“Are you going to bite my daddy?” the boy asked.
“You love your daddy, don’t you, Titus?”
The small child nodded his head slowly.
“Well I do too. You see Titus, here in this house, we are more than just mommies and daddies, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors. We are something called a pack. And every member of the pack is very special. The pack looks out for each other and cares for each other. Your father is part of the pack, and now you are part of the pack too.
“But all packs have a leader. And the leader’s job is to protect his pack at all costs. And guess who’s the leader of our pack?”
Titus pointed at Decebel’s chest slowly, clearly digesting the Alpha’s words.
“That’s right. That means that I’m going to protect you and your father, no matter what. And I’m also going to do everything I can to find your mother. Does that sound good?”
The little boy thought about it and then nodded his head. “Okay. I guess I understand that Daddy needed to be growled at, but it’s only because my mommy is gone. So if you get her back, no more growling… and no biting!”
“You got it,” Decebel said with a nod and small smile, standing up again.
Decebel turned to go but stopped when he heard Titus again.
“Alpha,” he called.
Decebel turned to face him once more.
“Maybe, if you have to growl at Daddy again, maybe you should growl at me instead.”
Decebel looked over to Costin who was staring at his little boy, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “Why would I need to growl at you instead?” He asked.
“Because Daddy is broken and I don’t think your growls could fix him. But you can growl at me.” Titus was completely serious and believed every word coming out of his own mouth. The boy was smart, that was certain. But the boy’s intuitiveness, very much like a wolf, interested Decebel even more. That’s not something you learn, it’s just a part of who and what you are, the Alpha thought.
“Take good care of him,” Decebel told Titus.
The little boy nodded and straightened his shoulders, proud he’d been given a task.
“Yes, Alpha,” he repeated the words his dad has spoken a few minutes ago.
He gave Costin one more pointed look and then turned, leaving the same way he came, only this time he didn’t wonder what he was dealing with—he knew. If they didn’t find Sally soon, Costin would not be able to fight the darkness. He would become fully feral.
Costin looked down at the crushed puzzle pieces he’d been holding. That’s just about what he felt like, crushed. He looked across the puzzle at Titus who had gone back to searching for the correct placement of the pieces as if he hadn’t just offered to take Costin’s punishment for him.
“Titus,” Costin waited until he looked up.
“Yes, Daddy,” he answered and then looked up at him.
“I’m sorry,” Costin’s voice broke and he paused, wrestling with so many emotions. “I’m sorry that all this has happened and just after you got here too. I’m sorry your mommy isn’t here and I can’t seem to fix it. I’m sorry that you feel you should take my punishment for me.” Titus had become blurry because of the tears flooding Costin’s eyes. His heart wasn’t just broken for his mate; it was also broken for the child they’d been given.“You’re my daddy. That’s what sons do for their daddies, and you would do it for me because I’m your son.” Titus answered sincerely.
Costin reached across and picked his son up and placed him in his lap. He wrapped his arms around him and held him close. “You’re right, I would do that for you. I will always do what’s best for you.” Costin didn’t tell the boy that there might come a time when what was best for him would be to be as far away from Costin as possible.
If he went feral, Costin would run, as fast and as far as possible away from the people he cared about. He would not let his wolf destroy what he loved.
Chapter 3
“I feel like something is missing. It’s right there, just outside of my grasp. Every time I start to get close to it, it slips away again. My dreams are filled with an empty void and I don’t know how to fill it. At first I thought it was the death of my parents, but now I’m not so sure.” ~Sally
Sally dried the fiftieth glass of the evening—she’d been counting—as she watched Jericho mix a customer’s drink. She had to admit that Jericho, despite his slightly overeager personality, was a talented bartender. He had mad skills when it came to spinning bottles, tossing glasses, and sliding drinks down the bar to their buyers with uncanny precision. Sally kept picturing herself attempting those same stunts, but her fantasies always ended, probably realistically, with bottles of liquor crashing down around her while glass and liquid splattered the patrons that lined the bar. Yep, she was pretty sure there would be no bartending theatrics in her future. She’d be happy if she ever remembered the names of the drinks and what went in them.
“How you doing over there, Texas?” Jericho shot over his shoulder at her. He’d adopted this little nickname for her when he’d found out where she was from. Sally had been dutifully ignoring all of his insinuations about everything being bigger in Texas and, though she didn’t really care for the nickname, she supposed it could be worse.
“Wiping down these glasses is riveting. I don’t think I could handle much more excitement,” she said dryly. Okay, so she was bored, sue her.
“Wow, it’s only your first day and already you’ve got attitude.” His eyes sparkled with mischief as he smiled at her. “I like it.”
Sally laughed as she reached for the next glass only to grab air. She looked down and realized that she’d finished all of them. Finally, she thought as she stuck part of the towel in her back pocket and left the rest hanging out. With all the pouring of various fluids the job involved, she figured out real quick why bartenders kept a towel tucked in their jeans.
“You ready to try your hand at mixing?” Jericho asked her as he handed the finished drink to the man across the bar and then turned to face her. He leaned a hip against the counter and crossed his muscular arms in front of him. He was pretty, that was for sure.
“Have to learn sometime,” she said as she clapped her hands together and rubbed them as though needing to warm them up.
“I figure it would be better to do it now, before we get to the 5:30 rush. Once people start getting off work, ready to unwind, we won’t have a free minute until closing time at midnight.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” she responded.
He smiled at her then pushed away from the bar and reached beneath it, pulling out a stack of papers held together by a metal ring in the top left corner. They were all laminated and, from what Sally could see, extremely worn.
“This is the master drink list,” he began. “It has every drink we make and the ingredients and how to mix them. In the beginning, it’s going to seem like a lot, but just like having to memorize multiplication tables, you’ll wind up memorizing this.”
“And what if I never mastered my multiplication tables?” Sally asked.
“You’re screwed,” he said without missing a beat. “Alright, let’s start getting familiar with the different types of alcohol.” Jericho motioned her over to the back of the bar where rows of bottles lined shelves that ran up the wall all the way to the ceiling. A mirror behind the bottles and shelves made it look as though there were multiple bottles in each row.
“What do you know about liquor?” he asked as he began pulling bottles down.
“It’s flammable.”
Jericho paused in mid-reach and turned his head to look at her. “Is that all?”
“Too much of it makes people puke?” Sally said, though it came out like a question.
Jericho shook his head and continued to pull down different bottles. “Wow, this is going to be a loooong day. The only saving grace is that you’re hot and I get to watch you mix drinks.”
Sally frowned at him. “Mixing drinks is considered hot?”
“It is when it’s a chick and she’s shaking a mixer causing all kinds of bouncing and jiggling in all the right places,” he answered with a roguish grin.
Sally didn’t know how to respond to that, so instead she picked up the laminated sheets and examined the drinks listed there. She thought maybe that the best way to discourage Jericho’s flirting would be not to acknowledge it at all.
“Let’s just start with the basics,” Jericho began. He held up a bottle with clear liquid in it. “This is vodka. It’s a hard liquor.”
Sally leaned back against the counter and prepared herself for a long afternoon of information overload.
Costin stood under the nearly unbearably hot water. It scalded his skin and he relished the pain. Physical pain was a welcome distraction from the emotional turmoil that was raging inside of him. He was trying to hold it together, for fear of Decebel being true to his word and for the hope of Sally coming back, but he felt as though his sanity was slowly slipping away from him. The darkness that she’d kept at bay for so long was returning. He’d almost forgotten what it was like living with the darkness as a constant companion—always there, lurking in the shadows, waiting to wrest control from the man. He hadn’t missed the feeling. Sally’s absence had left a void that the darkness was all too happy to fill, and he honestly didn’t know how long he could hold himself together. It had been a little over forty-eight hours since they’d realized she was missing, and if it wasn’t for Titus, Costin would have been a raging lunatic by now.And if the man was bad, his wolf was even worse. The beast paced inside of him, yearning to be set free. But Costin knew that he couldn’t allow the wolf out, not right now. If he gave his beast even a little bit of freedom, it would take over completely. Costin had overheard the others talking about Drake and he knew that the situation was dire. The last thing the pack needed was another feral wolf to deal with.