Instinctual

Chapter 10

It was a bit of a risk, but by now, Declan trusted that Marcus wasn’t going to attack him – if he needed any more proof that the Omega preferred peace immensely to violence, this would be it.  Flat down on his stomach now, Declan ended up grabbing Marcus’s forepaws to drag him out from under the bed.  A regular wolf’s paws would have felt different from a Werewolf’s.  Instead of the stiff, hard bones of canine paws, Declan felt the more catlike flex of Marcus’s paws against his hands, even as his grip got some of the other’s retracted claws to extend.  They were pearly and sharp, but except for a bit of halfhearted whining and wriggling, Marcus didn’t fight the slow drag forward. With nary a nip or a nick, Declan had Marcus back out from under the bed. 

Not wanting to have to explain how he’d known what Marcus was thinking (especially since Declan didn’t understand that fluke of telepathy himself), and not wanting to deal with the embarrassment of Marcus being naked again, Declan didn’t try and coax the Omega to change back into his human shape.  In fact, he didn’t say anything at all.  He had a feeling that they both were wrung out, empty from so many truths being dragged out of them in such a short space of time. Declan hadn’t even been reliving painful memories, and he still felt a bit gutted, so he merely hooked an arm around Marcus’s ribcage and lifted him while he himself stood. Having the smaller Werewolf in the grip of his arms was starting to feel almost normal to Declan. Marcus made a soft yip of surprise, but Declan was strong in a way that only Alphas could be, and soon he was striding back in the living room and depositing the white wolf on the futon. Marcus stood unsteadily when Declan let go and backed off again, unsure how to balance himself on an uneven surface with two bad legs. 

At least he didn’t seem as afraid.  In fact, he was watching Declan with half-hopeful eyes, a tiny sliver of him willing to take the Alpha’s belief in him as a sign of trust.  It was heart-wrenching to see such a tiny sign of caring mean so much to someone who seemed, from Declan’s limited knowledge, to be a basically good guy. But life had dealt him a brutal hand, so even hearing an Alpha like Declan say those words – ‘I believe you’ – seemed like almost too much to hope for.

Again, there just weren’t words to express everything, so Declan discarded his more verbal shape for one that dealt in more tactile currencies.  Marcus’s stunning blue eyes widened with surprise as Declan’s shape contorted and folded, slowly replacing skin and cloth with four legs and thick, black fur. 

Before the Omega could go from shocked to worried – he looked more awed than anything, really, which made Declan preen a bit – Declan hopped up onto the futon, too. He was at least twice Marcus’s size, his dark fur stark against even the dirtied white of the Omega’s pelt, but Declan crowded up along Marcus’s side anyway within the limited space of the futon.  The Omega whined, clearly confused and doing his best to show it – to cry out, ‘I don’t understand!  What do you want me to do?  I don’t know what you’re doing, or why you’re doing it. Tell me what I’m supposed to do!’ Random moments of telepathy aside, however, Declan couldn’t tell Marcus much of anything, except through touch and body language.  Turning his head constantly to keep an eye on Declan, Marcus got shuffled around and barely managed to keep his feet as the Alpha gently but stubbornly forced them to share space. Ears back, eyes perplexed and troubled, Marcus continued to make small whimpering noises, until Declan suddenly reached his snout down and purposefully wrapped his jaws around Marcus’s uninjured ankle.  Marcus froze and went almost shockingly silent in the space of a heartbeat, but the Alpha was gentle, his larger shoulder against Marcus’s and his fangs barely dimpling the furred skin where they pressed down.  When Declan began to slowly pull Marcus’s paw forward – out from under him – the Omega belatedly realized that he soon wouldn’t have enough legs to stand on, and clumsily dropped to his belly on the couch. 

With a pleased huff of breath, Declan let go, grinning a lupine smile of satisfaction over his handiwork.  Marcus was still watching him with almost painful uncertainty, now looking up from his lower position, but the larger wolf only loomed over him for a moment before lying down as well, although far more gracefully.  Glancing once at the fire – still crackling merrily, drying the assortment of wet clothes now arrayed before it – Declan placed his paws carefully so as not to step on his smaller comrade, and settled down at Marcus’s side.

It felt natural, or at least it should have: an Alpha comforting a traumatized, injured pack-member.  But Marcus wasn’t packed, and the past four years had conditioned Marcus to fear just about anyone who could recognize him as a murder suspect, or who would attack him instinctively because he was backless.  So instead of being comforted, Marcus shivered and cowered as Declan’s larger, black-furred shape stretched out along his left side, between him and the back of the futon. He relaxed just a little, however, when Declan’s tongue swiped lightly at his shoulder… as if they were friends.

Head on his forelegs, Marcus let out a thin noise that was different from before, a sad, pleading, heartbroken noise.  ‘Don’t tease me,’ drifted with static through the link, very softly spoken.  Blue eyes miserably reflected the crackling fire, dancing as it cheerily burned the wood to nothing but ashes. Marcus’s eyes – so beautiful, so blue – looked in danger of being burnt out, too. 

Declan was beginning to realize that he’d rather chew off his own leg than let that happen.

This time, Declan focused as much as he could on his thoughts, grabbing the connection as it reached between them and holding on tight.  ‘I’m not,’ he tried to transmit solemnly. 

Unexpectedly, the body alongside him twitched.  Marcus was suddenly holding his breath, his ribs temporarily ceasing to rise and fall. 

‘You can hear me?’ Declan asked. Excited despite himself, Declan nosed at Marcus’s head, able to forget various human rules of personal space because… well, he wasn’t exactly human-shaped anymore. When Declan’s snout nudged encouragingly behind one of Marcus’s ears (usually flat against his skull but now lifted tentatively), he found the fur to be as soft as a puppy’s undercoat, smelling pleasantly of vanilla and cedar. 

There was a pulse of wordless emotion, surprise, and bewilderment, but it took a bit for it to turn itself into a muffled word from the Omega: ‘Yes.’

When Marcus tried to struggle up and turn around, questions bubbling in his mind but not making it through the shoddy, untrustworthy telepathic link, Declan stopped him with a paw across his shoulders.  Marcus was a wreck (physically and mentally), so now wasn’t the time for him to get excited about this revelation – there would be time for that later. Declan also draped his neck over the back of Marcus’s tousled white ruff and curled his tail around his haunches, making it clear that his only interest right now was to be warm, cozy, and preferably asleep soon.  He gave a lupine, huffing chuckle as Marcus grunted under his weight and flicked an ear, the tip brushing Declan’s jaw. 

‘How about we just sleep, Marcus?’ he tried to project telepathically again, careful to suggest and not command. Declan was almost shocked by how contented he felt right now, just to be curled side-by-side with Marcus, and nothing would ruin that faster than accidentally playing to the Omega’s intense sensitivity to commands.

Cuddled up against black fur and strong limbs, tucked under Declan’s chin and subtly breathing in the smell of him (as Declan was doing in return), Marcus for a moment was silent.  Then, very faintly as if from far away on a bad phone line, came the tentative, hope-wrapped, ‘…Okay.’

It took a long time before either of them actually drifted off, but that was only because Declan was less tired, and Marcus – while exhausted – kept awake as long as he could, surreptitiously committing to memory the comfort and closeness Declan was offering.  In no way unaware of this, Declan’s heart broke just a little bit more, and he made sure that his body if not his words projected the fact that he was staying by Marcus’s side.

Even if no one else had.  

~^~

There was enough tension back at the pack’s home to just about clog the air and choke someone, and it looked like Kobi was just barely keeping Liz from transforming and rending Clarissa to shreds.  By the time Declan stepped inside, it also looked like Rob’s involvement in things hadn’t been discovered or revealed, because he was merely standing off to one side, beyond the reach of the tempers flaring in the room. All eyes turned to Declan but then jumped past him with varying expressions of shock to see the figure walking in the door behind him: Marcus.  The Omega’s slighter frame looked exaggerated by the borrowed clothes he was wearing, even as he stuffed his hands in the pocket of his sweatpants and did his best to remain unnoticed behind Declan – the fact that he smelled almost as much like Declan as he did himself also added a sort of camouflage to him. His bare feet shuffled on the floor even as he glanced down self-consciously at the stitches showing on his bare forearm. 

While Liz’s face nearly split with the expanse of her smile and Kobi’s expression relaxed into something akin to warmth and relief, Declan noticed how Rob’s face fell and paled.  He also didn’t miss the brief look exchanged between the black-haired young man and Clarissa Fen. “You two worked together on this, didn’t you?” Declan guessed without preamble, his own face carved from stone. He forced himself to ignore the burgeoning happiness from half the room – he thought that even Marcus looked tentatively elated at his warm welcome from Liz and Kobi, although Declan had had only time for a glance back at him – and instead play the role of the judicial, displeased Alpha.

He could be a source of protection, warmth, and comfort.  He could also be an avenging storm of controlled anger, which he was now.

“What did he tell you?” Rob demanded to know with an unmistakable air of violence wrapped around his words.  His posture shifted to something more belligerent, brawny arms crossing. 

“Rushton… Marcus… told me that you broke into his house and trashed the place.”

Suddenly Liz wasn’t the most volatile entity in the room anymore.  Kobi, usually the calmest fellow a person could hope to meet, was making noise more befitting a lupine throat than a human one and had crossed the room so quickly that even Declan didn’t have time to stop him. Rob’s mien of careless recalcitrance shattered, being replaced by one of almost humorous fright and shock as he suddenly found himself toe-to-toe with the other male Beta. It was very, very obvious at that point that Kobi Knox was the ‘bigger dog,’ and he was going to win this fight if it ever got started. 

“I didn’t do anything!” Rob instantly denied, green eyes wide and voice rising a few pitches as he tried to slide away from Kobi.  Snapping a furious glance back at Declan before raking it towards Marcus, Rob continued with venom, “He’s a lying pile of s**t, and if you knew anything about his background, you’d know that, Fen!”

“Rob is right,” Clarissa chimed in, stoically ignoring the growing fury rolling through the room, and choosing to be calm instead.  In fact, that calmness began radiating throughout the room in a subtle, cooling wave, distracting Declan from doing what any Alpha would do: listen for lies from his packmate.  “You’re harboring a criminal, Declan.  I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you, but he’s wanted for the murder of his pack.”

“Stop.” Marcus’s voice was soft and small, but the tortured plea in it stood out surprisingly well in the confines of the room.  As eyes turned to him, it was his next words that were more startling, however, even as Declan felt a sudden, rippling tug on his emotions as if something had upset his inner ear, “Stop…stop messing with my emotions.”  The smallest Wolf was shaking where he stood, knuckles going white as he fisted his hands, cornered tension filling him from head to toe.

Like a cord being snapped, Declan recalled his aunt’s prodigious gift for emotional manipulation.  Turning back to her with a growl low in his throat, Declan pushed back the synthesized calm even as he felt Marcus’s own weak attempts at empathic ‘nudging’ further disrupt Clarissa’s powers.  “Do that again, Clarissa, and aunt or not, you’ll find yourself in a very bad spot with me,” Declan warned in a voice as low and calmly deadly as a freshly dug grave. Clarissa blanched and suddenly the air felt lighter but also charged once again with menace – even if most everyone else in the room looked a bit shocked.  Taking quick stock of the situation (Liz at his left, loyal and kind to the bone; Kobi to his right, looking away from Rob now but still pinning him in; Rob with his back to the wall, but blinking owlishly at the turn of events, not unlike Kobi was; Marcus behind him, sighing almost inaudibly as the emotional tug-of-war ended; Clarissa directly before him, suddenly looking as dangerous as a snake hidden in a familiar flowerbed), Declan forged onwards, “I already know about Marcus’s past, and what he’s been accused of.  I also happen to think that the police are wrong.” Declan shook his head, wanting to look back and check Marcus’s expression but not willing to look away from his aunt, “I don’t think Marcus killed his pack.”

“What you think doesn’t matter, Declan, there are facts piled against him!” Rob shouted, furious again.  “Seriously, what kind of an i***t are you? He just waltzed up to you and said, ‘Hey, by the way, the police and everyone is wrong – I’m totally innocent’? Is that it?”  Suddenly something more cunning entered Rob’s eyes, and the black-haired young man glanced between Declan and Marcus, perhaps reading something in their body language or scent.  “Good God, Fen, did he bat his pretty blue eyes at you, too?”

Declan was about to surge forward when suddenly it became apparent that Kobi had had enough. With nary a sound of warning, he closed the last few inches between himself and the other Beta, gaining enough momentum in even that short space to slam Rob hard into the wall. “Kobi, love…” Liz said gently, but her tone was noncommittal enough that anyone listening knew that she wasn’t about to lift a finger to stop her presently very angry boyfriend. Kobi’s expression had gone unsettlingly flat, like a parody of his usually calm, aloof look – only instead of being harmless and relaxed, this was flinty and blank like the cold surface of a winter stone. 

Clarissa, on the other hand, looked more interested in stopping the rising violence, as she glanced back and forth sharply between her nephew and the two locked Betas. “Declan, do something, for God’s sake!”

“Aunt Clarissa, at this moment, I’m trying very hard not to bare fangs and run both you and Rob out of the house – bleeding, preferably,” Declan admitted candidly, far beyond the point of prevaricating.  He could sense Marcus’s surprise behind him even as he caught Liz trying to hide a surprised smile.  “Marcus told me everything, and even if he hadn’t, I’d have appreciated it if you and Rob had told me what was going on instead of taking matters into your own hands.”

“Well, you weren’t going to do it,” Rob spat as best he could with nearly two-hundred pounds of muscled Kobi against him. The black-haired Beta was forced to cut off any further waspish remarks as Kobi pulled back a bit only to slam him back again.  He could just be heard growling something about how Rob’s best course of action right now would be silence, or else Kobi’s track-record for friendliness would go out the window.

Declan’s calm was breaking, too, and he finally raised his voice to shout back, “That doesn’t give you the right to break into someone’s home and trash the place! And you-!”  He swung his hard, gold-brown eyes to his aunt, who had the audacity to merely clench her jaw and hold her ground.  That made the fury in Declan’s gut burn hotter. “How can you go on about Marcus being a murderer when you tried to murder him?!”

“He’s bad for the pack, Declan.  I was only trying to protect everyone.  Running him out was for the good of the pack.”

“Your version of ‘running him out’ included teeth in his neck,” Liz hissed.

There was a slamming of a door.  Everyone turned to find the space behind Declan now empty, the sound of Marcus’s receding footsteps on the grass outside audible to keen ears.  Kobi abruptly let Rob go, and shifted closer to Liz, even as the young woman’s eyes grew worried and darted to Declan, unsure. 

The Alpha sighed, pushing down the rising tide of anger.  “Go after him.  Please. I’ve got to talk to Rob and my Aunt. Just…”

“Just don’t scare Marcus worse than he’s already scared?” Liz finished, a weak little smile quirking her lips. 

As Declan nodded that that was, indeed, the best way to put it right now, Liz and Kobi began moving past him towards the door.  They didn’t even stop to ask for details, despite all of the accusations and crazy so-called facts that had been tossed around the room.  Not because he thought that Liz and Kobi had been swayed by the murder allegations leveled at Marcus, but because Declan felt bad about leaving them in the dark, he caught Kobi’s bicep in passing.  “This isn’t what it looks like.  I’ll explain later, but I think that Marcus has been set up. Someone killed his entire pack and left him to take the fall.”

As Kobi’s eyes widened and Liz sucked in a shocked breath, Rob huffed and retorted, “It’s exactly what it looks like – you’re just too softhearted to believe it!”

“Shut up, Rob,” was Liz’s reply.  “I didn’t hold Kobi back when he attacked you earlier, so you’re lucky you’re in one piece.”

“And you can bet that I’m not going to hold her back either,” Kobi jerked a thumb in his girlfriend’s direction.  Then, with a nod to Declan that was full of understanding as well as enough compassion to make the Alpha sigh – Marcus was in good hands, still having the friends he made – Kobi turned and headed out the door.  Liz followed after him, although not before shifting slowly into her lupine form. Standing in the doorway as Kobi held it open for her, she peeled her lips back in a silent but meaningful snarl at both Clarissa and Rob before trotting outside.  There was the sound of snapping bones soon after that meant Kobi was joining her on four paws. 

Declan turned back to the remaining two pack-members in the room with him, turning his focus away from thinking about Marcus and instead of trying to come to grips with the fact that two people he had loved and trusted had proven themselves to be as amoral as snakes.