Iron Claws and Fragile Hearts
Chapter 53: Sympathy for the Devil
"Who's Rick?"
Ethan let out a shuddering breath and stared at the hardwood floor between his feet.
"He was my first boyfriend. I killed him."
Isaac's stomach lurched and a chill rolled down his spine, but he didn't take his arm from around Ethan's shoulders.
Ethan turned his head and drew in another shaky breath. His brow was furrowed with anguish and his chocolate eyes were wide with pain. His mouth had pulled into a thin, stiff line, and the tangy, sour scent of his guilt was so thick in the air that it made Isaac's nostrils burn and his throat close as it coiled in his gut.
"Okay," Isaac whispered, sitting back on the couch and pulling Ethan back with him. "Tell me what happened."
Ethan tensed and resisted Isaac's efforts to draw him against his chest. "You want details?"
Isaac rubbed Ethan's back and refused to take his cold, angry tone personally. "Whatever you want to tell me."
"What you want is to hear that it was self dense." Ethan stared straight ahead, his body rigid as he spoke in the same cold tone. "You want me to say that I had no choice. That he was evil. That I was protecting myself or Aiden."
Isaac didn't answer. He didn't move at all as he waited for Ethan to continue.
"That's not what happened." Ethan turned back to him, his eyes glowing icy blue and his face stony. "He wasn't dangerous. He wasn't a bad person...and I murdered him in cold blood."
Cold blood. It rushed through Isaac's veins and made the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stick up. For the first time in a long time Isaac remembered who Ethan was, the way Ethan had kidnapped and tortured him, mind-raped him and tried to kill him when Braeden had rescued him. He saw Boyd's face as the life drained away from it, recalled the dead look in Erica's eyes from his recovered memory. Ethan was a monster.
Isaac licked his lips around his bulging fangs, and his eyes glowed with golden heat, dispelling the cold terror with hot fury.
"You can leave," Ethan said quietly, turning away. "Take my bike."
Isaac stood and glanced at the kitchen counter where Ethan had left his keys.
Take my bike.
The words rang in Isaac's ears, reminding him of the last time Ethan had spoken them to him, right in this very room.
"I'm sorry I ever hurt you. I would take it back if I could."
"I don't need to hear your heartbeat to know that, jackass."
"Isaac, I'm trying–"
"I know that! I know you're trying."
"We can–"
"No, Ethan, we can't. This is too hard, for both of us. Just stay away from me, okay? Please."
Ethan had pressed his keys into Isaac's hand and rubbed his thumb over Isaac's fingers. "Take my bike."
Isaac shook his head. Everything with Ethan had been so difficult back then. It had felt impossible to stay with him, to work through their problems...to forgive him. Now leaving felt impossible. It was too difficult to be angry at Ethan. He had been a monster, but he wasn't anymore, not even close.
Isaac dropped into a crouch in front of him and cupped his neck, forcing him to meet his eyes.
"I forgive you, Ethan, for everything you did to me and my pack. I know that's not what you're feeling guilty about right now...but if it helps."
Ethan closed his eyes and opened his mouth. A gasping sob slipped out. "It helps a lot."
Isaac stood, pulling Ethan up with him and into a tight hug. He nosed at Ethan's ear and kissed the space just below it where jaw met neck. "You're not that guy anymore. You're a good person."
Ethan's body trembled, his breathing harsh and erratic. Barely a week ago Isaac would have been terrified of being confronted with someone lost in so much emotional pain, but a lot had happened since then, and Isaac knew firsthand how much it helped to get those feelings out. He and Ethan weren't pack, but his need to comfort Ethan was instinctual all the same.
"Stop trying to hold it back." Isaac stroked the base of Ethan's skull with his thumb and locked his other arm tight around Ethan's waist. "I'm not going anywhere."
Ethan looked at him one more time, his jaw clenched and his eyes dry as they met Isaac's with a silent question.
Isaac felt his own gaze soften as he gave a reassuring nod. "It's okay."
Ethan released a halting breath and hooked his chin over Isaac's shoulder. A moment later he dissolved against him, a wave of turbulent emotions gushing out and flooding the room.
Isaac held him through it, his hands slow and steady as they traveled up and down Ethan's arms, under the back of his shirt, along his sides and over his hips. Isaac knew that it hurt being an omega, and he was desperate to soothe Ethan's touch-starved werewolf senses as much as he could.
As he touched Ethan, a sharp, quivering ache burned in the corner of Isaac's chest that he associated with his connections to his packmates. It hurt to keep that final, crucial area closed off from Ethan. It hurt to connect with him on such an intimate human level while denying their wolves the joy and security of a packbond. It hurt to leave Ethan wallowing in the painful isolation that came with being an omega.
But it had to be done.
Ethan wasn't pack, and that was a very important distinction to maintain. Ethan's pack status wasn't Isaac's call to make. Scott would forgive him if he made the connection anyway, but he wouldn't forgive himself. So he fought against the blinding impulse to bond with this werewolf that he cared so much about, tearing himself in two as he fully surrendered to his human emotions and lavished Ethan with affection even as he wrapped a cold blanket around the raw, aching tendrils in his chest that longed to reach out to Ethan and form a permanent supernatural bond.
"Aiden tried to stop me."
"What?"
Ethan pulled back. He sniffled as Isaac caressed his face and wiped the tears away. He looked so innocent with his emotions lain bare and his dark, soulful eyes tender and glistening. Isaac didn't care who Ethan had killed or what he had done; this was the real Ethan and he was beautiful and good. Isaac would never doubt it again.
"Deucalion ordered us to kill them, Rick and Megan." Ethan covered Isaac's hand on his cheek and squeezed his fingers. "Aiden said we should run instead."
"So you didn't have a choice." Isaac tried to keep the vindication out of his voice.
Ethan sighed and started to pull away, but stopped when Isaac's hands dropped to his hips.
"I did have a choice," he whispered, his gaze breaking from Isaac's and a fresh cloud of shame and guilt filling the air between them. "Aiden gave me a choice. I chose wrong."
"I'm sure you–"
"He didn't kill her. Megan, Rick's sister, Aiden was dating her...and he let her go." Ethan took a sharp breath and stared at the ground between their feet. "He's never killed anyone he cares about."
"I don't understand. I–"
"I know. I keep telling you he's loyal but you won't believe me."
"He's an asshole," Isaac answered, rubbing Ethan's shoulders to keep the words from stinging.
"Yeah." Ethan laughed. "But I should have listened. He was right." Ethan raked a hand through his hair and sat on the couch. "I didn't think we could get away from Deucalion, but we should have tried because now I know I'll never get away from what I did."
Isaac sat beside him, angling his body sideways and tugging Ethan against him. This time Ethan didn't resist, instead laying his head on Isaac's shoulder and lifting his legs onto the couch so that he was half lying on Isaac.
"Will you tell me the whole story?" Isaac trailed his fingers down Ethan's side and hooked his thumb into one of Ethan's belt loops. "From the beginning?"
Ethan nodded and took a few moments before speaking.
"I-I don't want this to sound like I'm making excuses, but I want you to understand where I was coming from."
"Okay." Isaac nuzzled Ethan's head. He wanted to understand too.
"After Keith killed our family and took over our old pack, he spent the next three years abusing us." Ethan froze and lifted his head.
"Go on," Isaac answered, ignoring the smell of whiskey and the sound of broken glass that reverberated in his mind. He tightened his grip on Ethan and kissed his forehead.
"I guess one act of revenge against my family, however violent, wasn't enough for him. So he kept getting his revenge on Aiden and me daily." Ethan bit his lip and lowered his eyes. "That type of thing messes with your head."
"Yeah."
"When I was a kid, I used to think the world was this wonderful place, and all I wanted to do was make it even better." Ethan lay his head on Isaac's chest. "But after three years of listening to my bones break over and over, to my brother howling in agony, to Keith laughing in perverse glee...all I wanted was revenge. I wanted to make him suffer the way Aiden and I had suffered. I wanted to destroy him for what he did to my family."
Ethan fell silent for a few moments, leaving Isaac to relive his own revenge fantasies.
"When Deucalion showed up and taught us how to merge and kill them...it wasn't enough. I wanted it to be, but" –Ethan sat up and gave Isaac an apologetic look– "I was still filled with anger and bloodlust."
Isaac nodded.
"I'm sorry."
Isaac shrugged and squeezed Ethan's shoulder. "We're not talking about me. What happened with Rick and Megan?"
"Deucalion used our anger and resentment as a weapon. He made us think that that was all life was, just a cycle of hurting people before they could hurt you, that it was all about power and vengeance, and that him and Kali and Ennis were the only ones we owed any loyalty to."
Isaac frowned, unsure of how similar their situations were. Derek hadn't acted quite like that, but he had emphasized the importance of pack loyalty above all else, and he had tapped into Isaac's, Erica's, and Boyd's anger and resentment about their past to make it feel acceptable when he ordered them to fight Scott and go after Lydia when he thought she was the kanima. Lydia. She was one of the most important people in Isaac's life, and there had been a time when he was fully prepared to kill her because his alpha had said so.
"I should have known better. That's not how we were raised. But it felt...it feels like a lifetime since we were back home with our family, since violence was only something that happened on TV and in video games, and not something we watched happen to the people we love...not something we perpetrate on other people."
Isaac frowned and his thoughts strayed to his final visit with his mom in the hospital on the evening before she died. It felt like much longer ago than eight years. Violence hadn't immediately become a part of Isaac's life once she was gone, but the events that led to his abuse and eventual transformation into a werewolf had been set motion. Isaac liked being a werewolf, but it was violent. He wondered what it was like being a werewolf since birth and growing up in a non-violent environment.
"It was our first mission with Deucalion. We had just turned sixteen and killed Keith and our old pack to become alphas. I think we were drunk on the newfound power and what felt like freedom even though it wasn't." Ethan laced his fingers with Isaac's and traced his thumb over Isaac's knuckles.
Isaac recognized the action for what it was: a request for reassurance. He kissed the top of Ethan's head and squeezed his hand. "Whatever you tell me isn't going to change anything," he whispered, confident it was true. He didn't care what Ethan had done. Ethan was his.
Ethan sighed and some of the tension eased from his muscles.
"We were in Florida, just outside of Fort Lauderdale. There was a large and powerful pack there. Rick and Megan's mom, Leslie, was the alpha. Deucalion wanted her to join us, so he enrolled us at Rick and Megan's high school and had us get close to them. Rick was our age. Megan was a year older. He was my first" –Ethan swallowed– "everything. My first boyfriend. My first real crush. My first kiss. My first…time."
"You were in love with him." Isaac patted Ethan's hip.
"No, I don't think so," Ethan answered in a detached voice. "It didn't feel like it did with Danny or with–"
Isaac wouldn't have been able to hear Ethan's next word if he hadn't been a werewolf.
"–you."
Isaac blinked as a warm chill, a happy wave of terror, washed over him. Had Ethan really just said that he was–
Ethan cleared his throat. "Anyway, I cared about him, and I was completely infatuated. I mean, you saw the picture, he was really hot, and he was fun to be with. He had this...light that I hadn't been around in a long time. It was wholesome and compelling. The world was still that wonderful place for him that it had stopped being for me, and I think I let myself get lost in the fantasy for awhile. I pretended I was just a normal guy crushing on a cute boy and sneaking out at night to meet him on the beach." Ethan laughed and something approaching happiness sparked in his scent. "The two of us and Aiden and Megan spent the full moon together that month, wolfed out and running across the wet sand, splashing through the midnight surf, rolling around and chasing each other." Ethan's scent became bittersweet. "He wasn't just an assignment; he was my boyfriend."
"So what happened?" Isaac asked softly.
"The fantasy ended." Ethan's voice was distant as he stared at the blank television screen mounted to the wall across from them. "Rick's mom wouldn't join the pack."
"So you..."
"Deucalion had a party."
"A party?" to celebrate murdering them?
"He had been dating – courting as he called it – Leslie, so she trusted him. He hosted a party and invited her and all the adult members of her pack to the house where we were staying. Kali and Ennis were there at the party too, but he had arranged for Aiden to be out with Megan, and Rick and I were alone at his house."
"So you knew ahead of time?"
"Oh yes," Ethan whispered, voice tight, "it was premeditated and in cold blood."
Isaac rubbed Ethan's chest, his thumb curling under the hem of his v-neck and massaging his warm, smooth skin. "You wouldn't do that now, and I know you didn't want to then."
Ethan shook his head. "That doesn't bring Rick back."
Isaac wanted to ask questions, but he waited for Ethan to resume the story when he was ready.
"The plan was for Deucalion to get Leslie alone at the party and spring everything on her, tell her she had a choice to make: She could kill her pack, take their power, and join us, but Rick and Megan would get to live...or we would kill them all."
"But she wouldn't join?"
"No." Ethan let out a ragged sigh. "I really thought she would for Rick and Megan's sake. I knew he would hate me when he found out, but I didn't think it would come to..."
"I think" –Isaac licked his lips and brushed his thumb over Ethan's collarbone– "it's an impossible choice to make for someone who's a good parent and a good alpha. I mean the conflicting instincts..."
"Yeah, I know," Ethan said quietly. "What we did was unconscionable."
"But Aiden let Megan go?"
"Yeah." Ethan breathed the word against Isaac's chest. "The night before everything went down, after Deucalion told us the plan, he came to my room and said we should just run away right then and there. That we weren't" –Ethan let out a dry laugh– "killers."
"You're not," Isaac whispered.
"Isaac–"
"You're not. You're more than that."
"I wasn't that day." Ethan disentangled himself from Isaac and sat up. "I was a coward. I was afraid of Deucalion. When we joined the alpha pack, he said it was for life, that we could never leave and that if we tried he would hunt us down...but not to kill us."
The look on Ethan's face made Isaac's blood run cold, but he had to ask. "What did he say he would do?"
"Make us watch while he took turns torturing us until we killed each other to make it stop." Ethan's tone was emotionless and his eyes were distant with imagined horrors.
Isaac grabbed Ethan's arms and shook him out of his daze. "Then you were protecting yourself and Aiden."
Ethan shook his head and looked away. "Aiden was right. We should have run...everything changed after that."
"What happened?" Isaac whispered.
Ethan flashed his icy blue eyes at him.
"But you were an alpha."
"I felt it." Ethan smirked and continued in a humorless voice. "Killing Keith and the others in my old pack felt good." The tips of Ethan's teeth extended into half-fangs. "It was justice. But with Rick it was murder. I haven't..." Ethan's cheeks flushed and his eyes cooled to a troubled brown. "I haven't been able to feel good about myself since."
Isaac wrapped him up in a hug and kissed his neck. "Trust me, there's a lot to feel good about."
"I haven't told you about it yet," Ethan whispered.
"I don't need to hear any more."
"No." Ethan pried himself out of Isaac's grip and glared. "I want to tell you what I did."
"Okay." Isaac glared back and took Ethan's hand. "But I meant what I said. It's not going to change anything between us."
Ethan drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, visibly calming himself. "I convinced Aiden that we needed to wait. If Leslie joined us, Rick and Megan would live and the killing of the rest of her pack would be on her hands, not ours."
Isaac arched an eyebrow but stayed silent.
Ethan laughed bitterly and shrugged one shoulder. "Yeah, Aiden didn't buy that either. He wanted to leave that night and send them a warning message as soon as we were outta town."
"Aiden?"
Ethan pulled his hand away and frowned. "Yeah. Aiden."
Isaac gave Ethan a small apologetic nod and shifted closer on the couch.
"I was a mess that night when I got to Rick's house. He noticed of course, and I couldn't lie to him, so I just said it was a pack problem, and Deucalion would know and be mad if I told him." Ethan stared at the sliver of couch cushion between them. "I don't know why I said that. I should have just come clean. That's pretty much what Aiden did when Megan realized something was wrong."
Isaac covered Ethan's knee with his hand. "You should have never had to be in that position."
"But I was, and what I did is on me and no one else." Ethan reached for Isaac's hand but pulled his own away at the last moment. "I kept waiting for the text that it was all over, that Leslie had killed her pack and I could leave. I was prepared to break Rick's heart, but..." Ethan let out a sob.
Isaac wrapped his arms around Ethan and resisted his efforts to pull away.
"I broke his neck instead, Isaac." Ethan trembled and sputtered. "Two words. Deucalion sent two words: Kill him – and I did. I fucking did."
Isaac tried to tug Ethan's head against his shoulder, but he wouldn't budge. He met Isaac's eyes with glowing blue ones.
"I kissed him. And my hands landed on his neck and his chin and–and I didn't even think. I–"
"Ethan–"
"I killed him, Isaac!"
A tear rolled down Isaac's cheek as Ethan clung to the front of shirt and broke down in shuddering sobs. Isaac thought the story was over but–
"I covered his mouth and nose so he couldn't breathe, and I kept his neck twisted at the wrong angle so it couldn't heal."
"Deucalion was the one who–"
"I freaked out when it was over." Ethan laughed, sharp and fast. "I tried to revive him. I did CPR. Over and over–"
"Ethan–"
"Aiden found me at their house and dragged me away from the body."
Isaac didn't know what to say, so he held Ethan and rubbed his back.
Ethan pulled his head back and met Isaac's gaze with red-ringed eyes and a tear-streaked face. "Aiden was disappointed in me. He didn't say it, but it was obvious. He didn't think I would go through with it...I didn't either."
"Was Deucalion mad that Aiden had let Megan go?"
Ethan flinched and nodded. "Oh yes. He punished Aiden...a lot. But he was p..." Ethan sniffled and lowered his head to Isaac's chest again. "He was proud of me, so he let Aiden off easy. Megan and the other teens and the kids in the pack fled town, and he didn't even care enough to go after them."
Isaac nodded as the pieces fell into place. "So I'm guessing those texts aren't really from Rick, but from Megan using his number?"
"Yeah," Ethan whispered, pushing Isaac backward on the couch and shifting on top of him. "I couldn't bring myself to delete him from my phone. I guess she kept his account active."
Isaac spread his legs so that Ethan could lie between them. He ran his hand down the side of Ethan's face and nuzzled his chin against the top of his head.
"I don't deserve this." Ethan trembled and snuggled against Isaac's chest.
"Yes, you do," Isaac whispered, squeezing Ethan close with one hand and trailing his other hand up and down Ethan's back.
"She's coming to kill me...and I might let her."
"I'll stop her." Isaac stroked Ethan's cheek and let his eyes flare with heat. If they had to turn cold and blue to do it, then so be it.
-000-
End Notes: Feedback is greatly appreciated! I am still planning to try to accelerate the posting schedule, but realistically it probably won't happen till after the New Year since the holidays are rather disruptive.
