Page 35 of Midnight Mate
Still, Bayne’s hand found the latch and twisted. The old door groaned open, sunlight spilling across the entryway. He stepped forward, pushing Clint just inside, where it was safe.
If one of them went down today, it wasn’t going to be his mate.
Wind brushed over the sweat on his chest, cooling it so fast his skin prickled. At the end of the porch, Zeppelin waited, arms folded, posture loose in the way of someone who knew tension only when it was time to kill. Sunlight carved deep lines into his face and caught the highlights in his hair. He could’ve been anyone’s threat, but the wolf in Bayne whimpered instead of growled.
One look at the guy and a switch was thrown, Bayne’s mind blown open so hard it hurt. All the stuff he’d thought was wiped clean came stampeding back in. Not one thing at a time either. It ripped through him all together, memories crowding in, a rush he’d have given anything to keep out. But there it was, impossible to stop, impossible to forget, and no time to brace for the flood.
Junkies in a rotting house, windows cracked or broken. Hands holding him down while something burning hot jammed into his side. Pain. Excruciating pain. The taste of blood in his mouth. He’d fought. Lost. Fought again, and this time he’d made it hurt for anyone who touched him.
Blinding light. Broken leg. Running, desperate, chest ready to tear. He remembered shifting, the world shattering and settling back again. Every limb had felt leaden, every thought scrambled.
Chemical heat burning up his veins and not the good kind. Not the kind that brought a wolf to the surface and fixed what was broken. This was dirty, sticky evil, made by men who didn’t care what happened to bodies once souls had moved out.
A skip in time. Forest gone, replaced by a living room. Clint’s hands, steady on the wound. A voice, low and soothing. That had kept Bayne anchored, somehow, until the worst of it passed.
He only realized now how close he’d come to forgetting everything, not just the faces of strangers in a drug house but his own damn existence.
But Zeppelin…yes, Bayne knew him. Maybe more than that. Not friend, not lover. Pack. The word soured on his tongue.
“Stop!” Pain stabbed the back of his skull hard enough to buckle his knees. He gripped his head, trying to shut it out, but the memories kept coming. Glass on the floor. Growling, not his own. Hunger. Rage so deep it hissed behind his teeth, ready to bite down on anyone who tried to chain him up.
They were making him pay, making him suffer for trying to deceive them. The syringe. The drug. The pain. Bayne didn’t want to remember. Didn’t want to think about how much he’d enjoyed the high, even if his body had been crippled.
Not liquid wrath. Something else. Something stronger.
Something that had wiped his memory clean.
The world folded in on itself, black dots crowding out sunlight. Bayne dropped, knees cracking against the porch, hands on his head, eyes squeezed shut.
Loud as a gunshot, Clint cried his name, voice shaking loose some corner of Bayne’s awareness. Maybe that wasn’t enough, because the next sound he heard was another voice, this one low and carrying the edge of command.
“Bayne. Listen to me. Follow my voice.”
His wolf recognized the command, trembled under it. That was what being alpha meant. Not some ceremonial title. Authority. Comfort. A way out of the spiral if you cared to take it. The tone carried right through the mess in Bayne’s skull, snapping every strand of panic.
He drew air into his lungs, ragged and hot, and forced his head up. Shadows danced over the porch, but Zeppelin crouched in front of him, one hand outstretched like he was about to steady a wounded dog and didn’t want to lose his fingers.
No attack. No gloating. Just patience, brown eyes locked on Bayne’s face. “You’re not alone,” Zeppelin said, softer this time. “You made it out. You survived enough hell for one lifetime.”
Tears stung Bayne’s eyes. Salt clung to his lips. He spat, surprised at the tang of copper there. He’d bitten his lip, his teeth sinking deep enough to draw blood.
Clint’s voice called again. Louder. “Bayne! Please come back.”
He managed a nod, though it cost him. His hands shook as he pressed them to the porch rail, forcing himself upright. Zeppelin didn’t move, just knelt there like a patient idiot, waiting for Bayne to stop acting like a rabid animal.
Ten years he’d fought for his sobriety, white-knuckling through every craving, and those assholes had shattered it in a single night.
Now Bayne knew why he didn’t want to remember. Wished to god he hadn’t. His brain had been protecting him, but Vaughn and Zeppelin forced him to face what happened.
“See?” Zeppelin said. “That’s what pack is for. Getting you out when the rest of the world wants you dead or brainless.”
Bayne shook his head. “I’m not interested in pack.”
Not when it had been Zeppelin who’d sent him into that horror show.
“Believe it or not, that doesn’t change the facts.” Zeppelin eased back, resting on his heels, his voice dry as winter. “Doesn’t matter if you deny it. We’re in your blood, same as you’re in ours.”
Sunlight burned off the last of the black spots crowding Bayne’s vision. Next to him, the door eased open, and Clint crept onto the porch, eyes wide but hands steady. The man held a roll of gauze in his fist, as if he planned to patch up the universe if things went south.
