Caught: A Paranormal Romance (The Swamp Book 3)

by Rebecca Royce

  And now I could hear him. Was that possible?

  MacKenzie…

  There he was again.

  Can you hear me?

  I could, but I had no way of telling him that. None at all. It was like an echo of a sound. A second later, Jarret appeared before me. He was there, and a second later, he wasn’t. I swung around, growling, but not at Ross. It was frustration. The Loup could go drown in the lake. I didn’t care right then. Because I wanted to be with my guys, and maybe I was having a Dorothy moment, but there was no place like home.

  I wanted to see their faces, touch their hands, hear their voices. I needed these men. They were my home, my loves, and my pack. And I was sick of being trapped by this egocentric Loup who couldn’t decide if he did or didn’t want to be saved. That was fine. I’d answer the question for him. I wasn’t going to do it.

  Like a lasso, I sent my consciousness toward Anton as though I might latch on to him and pull myself free from here. Somehow, it worked. I floated. It was a funny feeling, one I couldn’t have imagined, but it was like I was leaving my body. Although I supposed it was the opposite problem. I was actually going to my body, not away from it.

  It was like a yank, and I was there. I opened my eyes, and all four of my guys stared down at me. I groaned. “How long was I in there?”

  “Days,” Rainer answered. He patted Anton and then Jarret on the back. “Good work you two. Sweetheart, I…I’m not sure I can express to you… I…” He struggled until he finally found his words. “It’s so good to see you looking at us, MacKenzie.”

  His gaze spoke of adoration, of a million things he hadn’t been able to say right then.

  It was so good to see them. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. “Are we in the motorhome?”

  Preston nodded. “We’re on the move. Don’t worry, Mac. We’ve got this. And you’re here. How?”

  I stared at Anton and Jarret. “It was like I attached to them and pulled out.”

  “That’s great.” Jarret knelt down next to the bed. “Can you stay this way, or could he take you back?”

  The truth was that I didn’t know the answer to that. This was all new to me. I’d never fathomed being in this situation, and I hadn’t a clue how to proceed forward. Plus, there were no Omegas around to guide me, if they even knew how, which I doubted. Every day was something new; every minute, I had to guess what to do next.

  But these guys were here with me. I took Preston and Jarret’s hands, since they were the closest. Anton’s gaze held my own as though we were magnetically connected, never to separate again. Rainer was a solid anchor. He was there for me in a way that told me he’d shoulder my problems every day of his life. My job was to see to it that he didn’t have to do that.

  I blinked. I couldn’t afford to get lost in my love for them right now. It would be easy, just to float away in my feelings. But I needed answers and to give them some.

  “I don’t know.” I sat up straighter so I wasn’t lying flat. “Are we alone? Who is driving?”

  Jarret squeezed our hands together. “Isaac. And Miranda plus her mate Groucho are here.”

  I blinked. “Groucho?”

  “I can’t remember his name. I’m just going to call him Groucho. I like it.”

  Preston laughed, throwing his head back. “I think I’m rubbing off on you, Jarret.”

  “MacKenzie?” Rainer brought my attention back to the here and now. “Tell me what happened.”

  So I did. How I had found myself on that dock with no explanation on how I’d gotten there, with no memory, how he’d given it back to me. Then he wanted to be fixed, even though he’d said he didn’t. All of it. The whole time there, and how bizarre it really had been.

  “The thing was, he doesn’t even know what he wants. He’s out there yelling he doesn’t need to be fixed, that he just wants to punish and kill Omegas, but when I deny him the service of the Omega, he gets mad.”

  Rainer ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t wearing it in the usual man-bun. It was down around his shoulders. “He’s able to do the connections because he’s an Alpha. Living an obscenely long life. Maybe that’s because of the Loup thing. I don’t know. I wish I understood more of how this worked. But truthfully, I don’t. Loups were to be disposed of when I was a kid. I don’t remember there being a whole lot of discussion about helping back then, but then the Omegas were outside of pack influence, too. Maybe our Omegas were out there helping people and I just had no idea. Maybe it was like a Loup either got killed by pack enforcers or helped by the Omega. I never gave it any damn thought.”

  What he said was interesting to me. I chewed on my lip. “He can connect as the Alpha. Could you? To keep me here? Could you hold on to my wolf and not let him draw me in again so that I’m taken over?”

  I didn’t want to be back on that dock with Ross. I didn’t mind the Loups coming to me. They woke me up, interfered in my life, and were otherwise disruptive, but that was my job. Whether I asked for this or not, I needed to care for them. But Ross was different. Those men who showed up at my door were pitiful in the sense that they made my heart ache for their situations. Ross did not. Maybe once he would have, but what he had done went beyond the bounds of acceptability on any scale. I could not—would not—put up with this. He was to be eliminated.

  End of story.

  Rainer nodded. “I could try. I’m not entirely certain how to do that.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “But I suppose I could ask our…guest if she knows how to do that. If anyone would know, she would.”

  I smirked. There was clearly no love lost between Rainer and Miranda. I liked her just fine, but it was bound to be different with the two of them. And there was something about Rainer getting a little growly that really appealed to my wolf side. It was as though I didn’t mind him being rough and difficult. That was how he was supposed to be.

  It showed me the world hadn’t broken him, not even when they’d locked him away. I smiled. Somehow, I knew that his wolf was too strong for that.

  That was true for all of them. Preston, with his easy smile and laughter, hid away his pain at losing his family, and yet he was able to cope and push through things faster than anyone I knew. Jarret, who doubted himself at every corner, didn’t see his own worth, and somehow still managed to pull out an Alpha wolf that was strong and sure of his place in the world. And finally Anton, who had been so abused, it might have destroyed someone with less internal strength. Something he must have cultivated all alone, since the world did nothing to help find that place inside of him.

  I loved them all. Deeply.

  There was no time like the present to start figuring these things out. I swung my legs over the bed to get up, nearly colliding with Preston when I did. He winked at me before he kissed me hard on the lips. I sighed against him and giggled. Bumping into Preston had its perks.

  Pres pulled back, and I was pulled into a kiss with Jarret. He rubbed our noses together before he placed a gentle caress on me, lips to lips.

  “Missed you,” he whispered in my ear.

  I leaned against him. My plans had been to charge from the room, but this was more important. Little moments with them. We had so few, as we were constantly running from one terrible thing to another. In this tiny bedroom in this motorhome I’d illegally bought using Gus’ credit card, I was going to take a moment to breathe.

  Jarret let me go, and I stepped into Rainer’s arms. I sighed, not in exasperation but in adoration. How did he not know how strong and powerful he was? I loved being his. Finally, Anton drew me to him. He placed my hands over his heart. I smiled. Yes, I loved when he did this. The next second, he placed his own hand over my heart. We stood there for a second, and even though I could anticipate what he was about to do, I loved it just the same. He put his nose right on the spot on my shoulder where he’d marked me.

  That had been his spot since the first night we’d met. He’d claimed it and known we were meant to be before I’d even understood what was going on. />
  “I heard you. In my mind. While I was there.” I was speaking in starts and stops, but that was okay. Some occasions didn’t need complete thoughts and sentences. This was one of them. I spun around to Jarret. “And I saw you.”

  Preston put his arms around Jarret and Anton’s shoulders. “My little brothers, so talented, and they weren’t going to ever be their wolves. Look what the world would have missed out on.”

  He didn’t understand his role. I tilted my head, letting the wolf come into my eyes. I preferred it like this. In fact, if I had a say, I’d spend the majority of my life letting my wolf share my vision. It was so much more natural. “You understand that you are the rope that ties us all together, don’t you? We all connected to you. At the end of the day, this wouldn’t be without you, Preston.”

  “Absolutely.” Jarret agreed as Anton nodded.

  Rainer put his arm around Preston. “She’s right.”

  “Aw, fuck this noise.” Pres pulled away. “I don’t do sappy-dappy. You guys know that. So thank you, Mac. But I am perfectly fine being the one running the swamp tour that none of you understand.”

  It was everything I could do not to crack up laughing. Okay, he wanted to seem mysterious and misunderstood. Fine. We’d let him think he was, when in reality, he was huge-hearted, family-oriented, and he’d only isolated himself because he couldn’t stand to watch his family fall apart. We were all together now, and if I had anything to do about it, we always would be. They were my guys, my pack. Everyone else could come and go. We were together. Period.

  I didn’t push us on, didn’t make any of us go do what we had to do. As far as I was concerned, we could stay here all day.

  Miranda looked like she’d swallowed a bad lemon. “I’ve never done such a thing.”

  Well, she was no help. I smiled at her. Miranda had been a huge help to us, and her daughter was mated to my brother Agustin. The motorhome sped fast down the highway as my oldest brother, Isaac, hummed to himself in the driver’s seat. This was so strangely normal, it just indicated we’d been doing this too much.

  I wanted the swamp. Quiet. And the life we were going to begin to build—minus violence and drama.

  “That’s okay…”

  Rainer held up his hand. “Hold on. You have a huge pack. A bunch of people who are connected to you. Are you sure that you aren’t connected to them on some other level? Some way that you can reach them?”

  She shifted in her seat. “No. They obey and listen because I’m the strongest wolf. That’s how packs work. Your father Kevin was an Alpha before the Accords put them all aside. Was he connected psychically?”

  Rainer shook his head. “Well, I’d ask him, but he’s dead.”

  Miranda got to her feet. “You could ask your mother.”

  “She’s grieving another husband. I think she has enough to go through without me bringing this up right now. It’s fine if you don’t know, Miranda. Perfectly all right. We don’t have to make a big thing about this.”

  She hunched over, her voice going wolf when she spoke to him. “It’s not something I can do. It’s not something every Alpha can do. Most can’t. If that Loup can, then it’s very bad, but I am not going to be made to feel…”

  Rainer held up his hands, but there was no surrender in his scent. “No one is telling you to feel anything at all.”

  “Rainer…”

  I stepped between them, putting my hands on both of them, one on each of their chests. “Okay, guys, let’s take a deep breath and stop this show. What’s going on here?” I loved Rainer growly, but this was about to get violent. Miranda’s mate was two seconds away from going after Preston while Miranda took on Rainer. Everyone would end up fighting. Isaac wasn’t that good of a driver. We’d have an accident, and forget getting to wherever we were going. I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure of the location, but I knew I’d rather not end up dead on the road or impaled by Miranda’s husband. That seemed simple.

  Miranda growled. “Your mate is always baiting me. He won’t listen.”

  “You constantly smell like challenge. I don’t need to be instructed by you on how I’m going to live my life, and you don’t respect that I know what I’m doing. I’d challenge you to have done better given the circumstances and the entire lack of instruction we received from your generation.”

  Her eyes went wolf. “I didn’t abandon my pack. That was your family.”

  “I’m not my family. I didn’t make their mistakes, and I don’t deserve your disdain. I can smell it, and it makes me want to take your fucking head off.”

  Miranda growled loudly. I was standing in between them, and this might go very badly. I wasn’t prepared to stop it. Rainer was my mate. Without question, I’d take his side. But this wasn’t an Omega issue. It was an Alpha problem.

  And Rainer was my Alpha.

  Miranda lowered her eyes. “You’re right. I have been holding you responsible for what your parents did.”

  Rainer was so quiet. Was he going to answer her? Isaac cleared his throat. “Should I pull over?”

  I loved my brother, but for now, I ignored him. Finally, Rainer spoke. “They made big, huge mistakes. Unforgivable. They never should have given in to the pressure of the Accords. They abandoned our kind. It was not okay. But I held out until I had no choice because I was framed for murder. I didn’t want this.”

  “I know.” She met her mate’s gaze and nodded, something unspoken said. “I’ve been treating you with disrespect. That stops now.”

  He nodded. “I’m not interested in taking your pack. They’re your pack. I want my family. The swamp. I want this over. You can and have helped with that when this Loup took me under. I owe you my thanks.”

  It was like a truce had suddenly been called. The sweet, pleasant scent of peace flooded the vehicle. I took a deep breath.

  “So the pulling over?”

  Preston shook his head. “No, man. We’re fine. I’m coming up there with you.” He winked at me. “Your brother does better when he has someone to talk to.”

  “You know.” Jarret cleared his throat. “You could drive if you were worried about it.”

  Preston shrugged. “Then what would Isaac do?”

  We fell into easiness, all of us sitting down. I leaned on Anton, listening to his heartbeat. Wherever we were going, this wasn’t going to be pleasant. Ross hadn’t lived this long by being powerless. My stomach growled.

  Jarret got to his feet. “I’m going to make you something.”

  “Thank you, and I should probably shower.” Did I smell bad? Even with my wolf senses, it was hard to tell how I scented in particular. I should…

  A pain hit my head, and I grabbed on to it. This time I knew exactly what was happening to me. “It’s Ross.”

  Rainer strode to me, bending down to meet me with eye contact. “He’s not taking you this time.”

  “How can you stop it?” I met his gaze and managed to not look down. Sometimes it was easy to not feel submissive to Rainer, sometimes it was much harder. But right now, I needed him. It was a different feeling. Rainer would take care of me. I just knew it.

  Why that was… Well, it was a simple answer, and one I realized in just seconds while I held Ross out of my head. He was my Alpha. I’d never had one before him. My family had been out of wolf life for a long time before I was born. I’d had natural feelings of submissiveness when I met Rainer, but it was hard to understand it because my Omega nature fought the traditional roles that were played in pack.

  But now? It was easy. I slipped into his care easily. I didn’t have to stay here forever. Rainer wouldn’t even want me to. He was the first person to say to me that I wasn’t submissive as an Omega. That being said, I wasn’t Omega in that moment. I was MacKenzie Harper, Rainer’s mate, and Rainer was all Alpha.

  When I had to be strong, I could be. This wasn’t that moment.

  “Give him to me,” he whispered the words, and just as though I blew him a kiss, I handed Ross over to him.

/>   It was a choice to trust him, to know that when I couldn’t be strong, I didn’t have to be because he could shoulder it when I couldn’t. What was more was that he didn’t have to do that alone. Right here in the motorhome, Preston, Jarret, Anton, my brother, and even Miranda and her mate were here to help him. In the same way I could call upon his strength, if he needed to, he could reach for theirs.

  How had I not understood what a gift it was to have pack? How had I not grasped the significance of knowing there would always be people who were there to care for you when you couldn’t be tough?

  And to know that when it was time, he would never expect me to stay submissive. Rainer would absolutely step back and let me be the Omega I needed to be. He loved me so much that he would always be what I needed him to be, just as I would for him.

  Right now, I couldn’t handle Ross. He had my number and had already proven he could take my mind away from me. But I’d taken Rainer and the others back from him. It was better to let them deal with his manipulations. I could save them. They couldn’t save me.

  The circular nature of this worked. I’d never stop being grateful.

  Rainer smiled. “He left. But check me.”

  I put my hand on his cheek. We wouldn’t be screwed with again. It turned out as a pack, we were much stronger than he’d ever be.

  Chapter 6

  The drive to Oregon was really, really long. I wasn’t much of a road tripping person. At least, I wasn’t anymore. Drive here, drive there. By the time we took care of Ross, I would have traveled the country in this motorhome more than I ever desired, and I’d be okay if I never did so again. My plans included staying in the swamp for the foreseeable future. Maybe we could fly places and then fly home. No more driving here, there, and everywhere.

  Nope. No thank you.

  Jarret leaned over, placing his chin on my shoulder. “Are we going to be able to get you back in the motorhome to return home, or will you refuse to leave because you’re never driving again?”