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A few minutes later, body humming with a strange, roiling mix of pride and embarrassment, Zev stormed out of the tent and towards the central fires of the encampment. The sun was high in the sky now. They’d spent far more of the morning dealing with all that shit than he’d intended.

Sasha was right. He did need to meet with the hunters and trackers. He needed to gather what they knew, make sure all the fighters knew it too. Start to make a plan to take out Elreth… Sasha was right to suggest that they split their time and energy to different tasks.

Except, it hadn’t been a suggestion. And that was what made the heat and tension in his chest near-unbearable. He walked away torn—half of him wishing to submit to his mate and commend her, to follow. The other half wanting to dominate and strike down her orders.

His hands were fists as he strode through the camp to the place where he knew the others would be waiting, but before he reached the line of tents where the clearing had been made for a central meeting area, he knew he couldn’t do it. He turned sharply, instinctively, shifted, and ran.

There was a shout behind him, but he ignored it, darting through the tents as fast as four legs could carry him, ignoring the bruises and aches from his fight with Lhars. And when he broke through the last row of tents, sprinting north, for the trees, and the foothills and… solitude.

The fight with Lhars had helped him calm a little. But it wasn’t enough. He still felt like the slightest shock might tip him over the edge.

He needed to get his head clear before he tried to make strategy with the hunters.

‘You stay at Sasha’s side until I’m back,’ he sent to Skhal in snap. A pang in his chest reminded him that Skhal was upset with him, but his friend could be trusted, he knew. He was one of the only ones Zev was sure of anymore.

.....

‘Done,’ Skhal returned in a low growl.

Zev sighed with relief and closed his mind. And then he ran.

*****

It wasn’t long after he found a small clearing and began to pace that he heard the footsteps approaching.

Adrenaline shocked his system, but either his brother scented it, or just knew him well enough.

‘It’s only me, and I’m not here to fight this time,’ he sent through the link, his tone hesitant in a way that set Zev’s teeth on edge. Why was everyone giving him such a wide berth?! He’s been imprisoned, not reprogrammed. He was still himself!

Wasn’t he?

He didn’t respond to Lhars, but went back to his pacing, letting his brother approach slowly, creeping out of the shadows under the trees and only stopping when he made it to the center of the small clearing, just ten feet or so from Zev.

“What do you want?” Zev growled.

“I want you to tell me what happened, Zev,” Lhars said gently. “It’s been months. Hard months. I’m so glad you’re safe—”

Zev cut him an incredulous look, but didn’t stop pacing.

“—but it’s clear you’re carrying something. And I think it might help to talk—”

“Reliving nightmares doesn’t help them fade,” Zev scowled.

“Nightmares aren’t memories,” Lhars said sadly. “Kyelle and I... we spend nights sometimes talking about the things that happened. The ways they changed us. It was her idea. I was resistant at first. But... I’m starting to understand. Sometimes we have to share a burden to lighten it.”

“I talk to my mate plenty.”

“About the ways you were taken from her, or the ways she’s been taken from you?”

Zev growled and glared again. “Three months as Alpha and you’re suddenly an expert? I had years and I still—”

“This has nothing to do with Alphas, Zev. This is being a mate. A male in love and... connected. It’s wonderful. But it’s risky, too. And terrifying in a whole new way. I didn’t understand a lot of what you were dealing with back in Thana. Especially at the beginning. I think I understand better now.”

Zev was aware of Lhars’ eyes on him, watching him pace. But he couldn’t bring himself to meet his brother’s soft gaze. He didn’t want sympathy right now. He wanted strength!

But Lhars had never been one to indulge Zev’s desires. So why would he start now?

When Zev didn’t answer—because he didn’t know what to say—Lhars scratched at his mind and when Zev opened to him reluctantly, Lhars started talking, and as he spoke, he showed Zev all of it through the link.

“I knew going in, when I fought to be Xar’s Second, that I was going in to protect things. To be at the center of it all so I’d know and be able to give it back to you when you came back. Because I knew you’d come back. But it was a long time, Zev. After a while, after the Team started showing up all the time and… controlling all of us, I got mad at you. Did I ever tell you about that?”

Lhars took a deep breath. “I blamed you when they hurt me,” he said bluntly. “If you hadn’t left, I would have been your second, not Xar’s. And it was obvious Xar was… losing his grip. The grief was getting to him. The twins were out of control. And he was… less and less reliable. More and more ridiculous. But it all happened slowly. And it was deceptive because the humans would come, and they’d separate all of us and he’d always be a little bit better for a while after they came, so I’d tell myself that they were helping him. But his descent towards madness got steeper and faster every time.”

Zev gritted his teeth. “I’m sorry. I told you, I was deceived—”

“I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad. Listen to me. I think… I think we share a lot more experiences than you think. Kyelle told me what it was like being in the sanctuary. And even though I know it was different for you… there’s some common threads, yeah?”

Zev shrugged, shying away from thinking about his time with Nick and the humans, and the way they twisted everything in his mind until he was becoming what they wanted without even realizing it…

“They torture you—mess with your body and twist your mind until you want things you didn’t want before, and you don’t fight things you would have fought, and… and you start trusting them, even though they’re the ones hurting you,” Lhars said softly. He swallowed audibly. “They take things from you and convince you that it’s for your own good.”

Zev’s breath rushed out of him.

“And they make it impossible to trust,” Lhars said, his voice flat and dead. “They make you think that the people you love the most don’t understand you—can’t understand you. And that the only ones you can trust are them. Because they’ve been there for all the dark parts and they still treat you like you’re important. So they aren’t rejecting you for it.”

Zev stopped pacing, staggered to a shocked halt to look at his brother. “How… how did you know that?”

Lhars’ eyes were pinched and sad. “Because I did things for them in Thana, Zev. It started easy and got worse and became… by the end, when you finally came back, I was holding on by a thread. I was getting desperate. Trying to prepare the wolves to flee because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold out before they broke me. I was so confused sometimes, and other times it was all really clear. But it was scary because it made me wonder, when it was clear… was that me seeing the truth? Or seeing what they wanted me to see?”

Zev clawed a hand through his hair, gaping at his brother. “What did they do to you?”

“They made me an enemy of my own people without even realizing it,” he said without hesitation. “And they stole my confidence in anything other than what they taught me, and what I was supposed to do for them.”

A tiny, strangled noise broke in Zev’s throat. He shook his head and turned away, pushing away the memories that rose, those confusing years, those days when he barely recognized himself. “Stop.”

“I won’t make you say it, Zev. I just want you to know you aren’t alone.”

“Stop. They’re sick. Our enemies are sick—they aren’t worth thinking about anymore.”

“Except… except if we don’t think about it, I wonder… are we risking turning into them?” Lhars said, his voice barely above a whisper—and then he dropped it into Zev’s mind: All the ways the humans had controlled their movements and corralled them, set them against each other, made them paranoid—fighting within their own ranks so they wouldn’t fight the Team…

Zev growled and flinched, slamming his mind closed.

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“No, it’s not,” Lhars said firmly. “But I think… if we pretend we aren’t capable of it, we’re lying to ourselves. I know I am. I know what I did, Zev. And I think I’ve got a pretty good hunch about what they did with you, too. We can’t ignore the capacity we have for… evil.”

“I am not like them!” Zev snarled, turning to face his brother again and locking eyes so there’d be no question. “I will never do that to Chimera. Never.”

“I believe you. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Will you do it to our enemies? Because I catch it in myself, Zev. When I learned that the Anima had their hands on you, that you were in a cage… I almost came for you. If it hadn’t been for Kyelle, I would have. I would have burned that place to the ground—and anyone in it—to get you and your family out of there. But if I had… if I had, I would have been no better than the humans I hated for doing that to us.”

Zev flinched.

“Just think about it. That’s all I’m asking,” Lhars said. Then after a moment’s hesitation, he turned and walked away, leaving Zev alone.