Chapter Six

They arrived at the headquarters in the evening. Alex groaned with relief.

His body ached and everything was stiff from lying on his side and trying to be still so as not to jostle Sean. After that shocking jolt of seeing Sean’s eyes—which were even lovelier than Marcus had described them—Sean had immediately closed them again then drifted to sleep. And Alex hadn’t been able to reach him again no matter how hard he’d tried.

It wasn’t like he encountered a mental brick wall or anything; Sean just…

wasn’t there.

It had scared the shit out of Alex at first, but once he’d seen that Sean was still breathing, his heart still beating, Alex had resigned himself to being ignored. He’d ask Shania or Nathan about it later, or, if he could get past his own issues, Marcus. Maybe one of them would know how Sean managed to make himself disappear mentally.

“We’ve got a room set up for you—and Sean,” Nathan said as the vehicle came to a stop. “It’s on the ground floor in the same wing as the guards’, so I hope that’s okay.”

As if Alex would complain. He was just glad to be allowed back, even if the pack had moved to Santa Fe. Alex had hated the pollution in Cincinnati.

It’d made his nose burn more often than not. Surely Santa Fe would be less stinky.

It took both Marcus and Nathan helping for Alex to unwind and crawl out of the back of the Hummer, then the three of them carefully manoeuvred Sean into Alex’s arms. Shania hovered on the large porch, the two female shifters behind her.

Once they were all inside, Nathan showed Alex to his—and Sean’s—room.

Alex blinked and turned to question Nathan, because surely this was wrong.

His old room at HQ

had been small and sparsely furnished, the walls white and the carpet beige.

This room here was more like something Alex would have expected to find in a luxury hotel. The bed alone was almost bigger than Alex’s old room, and there wasn’t a speck of white or beige anywhere he had seen.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Nathan said before Alex could get a word out.

“Marcus is glad to have you back. He’d set this room aside for you when we moved here, and, before

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you ask, I was totally fine with that. I knew you couldn’t, and wouldn’t, ever make a move on Marcus. Otherwise, you’d be sleeping out back in the kennels.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Alex muttered. He looked at the room again, at the warm rust coloured tiles and the soft yellow walls decorated with framed paintings of wolves and mesas. The ceiling was the same shade of yellow, but golden beams of what he thought were pine ran across the length of the ceiling every couple of feet.

“There’s a fireplace, not that you’ll be needing it anytime soon, but it’s romantic.”

Nathan pointed to the ornate fireplace. “Everything you need is in right there in the copper tin or under the window seat. The bath is through that door,” Nathan nodded towards a door to the right. “Closets are those doors over there across from the bed. There’s even a little study through that door.

We’ll see to it that you and Sean have clothes and whatever else you need, and Deb will be bringing you both something to eat after Shania checks Sean.”

Nathan turned and tapped at his chin with one finger. “Is that everything? I think that’s everything, but if not I’ll fill you in later or in the morning. Any

questions?”

Only a dozen, like why and… Well, they pretty much all started with ‘why’.

“If you’re not up to seeing anyone—and you don’t have to, you’ve just found your mate, after all, and he’s hardly in shape for company—then don’t feel obligated. Except for Marcus, of course—and me.” Nathan frowned and that finger tapped faster. “I really can’t think of anything else.

Oh! Don’t feel bad about the room, all the guards got an upgrade when we moved. How anyone could live in those dreary-ass rooms you all had back in Cincinnati…” Nathan walked off muttering to himself about a certain gay man’s lack of decorating skills.

Alex shook his head and carried Sean over to the bed. He laid him down gently on top of the gold and red comforter and made sure his head and neck was well supported. Alex sat on the edge of the bed and debated unwrapping his mate from the sheet wound around him, but a tap at the open doorway spared him from making that decision.

Alex turned and waved Shania in. “I didn’t know if I should take this thing off him.”

He gestured to the sheet. It was going to have to come off in order for Shania to tend his wounds. “Uh, where do I start?”

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“You always were a smart man,” Shania teased as she ruffled his hair. Alex grimaced; she always did that and he always hated it. Which was probably why she did it. “Grab that tail end of the material by his shoulder.”

Alex did and together they peeled the sheet off Sean. The bruises still looked horrible, their colour deepening to a purplish black in places, but the ant bites were considerably less swollen.

“That salve is pretty good medicine,” Shania murmured as she ran her hands down Sean’s leg, checking the bites and bruises. “He should be healing faster, though. These bruises should be into that green stage, you know, and even the ant bites should be almost cleared up. He’s pretty malnourished, though, so his body might not have the reserves it needs to heal as it should.”

Alex grunted, watching the woman’s hands track back up Sean’s legs and to his—

Shania!”

“What?” Shania replied, not even giving him a glance. “You know he’s yours, and you also know I need to check all of him more thoroughly than I could earlier. So stop being obtuse and help me spread his legs.”

By the time the very thorough examination was over, Alex felt a little queasy, and he was glad Sean hadn’t been awake for the humiliating experience. Alex had tried to reach him several times and got nothing at all.

Which reminded him—

“Shania, can I ask you something real quick about the telepathic link between mates?”

Shania stopped halfway to the door and walked back over. “You can ask, but I don’t know how helpful I’ll be, not having a mate myself.”

Alex explained his inability to sense Sean at all mentally, and Shania frowned thoughtfully as she looked at him. “If I had to hazard a guess—and that’s exactly what I’m doing, so keep that in mind—I’d say Sean probably developed a coping mechanism years ago, a way to escape into his mind when things were bad. Kind of disappear within himself, or withdraw, blocking the pain from reaching anything other than his body.”

Alex frowned as he looked at his mate. “So, I’m a bad thing? Comparable to the brother who—”

“No. Get your head out of your ass,” Shania snapped. “What happened today, being staked out like a sacrifice to the sun god or whatever, that was a very very bad thing. Being

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abandoned by the one person who had—admittedly shittily—been taking care of him for probably all his life? That would be an even worse thing.

Then toss in a destined mate when his mind is already swirling with who knows what, and it was probably more than he could deal with.”

“I don’t understand how Joshua leaving him, short of the manner he did so, could be worse than the actual way he left Sean there.” Alex needed to understand that, or he’d probably say something that would hurt Sean once he did wake up.

Shania took Alex’s hand and guided him across the room. “In case he can hear us. I think it’s possible, especially if he isn’t unconscious so much as he’s hiding like I suspect.”

Alex nodded that he understood and Shania glanced at Sean as she spoke softly.

“If Sean has a victim mentality—and I wouldn’t see how he couldn’t—then he’s come to believe he’s useless, worthless, at fault for what he’s suffered.

Some victims of abuse do as I described, find a way to hide themselves away from what’s being done to them. And before you ask, because I can see the question coming, he stayed, like so many abuse victims do, because he didn’t think he had a choice.” Shania stopped and arched a brow at him.

“Are you understanding me?”

“Yes ma’am.” Alex nodded to top that off.

“All right then. Sean could have been too scared to leave, didn’t think he had anywhere to go, anyone to help him or protect him. Just like those poor women, Michelle and Rosemary. Neither one wants to stay here, they are already begging to be allowed to leave.

Marcus said he’d release them tomorrow if they were healed enough. So they will be out of here. They’ll probably find another pack with a jerk for an alpha, or they’ll go back to their original packs and find them a man who treats them like Joshua did. Statistically, in humans at least, that’s what happens. I expect the same in shifters. We haven’t exactly set up study groups, don’t have the facilities for it, so I have to go with the information on humans.”

Shania shook her head and sighed.

“But, back to Sean. He may have been brainwashed in a way by his brother.

If you’re told you’re stupid and useless and deserve what’s happening to you, it’s all too easy to believe it.”

Alex closed the door after Shania left and leaned against it, resting his head on the cool wood. Was he able to deal with the issues Sean might have?

Without screwing him up?

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Probably not without knowing a hell of a lot more than I do now, but I will learn. I won’t be another person who hurts Sean or leaves him feeling abandoned and scared.

It would be hard, because Alex would be battling his need to claim Sean as desire between mates could be irresistible, but he’d manage. The idea of causing Sean harm was unacceptable. Which meant, Alex realised, he needed to have enough faith in himself to do what was right, to put his mate first.

Turning around and staring at the sleeping—or not—man on the bed, Alex vowed he would do whatever it took to make Sean whole and happy.

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