Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (23 page)

"Hey," Leander said, voice still rough with sleep, feeling unexpectedly uncomfortable.

New York's voice was clear, implying he had been up for some time. Leander immediately knew himself to be at a disadvantage.

"You've always been a rational man, Leander--measured, reasonable, practical."

"You've been thinking about this for a while," Leander said. That he was suddenly
Leander
instead of
California
in conversation was probably a bad sign.

"And yet here you are," New York went on, still looking through the window, letting the cold, pale light just touch his face. "You've cut the woman you feel for as a sister out of your life entirely. You have cast her daughters aside with her. You are pouring all your resources into one single venture and crossing lines of legality you usually stay far away from. You're pushing Sarah to her breaking edge. You'd burn through her." There was a pause. "You would burn through me."

"That's not--no," Leander said. "She's--and you, you're my friend, I wouldn't--"

"But you would. You'd burn through her, you'd burn through me, and you'd burn through yourself. You would use us all up. All this and for what? For love?"

Leander had physically pulled back as New York spoke, unconsciously trying to recede into the darkness. He felt like an intruder in his own home.

Quiet, cornered, found out, Leander whispered: "Yes."

"Thank you for admitting it," New York said, in a tone so even and easy that Leander had to blink.

"Does it bother you?" Leander asked cautiously.

"No," New York said, wistfully.

"Why not?" Leander asked.

"I'm a poet," New York said, flippant. "Published under two different names. I believe in love."

"No," Leander said. "Really."

"You love him unquestionably," New York said slowly. "You love Axton beyond sense or reason, you love him without hesitation and without regard for money or status or power or decorum. Your love is unflinching. You knew before he even left that you were going to look for him, that you'd do anything to find him." There was another pause. "No one's ever loved me like that."

There was a knot in Leander's throat and the laugh he forced past it was a mangled half formed mess, like something that should have died in the womb.

"Plenty of people love you," he said. "You're the life of every party and women throw themselves at you so much that you forget their names and you have enough crazy exes that are obsessed with you to fill up a specialty clinic."

"No--that's not the same. My track record says more about my taste for vulnerability, my white knighting, than it does about love. It's not about being willing to wreck your life for the other person. That's just down to mental health and emotional stability."

"And I'm emotionally stable right now?" Leander asked, a note of dark amusement in his words.

"You're one of the most emotionally stable people I know," New York said. "And right now, yeah, you're in full possession of your rational faculties. You've made calculations. You've made plans. You know exactly what you're risking here. Your sacrifice is intentional. Your choice is--"

"Informed?" Leander asked.

"More meaningful," New York finished.

"You're just being difficult," Leander said, "and changing goalposts."

"Does it matter?" New York asked. "Does it matter why I help you, does my motivation matter as long as I help you get your lover back?"

The hesitation now was Leander's. A burning, ashamed silence filled the room.

New York finally turned away from the window, finally looked at Leander, and his smile filled Leander with dread and disgrace.

"See?" he said. "It doesn't matter to you at all."

Two hours later, New York was passed out on the couch again, this time after eating half a box of s'mores flavored Pop Tarts.

It was fortunate, Leander thought, that New York was only capable of emotional insights in short sugar fueled bursts.

It was one of New York's accepted superpowers: he cleaned up nice. He was a little too thin for the exquisite tailoring of his suit, but Sarah still had to suppress a purr of approval and the urge to uselessly adjust his tie when she saw him. Leander recognized the expression she made and swallowed--he had seen her almost make it at actors she'd costumed and he'd seen her make it and hide it whenever he showed up in something new. Sarah liked men in suits.

New York winked at her, because he was that kind of asshole.

"Guess who just single handedly secured funding for Zone One, Step Two of the plan?" he said, but he didn't leave a pause for an answer because he was already grandly gesturing at himself. "We have sponsors now. Clueless sponsors."

"How'd you swing that?" Leander asked.

"I talk about conservation for thirty solid minutes," New York said. "Something, something, like, the
environment
."

"I'm always talking about the environment and no one gives me funding," Leander said reproachfully.

"Yeah, but you're trying to get the city to build micro-parks and gay shit like that," New York said. "I said sexy things about the mighty American forest to people in the private sector."

"Aren't you ever going to call him on saying that kind of thing?" Sarah asked, turning to Leander. "I mean, 'gay shit,' really?"

"Telling New York to be appropriate is a full time job," Leander said. "I don't have the emotional stamina for that right now."

"It's okay," New York assured her. "I know better. I just choose not to do better, occasionally."

"Yeah, someone filed a complaint a few years back and made him take the firm sensitivity seminar," Leander said.

"I know that was you," New York said. "I always knew that it was you."

Propped up on his crutches, Leander did his best to compose his features.

New York was lingering before getting into his taxi. His scuffed shoes kicked at the curb listlessly.

"You'll be okay?" he asked, in a rare flash of undisguised concern.

"Totally fine," Leander lied.

"I'm going to court your PA, okay?"

"Like
hell
you are," Leander said, predictably riled. "Sarah's far too good for you."

New York grinned.

"Come visit me," he said, "as soon as you're cleared to train."

"I can train here," Leander said, haughty and aloof.

"You could. Sure. Except you cut off all contact with your dojo."

"Damn you," Leander said. "Who tells you these things?"

"Everyone," New York said. "I'm charming."

He threw his arms around Leander and squeezed.

"Thanks for coming," Leander mumbled, before they each bounced their fists--twice, as per the standard bro-hug protocol--off the others back and separated.

"Your
mom
thanked me for coming," New York said.

"Fuck you," Leander said. "
Your
mom thanked
me
for coming."

New York beamed and ducked into the taxi.

Leander tried to not think about how he was starting to really hate watching people leave.

New York brought the gift of zaniness with him, and he took it back when he left. Strategizing with New York even when he wasn't high was an adventure, something impossibly removed from ordinary life, and the strangeness was so all consuming that it left little time for regret. New York
himself
took up so much space that Leander could briefly, in bursts, focus on something besides his pain, his new grim drive in life for reunion and perhaps--ideally, even--revenge.

In sum: New York was fun to have around.

With New York gone, there was no combating force to Sarah's awareness of their reality. She was the one who had seen Leander when he was first admitted to the hospital; she was the one who understood the extent and reality of his injury. Perhaps she was the only one who understood, because Leander himself strove to forget.

Without constant distraction, Leander became severe again.

Besides, getting used to crutches was a whole new world of frustration.

The door to Dana's cabin slammed open. Jack snapped his head towards the sound; Dana shoved himself up on his elbows, sloppily trying to get up right--

"That
motherfucker!
" Axton shouted. "Where's the
fucking
booze? I am going to
kill
that son of a bitch. I'm going to kill him so fucking dead that flowers won't even be able to grow on his goddamn
grave
."

Jack and Dana glanced at each other as Axton stormed through the kitchen. No one said anything. Jack shrugged.

Axton emerged with a scowl on his face and a bottle in his hand, drinking as he strode towards the other two wolves. Somehow he managed to even drawn up a chair angrily before he threw himself into it.

"So," Jack said into the resulting silence. "How'd it go?"

"I'm going to kill him," Axton breathed.

"I can't help but notice it isn't sunset yet," Dana added.

"Fuck you," Axton fired back.

"Oh, so it went well," Jack said. "Great. Glad to hear it."

"Don't you start," Axton warned.

"I don't think I've ever seen you this angry before," Dana said.

"Fuck
off
," Axton said. "You've seen me way angrier than this."

"I mean, I've never seen you this angry at someone who wasn't me," Dana clarified.

"Oh my god," Axton muttered. "Oh my fucking god. Shut
up
."

"How did you two ever date?" Jack asked.

"Well, actually--" Dana said.

"Shut up shut up shut up," Axton chanted. "That's not important."

"I disagree," Dana said.

"What's important," Axton said, "is that I have a fucking plan."

"You do?" Jack asked.

"A plan where we date again?" Dana asked.

"For fuck's sake!" Axton yelled.

"Is he always like this about you?" Jack asked, sounding mystified.

"NO!" Axton shouted, just as Dana said, "Yes."

"Oh my fuck," Axton muttered, setting the bottle down between his legs so he could push the heels of his hands against his closed eyes. "Oh my fucking, fucking, fuck. I can't believe I'm stuck here with you assholes."

"You're just so pretty when you're mad, sugar," Dana said.

"This is so strange," Jack said. "I mean, I knew Dana had it bad, but not like
that
."

"Oh, fuck you. Fuck your mother," Dana muttered.

Axton hadn't bothered to dignify any of that with a response, because he was still busy pressing his palms against his eyes. Finally, quickly, he took his hands away, took a deep breath, and picked the bottle back up.

"Okay," he breathed. "Okay. So. I have a plan."

Jack nodded, waiting, and even Dana stayed expectant and quiet.

Axton took a big swig to steady himself.

"The plan," he said, leaning forward, elbows on his thighs, voice low and urgent, "the plan is coup d'état."

"That's not a plan," Jack said. "That's, what--a mission statement. At most."

"The plan is coup d'état," Axton said again, this time more calmly. "We challenge Dru for command of the pack. We beat him. We install Dana as the new alpha."

"Oh, is that all," Jack said.

"Install," Dana repeated. "Install? As if I can't--"

"Well, no, you fucking can't," Axton said. "Since you haven't."

"On what grounds are we going to challenge him?" Jack asked. "And who do you mean by
we
, anyway?"

"Whoever can beat him," Axton said. "Whatever, I don't care. I'll fight him."

"And be the new alpha?" Dana said, sounding upset but somehow also--persuadable.

"You want the leadership?" Jack asked.

"No, I would cede to Dana immediately after winning, obviously," Axton muttered. And then Dana would be so busy being an alpha wolf that Axton could run away and back into Leander's arms. Perfect.

"Just that coup d'état has some pretty specific connotations," Jack went on.

"Fuck connotation," Axton said. "This is unambiguous--
denotation
. It's exactly what it sounds like. We topple the current power structure. We update the regime."

"Never took you for a revolutionary, sugar," Dana said. "An iconoclast, sure, but--"

"Dru's not going to roll over and just
give
it to you," Jack said. "Even if you beat him--"

"Then we'll--" Axton started.

"We'll kill him dead," Dana said.

"Right," Axton said. "If he doesn't give it up, then the fight goes to the death."

"I'm not going to help you kill him," Jack said. "I don't think I can--that doesn't sit right with me."

"What if he killed your best friend?" Axton asked sharply, locking gazes with Jack. "What if he
murdered
your best friend, took his place, trampled over his memory, bed his widow?"

Jack exhaled carefully and didn't look away. Axton could just about picture the subtle swishing of an agitated tail, the tense twitch of the ears that would have been present if Jack was in his wolf skin.

"What if he's willing to kill your best friend's son? His only child?" Axton went on, quiet but relentless, ruthless. "The son you promised to protect? The family you swore to watch? What if you've been bowing to a murderer this whole time, what if he would insult the dignity of your dead friend further, what if--"

"Stop," Jack said. "
Stop
." He took a deep breath in, and Axton understood that Jack was mad, mad enough to nearly tremble with it. "Suppose you're right--"

"I
am
," Axton said.

"You can't prove it," Jack said.

Axton stopped and sat back, tilting his head.

"What if I could?" he asked slowly. "What if
we
could?"

"Huh?" Dana asked.

"What if we could prove he was a murderer?" Axton asked. "That's grounds enough for a challenge, right? Challenging the very legitimacy of his power?"

"The pack would follow the challenger," Jack said, looking at Axton carefully. "If the challenger had proof."