Rogue Wolf by Paige Tyler

Chapter 10

“Thanks for coming with me,” Trey said, amazed at how nervous he felt as he pulled into the parking lot of the low-budget motel off Interstate 20 near Lawson. “I have to warn you in advance that Kyson can be a little intimidating. He’s a big guy and sort of intense.”

Trey smiled as he thought of his old army buddy Kyson Daughtry. Well over six feet tall and super muscular, his blond, blue-eyed friend was a monster of a man, so calling him “big” was putting it mildly. He cursed under his breath when he heard Samantha’s heart begin to beat a little faster. Realizing he was making her nervous, he did his best to backtrack.

“But don’t worry,” he added quickly, parking in a space around the backside of the building. The rooms there were the cheapest the motel had, and the only ones his friend could afford with his veteran’s benefits. “I think you and Kyson will hit it off. He might be kind of gruff, but he’s a teddy bear at heart. He’ll be thrilled to meet you.”

For Trey, introducing Samantha to Kyson was like bringing her meet his family. He and Kyson might not be related by blood, but after everything they’d gone through in Afghanistan together, they were as close as brothers. Maybe closer.

“That’s cool you and Kyson stayed in touch after you guys got out of the army,” she said, hopping out of his Jeep before he could come around and open the door for her.

Trey nodded as they walked toward his old friend’s room. It was even cooler that she hadn’t minded stopping to see Kyson on the way to dinner. Being around the homeless camp today had reminded him that he hadn’t checked in on his buddy in a while and that he was way overdue for a visit.

“Kyson is actually the reason I ended up in Dallas after getting out of the army,” he admitted. “Remember that firefight in Afghanistan I told you about that happened right before I was supposed to reenlist? Kyson was that best friend who ended up in worse shape than I did.”

“What happened to him?”

“A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the truck we took cover behind. It hit the gas tank and sent me flying, but Kyson wasn’t so lucky. When the truck blew, flames engulfed him, covering the lower half of his body.” Trey winced at the memory. “It was so bad that he got transferred to the military hospital in San Antonio for long-term care. I moved to Dallas to be close to him and would drive down there a few times a month to see him. He stayed in the army a lot longer than I did, but spent all of that time rehabbing his injuries. They finally medically discharged him about three years ago.”

“That’s terrible.” Samantha looked around, taking in the run-down motel and its dirty surroundings, the empty beer cans and other trash lying in the corner of the stairwell. “No one should have to live in a place like this, but it seems even more of a shame for a veteran who’s served his country.”

“Unfortunately, his VA benefits aren’t enough for him to afford anything else,” Trey said. “Kyson hasn’t handled the transition back to civilian life very well and there’s still some stuff he’s working through that makes it hard for him to hold down a job. I do what I can to help, but he won’t take any money from me, so I have to settle for stopping by to see him every week or so.”

Damn, now he was babbling, not to mention telling her way more than she probably wanted to know. But the connection he had with Samantha made it easy to confide in her about things. Maybe that came with the territory when a werewolf found The One, making it easier to tell your mate what you were.

“I’d do so much more for him if he’d let me,” Trey added. “I told him he could move in with me until he saved up some money for a nicer place, but he’s proud as hell, and if I do too much, he gets pissed and thinks I’m trying to take care of him. He thinks it makes him a charity case and he hates that.”

“Does he have anyone in his life besides you?” Samantha asked, empathy clear in her eyes. “Any family?”

Trey shook his head. “Not really. He doesn’t have any family, and after what happened in Afghanistan, he does a good job of pushing people away. God knows he tries hard enough to get me to walk away. I’ve seen him with a homeless woman named Shaylee at the food bank a few times, though. She frigging adores Kyson, but he refuses to see it. He doesn’t think he’s good enough for her.”

He smiled a little when they got to Kyson’s room. Unlike the rest of the place, the exterior walkway was clear of all trash and dirt. Kyson liked his surroundings neat and orderly, always had. He might be down on his luck right now, but that didn’t mean he wanted to look like it.

“I can’t wait for you to meet him. I promise you’re going to like him,” Trey told Samantha again as he knocked on the door.

When Kyson didn’t make an appearance, Trey knocked again, a little harder this time, leaning in closer to the door to try to pick up any sounds from within the room. His friend was always home by this time of the day, since all of the manual labor temporary jobs usually finished up by six o’clock. And while Kyson would occasionally buy some beer and drink a little bit too much when he did, then go to sleep early, that was normally on the weekends when he didn’t have to get up with the sun in order to find work.

“He’s gone,” a rough voice said from their left. “Manager already cleared out the room and everything. Gave away all his stuff…what there was of it.”

Trey turned to see a skinny guy with a scraggly gray beard standing there.

“What do you mean gone?” Trey asked.

He got a sinking feeling in his stomach while he waited for the man to answer. It hit him then that the familiar scent he associated with his friend was so faint it was almost nonexistent.

“He killed himself three weeks ago,” the guy said bluntly. “I found him hanging in his shower. I heard some noise in his room and thought he might be in trouble, so I came over to check, but I was too late.”

Trey stopped listening, his whole world coming to a screeching halt. There was no way in hell that Kyson could be dead. He wouldn’t kill himself. He would have called Trey if he even thought of doing something like that.

That was a lie. Kyson had never called him when he’d needed help or anything else. How many times had his friend told him that he didn’t want to be a burden? And how many times had Trey told him that he wasn’t?

Trey vaguely heard Samantha talking to the man, heard the guy say something about Kyson being fired from a job for getting mad and punching someone. From what the man said, Trey got the feeling his friend had been fired from quite a few jobs lately. He and Kyson had shared a couple boxes of pizza and breadsticks a little over three weeks ago, and his friend had never breathed a word of any of this to him.

Dammit, why hadn’t he realized his friend was hurting?

Trey didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the conversation as Samantha continued to talk with the man, getting a small cardboard box from him before asking who had come to pick up the body. Trey knew all of that was important, but right then, he simply couldn’t process any more. Kyson was gone. Nothing seemed to make sense at the moment.

A little while later, they ended up at Samantha’s office at the institute, though Trey could barely remember even getting back in the Jeep, much less her driving them there. He was somewhat baffled about why they’d gone there until he heard Louis explain to Samantha that Kyson’s death had been ruled a suicide and that there was no need for a full autopsy. He even showed them paperwork to prove it.

“UT Southwestern handles burial assistance for Dallas County in cases like this,” Louis added softly, his eyes kind behind his glasses, seeming to know that Kyson had been important to him. “We were able to confirm his military background, so the VA paid for most of the cremation. The county covered the rest. With no next of kin, there was no one to send the ashes to. I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”

Trey mumbled his thanks, then let Samantha guide him out to the Jeep again. Fifteen minutes later, he was sitting in a chair at the small table in her kitchen, sipping on the whiskey she’d pulled out of the back of a cabinet, numbly watching as she made soup and sandwiches for dinner.

“You don’t have to make anything.” He took a large swallow of his drink even though it was nearly impossible for a werewolf to get drunk on anything less than a case of whiskey. “I asked you to dinner, so we should go somewhere.”

Samantha gave him a small smile as she continued to stir the soup. “I thought maybe it would be better if we hung out here and talked for a while.”

And in that moment, Trey realized he was so completely done for. Even if he attempted to ignore the whole damn soul-mate thing, he was going to have to accept that Samantha had slipped in and taken up residence in his chest—right where his heart was. After spending little more than a long weekend with him, she was smart enough to know he was in no shape to be going anywhere, so she’d taken him to her place and made them soup and sandwiches. If she pulled out a bag of Fritos, he was going to have to do something serious, like wash her windows or something.

“Talking would be good,” he answered, enjoying this little domestic moment, even if it came in the middle of the shittiest night he’d had in a long time.

When Samantha brought over the soup and sandwiches, she was carrying a bag of corn chips, too. Which, yeah, put a smile on his face. Sitting down across from him, she pulled the small cardboard box he’d seen her get from the neighbor at Kyson’s apartment closer. Trey stared down at the bowl of tomato soup in front of him as she opened the box and reached inside.

“What’s this?” she asked, holding up a piece of framework covered in rectangles of colorful cloth and tiny bits of metal.

Trey’s breath caught as he stared at the thing in Samantha’s delicate hand. He hadn’t realized his friend had even kept anything from his days in the military.

“It’s Kyson’s ribbon rack.” Spoon in one hand, he reached out the other to run a finger over the stiff pieces of fabric. “They’re his award and campaign ribbons from when he was in the army. They’re worn on a soldier’s dress uniform on the left side, over his heart. I didn’t know he kept his.”

Samantha was silent for a while as she ate spoonfuls of soup. “Do you have one?” When Trey nodded, she pointed at the rack of ribbons. “I assume the different colors mean something special, right? And these little pieces of metal in the middle of these ribbons mean something, too?”

Trey knew exactly what Samantha was doing. She was dragging him out of the darkness in his head and he loved her for it.

“Yeah. Every ribbon has a meaning, especially to the soldier who receives them.” He tapped the rack. “And these little pieces of metal as you call them are oak leaf clusters and knots that signify multiple awards. One cluster means the second award and two clusters means the third award. The rules with the knots are a little different simply because the army refuses to make anything easy, but you get the basic idea.”

Samantha laughed as she took a bite of her turkey and cheese sandwich. “Tell me about the ribbons and what they all mean. And if you know why Kyson got them, I’d love to hear the stories.”

Just when Trey thought she couldn’t possibly get any better, she did.

So they sat there at her small kitchen table, eating their soup and sandwiches, while Trey walked her through every single ribbon on the rack, from the simplest Army Service Ribbon, through all the campaign ribbons for Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Global War on Terrorism, and finally finishing with Kyson’s Purple Heart and Bronze Star for the battle the two of them had been in together in Kabul. In between, there were a lot of other awards for achievement and commendation. And Trey had been around for all of them. He told Samantha every one of those stories, even the one about the last battle they’d fought in together. Talking about everything he’d been through with Kyson brought tears to his eyes and made it feel like his heart was being ripped out of his chest, but he told her everything and felt better afterward.

When every bit of food was gone, every ribbon explained, and every story told, they pulled the cardboard box closer and began to go through its contents together. There were copies of Kyson’s awards and discharge paperwork, patches off his old uniforms, trinkets and keepsakes from years spent traveling the world. Underneath all the knickknacks was a picture of an enormous Kyson standing with an arm around a petite, shy-looking blond who barely came up to the middle of his chest.

“That’s Shaylee,” Trey whispered, tears blurring his vision again. “I knew he liked her, too, even if he refused to admit it to me.”

He wondered if anyone had told Shaylee that Kyson was dead. The poor woman was going to be devastated.

If Trey was surprised by the photo of Kyson and Shaylee, he was even more stunned when he saw the picture at the very bottom of the box, this one of Trey and Kyson rigged out in full battle rattle taken only days before that miserable mission in Afghanistan that had nearly killed both of them.

Samantha grabbed the picture away from him excitedly. “You look so young in this! I swear you somehow look smaller than you are now.”

Trey shrugged as he let out a chuckle. How could he tell her that going through his werewolf transition had slapped forty pounds of muscle on him and about five inches in height? “That’s what I get for standing beside Kyson. I told you the guy was frigging huge. He looked even bigger in all his gear. Made me seem like a small guy in comparison.”

Samantha studied the photo again and then him, as if trying to work through the size differences and the scale of the picture. Fortunately, there wasn’t much there for her to work with to prove him wrong.

“You two look like the very best of friends,” she said with a smile as she handed the picture back to him. “I’m sorry I never got a chance to meet him.”

“Me, too.”

Trey gazed at the photo for a long time, replaying the moment when it had been taken, and all the moments that had happened since, culminating in some stranger telling him that his best friend had killed himself.

“I should have done something,” he whispered brokenly. “I knew he was having problems transitioning back to civilian life and getting past what happened in Afghanistan. I should have dragged him to more VA meetings, forced him to get counseling for his depression. He was my best friend and I failed him.”

“Stop,” Samantha said firmly, her hand coming out to cover his own, which was still holding the picture. “You didn’t fail him. I’m not going to act like I knew the details of the situation, but it’s obvious you were there for your friend. Sometimes, even that’s not enough. Kyson wouldn’t want you blaming yourself for his death.”

Trey knew she was right, but he still felt like shit anyway. He replayed every conversation he’d had with his friend over the past few months, trying to understand why he didn’t see this coming and berating himself because he hadn’t.

He and Samantha talked for hours about Kyson, their friendship, and all the things he wished he could have done for his friend. She was amazing at letting him get it all out without letting him wallow in it. By the time midnight rolled around, Trey felt like he might be okay. Yeah, Kyson’s death was going to hurt for a long time, but with Samantha’s help, he knew he’d get through it.

“As much as I hate to leave, we both have to be up early tomorrow,” he said, brushing her hair back as they sat cuddling on the couch.

She straightened up to look at him in concern. “Are you okay to drive home?”

He pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “Yeah. Thanks to you.”

Trey slipped off to use the restroom before he headed home. He was gazing at a photo of Samantha and her sister, Loralei, standing in the snow somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, when he noticed the door to the guest bedroom was slightly ajar. Trey found himself moving toward it without realizing what he was even doing, his inner wolf guiding him.

What he saw in the room knocked the air out of his lungs. The space wasn’t a guest room at all, but a home office, with a desk and a series of filing cabinets. Three of the walls were covered floor to ceiling with photos of Trey, his pack mates, and dozens of crime scenes. He recognized many of the pictures from those situations when the Pack had come damn close to revealing itself. She even had pictures and articles from New Orleans and Los Angeles, including a blurry picture of a large wolf running down a dimly lit street in the rain. Lengths of different colored yarn connected the various crime scenes to different members of the Pack, with a scary number of them connecting back to him.

Two fast strides brought him over to the desk and the file folder left open on top of it. It was filled with stuff about him, from his performance evaluations at work to his friends and family to medical history, even details from his time in the military. It was his whole damn life.

Worried Samantha would come looking for him, Trey quickly slipped out of the bedroom, careful to leave the door ajar like it was before, then headed out to the living room, all the while fighting to calm his breathing even as his insides churned like water in a washing machine.

He’d known Samantha was suspicious all along, so what he saw shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. She wasn’t merely suspicious about him and his pack mates. She was frigging stalking them. Even as she stood and wrapped him in another hug, asking him again if he was going to be okay, all Trey could think about was that every word she’d spoken to him this evening had been nothing more than a ruse to get him to trust her. To get him to spill everything to her. And it had been working.

“Text me when you get home,” she murmured, lifting up on her toes to kiss him. “I want to make sure you get there okay.”

Trey nodded and kissed her back, telling her he’d definitely text even though his head was spinning so fast he was practically dizzy as he walked to his truck.