Oryen washed in the fountain and gave the wound time to scab before putting his shirt back on. The pain of the experience left him shaky. With Beau gone, something familiar and horrible slowly sunk beneath his skin with more surety than blades or barbed threats.

The wound on his chest was healing well enough—ugly, scabbed over and promising to scar, but healing nonetheless. He'd needed the tattoo gone and didn't regret it, but his conversation with Beau replayed in a loop, and he couldn't help coming back to something over and over.

I haven't seen you with Lazro.

He was changing. Slowly but surely, he was becoming a werewolf, and the best person to guide him through the horror of that transformation couldn't afford him an explanation for where he'd been, what had occurred since. He couldn't even afford him ten minutes of time.

Instead of returning to the barracks for a much needed rest, he wandered through the tunnels toward a staircase and a hall of doors. He experienced them in a colourless funk, tinged with surprise by how sure he was of the path. Even in the dark, even after only coming this way once before, he recalled each turn by scent and instinct.

Returning was foolhardy. Last time, he'd invaded a woman's bedroom and played accomplice in a theft.

Kalysto's bedroom was not the one he approached though. He curled his toes, feeling the uneven stone through the soles of his boots as he stood in front of his brother's chamber. The horseshoe was still upside down. With a finger, Oryen twisted it upright and pushed the nail with the pad of his thumb until it sank deep into the wood. The nail left a circle indented in his skin, but the horseshoe held. Its luck couldn't run out anymore.

He didn't really know why he bothered—Lazro clearly hadn't returned in some time. Unless, he reflected, Lazro no longer believed in superstitions like he once did. How would Oryen know? They were practically strangers.

Impulsively, he grabbed the handle and jiggled. It was locked. Frustration boiling like blisters under his skin, he applied force. With a surprised jolt and metallic clank, the bolt broke easily, as if made of chalk and not iron.

The door swung inward, creaking on its hinges. Oryen hovered on the threshold. Grey moonlight filtered through an opening in the granite. Moss hung from the window's edges, swaying in a light breeze that rumpled the covers of an unmade bed. Aside from some furniture, the room was utterly vacant. Devoid of anything, save for the horseshoe, to imply anyone had even been there.

But as Oryen took his first step in, a scent hit him, one he found familiar by now.

Blood. Lazro's blood.

Throat tightening, he took a few more steps inside, wandering the perimeter of the room, though he knew where the source of the smell came from. Near the window. He came to it last, cold walking up his spine.

It was not the sloughing, rancid smell of Kalysto's bedroom. In terms of intensity, it could not have been as much blood as Oryen had just lost when Beau removed his tattoo. A minor enough injury. Could have been anything. An accident.

But there was something wrong about the smell. Something...bony and penetrating.

Wrapped up in the sensation, he heard the rasp of bare feet on stone too late. He turned for the door, made a move towards it. He found it barred.

For the flash of a second, he didn't recognize his brother. Not his scent or his face. He looked and smelled—sour? Scared. Oryen's relief that it hadn't been Kalysto was abruptly embittered by the timing, the awkwardness, the resentment

But what came out of his mouth was, as always, a joke.

"This place booby trapped or do you have eyes on the back of your head? Mom'd be proud."

"I smelled blood," Lazro said. "Your blood. I was worried."

Oryen's pulse pumped thick through his veins. The faint irony that they'd both followed a trail of blood here wasn't lost on him. "Ah, just got scraped up in training."

Lazro's gaze narrowed. Oryen's desire to have everything out was mitigated by his remembrance of Evrynne's arm breaking like a branch. He wished he could ask what had happened to Evrynne. Whether Lazro had actually executed him. But it seemed tantamount to an admission of his own guilt. He didn't know Evrynne well, so why should he care?

It gnawed at him, how different the excising of his past might have been if his brother had wielded the knife instead of Beau. A gruesome task, but it could have been a pact for blood brothers. His most vulnerable moment, and he'd shared it with a man who wanted him dead.

"I smelled your blood here too," Oryen said, trying to shift the subject. "Smelled kind of— I don't know. Really not used to this werewolf stuff yet. Seems like we get our share of injuries."

Lazro relaxed a fraction. His eyes took in the room. With a finger he tapped the thin scar across his angular cheekbone. "Just a scratch. Nothing serious." His nostrils flared, probably taking in the newly healing wound under Oryen's shirt. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah, great. I made Reyz's team, by the way."

His brother's expression crumpled. "That was today? Shit, after the rescheduling—"

"It's fine."

"It isn't fine," Lazro said. "It really isn't. And you don't have to lie."

Silence fell between them. Oryen didn't understand the impulse to dismiss the apology before it had even come. He'd wanted Lazro there. Somehow, apologies—even the ones he wanted—never soothed the way they were meant to.

Oryen shoved his hands in his pockets, unsure what to say. After a while he settled on, "Ezra— Fuck. Lazro. Whatever, sorry, I just think it'd be good to hang out more. You know, teach me the wolfy-ropes."

Lazro glanced out the door then silently went to shut it. The broken bolt prevented it from remaining shut though, wobbling open a crack. He frowned, turned and padded into the room and, hesitantly, put a hand on Oryen's shoulder. His palm, over-warm like he'd been sunbathing, simmered through Oryen's shirt. It seemed most werewolves burned hotter—a change Oryen had yet to make. He met his brother's eyes in flickering glances.

"Listen, you know I'd love to just...barbecue a few steaks and lounge around catching up. I would. But this place isn't safe. The closer we are, the more danger I put you in. Why do you think I left this room? I don't stay in one part of Kolraga for too long." He glanced at the door as if he could see the horseshoe through it. "My luck's running out."

"So let me help," Oryen said. "Reyz seems to like me. Introduce me to the others."

Lazro looked uncertain. "I've already asked a lot of you. I don't want to throw you in the deep end so fast you drown."

"I can handle it."

A sigh. "I'm the big brother. I'm supposed to protect you."

"Each other," Oryen corrected. "We're supposed to protect each other."

Lazro pinched his lips between his teeth, a soft laugh hidden behind them. "You know, maybe you're right. Maybe it's too late for me to play the big brother. Maybe we should be trying to start anew rather than get back to the way things were."

Oryen's throat went dry. "Sounds good."

"Then, how about this? There's a feast coming up, the Sun's End festival. I could introduce you to the other Alphas. Plus, have a few drinks together and chat."

"When is it?"

He winced. "Two days from now. I'm surprised you hadn't heard."

"I'm not exactly central to the grapevine..."

"I'd have invited you sooner, only I'd rather not endanger you. If Kahleir does have infiltrators within Kolraga, the festival will be the perfect opportunity to launch an attack. It will be busy, crowded—"

"But you'll be surrounded by your allies, won't you? The other alphas."

Lazro's expression changed subtly. He touched his cheek, scar livid in the moonlight.

"You really don't trust any of them," Oryen guessed.

"It's not as simple as that."

"Reyz seems all right."

"I do trust each of them to a degree, I just... Packs are meant to provide stability, protection, but in a world like this one?" He sighed. So much of the man Oryen once knew bled out of him on that gentle exhale. "Let's just say, when survival is everyone's top priority, it tends to bring out the worst in people."

"You don't trust me either, do you?" It burst from him. Prickly needles poking through his resolve to stay calm and collected. Now the words were out, he wished he could take them back.

Lazro's brow pinched. The hand on Oryen's shoulder dropped, a finger pointing just over the spot where Oryen's new wound was healing. "Do you trust me enough to tell me what really happened?"

Oryen said, "It's not about trust." But it was. "There are plenty of werewolves in here who aren't keen on my connection to you. Nothing you didn't warn me about."

"Who?"

Oryen considered telling him, but recalling the way Beau leaned against the stone where Oryen had hid the scalpel, remembering how Beau scurried up a fireplace, he realized he couldn't ever be sure they weren't being eavesdropped upon.

"If I tell you, they'll just come down on me harder," Oryen said. "Besides, if you want names, grab a piece of paper. The list gets longer every day. A list of people who like me would be shorter."

Lazro's expression for a brief second revealed a well of grief. "All the more reason I shouldn't ask for your help. I should just keep my distance."

"No!" It came out too loud. A cavernous din knocking off the walls of the room like Oryen's heart did inside his ribcage.

"Then tell me some way I can help. You've offered to help me, and all I've done in return is painted a target on your back."

Oryen's throat squeezed shut. Why was it so hard to ask for what he needed? All his time in Kolraga, he'd longed for the moment he could talk to Lazro honestly, spend time together, reconnect. Now Lazro extended the olive branch, why was his first instinct to knock it away?

A thousand questions boiled under the surface. What had happened to Evrynne? How was Lazro first bitten? How was he caught? Why didn't he contact his family, why didn't anyone? Why was Oryen left to presume his brother was missing, then dead? How had Lazro, in that time, risen through the ranks of an enormous, powerful werewolf pack, and inherited its enemies at the same time?

But more than answers, he wanted something deeper. Something he wasn't sure they could ever have again. The youthful, innocent bond of brotherhood forged between them as youngsters had cracked apart under the relentless wheel of time. Even with the answers to all those questions, Oryen didn't think they could put it back together or have it just the way it was.

He'd told Beau he didn't resent his brother for being the apple of their parents' eyes. It had been true, but what about now?

He said, "Do you remember the old drive-in?"

A flicker of a smile in Lazro's eyes. "How could I forget? I gave you so much candy. Couldn't get the smell of puke out of my truck for a month."

"Serves you right, too. I had nightmares for weeks, you know. Not about the puke. Remember the movie?"

Lazro broke into a grin. "Six Nights at Sea, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, a serial killer on a cruise ship, hiding under people's beds 'n shit. Do you know why I cleaned my room by just stuffing everything under the bed? Because there'd be no room for serial killers."

A hoarse laugh. "Jesus, I was a terrible brother."

Oryen's grin flickered. "No you weren't."

Lazro's smile didn't leave, but a flash of melancholy went through it.

"I went back to the drive-in a lot," Oryen confessed. "I thought, if you came back, that's where I'd find you. For some reason. I guess because we went there a lot." He took a steadying breath. "It's gone now, though. I think it's just a parking lot for an office building that went up next-door or something."

"Bastards," Lazro said. "If we get out of here, we'll bulldoze the thing and put up our drive-in again, yeah?"

Oryen tried to suppress it, but it struck a chord of hope in his chest anyway. "You think we'll get out of here?"

"I know it."