, turning and making his way toward his and Amadeo’s wing of the house. “In the meantime, take your Howler friend up to Guy’s room. I don’t want the servants questioning why he is here.”

  I nodded.

  When Elliot Winters was fully out of the room, I turned to look at Guy.

  He offered an unsure, if somewhat-doubtful look that seemed to say, Are you sure this is a good idea?

  My only thought was: I had no clue.

  Part 2

  1

  While Aerick dozed on the couch, Guy and I sat in his room preparing to have a conversation I knew would be both awkward and painful.

  “So,” he said, not bothering to draw the conversation out any longer than it needed to be. “Is he your warm flesh?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, blushing as his eyes narrowed to scrutinize my response. “I mean… not in the sense that we’ve bonded or anything.”

  “I guess my question should be: have you been using him as warm flesh?”

  “I have,” I said. “Last night was the only night we’d had sex though.”

  “All right.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Guy didn’t say anything. Rather, he crossed his arms over his chest and turned to look out the nearby window—where, through the darkness, he watched trucks and other miscellaneous vehicles as their lights cut a path through the night. His eyes took on a pensive hue as they dilated to adjust to what he was looking at and his lips curled into a frown.

  “Guy,” I said, not only wanting, but needing him to say something, “are you—”

  “Mad?” he asked, then sighed. “No. I mean… I can’t realistically be, considering our parting could have been interpreted as a… well… parting. Besides—it’s not like this wouldn’t have happened sooner rather than later.”

  “But you would’ve known who it was.”

  “Yeah, but would that have made it feel any different? Maybe. Maybe not. Here, though… now…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I won’t lie, Jason: I thought we—us—were done too. So… I… indulged. With Dion.”

  “He let you fuck him?” I asked.

  “I let him fuck me,” he said. “And I’m guessing it was the same with you and… Aerick? You said his name was?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “To both questions.”

  Guy nodded. He stood, rounded the bed, and settled down next to me before sliding a hand around his shoulder. “I care about you a lot, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “And I know I can be a bit overbearing at times, but it’s only because I care.”

  “I get that, Guy, but—” I paused when his facial expression shifted. When he didn’t respond, much like I expected him to, I sighed and continued by saying, “I’m my own man. I’m in this now too. I need to be able to make my own decisions.”

  “Which is why I’m fine with the separation for the time being,” he said, leaning his head against the side of my skull. “I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you, Jason. There’s this… magnetism, between us, that’s… unlike anything I’ve ever felt with anyone, man or Kaldr.”

  “You’ve never glamored me… other than those two times
… right?”

  “Two times?” he frowned. “What’re you—” He paused when the realization began to set in. “Oh,” he then said. “That.”

  I waited.

  “I’ve only ever glamoured you twice,” Guy admitted, nodding as if to further his statement. “Once because I felt you needed it, and once because I… didn’t want you to do something I didn’t think you should. Why? Did you and Aerick discuss this?”

  “Aerick and I haven’t discussed much of anything,” I said. “I barely know him.”

  “But you needed him for—” Guy shook his head, then stood. “Sorry. I’ll stop.”

  “You’re jealous,” I said, rising along with him. “Aren’t you?”

  “Aren’t I allowed to be? He’s young, good-looking, got beautiful eyes and a helluva cocky smile. He’s a dreamboat if there ever was one.”

  “I thought you said this wasn’t unexpected.”

  “It wasn’t, but… well… I guess I’m still getting used to you being a Kaldr. That’s all.”

  “At least I’m not dead.”

  “I wouldn’t have let him kill you, Jason. You know that.”

  “I know, but that was my battle to fight, not yours.”

  “And if you’d’ve died?”

  “I’d’ve died,” I replied. “There’s nothing more to it.”

  He sighed, nodded, then settled back down atop the bed. “Can I ask a favor?” he said, setting his head down upon the pillow. “Can you sleep in here tonight? With me? We don’t have to strip down or anything. I just… miss having someone else in bed with me.”

  “Yeah,” I replied, lying down and taking his hand. “I can do that.”

  It seemed like old times—me against him, he against I.

  Except it wasn’t.

  These were anything but old times.

  2

  That morning, after rousing Aerick from a troublesome sleep, he and I exited Guy’s flat and descended the stairs to the entryway where we departed the house and climbed back into the truck for an early and unwelcome drive back to west Texas. Complaining of a headache and not wanting anything to do with the trip at hand, Aerick opted to remain in the backseat and buckled in—drawing, around himself like a cocoon, a simple sheet in order to shield himself from the oppressive early-morning light. I listened to old pop music on an MP3 player Guy had loaned me—the likes of star children, material girls and karma chameleons—and drove without any thought in the world—not wanting, or willing, to dread upon the previous night’s happenings.