Instinctual

Chapter 10.5

Finding Marcus proved unexpectedly easy – he hadn’t gone far.  With an obvious limp, he moved slowly and indecisively across the yard, seeming to hesitate at the edges of the trees so that he was walking along in an arcing semicircle instead of trying to disappear into the deeper brush. Liz and Kobi skidded to a halt even before he heard them, stunned by how much smaller he looked now, hunched in on himself with injuries peaking out at arm and neck. 

It had always been clear that Omegas were small by Werewolf standards. Clarissa was a fairly petite woman, after all.  However, while Clarissa had feminine curves rounding out her figure, Marcus had only sparse, male angles that spoke of too little to eat and hard labor – or, perhaps, too much running, as Liz was beginning to suspect.  The T-shirt he was wearing now was one of Kobi’s, a worn, old one that showed the knobs of Marcus’s spine through it before he turned, startled to see that he had attracted a new shadow in the form of two large Beta wolves. He started to back away in alarm, his scent betraying weariness along with fear and fatigue to Liz’s sensitive nose.

She transformed back into her human shape with a snap.  “It’s okay, Marcus,” she soothed, hands out and open-palmed, “Declan just sent us to check on you.  Kobi and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”  She reached down to touch her fingertips to the familiar, furred head at her side, brushing back into his thick ruff that always felt like home to her.

It was a fifty-fifty chance, Liz realized pessimistically, that the slim young man would actually believe her, so she breathed a quiet sight of relief when he relaxed somewhat.  His usually orderly, straight brown hair was in a mess around his head and ears, and the stress he was in showed clearly in just about every inch of him.  Just barely, however, Liz thought she could detect a thin skein of hopefulness sewn into him as he glanced at her and nodded in response to her words.  “I’m all right,” he lied, in that quiet voice that Liz realized sadly was his ‘pacifying voice’ – the one that said he probably wanted to yell and be emotional but logically realized the risks in that to his wellbeing.  He seemed confident enough to add, however, with a little shrug, “I just didn’t want to… to cause more fighting, you know?”  The shrug made him wince, and he lifted his left hand to gingerly touch the side of his neck where Clarissa’s bite was still healing. The lean sinews of his forearm moved beneath still more stitches, making Liz want to stomp right back into the house and punch Clarissa so hard the older woman’s teeth came out the back of her head. 

Perhaps Liz’s riled temper was more obvious than she’d thought, because Kobi transformed back as well to place a human hand on her shoulder.  She looked up at him, intending to glare, but his face was carefully neutral.  ‘You’re too smart by half, Kobi,’ she grumbled halfheartedly in her head, even as she gave in to the urge to lean against his solid bulk. Looking at Marcus now, standing on his own and shifting his weight vulnerably to his good leg, Liz realized that that’s what the smaller boy needed right now: something solid to lean on.

“Hey, Kobi, Declan’s truck is parked out back, right?” she turned and asked, ignoring the suspicious, curious look that immediately flashed across Marcus’s face. Now, in the sunlight, she could see slight bruising on the side of his face that hadn’t been there before, and made a mental note to shred whoever had done that, too.

If Kobi was thrown by the question, he was far better at hiding it, and merely raised one eyebrow.  “Last I knew. Do you want the keys?”

Liz smiled, loving that he didn’t even ask if she was going to spirit Marcus off into the sunset. That was her best friend and boyfriend: no questions asked, all trust.  That was good, because she was the same way towards him.  “Nope,” she shook her head, an enigmatic little smile tugging at her lips before she turned and strode out from under Kobi’s hand, approaching a bemused Marcus and carefully touching his elbow. “How about the three of us stay out of the way for a bit, okay?  Don’t worry, we won’t go far – I just know that Declan’s truck is rarely locked, and he has a pile of blankets in the back seat and granola bars in the glove-box. We can hang out in the tuck-bed.”

Despite Liz’s self-assured nature right now, beneath it, she was holding her breath to see what Marcus would do.  She wasn’t used to dealing with such flighty, unsure people – life had taught her that, by nature, Werewolves were group-creatures who were naturally trusting of and relaxed around one another.  Marcus was the very opposite, his tension ratcheting up higher with every second he spent with another Wolf, just because he didn’t have his own pack.

Liz stalwartly refused to think about all the new stories popping up about just why Marcus didn’t have a pack. 

Blue eyes glancing suspiciously over Liz’s face, clearly looking for a trick or a trap, Marcus eventually asked slowly, “So we’re just going around to the back of the house… to sit in D- your Alpha’s truck?”

Liz didn’t miss how easily Declan’s name had almost come out of Marcus’s mouth, when in the past, he’d either called him ‘Fen’ or just some variation of his social position.  Kobi’s quick look said he’d noticed, too, before he came to Liz’s side to answer in her place, “It’s not as uncomfortable as it sounds.”  His voice was easy and soft, his small smile gentle and light to match. “Declan will be able to find us there in a heartbeat, too, when he wants to.”

Watching carefully, Liz wanted to smirk a little at the mention of Fen’s further watchfulness did the trick and got Marcus’s shoulders to unwind a little bit. Some of the knots of tension loosening, the lean young man sighed and nodded reluctantly, and followed when Liz and Kobi turned.  He shied away when Kobi offered to help him with his limping, but accepted the hand up when they reached the dusty white truck parked on the grass on the other side of the house. From here, they were furthest from whatever was going on between Declan, Clarissa, and Rob, but still technically within range should Marcus feel the need to shout for help. Liz was determined to prove that he wouldn’t need to – that she and Kobi were still as much his friends as they’d been back when they’d chatted and had coffee together on work-breaks.

While Kobi exerted the little strength necessary to lift Marcus up into the bed of the truck, Liz smiled victoriously at Declan’s habit of never locking anything. Blankets waiting for the express purpose of being piled in the back as well were folded in the back seat, and Liz filled her arms with them before dumping them over the side to a still-wary Marcus.  The poor guy didn’t seem to know where to look; he traded off between sorting out the blankets dumped in his lap and watching Kobi, who was intimidating by simple dint of his size, and who was now climbing up, too.  Liz watched worriedly, her nose stinging with the scent of barely controlled fear that was beginning to come off Marcus now.  He’d pushed his smaller body into one of the corners near the body of the truck, not blatantly telegraphing his fear in any way besides his scent and body-language, but looking edgy nonetheless.

As Liz closed up the truck’s doors and tailgate and climbed in herself, Kobi smartly kept all of his apparent attention on straightening out the layers of blankets. Marcus, by contrast, never let his eyes leave Kobi, although he loosened up enough to help.  By the time Liz had hopped in, Kobi was sitting down almost opposite Marcus, near the bump of the wheel-well, and the place had a cozy feel that Liz remembered from late nights spent stargazing or cuddling. Declan had no trouble lending out his truck for just this purpose, and sometimes even joined in, his presence calming in a way that only an Alpha’s could be.  Technically, it was Clarissa who had the Omega-based ability to radiate calm, but there was something about being with an Alpha that just made everything seem right with the world. 

“Here,” Liz called cheerily, pulling a granola bar that she’d grabbed from the cab of the truck and tossing it to Marcus.  The Omega looked startled by the object, but caught it with deft hands nonetheless.

He started unwrapping it slowly, but still with less hesitance than expected – he must have been starving.  “So you’re not going to ask about what you heard in there?  About me?” he asked, very softly and very slowly, his eyes rife with mistrust and a pain that went bone-deep, and yet was somehow still able to reach out and twist at Liz’s heartstrings. 

“Do you want us to?” Kobi chose to reply tactfully.  He held out a hand and Liz tossed him a granola bar, too.

Marcus paused for only a moment to digest the question, then looked down, brows furrowing and a frown tugging the corners of his mouth down.  At this angle, Liz could just make out a faint scar across the bridge of his nose – just one of many that she was learning to see on his skin now that she knew to look for them.  Marcus was indeed a damaged person – just not in the way that Clarissa and Rob seemed to see him, however.  “No,” the young man mumbled, shaking his head before biting off a small mouthful of honey and oats with neat, white teeth.  His next sentence was almost too soft to hear, “You wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

Hating the way Marcus was huddling away from them (closing himself off with drawn-up knees and bent head), especially after she’d started to see him open up only days ago (she’d actually seen him laugh), Liz pressed onwards, “Declan believes you.”

That seemed to catch Marcus off-guard, and he looked up, still chewing his second mouthful. “He’s the first,” Marcus finally replied, cagy yet resigned.  He looked down to focus on his food again, missing the pained look that Liz exchanged with her boyfriend.  When Marcus finished his first granola bar, Kobi handed over his, and Marcus surprised everyone by reaching out and actually taking it from his hand on impulse.

“You don’t have to tell us… about your pack… if you don’t want to,” Liz bravely navigated treacherous waters while also having to choke off her burgeoning curiosity, “But we’d like to know what happened after we left you yesterday.” Catching the disbelieving look Marcus briefly flashed her way, Liz drew herself up straight where she sat, saying with stern finality, “You may as well know that regardless of what you or anyone else says, I plan to slap both Rob and Clarissa hard enough to knock the taste right out of their mouths.”

When Marcus’s look then turned to one of shock, and silence reigned – one that Liz stubbornly refused to dispel, just as she refused to take back her threat – Kobi eventually chimed in with jaded fondness, “Liz has always hated Rob a little. And she kind of finds you adorable.”

Marcus actually choked on his next mouthful of granola bar.  He ended up coughing so hard that he didn’t even notice when Liz and Kobi both crawled over through the nest of blankets to thump his back a little, until he was breathing normally again.  “I… I beg your pardon?” the Omega was eventually able to rasp in evident shock, unsure what else there was to say to something as outrageous as that last sentence.

Elated that Marcus was letting them this physically close, Liz beamed, deciding not to thump Kobi about what he’d just said (until later, at least), and settled down to sit against Marcus’s left side.   “Even if Declan didn’t vouch for you, we’d choose you any day over Clarissa and Rob,” she admitted candidly.

“You’re serious?” Marcus asked incredulously, then repeated again without the question mark after reading Liz’s face, “You’re serious.  Why?  They’re your pack – you’re supposed to-!”

“I’m supposed to pick my friends based on whether they’re decent people,” Liz raised a finger to correct.

But Marcus wasn’t done yet, and now that he’d been rattled somewhat, his sharper, more lively temperament was waking up.  He shook his head sharply and argued back, “Packs aren’t friends – they’re more than that.  They’re families.”

Liz and/or Kobi would have argued back, continuing the discussion, but suddenly they saw the way that Marcus’s voice broke at the end of the sentence. His pain was easy to see, and Liz could almost taste it on her tongue, making her eyes dampen with a surge of sympathy she couldn’t help.  It had sounded, at first, that Marcus was righteously indignant about the differences of definition… but clearly, it was more than that. 

The Wolf with no pack would argue that packs were families until it killed him. And right now it looked like it really was killing him already. 

Marcus dropped his head, and despite having asserted that he didn’t want to tell them anything yet, he choked out painfully, “They’re families, and mine is gone.”