A Fraudulent Death, Draft 02, CH 04 (Patreon)

The officers patted Trembor’s arm and shoulders as he passed by them; the mouse leading him through the precinct. They offered support, told him this would be resolved quickly, and he’d be back in his office any day now.

He accepted the good wishes in the spirit they were meant; to them, he was a friend and colleague in a bit of trouble, nothing more. They weren’t the first. Officers visited him while in the cage, told them they knew this was all some mistake, a frame-job, and that they wouldn’t stop until they’d cleared his name. He wanted to tell them he’d done everything he was accused of. But he was worried all that would do was cause them to make sure the evidence vanished.

This was one aspect of making friends Trembor never considered.

The mouse pushed the door to the lobby open, and almost before Trembor stepped through, a lioness had her arms around him.

“Oh, Trem, I am so happy you’re out of there.”

“I’m fine, Mom.” He hugged her back. “It’s just a cage, nothing dangerous. The only ones in there were drunks, and they were sleeping it off.”

She took his head in her hands and studied him. “Don’t give me that, Trembor Goldenmane,” she said severely. “They had no right to—”

“Mom, I’m being accused of a crime, they had to cage me.”

Torim snorted before hugging his son. “Only because they don’t know you.”

Cerek, Baytil, and Vexori were next, and once his siblings stepped away, Dayra extended her arms to be picked up.

“Was it bad?” she asked, looking at his face, then pulled his lips up to study his teeth.

“No, it wasn’t,” he answered once she was done. “You didn’t have to get me out,” he told his father.

“No son of mine will stay in a cage while wrongly accused,” Torim declared. “How was Barany? He told me Flattooth is handling your case herself. I never liked that female. She’s more interested in pushing her career than upholding justice.”

“He was fine,” Trembor answered, wishing he could say something else. Anything that wouldn’t raise his family’s hopes. He needed to break it to them softly.

“Did you brush?” Dayra asked, either not noticing, or more likely not caring about the tension. Her needs were still more important than adults.

“I did, this morning.” He handed her back to her mother. He didn’t want to be brusque with his niece. “Thanks for getting me out, Dad, Mom.” He did his best to sound grateful. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to head home; get some meat in me and—”

“Nonsense,” Arina said, “you are coming with us.” His mother looked at him sternly, daring him to contradict her. “We’re going to make sure you can rest after this.”

“Mom, I appreciate it, but—”

“No buts, Trembor. This isn’t a time to isolate yourself. It’s a time for you to let your family be there for you. We will support you while you get through this.” Her tone had a finality to it that made Trembor want to scream at her that there was nothing to get through. Dayra’s presence meant he couldn’t scream.

He let out a breath. “Mom, I just want to be alone, right now.” And get ready for Marlot’s visit. The message that had been waiting on his pad when it was returned had warmed his heart and worried him. Not that he was telling his parents that. After the ranting he’d done about how the wolf had treated him, they’d need even more time to warm up to the idea than to accept he’d committed crimes.

“Trem,” she said, sounding worried. “You—”

“I’m going to drive him, Mom,” Cerek said. “I know you mean well, but us males, we need a bit more solitude than you.”

Torim didn’t look happier than she did, but he placed a hand on her shoulder. He’d accepted Cerek’s reasoning because he knew it was true. The males of his family didn’t have a need to band together to handle their problems. But he wasn’t done. It would be a day, maybe two, but Torim would be back, and Trembor would have to tell him the truth right then, and deal with the ensuing explosion, or be careful in the scent he laid down to lead his father to understand what was happening slow enough he’d remain calm about it.

They stepped outside and Trembor cursed as the wind nuzzled its way under his too-light jacket. What had happened to the warm weather of a few days ago? His mother tried to get him to come home with them again, as they separated to go to the different cars, and then he was in his brother’s warm car.

Cerek watched him, then drove them out of the parking lot. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Trembor answered with a tired sigh. “At least they didn’t bring everyone.”

“They tried, but we don’t all have the flexibility to leave work at a moment’s notice. Someone suggested coming later tonight when everyone was off work, but Mom wouldn’t hear of it.”

“How are Herelex and Isenson?” He wished the drive would be silent, but his brother wouldn’t let that happen, so his best hope was to direct the conversation toward safe subjects. Cerek looked at him, anger flashing, before his eyes were back on the road, and Trembor knew there’d be no way to keep this to safe subjects.

“That wolf was at your place when I picked them up,” he said, tone as frigid as the outside wind.

“Cer—”

“No, you left them with him. I think I deserve some explanation.”

“Tell me you didn’t try anything.” He knew Marlot was still alive. He had the message on his pad, but that didn’t mean his brother hadn’t—

“Not with Herelex and Isenson there. Right now they have enough to deal with.”

“And how are they—”

“No, we’re not talking about them. You’re explaining why you would ever consider letting that wolf look after them.”

Trembor sighed and closed his eyes. “Marl was over to talk when I was arrested. It wasn’t like I had many options.”

“Marl?” Cerek asked in disbelief. “You’re back to calling him that? What the fuck is wrong with you, Trem? After what he did to you?”

“He didn’t—”

“Don’t you dare tell me he didn’t hurt you.”

“I wasn’t—”

The glared shut Trembor up, and he could see it from his brother’s point of view. After Gorrek’s abuse had turned physical, how many times had Trembor excuse the lion’s actions? Gorrek hadn’t meant it; he was really sorry he’d done it. Cerek had been the first to see through him, and Trembor had been angry at his brother. Had accused him of trying to break them up.

“Marl isn’t Gorrek.” He said and waited for the explosion. When it didn’t come, he looked at his brother. His eyes were on the road, but his claws were digging into the steering wheel. “He did hurt me, I’m not denying that, but I—Fuck. I believe him when he says he didn’t mean to.”

“Like you believed—”

“No! Damn it, Cer, stop trying to make Marl into that lion. He screwed up. He overreacted, and I did too. We’re both responsible for the pain we inflicted on each other. And I—we want to try and fix it.”

Cerek glanced at him. “And you believe him?”

“I’m not jumping right back in his bed if that’s what you’re asking. We’ve agreed to talk. To figure things out. He has his flaws, but we all do. That doesn’t make him a bad male.”

“He hacked your pad, locked you out of it.”

Trembor nodded. The memory was still strong, the utter betrayal, the sense of his options being taken away from him. The realization it was a pattern with Marlot; to bully through things that didn’t go his way.

“Like I said, he has his flaws. His upbringing was rough too. It’s not a pass to claw me, just an acknowledgment that as painful as the action was, it had a motivation that wasn’t entirely me.”

Cerek moved his hand off the steering will and glared at it when the claws didn’t retract. He shook it until they did. “I don’t like it, Trem. It feels way too much like those times when I tried to make you see what that lion was doing to you.”

“I know. And I’m sorry I was such a stubborn ass.”

Cerek snorted. “You wouldn’t be a Goldenmane if you didn’t have a stubborn streak somewhere in you. Not one of us can say Dad didn’t pass along something to us.”

“Are we good?”

His brother sighed. “I’m not going to take excuses this time. If I call you out on what the wolf is doing and you try to shut me down, I am telling Serene. You can explain yourself to her then.”

“Wow, you want to get rid of me that badly?” Trembor chuckled.

“I’m not joking. I am not watching you go through that again. I’ll put you out of your misery myself if I have to.”

Trembor nodded. “That’s fair. Now, our nephews?”

Cerek glared at him, then sighed. “They’re fine. Our moms were done with Bo by the time I dropped them off. I tried to get him to talk, but he’s Torim’s son too. I’m guessing you know some of what’s going on with him, being the listener that you are. Can you tell me anything of why he’d be accused of killing a cub?”

Trembor looked outside. The falling snow looked beautiful. It was too bad it turned ugly under the car’s wheels.

“Trem, I’m not pulling a dad on you. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on in our family. He gets accused of under-age predation, you get accused of tampering with an investigation. I know you, and unlike our parents, I’m not blind to how far you’ll go to protect one of us.”

“What did you catch on the news about Marl and the hunter he caught?”

Cerek’s lips tightened at the name. “It was hard not to hear about it. The newsies wouldn’t shut up. He caught a hunter responsible for a dozen bodies or so. He’s a hero, lucky him.”

“There’s more to the story, and you aren’t telling anyone, Cer. This is so you’ll understand, not so you can share it with others. Give me your word.”

“You know what dad says about keeping secrets from the people who care.”

“The day you tell him everything you get up to, we can talk about keeping secrets.”

His brother chuckled. “You have my word.”

“The hunter targeted Marl. He wanted Marl to kill him. In the middle of that, me and him broke up, and that hunter decided he was going to fix our relationship.”

“You’re talking like that has something to do with Bo.”

“You said you know how far I’d got to protect my family. I didn’t. Nikal framed Bo to force me to make a decision. He forced me to pick what was more important to me, my integrity or my family. He pushed me to my breaking point, Cer. It’s why I understand a little how Marl could hack my pad and not see he was doing something wrong. That town; it pushed him to his breaking point. He ran away from it, then had to go back and he was desperate to do something, anything to make them pay. I got in the way of that.”

Cerek gasped. “You really did interfere with the investigation.”

Trembor snorted. “I can tell you it wasn’t easy, and if that’s all I’d done, maybe I could accept letting everyone do what they can to get me out of it.”

“No, you couldn’t.”

“Maybe not. But you know when Bo walked out of Dad’s car after their argument? He didn’t show up anywhere because that hunter took him. He left just enough clues so I could track them. And he did the same for Marl, so we ended up there at the same time.” He chuckled at how angry he’d been to see him there. The places his mind went to, so he could continue believing his wolf was the bad male in his life.

“I’m not going to bother with the details, but in the end, Nikal was in his back, and I was going to kill him. I wasn’t going to do it because he’d hurt my brother, kidnapped him. I was ready to hand him over to the enforcers for that, but then he told me he’d do things to Marl that would make what Gorrek did to me seem like he adored me. And I was going to kill him for that. I was going to kill him for even suggesting he would touch my wolf that way. My wolf. Marl is mine, and no one else.” He snorted. “You can’t imagine how pissed I was when Marlot stopped me from killing him. We have to hand him over, it’s the right thing to do. Marl, telling me what the right thing to do is. I’d have called him a hypocrite, if I wasn’t so happy to see he was okay. If I hadn’t been about to kill someone for no other reason than he was going to touch what was mine.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes.

“Is it weird,” Cerek said, “that for as screwed up as it all is. It’s fucking romantic that you and the wolf sort of got back together over taking down a hunter. Consider that’s how you met, it’s almost worthy of a vid.”

Trembor chuckled. “Maybe I should run it by L’nard’s tigress the next time I see them. Or that wolf friend of theirs. I think he’s the one who makes movies.”

“You mean the one seeing the coyote? I think he’d a professional photographer. Isn’t the movie producer that tiger she dated before our cousin?”

“I thought he was an actor too.”

“I can’t keep track of everything happening around that lion’s life.”

Trembor realized they were in his neighborhood. A few seconds later, Cerek stopped in front of his house.

“Are you sure you want to be alone?” his brother asked. “I get not wanting to be at Dad’s, but Palinox would love to have a favorite uncle staying over. I have a guest bedroom, you know.”

Trembor looked at his pad. At Marlot’s message. Maybe Cerek was right and he shouldn’t be on his own. Maybe taking the time to figure out what he’d tell his wolf was what he needed to do. Maybe it would be easier to handle all of this after he’d been caged. Keep Marlot from doing something rash to protect him.

Like not talking to him would keep that from happening. He closed his eyes and remembered holding him. Breathing his scent. Felt the craving for it rise. He missed his wolf.

“I’m not going to be alone.”

Cerek peeked at the pad and he sniffed the air, his lips tightening. “You smell like you want more than just talk.”

“I want everything, Cer. I want to erase these last weeks. Go back to before the trip to that fucking town. But I’m not going to take him to bed. We’re just going to talk. Figure out where to go from here.” He had no problem seeing the two of them on his bed, not talking at all.

“Be careful, Trem. You also let your judgment be impaired when Gorrek started being gentle with you after beating you. Just be careful.”

Trembor nodded and exited the car, cursing as the cold clawed through his jacket and ran to his house. The door closed behind him, he had trouble stopping the shivers. Even once he no longer felt cold, his fur had wouldn’t lie flat. He was going to be alone with his wolf for the first time in so long.

He needed to prepare and make sure Marl felt welcome.

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