by J. L. Wilder
“Man, come on.”
“Give it to him,” Judah advised.
The alpha handed the gun over.
Pax examined it. “How long do you think he’s going to be able to stay in command of his pack?” he asked the others. “Now that they’ve all seen him submit like this, I mean.”
“Not now, Pax,” Judah said.
“Just saying. Hard to follow a leader who’s such a complete pansy. They’re going to find their bonds broken, I bet you anything. If they come after us again, it’ll be in groups of two or three. Not as a whole pack. This pack is finished.”
He was probably right, Emmett thought. It would be hard to submit yourself to such an obviously impotent leader. He wondered what his pack would say when they learned he’d fallen in love, that he’d disobeyed his own vision for the success of their pack. The outcome would almost certainly be the same. They would lose trust in him. They wouldn’t be able to follow him anymore. The pack would fracture.
Now, Dart holstered his gun and walked to Hazel’s side. “You all right?” he asked her.
She nodded shakily. “How did you find us?”
“We’ve been tracking these idiots.” He gestured toward the alpha Ranger. “For decent trackers, they really don’t have a handle on the art of subtlety. You’d think they’d know better. But I guess maybe they’ve never had anyone on their tail before. When we couldn’t figure out where Emmett had gone, we checked your house first, but you hadn’t been returned, so we decided to follow them, because they were probably following you.” He laughed. “Would you believe they rode all the way to Colorado before they turned around and went back to your house? And they never realized we were on to them.”
“Why’d you let them kidnap me again?” she asked. “If you knew what was going on...”
Pax’s face darkened. “We didn’t post a guard,” he said. “Once you were back home, we turned our attention to finding Emmett. We trailed him to some stupid seaside town—what the hell were you doing there, Emmett? And then, by the time we figured out we were wasting our time there and turned around...”
“They already had me,” Hazel finished.
Judah had been listening to the sounds from the road. “Okay,” he said. “They’re gone. You can follow.” He released the alpha. “Or maybe you want to go your own way. Not sure they’ll be wild about having you back now.” He shrugged. “Up to you.”
The alpha, looking thoroughly spooked, turned and bolted for the highway.
“Where—” Emmett gritted his teeth as a wave of pain hit him. “Where are your bikes? We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No way,” Pax said. “You can’t ride. Not with your leg like that.”
“They bit him.” Hazel sounded horrified. “One of those Rangers actually bit him. That’s not...” she looked from one of them to the next, anxiety written on her face. “That’s not normal, is it? This isn’t just me being too human again? Shifters don’t actually do that to each other?”
“Well,” Pax said, “We don’t. Tasting human flesh is a bit much for us, even if the human in question is in the form of a wolf at the time. Lie down, Emmett, for God’s sake.”
He was struggling to get his feet under him. “We can’t stay here,” he said. “They might come back.”
But the moment he tried to put weight on his injured leg, it buckled beneath him. He collapsed, panting, holding himself up with his arms, his vision spotty, his head swimming.
“Get him on the ground,” Judah said. “Dart, run back to the bikes and get the first aid kit. Hurry.”
“What are you going to do?” Hazel sounded frightened.
“Field surgery,” Judah said. “He needs stitches.”
“Stitches, here? Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Well, we’re not taking him to a hospital,” Pax said. “Even if we could afford something like that, which we can’t, they’d ask all kinds of questions, and they might want to keep him overnight, and he’s right about the fact that we need to get out of here as quickly as we can. I don’t think the Savage Rangers are going to come back this way as a pack—I don’t think they’re even going to be a pack for much longer. Without their alpha at the helm, they don’t have enough uniting them. But once they’ve split, some of them might decide on their own that it would be fun to seek revenge.”
Emmett felt the world spin beneath him. He closed his eyes. Hazel’s hand gripped his tightly. “He’s so pale,” she said.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Judah said. “That was a deep bite.”
Emmett wondered how badly mangled his leg really was. He wasn’t going to try to sit up and look at it, though. Even lying flat on his back, he felt like he was going to pass out at any moment.
The sound of footsteps signaled Dart’s return. Judah opened the tackle box that served as their first aid kit and rummaged around. “Xander, hold the flashlight for me, okay? Emmett, this is going to sting some. You might want this.” He pressed a folded piece of leather into Emmett’s hands. Emmett nodded his thanks and put the leather between his teeth.
The sting of antiseptic being poured over his leg was enough to make him want to howl. He clenched his teeth and focused all his energy on not squeezing Hazel’s hand too hard. He didn’t want to hurt her. She bent over him like a willow tree. “It’s okay,” she said, and although her voice was trembling, she wasn’t tearful. “He’s going quickly. That was the worst part, I think, and it’s over. You’re doing good.”
He nodded, eyes squeezed shut.
“Dart, I need your hands here,” Judah said, his voice tight with strain, and suddenly, there were too many hands on the heated flesh of his leg. Pax was at his head, strong arms holding his shoulders down, and Emmett felt the pierce of a needle in his already sensitive flesh. This time, he did howl.
“Easy, buddy,” Pax said. “Never thought you’d be one to howl at a few little stitches.”
“Oh, go right to hell,” Emmett ground out.
“Can’t today. Other engagements. Maybe some other time, huh? Hey, it’s good to see you alive, by the way.”
Emmett nodded, gritting his teeth as the need pierced him again. “Yeah. Same. You won the fight? The night we ran for it?”
“There wasn’t really a fight, to tell you the truth,” Pax said. “We’d been tangling with them for what was probably a minute and a half when one of them ran over and shouted that the omega was gone. Everyone kind of scrambled up and took off after that. I had Dart follow, just to see where they were going, and the rest of us cleared the area and went back to her house to see if you were going to take her straight there. When Dart came back, he had a lead for us, and we all headed out after the Rangers.” He grinned. “You really led them on a chase!”
“Yeah, we thought—mm—we thought we’d lost them.”
“You had,” Pax said. “They had no idea where you were. I mean no idea. I sent Xander in to spy on them a couple times—”
“You what?”
“He’s the smallest. He’s the quietest. He’s great at subterfuge.”
“He’s sixteen. You can’t send him in alone. He could get hurt.”
“Don’t get all worked up. He did a great job. Anyway, he listened in on some of their conversations, and they had no idea what they were doing. They lost your trail in Connecticut. They just kept riding in the same direction, hoping they’d pick it up again.”
“Not actually that great at tracking, then, I guess?”
“I’ve definitely seen better.”
“I’m all done here,” Judah said. “Gotta disinfect it one more time, and then we’ll wrap it and you’ll be good to go.”
Emmett groaned. “Skip it, why don’t you?”
“Because I don’t want a three-legged alpha, that’s why. Stop whining and hold still.”
Emmett braced himself, but the pain wasn’t nearly as bad this time. He supposed it was because the wounds were closed now. He sat up gingerly and watched as Judah wrapped his leg in gauz
e. “Thanks,” he said.
Hazel rested her head on his shoulder. He could see tears tracking their way slowly down her cheeks. He was impressed, what with everything that had happened, that she’d waited until now to cry.
The others were looking at them, though, and Emmett knew they’d arrived at the conversation he’d been dreading. He was going to have to confess everything. He was going to have to tell them how he’d betrayed the ideology he’d set for their pack, how he was a failure as a leader. At least I got to see them all one more time. At least I’ll leave here knowing they’re all all right.
But to his surprise, it was Dart who spoke first. “We’re not taking her back to Rhode Island, are we?”
“No,” Emmett said. “We’re not.”
“Probably for the best,” Pax said. “Doesn’t seem like they know how to protect their own, those Coywolves, does it?”
“But that isn’t why,” Dart said, his gaze fixed on Emmett. “That’s not why we aren’t taking her back.”
“No, it isn’t.”
A long pause.
“How far has it gone?” Judah asked quietly.
So, they knew. They all knew. He wasn’t going to have to shock them with the news. That was something to be glad of, at least. “She’s pregnant,” he said. “She’s having my babies.”
“You can’t already know something like that,” Judah said.
He shrugged helplessly. “I know we can’t. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I think it’s because I’m a Cavallon,” Hazel cut in.
“What is a Cavallon?” Xander asked. “That alpha Coywolf told us you were one, but I don’t know what it means.”
“It’s my family line,” she explained. “I’m descended from generations of omegas. The gene has been handed down in my family for hundreds of years, mother to daughter, growing stronger with each generation. Everything you know about omegas is exponentially more true of me because of my Cavallon lineage.”
Pax let out a low whistle. “No wonder so many packs wanted you.”
She nodded. “Legend is that I can carry a larger litter than most. I guess we’ll find out. But I can already see signs of my own pregnancy, even though I’ve only been pregnant for a few days. Nothing you’d notice if you weren’t really familiar with my body, but...I can tell.” She rested a hand on her stomach.
“Well,” Judah said, “I guess that’s that, then.”
Emmett’s heart sank.
“We’ll have to set up some kind of permanent residence,” Judah said. “Someplace for you to have and care for the babies. You can’t very well do that on the road.” He glanced around. “Looks like we’re going to domesticate, guys.”
Emmett’s head darted up. “Wait. What?”
“You can’t have thought you’d take her on the road with you?”
“No, but I thought—I didn’t think the rest of you would stick with us.”
“Are you crazy?” Pax asked. “We’re your pack, Emmett. You’re our alpha. We’re not the Savage Rangers, for God’s sake. Hell’s Wolves don’t bail on each other.”
“Even though I was the one who made the rule against mating in the first place?”
“Well,” Dart said, a twinkle in his eye, “you’re going to have to abolish that rule now.”
Emmett laughed, hardly able to believe his good fortune. “I guess I am.”
“We’re going to stay together? Really?” Hazel asked. “I can be one of you?”
“Do you want to be?” Emmett asked. “I know being part of a pack hasn’t been good for you in the past.”
“Are you kidding? Of course, I want to!” she cried. “It would mean having a real family. A family for our children to be born into.”
“It’ll mean more than that,” Xander said. “You’ll have protection. If anyone else has heard of this Cavallon business—”
“They definitely have.”
“Well, then we can’t rule out the possibility of more packs coming to look for you. But now, you’ll be surrounded by fighters, and we can protect you and the kids.”
“Which reminds me,” Emmett said. “Give me that gun.”
“What?”
He held out his hand. “Maybe you can spy. I can see my way to allowing that. But you’re not going to carry a firearm.” Xander handed it over. “I’m not too happy about the rest of you holding weapons either, by the way. You know I think it’s a weak way of solving things.”
“Yeah, well. It was what we needed today,” Pax pointed out.
Emmett nodded. “I know. We can keep them. But once we get this permanent residence set up, I don’t want you all carrying them around with you. We’re not going to be that kind of family.” He thought of the Coywolves, of sniveling Matthew chasing him out of the house with a gun and a bat, of how helpless they would all be in the real world. “We’re not going to let ourselves rely on human solutions for problems.”
“It wouldn’t kill you to be a little more human,” Hazel said.
“Meaning what?”
“Cell phones. Weren’t you just telling me how you wished your pack had them? If we all had cell phones, what happened over the past few days would have been completely avoidable.”
Emmett had to laugh. “Cell phones,” he said. “I’ll give it serious consideration. In the meantime, let’s get out of here and find somewhere a little less bloody to spend the rest of the night.”
Chapter Nineteen
HAZEL
The bathtub in the Hell’s Wolves’ cabin was small—so small that Hazel couldn’t fully submerge her pregnant belly at nine months. It swelled up before her, cresting out of the water. She liked being in the tub, though, despite the fact that she couldn’t get beneath the water line. Having the ability to float eased the near constant ache in her lower back, and the hot water helped the swelling in her ankles and the pain in her neck and shoulders.
Still, despite the fact that her body was struggling, Hazel was enjoying her pregnancy. She felt more vital and alive than she ever had. She could no longer doubt that this was what she had been made for, what her body had been built to do. She was looking forward to the arrival of her babies, but she had to admit that she would miss being pregnant.
The others were taking bets on how many babies to expect. Judah thought there was no way it would be more than six, but Pax had estimated at least nine. Emmett had opted to stay out of the betting pool altogether. As long as they were healthy, he said, that was all that mattered to him.
Hazel leaned her head back, feeling one of them move slightly. It was rare that none of them at all was moving, but they did tend to relax when she was in the bath.
There was a knock at the door. “Can I come in?”
It was Emmett. “Okay,” she said.
He peeked around the door, then entered, shutting it behind him. “How’s the bath?”
“Good. Warm.”
“You’ve been in here for a while.”
“I can’t really get out on my own,” she pointed out. “It’s a good thing you came by, I was starting to wonder what I was going to do.”
He laughed. “Why not just call me on your cell phone?” He pointed. The phone rested on the back of the toilet, reachable from Hazel’s position in the tub. “You can’t even take a bath without that thing.”
“I could get kidnapped in the bathroom. I might need it.”
“That’s not why. You were playing games in the tub, weren’t you?”
“I was reading a magazine,” she admitted.
He shook his head. “You are going to drop that thing in the water and destroy it.”
“As though you care about that. Besides, I’m not the only one taking my phone everywhere.”
“No. God knows that’s true. Can’t get Dart and Xander to put them down anymore, even at meals.” He shook his head. “And I suppose every one of our babies will have to have phones of their own too.”
“Not for a few years,” she said, smiling. “We can wait until th
ey know how to talk before we worry about personal communication devices.”
He grinned. “Come on, let’s get you out of there.”
Getting to her feet was hard, especially in the slippery bathtub. Emmett had to stand behind her and haul her upright, and once she was up, she had to use the shower curtain rod to balance herself so she wouldn’t topple over the other way. Emmett grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her shoulders—like the tub, the towel was too small to contain her pregnant belly. He helped her to the sink, and she held on with both hands as he carefully patted her dry all over.
“God,” he said, hands wandering over the giant swell of her stomach. “You’re so hot like this.”
“I feel like a balloon.”
“No, you’re like...ripe fruit.” He stepped up close behind her, hips pressing into her, and she could feel just how aroused he was. “Ready to eat.”
She closed her eyes, completely turned on by his vision of her. Just hearing the way he thought of her was electrifying. She dug her hands into the counter and pressed back against him.
His hands slid up to her breasts. “Lock the door.”
She reached over and twisted the latch into place.
There was a rattle as his belt unbuckled, the sound of cloth collapsing to the floor as he dropped his pants and his shirt. Then she felt him behind her, skin on skin, so hard she could only imagine it must have been hurting him. “I’m yours,” she reminded him.
He groaned, tightening his grip on her breasts, and buried himself within her.
Their lovemaking was slow. It was always slow these days. He was gentle with her, careful not to jostle her or manipulate her body into uncomfortable positions. But he didn’t neglect her. One hand found its way between her legs while the other lifted her torso, changing their angle and allowing her to watch herself in the mirror as he fucked her.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “Look at how beautiful you are, Hazel. God. I’m so lucky.”
And she did feel beautiful. She felt ripe, as he’d said, and divine, and full of utility and purpose. Her body was doing all the things it had been designed for. She was growing her babies and serving her alpha and taking pleasure for herself, and God—it was all too much—
