Whitedell Pride 25 - Aeron Read online

  Noem looked away when their gazes met, as did Benjamin. Aeron looked at Nysys, knowing he’d get an answer from him. Nysys was whisking some eggs, or at least that was what he was supposed to be doing. He was putting so much angry energy in it that a lot of the egg mixture was flying onto the counter.

  “What happened?” Aeron asked.

  Nysys put down his bowl, but before he could answer, Keenan intervened. “I think you should go talk to Dominic.”

  “What. Happened?”

  “That motherfucker,” Nysys growled, and Aeron didn’t have to ask whom he was talking about.

  “Where’s Dominic?” At least he’d have all the answers Aeron was looking for.

  “In his office. He’s waiting for you,” Keenan answered.

  Aeron didn’t wait to see if anyone would tell him something. He turned around and hurried to Dominic’s office, his heart beating too fast and his palms sweaty. He knocked and barely waited for an answer before pushing the door open.

  “Aeron,” Dominic said.

  Ani was there too, eating breakfast at the desk in front of his mate. He got up as soon as Aeron stepped in and went to him, but Aeron shook his head when Ani tried to hug him. Ani smiled sadly and patted Aeron’s shoulder instead, then closed the door.

  “What’s going on?” Aeron asked.

  “When was the last time you saw Jericho?” Dominic asked instead of answering.

  “Last night. We watched a movie and went to bed.” He blushed, because damn it, there was no way he was telling Dominic and Ani about what he and Jericho had done after watching the movie and before going to bed.

  “In your room?”

  “Yes.”

  “And this morning?”

  “He was gone. Tell me what the fuck happened. Please.”

  Dominic sighed and reached for a sheet of paper on his desk. “Noem found this taped on the inside of the front door this morning.”

  Aeron reached for the piece of paper, hating himself because his hand was trembling so much it was obvious. He snatched the paper and sat in one of the chairs, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them.

  He’d never seen Jericho’s handwriting, but he knew he’d been the one to write the note. It was short and to the point, telling Dominic that Jericho had left to go talk to Bradley and that Jericho hoped it would be enough to make Bradley back off from the pride. If he didn’t manage, Jericho would try to come back with information, but he couldn’t promise anything.

  There was a P.S. at the end of the note and Aeron had to swallow before he read it, because it started with his name.

  I didn’t want to leave you, but I need to. Brad is my friend, has been for a few years, and I don’t want him to destroy himself for misplaced anger. I don’t want you and your family to be hurt, and that’s why I’ll do my best to make him change his mind. I’ll be back soon, I promise.

  Jericho.

  Aeron lowered his hand and took a deep breath, then another. It wasn’t enough to keep the tears from his eyes, and he was glad neither Dominic nor Ani reached for him or tried to comfort him. It would have broken him down, and it was the last thing he wanted.

  “So he left,” he finally said, his gaze still on the note.

  “He’s trying to help us,” Dominic said, his voice cautious.

  “Do you think he’ll be able to?”

  “I wish I could say yes, but I don’t know. He thinks Bradley will listen to him because they’re friends, but I’m not sure Bradley considers him or anyone else that way.”

  “So Bradley might hurt him.”

  “He might. But you can’t try to find him, Aeron.”

  Aeron had been thinking exactly that. Shimmering to someone rather than somewhere was hard, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it, but he needed to try. “Why not? You’d try to find Ani if something happened to him.”

  “I would, but you need to give Jericho time to try and change things. If you go now, before he has the opportunity to talk to Bradley and see how Bradley is under his lies, he’ll just try to go back and fix things again. He needs to see with his own eyes that there’s nothing he can do to make Bradley change his mind.”

  “And you want information on what Bradley is doing.”

  Dominic briefly closed his eyes. “I do. We have no idea what he’s planning. All the hunters we captured have been interrogated. We stormed the headquarters, but it was empty. Bradley had already relocated, and we have no idea where. Jericho obviously does, even though he didn’t tell me when we talked yesterday. We need the information he can uncover and bring back if we want a chance to survive without losing most of the pride. We’ve been lucky so far, and we won the last battle, but without knowing when they’re going to attack again, we might not be able to win the next one. I’m just trying to do my best to save the pride and its members, and that includes you.”

  “But not Jericho.”

  “He’s not exactly part of the pride yet, but from what I’ve heard about yesterday and what I know about him, it wouldn’t take him long to be accepted by everyone.”

  “And him leaving will help with that. If he comes back.”

  “He’ll come back, Aeron. He knows what he’s doing. He hasn’t been the hunters’ second in command for more than a year for no reason.”

  Aeron nodded, but he couldn’t help the images flashing in his mind. Jericho wounded and bleeding, Jericho on the floor, his unseeing eyes open. Jericho with a knife in his stomach. Jericho begging for his life.

  How would he be able to sleep at night when he couldn’t think about anything else? How was he supposed to sleep through the nightmares he knew he’d have?

  “If we haven’t heard from him in a few days, you have my authorization to try to shimmer to him,” Dominic said, and Aeron knew Dominic was scared too.

  Not as much as he was—Jericho was Aeron’s mate and no one else’s—but he feared for the future of the pride, and if as he’d said before that future was mostly in Jericho’s hands, it didn’t bode well if the alpha was scared.

  Aeron nodded. He reached out to hand Dominic the note, but Dominic shook his head. “Keep it. I already know what I needed to know.”

  Aeron nodded and folded the note, stroking it before sliding it in his pocket. He swallowed the new tears that were threatening to slide down his cheeks and got up, wondering what the fuck he was supposed to do now. He couldn’t just go back to his room and worry. He’d go mad if he did that. He wasn’t sure he’d be good company for anyone, though.

  “Why don’t you go find Cerris?” Ani suggested. “He told me you offered to help him with his werewolf half. Maybe now is the right time to start working on that.”

  Aeron didn’t want to work on Cerris’ werewolf, but it was better than staring at the walls of his room, so he nodded. “I’ll go find him.”

  “Go get breakfast first.”

  “All right.”

  Aeron got up and left the office without saying anything. The last thing he wanted to do right now was to eat anything. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to keep it down.

  He pressed his hand into his pocket as he walked, his fingers skimming against the folded piece of paper. He understood why Jericho had left. He’d have done the same if it had been one of his friends attacking people who’d never done anything to him. It didn’t mean he liked it, and he hated the fact that Jericho had run without even saying goodbye.

  Aeron snorted. If something happened to either of them, their last words to each other would be we’ll find out in the morning and I hope I don’t kick your ass out of bed during the night. He couldn’t let that happen.

  No matter how much he respected Dominic and his leadership, this was his mate they’d talked about. There was no way Aeron was leaving Jericho out there longer than necessary. He’d give Jericho today and tomorrow to do what he wanted to do, even though he didn’t think Jericho would succeed. Then he’d shimmer to him. It would take him that
long to make sure he was able to do something like that anyway. He’d need to try a few times, maybe to try to shimmer to someone else. That way he’d be sure he could do it before going to look for Jericho.

  * * * *

  Jericho nodded at the guy who’d given him a ride and got out of the car. He stretched and looked around, hoping he’d find Brad in this town. The hunters had several headquarters, and Brad hadn’t been in the first one Jericho had visited. It had been abandoned, probably because it was too close to Whitedell.

  Jericho looked around. The town was small, and he remembered exactly where headquarters were. He didn’t recognize any of the people milling around and entering and exiting the diner, but he hadn’t known every hunter personally.

  He walked into the diner. He hadn’t eaten since dinner at the mansion the night before, and he was hungry as fuck. He needed to stop thinking about the mansion, though. It was too easy to start thinking about the house and shift to its inhabitants, one in particular.

  Jericho had been thinking about Aeron since he’d left him in his bed. He couldn’t help but wonder what Aeron thought, if he thought Jericho had run to go back to the hunters. He’d left a note, but he couldn’t be sure Dominic had given it to him. The man was honest, so he probably had, but even then, it didn’t mean Aeron understood and would forgive Jericho when he went back.

  “What can I get you?” the waitress asked.

  Jericho smiled at her. “Coffee.”

  She smiled back. “That was a given. Anything to eat?”

  Jericho didn’t have that much money on him, but he did have enough to buy himself a burger. Dominic had made sure everything he’d been carrying during the battle was given back to him, except the weapons, of course. “Burger and fries please.”

  She left, and Jericho tried to relax. His thoughts moved from Brad to Aeron and then back, and that didn’t help him feel better. He wanted to go back to Whitedell more than anything, but he couldn’t, not yet.

  Someone slid in the seat in front of Jericho and he looked up, tensing when he recognized one of the hunters’ team leaders. “Bobby.”

  “Jericho. We thought you were dead.”

  “I obviously wasn’t.”

  “Obviously. What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for the boss.”

  “He’s here.”

  “Good.”

  Jericho waited, knowing Bobby would have more questions. Jericho had disappeared during the battle at the mansion. That had been weeks ago, and no one had heard from him since then. It wasn’t surprising that they’d thought he was dead. It was one of the most harmless things they could think, and Jericho knew some would decide he’d probably betrayed them. He hoped to get to Bradley before they had a mutiny on their hands.

  “Where have you been?” Bobby asked.

  “Around.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That it’s none of your business.”

  Luckily, the waitress came by with Jericho’s burger. She asked Bobby if he wanted anything, and Jericho attacked his burger, eager to be done and out of there. The last thing he wanted was to explain to Bobby where he’d been and what he’d done. Bobby was just a hunter, and a bigoted one at that. Jericho didn’t want to have to watch his back while going to headquarters. He’d already have to watch his back once he was there. Yeah, he couldn’t wait to be back in Whitedell.

  Bobby was still eating when Jericho was done, and Jericho ignored him when he suggested he wait. He didn’t need to. He knew where the headquarters were and how to get there. He didn’t need Bobby breathing down his neck and demanding explanations.

  He left the diner and walked along the sidewalk. Bobby didn’t follow him, and that was good.

  It took Jericho twenty minutes to get to headquarters. He managed to slip in without anyone seeing him and hurried to Brad’s room. He knocked, wondering what had happened to Brad while he’d been gone. Had he given up on Jericho, or was he hoping Jericho came back?

  “What?” Brad snapped from inside.

  “Brad?”

  The door opened a few seconds later and Brad stood in front of Jericho. It had always amused Jericho that Brad was so small. His personality was huge, though. He’d managed to put together a whole group of people with the same objective and was guiding them with an iron fist.

  “Jericho. What happened to you?” Brad asked, and his expression was cool, so much that Jericho wondered if he’d made a mistake.

  “I was captured.”

  Brad stared for a few seconds, then stepped aside. Jericho walked into the room, and nothing had changed. It was still so neat and clean he could have eaten on the floor. The only thing that was out of place was the map on the desk, and Jericho didn’t have to step closer to see it was a map of Whitedell.

  Brad closed the door. He leaned against it and crossed his arms on his chest, and Jericho suddenly felt trapped. “Captured?”

  Jericho nodded. “By the pride.”

  “And they let you go?”

  “No. I escaped.” It was true, although a creative version of the truth. Jericho had escaped, and it had been oddly easy. He’d expected to have to dodge enforcers and patrols. Instead, he’d walked out of the front door without problems. Of course, it could be just because the enforcers were supposed to keep people out and not in, but he’d thought Dominic would have said something to them. He’d had to climb the gate, of course, but that had been the only thing that could have stopped him.

  “You escaped? I find that hard to believe. I’ve lived with the pride. I know their jail setup. There’s no way you could have escaped from there, not without help.”

  “They didn’t keep me in the jail.”

  “Where?”

  “In their infirmary.”

  Brad narrowed his eyes. “Really?”

  “Yes. I was out for a while, then they interrogated me. I guess that’s why they kept me close.”

  Brad pushed away from the door. “So let me get this right. The pride captured you, and instead of locking your ass in the council jail, they kept you in their infirmary, then let you walk out without stopping you.”

  Okay, so that did sound weird. Brad wasn’t stupid. He had to know Jericho was hiding something. Jericho didn’t want to tell him about Aeron, though. It wasn’t only because it would look like Jericho was betraying the hunters. For some reason, Jericho wanted to keep Aeron a secret from Brad. He knew Brad would gun for Aeron as soon as he could if he knew about him, and that didn’t sit right with Jericho. He didn’t want his mate to be in danger.

  “Not exactly. They kept me tied to the bed until the last day. Dominic came to talk to me, interrogated me. I gave him answers.”

  “Oh? What kind of answers?”

  There was no way Jericho was going to be honest about what he’d told Dominic. “I told him about some of the smaller headquarters, things like that.”

  “And it was enough to satisfy him?”

  “I don’t know, but he untied me. He thought I was collaborating.”

  “And he didn’t put guards with you?”

  Jericho shrugged. “Maybe he thought I wouldn’t escape. He told me things. About you.”

  “What did he say?”

  Jericho had to give something. “He told me you’re a shifter. A wolf shifter. I guess he thought I’d feel betrayed and that I’d turn on you.”

  Jericho had no clue what Brad was thinking. He wished he did, because it made him edgy. He wanted to run, but he couldn’t, not yet. He’d promised Dominic answers, and he was going to find some.

  “Did you believe him? Do you think I’m a shifter?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know. I’ve known you for a few years and I’ve never seen anything that would make me think you’re a shifter. I know your family was killed by shifters, like mine. He sounded convincing, though, had an explanation for everything.”

  “Why are you here, Jericho?”

 
“Where else would I go? The hunters are the only thing I have left in my life. You know that.”

  Brad stepped in front of Jericho. “You should have stayed with the pride.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I don’t believe you. I’m not an idiot. I know you couldn’t have escaped if you’d really been a prisoner, even if you were in the mansion rather than in the council jail. Now I’m going to have to take care of you, and it’s something I’m not looking forward to. I need to know what you told them, and I’m sure you’re not going to be forward with your answers.” Brad slowly raised his hand.

  Jericho looked at it, swallowing at the sight of black claws sliding from the tip. “Brad?”

  “Dominic was right, you know? I am a shifter.”

  * * * *

  Aeron crossed his legs and stared at Cerris until he did the same thing.

  “Why do we have to do this outside again?” Cerris asked.

  “Because it’s where you’re most comfortable.”

  “I don’t usually sit around in the snow. I mean, I do love working in the garden, but I usually do that in the spring and summer, not in December. It’s cold. I’m pretty sure my balls are trying to crawl into my body right now.”

  “Do you want to learn to control your wolf or not?” Aeron snapped. He instantly regretted it. What had happened wasn’t Cerris’ fault and he shouldn’t have to pay the consequences. “I’m sorry.”

  Cerris shrugged. “It’s fine. I know about Jericho. I wouldn’t be happy if my mate had disappeared into the night either.”

  Aeron grimaced. “Do you really have to say it like that?”

  “Sorry.”

  Aeron pressed his palm against his thigh. He was carrying Jericho’s note everywhere he went since Dominic had given it to him the day before. He kept on taking it out and rereading it, wondering if Jericho really was going to come back. He’d said he would. Aeron would give him another day, then he’d go look for him. He couldn’t leave him alone out there.

  Aeron shook himself. “It’s fine.” It really wasn’t, but he’d been allowed to mope around in his room for only one day. He’d tried to stay there today, but Ani, Nysys, and Keenan had threatened to shimmer in and kick his ass out. The last thing he wanted was to have to talk to Nysys, so when Nysys had tried to involve him in his latest prank, Aeron had decided he might as well start working with Cerris.