He couldn’t appear soft by smiling. He was facing three angry wolves inside three formidable men. The last thing he needed to do was appear soft.
Range tapped his pen on the table. “Where’s your wolf? How’d you get those scars on your body?” He turned to Jason then Davin. “Did you see the scars?”
“We saw them before he put that shirt on,” Davin said. “I’m curious about them myself. Looked like stab wounds and bullet holes.”
“And claw marks,” Jason added. “Not to mention, you look like you’ve been through a plane crash.”
“That’s about the only thing my wolf hasn’t done to me. Yet.”
Jason growled. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Yeah, I think you better explain that one,” Davin agreed.
Asa had a hard enough time talking about himself with his brothers alone, but now they wanted him to discuss everything in front of two others? One being a woman he felt an attraction to? And did they realize he’d have to discuss their past and the study?
Emme put her hand on his. “Do you want me to leave the room?”
A surge ran through his body at her touch.
Eira added. “I can go as well.”
Emme, knowing to say that, warmed him. Her sister agreeing added to the comfort level he felt with the two. Eira had become a part of the pack. She was all-in, totally and completely. Would Emme become one of them now?
“It started with the study.” He was certain Range would have told Eira about it, as his mate, but Emme didn’t know what he was talking about, and he wanted her to be in on this, though it would entail discussing his own culpability in the matter. “A few years ago, near the end of our term in the military, we were approached by a group that wanted to include us in a study. I think my brothers were hesitant to go forward, but I pushed. It’s my fault we did it.”
“Nah, hell no.” Jason slapped his palm on the table.
“Fuck that,” Davin exclaimed.
“I agree with them,” Range said, always the voice of reason and measure. “You aren’t any more to blame for this than any of us are. You didn’t press us into it. We all went because we wanted to.”
“You were having second thoughts,” Asa insisted.
“No, I was not,” Range asserted. “Now, you quit talking like this. It’s not on you. It’s on us. All of us.”
“Absolutely and totally,” came from Davin and Jason.
“Now, can you move on to the meat of this?” Range pressed him.
“Cliff Notes version, please,” Davin said.
Jason threw his pen at Davin. “What the fuck do you know about Cliff Notes. You never even went to college.”
“Slept with a couple of sorority girls. At the same time. Does that count?” Davin countered.
“Hey.”
That was all Range had to say, and both Davin and Jason were apologizing to Emme and Eira, though their eyes were twinkling. Those two had always been closer to one another than they had to Asa and Range, though in retrospect, Asa had to admit, Range was his ride or die. Or used to be, until Asa started keeping his biggest secret from him.
“So, what did the study do to your wolf?” Range asked. “We all had side effects, I know, but we’ve never talked about them in detail. What happened to you?”
“You know how I’ve been vanishing for days at a time?”
“Yeah, I wondered if you had a new lady friend,” Davin said. Always thinking like so.
“Nope. My wolf takes control—not like a shift—he takes control of me. And when he does, he tries to kill me.” Surprise and confusion filled his brothers’ faces, but they remained quiet, so he pressed on. After a hard swallow, he forced himself to share his secret. “I’ve tried stabbing myself multiple times, shooting myself, wrecking the car at high speed, standing in front of a train. All of this because my wolf forces me to.”
“I’ve witnessed it,” Emme murmured under her breath.
Of course, as shifters, they could pick that up.
“What the hell?” Range clenched his hand into a fist, snapping the pen, then he looked down at it, as though he hadn’t been aware he was holding it.
“No goddamn way.” Jason shook his head.
“That’s fucked up,” Davin concurred.
All three brothers expressed their responses. The women were silent, appraising him with non-judgmental eyes.
Range put the pieces of the pen down next to the legal pad. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Man, at first, I thought it was me. That something was wrong with me. Then I thought it was something I deserved, that I’d wronged my wolf somehow. Then later,” Asa took a deep breath, “as close as our wolves are to each other, I didn’t even know what to say. What would you have done?”
His brothers all shook their heads.
“I don’t know,” Range admitted. “So, where’s the wolf now?”
Emme cleared her throat. “I can help with this, since I’m to blame.”
“Blame?” Davin uttered. “Blame for what?”
“Did you kill his wolf?” Jason asked.
“No,” Emme explained. “But he was shooting himself, and when he raised the gun, to shoot himself again, I thought he was aiming at me. So I shot him with Freyja’s Redemption.”
“Frey—what?” Jason said. “What’s that?”
“It’s a metal alloy,” Eira jumped in. “It’s a Valkyrie creation. The metal works on berserkers. The bear shifters whose bears are imprisoned.”
“What does it do? What did it do to Asa’s wolf?” Jason asked.
Eira shrugged. “I don’t know what it does. We have instructions to shoot berserkers with it when we encounter them.”
“So, why did Emme shoot Asa? He’s not a berserker,” Davin prompted.
“She felt threatened,” Asa intervened. “I don’t blame her.”
Emme’s gulp was audible. “His eyes were red. He was acting crazy. Who shoots themselves? He aimed the gun in my direction, and I—”
“Red eyes?” Range interrupted.
“She’s telling the truth,” Asa said. “I’ve seen my wolf’s eyes when they were red. So she shot me with some badass crossbow she had on her arm. And the wolf went poof! It was gone. So was the urge to kill myself. I shifted one last time—”
“And while he was shifted, he died,” Emme added.
“She brought me back. Saved my fucking life. Then she took the arrow out, and my wolf came back.”
“And it tried to kill him again,” Emme jumped in one more time.
“Yup. That’s when I put the bolt back in.”
“He actually stabbed himself in a different spot, he was that desperate,” Emme said.
“They’re making me dizzy, finishing each other’s statements. It’s like watching ping pong,” Range said, but he was smiling at his mate when he mentioned it. “So, what happened after that?”
Asa summed it up. “Bottom line. I fashioned this.” He raised his sleeve. “It keeps the wolf at bay. I can’t hear him or see him, and he sure as hell can’t kill me. And if that’s what it takes to keep me alive, I’ll wear it for the rest of my days.”