“You can’t do that to me.”
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Keegan MacIntyre & Rory Laurence
prompt: carpush manwich by david sardy
He had told Rory not to go outside alone. He had told him.
Pushing his way through the crowds, fighting against the fierce urge to throw them out of his way, he followed Rory’s fading scent trail to the door that led out onto the street. The door almost cracked against the brick wall when he forced his way through it. He found the younger male almost straight away, his back to the wall, with a tall female standing in front of him. Had Keegan been in wolf form, his hackles would have lifted immediately.
If the female had heard him, she gave no sign, and Keegan crossed the distance between them in four strides, reaching out and taking a handful of her hair to yank her back. The fear in Rory’s eyes told him all he needed to know, as did the acrid stench of death in the air. The woman gasped as she was wrenched back, but she let out a breathless laugh when he let go and she came back to her senses. Keegan stood between her and her intended prize.
“My, my,” she purred. “You’re a big one, aren’t you?” She looked past him to where Rory still stood with his back pressed to the wall. “This is a tough choice.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes narrowing. A quiet hum in the back of her mouth was the only sound for several seconds. “I hate decisions,” she said at last. “I can handle two.” Her fangs showed then when she smiled at them, wide and hungry, her eyes darkening from their pale blue to an ugly shade of red. At Keegan’s back, Rory whimpered.
As she surged towards them, quick like a snake striking to kill, Keegan managed to move faster. It was Rory’s stalled breathing and the scent of the younger male’s sheer terror that gave him the push he needed to outmanoeuvre her. His own hatred and disgust made him brutal as he drove her down into the ground by the hand around her throat, his fingers pressing deeper and deeper, his short nails piercing the flesh as she bucked and thrashed like a trapped animal. The knife was freed from his belt in one pull and within moments it was buried in the female’s chest. A single wrench made an end of it. The ash was still scattering when Keegan straightened again, turning instantly to the young male who had become his brother in every way that mattered.
“I told you,” he said to Rory, taking hold of either side of his face and looking him square in the eyes. At any other time it might have been a stern reprimand, but the tremor in his voice and the fear in his eyes removed all severity. It was all he could do not to shake. “I told you-”
“I-I know, I’m sorry.” Rory was nodding, his eyes wet with tears that he was fighting to hold back. “I didn’t mean-”
Keegan didn’t let him finish, shaking his head and using one hand at his little brother’s collar to pull him into a hug. Rory felt so small, so young and fragile. Rory was the one he worried about, the one he feared losing the most. Cassidy, Molly, Sissy, they could -- and would -- all defend themselves if they were pushed, Cassidy and Molly with admirable ferocity, but Rory was the innocent one, the one who never really wanted to learn but made the effort anyway, because Keegan asked it of him. Rory was the one who could stumble naively into danger and not know how to find his way out again. Rory was the easiest target.
“You can’t do that to me,” he said softly against Rory’s dark hair, as lightly as he could manage, but he felt the younger wolf tense knowingly in his arms. “You can’t.” He ran his hand over the top of his brother’s head. “Do you understand me?”
With his face still buried in Keegan’s shoulder, Rory nodded his understanding. He was still shaking, trembling where he stood. They needed to go back inside, get back to the others, but Keegan would wait until his little brother had stopped shaking. Until they had both stopped shaking.