Page 5 of Desire Him

Before he can ask any more questions, a knock sounds at his door. The person on the other side doesn’t wait for an answer before the door is shoved open. “Hello?” Logan calls.

“In here,” Wayne calls back. He shovels the last bit of omelet into his mouth and turns on his stool to greet his alpha.

“You’re awake,” Logan says, grinning. “Both of you, too.”

Wayne looks between him and Val’s back. “Why wouldn’t Val be awake? She’s always here at this time.”

Logan blinks dumbfoundedly at him and then shakes his head slowly.

“Am I missing something here?” Wayne asks.

“Yes,” both Val and Logan say together.

Wayne holds up his hands. “Forget it. I don’t want to know what I did.” He lowers his hands and looks at his alpha squarely. “What can I do for you?”

Logan crosses his arms over his wide chest. “Jim is ready.”

“Great. Is he putting up a fight?”

“So far, no. Just a lot of cursing. Are you ready to escort him to the city?”

Wayne nods, picks up his juice, and downs its citrusy contents. He stands up. “Ready.”

“Good.” Logan turns on his heel. “Take him there, and then come right back. We have a lot more to discuss concerning this rogue thing.”

Wayne briefly turns to Val and thanks her for breakfast before heading to the couch and snatching up his coat, which is buried under Val’s. He slides his arms inside and exits his cabin. The first thing he sees is Draven and a few other enforcers standing next to Jim, who waits by Wayne’s car. Wayne sighs deeply at Jim’s expression. It’s one of rage and hatred.

“It’s going to be a long ride,” Wayne says to himself as he steps away from his house, shutting the door behind him.

“He’s ready,” Draven says in a serious voice. It’s not often that Draven is serious, but when it comes to his duty as Head Enforcer, he’s always on point.

“Good,” he says to Draven. To Jim, he says, “Get in.”

Wayne makes his way to the driver's side of the car, opens the door, and climbs in at the same time Jim does. Wayne looks into his back seat and sees Jim’s luggage already waiting there. It’s not much, just two suitcases, but it’s not like Jim has a place to go in the city. He doesn’t need many things.

Once the doors are shut and the seatbelts are on, Wayne puts the car into reverse, steers his way out of his parking space, and drives down the road. They pass the pack’s houses without a word and even travel down the mountain in complete silence. It isn’t until they’re more than halfway to the city that Wayne gets sick of the silence.

“So, Dillon.”

Jim sneers. “What of him?”

Wayne keeps his eyes on the road. “You just had to go and cause trouble.”

Jim swipes a hand through the air. “You have no idea. None.”

“So explain it to me because I’m having a hell of a time understanding why you’d betray the Head Alpha.”

Wayne notices that Jim looks out the window. “He’s unfit to be Head Alpha. His father would be ashamed of how he’s conducting things.”

Wayne nearly scoffs. It’s more like Jim thinks he could have done it better. Jim is an alpha, after all, and he’s never liked Logan, not even when he was a child. “And what do you think his father would have done differently?”

Jim grips his thighs tighter. “He wouldn’t need an alliance, for starters. He would have organized the rogues himself and stopped the wolfcalm before it could get into his own pack. Either that, or he would have destroyed them.”

“Logan is not his father. Are you trying to tell me that an alpha with a heart is a bad thing?”

Jim slaps his knee. “Yes! He’s weak, and the rest of the shifter world knows it.”

Wayne rolls his eyes. “Mhm.”

“You don’t believe me.” Jim chuckles, but there’s little humor in it. “You’ll see. The rogues will take over, and there’s nothing your pack, or the Stonewell pack, can do about it.”

“And you know this how?”

Jim shakes his head and says nothing as they enter the city. Wayne drives through the traffic, passes a burning building and firefighters trying to put out the fire, and heads to the side of the city the shifters call home.

“You’re a rogue now, too, you know,” Wayne adds. He pulls into an alley and parks his car.

Jim chuffs and exits the car without another word. Wayne waits patiently, shaking his head, as Jim gathers his things from the back seat. As soon as the door is shut, he backs out of the alley without so much as a wave goodbye.

Scratching the back of his neck, Wayne moves back onto the main road. There’s an all-day bar directly across the street, so instead of fighting the morning traffic, he pulls into an empty parking spot. After a morning like today, he could use a drink. Or at least a coffee.

Parking the car, he gets out and heads to the front door. Like all shifter bars and businesses in the city, there’s a paw on the glass door, indicating that it’s shifter owned. Though humans know about shifters and they coexist just fine, they tend to stick to their own kind. It’s where they’re most comfortable, and though Wayne will be entering, knowing there are rogues inside, he feels most comfortable here. Besides, it’s on his way back.

The smell of stale beer and roasting coffee reaches his nose as soon as he enters. The bartender looks up while cleaning the shelf where the bottles sit. Wayne heads to the bar and sits next to what can only be a rogue. He smells like one, anyway. Every shifter smells like their pack, and this one just has a stench about him.