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"You know what I mean," he said. "Suburban families and all that shit. Mum and Dad, or Mum and Mum. Or Dad and Dad. Or just one or the other. A pet fish. Friends coming over after school. Riding bikes around the neighbourhood."
I sighed. That was my life for the first eight years. More or less. "Dad and his many girlfriends. Parents fighting. Pressing the button on the answering machine and hearing death threats. Suburban living isn't all rainbows and sunshine."
"All of those things still sound better than being raised to be the enemy to your own people." He rested his chin on his arms. He hadn't shaved in a few days. It was a good look for him.
"Or being raised to roll over onto your back and spread your legs for someone with the last name Dagen." I grimaced.
"I can't imagine you taking that lying down. So to speak." He looked intently at me. "You're made of tougher stuff than that. I doubt they would have gotten out of it without losing a shit load of skin and blood."
"No, they wouldn't have," I agreed. Between Alistair Dagen and his father, life would have been hells.
I cocked my head at him. "You had other kids around you, didn't you?" Hadn't he said he was fostered with a couple of other white wolves?
"Yeah, but everything was a competition. Every chance they got, they pitted us against each other. If we were too slow, we were punished. If we weren't careful enough, we were punished. Eventually, we started to see each other as the enemy. It wasn't that I was too slow, it was that they were faster than me. Maybe they pushed themselves a little harder so I would get punished. Looking back, that seems really stupid. But at the time, that was how it was."
"That sounds lonely," I said softly. That might explain my attraction to him. We both went through things the others would never truly understand. The absolute desperation to survive, but the almost equally absolute certainty the black wolves would destroy us. There were days I almost accepted the future they planned for me. Right up until the moment the hammer fell on my virgin auction. Until I saw the look of fury on Alistair's father's face. He and his son were really good at one thing: assuming they had more time than they actually did. Had they realised it, things would have been worse for me.
Hutton shrugged. "I can deal with loneliness. It was the part about doing shitty things to other white wolves that I struggle with. Sometimes I wished Gus Dagen would beat me to death. So I didn't have to keep doing things." His eyes glazed over as he thought back over the memories.
"Other times, I wished I dared to beat him to death. If the other guys and I got our shit together, he wouldn't have been able to stop us. We were just too fucking scared. Half the time we would jump at our own shadows."
I put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry that happened to you. I wish I'd been old enough to stop everything sooner."
He snorted lightly. "You changed everything for a generation of white wolves, and you're still not satisfied that you did enough? Believe me, you did plenty. The gods know there were other people who could have done something."
"Like Jake?" I guessed. "He didn't like sitting on his hands, waiting. He hated himself for it. He still does."
"That makes two of us." Hutton grinned.
I socked him lightly on the arm. "Sooner or later, one of you is going to have to let up on the other one. If only so you can work together in peace. I guess I could always fire one of you." I shrugged.
"As long as it's him," Hutton said. "You would come to regret firing me. I'm awesome." He wiggled his brows.
I shook my head at him. "Of course you are."
Guys.
"Seriously though, none of us came through all of that unscathed. Ben's parents fled the state before they died. Left everything they had behind. They had to start over, in Tasmania. That's the same story for a lot of the staff here. That or they grew up in remote parts of New South Wales, or on the border with other states. Some of them even grew up in Queensland or the Northern Territory, because they knew they'd be safer there than here."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," he said.
"That they do," I agreed.
"Is that why you're trying to push all of us away?" he asked. "Desperate times?"
"You noticed too, hmmm?" I rearranged my legs so I was sitting cross-legged on the chair. "You of all people should understand why."
"Because the Onyx Ridge pack are experts at pitting us against each other," he said. "You don't want them to do anything to us in order to get to you. Or vice versa. But there's one thing I've learnt in my long, long life, and it's that being lonely sucks. Yeah, there are worse things, but there are better things. You have this whole big bad wolf vibe going on, but I know for a fact that you would prefer to save the huffing and puffing for the bedroom. Or the couch. Or the desk. Or—"
"Okay, okay, I get the idea." I rolled my eyes at him. He wasn't wrong. I much preferred my huffing and puffing to involve cocks and orgasms.
I frowned. "You think everything Asshole has done, and keeps doing, is because he wants me to push you guys away? To isolate me from everyone else?"
"Is his last name Dagen?" Hutton asked rhetorically. "They get off on two things." He held up a finger. "One, power. And two, mind fucks. If they can combine those two into one, then they're as happy as a pig in shit. Let's be real here for a moment. He would have really gotten off on seeing you devastated over me and Ben dying. Ben in particular, because of that bond. That would have given him the mother of all hard ons. If your friends hadn't arrived just in time…"
I nodded. "Yes, I know what would have happened." It would have been brutal. "But caring about anyone sets the stage for that to happen again."
"So does being alone," he argued. "You're stronger with our support than without it. Let me ask you this." He paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. "Could you have done all of this," he gestured around the room, "without Jake’s help?"
