Alec groaned. Derek ignored him. “Yeah, because it’s really fucking hard to see the parallels there, huh?”
Andrew rose to his full height and glowered at Derek. “You’re comparing me feeling responsible for what happened to your cousin to…what? You being too goddamn scared to get off your ass and claim some chick?”
His friend’s power might be stronger, but it was erratic and unfocused, and pain made Derek pissy. “You’re going to throw her out of your life for her own damn good and still think you have the right to have a say in how she deals with it.”
“Yeah?” He set his bottle down on the porch railing. “One of these days, you have to tell me where you got this idea that Kat and I are destined for some great romance even if it’s the last fucking thing either of us wants.”
The rage that rose inside Derek made no sense. A couple weeks ago he’d agreed with Andrew, understood that Kat was better off safely out of reach until his friend understood the changes tearing through him.
A couple weeks ago he’d believed little mistakes didn’t kill a happy ending.
He growled, and Alec made an exasperated noise. “Okay, boys—”
Derek didn’t give the older man a chance to tell them both to sit down and shut up like good little puppies. The wolf inside him would accept violence as a suitable distraction from grief, and it wasn’t until his fist had crashed into Andrew’s jaw that he had the fleeting thought Andrew might be suffering the same problem.
Not that it would stop him from kicking his friend’s ass.
Andrew shook off the blow, grabbed Derek’s shoulders and slammed him against the side of the house. He was shaking with rage, growling as he drew back his fist for a punch of his own.
It came slowly enough that Derek had no problem wrenching his body to the side. Andrew’s fist slammed into the wood siding an instant later, and Alec swore and started toward them.
Derek lunged forward directly into Andrew, knocking him back a couple steps. The porch was only a few feet off the ground, and the railing wrapped around it at waist height except for an opening for a set of stairs leading to the yard.
Another good shove and Andrew slammed through the rail, crashing to the grass with a roar. Before Derek could react, a hard hand shoved into his shoulder and sent him barreling after Andrew.
He twisted just enough that he didn’t actually land on top of Andrew, but he still hit the ground with a bone-rattling thump. Alec stared down at both of them, his face impassive. “By all means, beat on each other. Keep the damage to a minimum, though, because I’m making you jackasses fix it all.”
Insanely, Andrew began to laugh.
Derek sagged to the grass, ignoring the aches and pains and the piece of the railing digging into the small of his back. The adrenaline from the fight faded, leaving the gaping hole in his chest that a month’s worth of violence wouldn’t hide.
“You can help keep an eye on Kat,” he said quietly, cutting through Andrew’s laughter. “You both have to. Because not fighting for Nick is going to kill me.”
Andrew sobered and brushed himself off as he sat up. “I thought there was nothing you could do.”
“Maybe there isn’t.” In his mind he conjured Nick, the way she’d watched him their last night together. The way her lips had looked when she whispered she loved him. “Alec?”
The man’s voice drifted down from above. “I’ll make a few calls. Maybe I can figure out exactly what’s going on up there and we can come up with an idea. Fuck, if it’ll keep Nick from marrying one of those assholes, I’ll even call my damn father.”
Andrew made an apologetic noise. “I’m sorry, man. I’m an ass.”
He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t. “You will be if you hang around Kat, and she’s really the last fucking thing you want. The girl’s in love with you. She killed two men to protect you. Watch out for her if she’s in trouble but, if you’re going to break her heart, you owe it to her to make it clean.”
“I know that.” Andrew rubbed his hands over his face with a groan. “Nothing is mine anymore, Derek. Not a goddamn bit of my life from before this happened, and that includes Kat. I can—I can make sure she knows that. I think.”
“Leave Kat to me and Jackson,” Alec interjected. Derek sat up and found Alec leaning on the remains of his railing. “Andrew needs to steer clear until he gets his instincts under control. I’m going inside to make my calls. The two of you can fight over who’s going to fix my damn porch.”
Andrew huffed. “I’ll do it. Not surprisingly, I’ve been in the mood to hammer and saw things an awful lot lately.”
“And punch people?” Derek’s back protested as he rose, but the bruise he’d earned from landing on part of the wood railing would be gone by morning. He rubbed at it anyway and eyed Andrew. “Sorry about your face, by the way.”
“Forget about it.” His friend shrugged. “My insides are still where they’re supposed to be. These days, I guess that means I’ll live.”
The memory of watching Franklin with his hands inside Andrew’s abdomen wasn’t fading anytime soon. “If Alec digs something up and I have to go to New York, will you be okay handling work with Penny and Mari to help you out?”
“Too soon for morbid humor, huh?”
“That always was your shtick, buddy.”
“A guy’s gotta have one.”
“Sucks for us that Jackson’s cornered the market on Southern charm and Alec’s hoarding all the brooding man-pain.”
“Nah.” Andrew picked a splinter out of his hand and laughed. “I think there’s plenty of everything to go around.”
Andrew had regained his humor—or at least the macabre part of it—but something edgy still hovered around him. A power that might not settle anytime soon. Maybe not at all.
The wolves of New Orleans rarely bothered with formal ranks and challenges, especially since most of them had come to the city to avoid the supernatural politics that plagued their society. But the first few months after Derek’s change had been hell as he’d struggled with the instinctive need to find his place, to test his strength against those around him.
Alec had slapped him down. A few times. His pride had stung at first, but it hadn’t taken long to realize that Alec was the strongest male wolf in New Orleans.
Or he had been.
Derek cleared his throat and watched Andrew gather the splintered wood into a pile by the steps. “So do you get the urge to punch Alec a lot?”
“Dude, you have no idea.”
“Oh, I have some idea.” He tossed the piece of wood that had bruised his back onto the pile. “Might as well get it over with. Trust me, I speak from personal experience. It won’t go away until you do.”
“Think I’ll wait until I’m not so wobbly.” Andrew leaned over and squinted through the back door. “The man has a cage in his basement and an arsenal in his garage.”
“Yeah.” Derek took a deep breath. “You never answered me. I need to know you’ll be okay if I disappear for a while. Because I can’t just let her marry some bastard. I can’t.”
“I can handle it. Like you said, I’ve got Penny and Mari. If Mari decides to speak to me again.” The humor faded from Andrew’s expression. “How bad is it going to fuck things up for Nick if you head off to New York in a manly, possessive rage?”
“I’m in love, not stupid. I don’t know what I’m going to do.” But he had to try something. Everything. Anything. “Hey. We’ve got money, magic and Alec’s willingness to kidnap random bystanders. What could possibly go wrong?”
Andrew groaned. “I’ll spare you the Gloomy Gus routine if you promise no one else is getting kidnapped.”
“No promises, man.” After all, he’d spent the previous night staring at his ceiling and wondering if he could talk Nick into packing up Aaron and Michelle and hiding on a tropical island. It still seemed like a half-decent idea, leaving aside the part where he’d have to abandon all of his friends and responsibilities.