by Emma Knox
“None of that. You went through an experience no one would want to ever happen to them. You’re not acting like yourself, take your time.” As much as I would have preferred he sped things up, it wouldn’t be very fair to him.
After a minute, he managed to collect himself. He tried to stand again, and I moved with him. He stumbled once he was on his feet, though, and I caught him by the tops of his arms, with his hands landing on my bare chest. He inhaled a sharp breath at the contact, and I stilled, ready to release him, but then he looked up. There was a blush rising on his cheeks, and I watched it with fascination. My mind was slow to return to the current objective, and I frowned at myself. The Omega seemed to misread me, because his cheeks darkened even further, the flush spreading down to his neck.
I wonder if it spreads down to his chest…I thought.
Then, shit, Max. Keep it together! This is not the time!
“Thank you,” the Omega said, then cleared his throat. “For saving me. I thought I was gone for a moment there. Oh, and my name is Evan. Nice to meet you.”
After his introduction, he ducked his head. Then he must have noticed I was naked and standing right in front of him. It might be completely dark in the woods, but shifters had good eye sight, even in the dark. He raised his head so he was facing my chest, and the corner of my lips tilted up in a small smile.
Now that he was standing up, I realized just how small he was. At six foot six, I was pretty tall. In our pack, only a few other shifters even came close to my height. The Omega, Evan, was about five foot seven, nearly a foot shorter than me. At this height, and standing so close, if I leaned in a little more, I could tuck the top of his head under my chin. He’d be just the right fit in my arms…and I pushed that thought aside before it could go too far.
“Oh,” I murmured, realizing I hadn't replied yet. “Uh, my name is—”
“I know who you are,” Evan said, cutting in, then his face, that had started returning to normal, flushed once more. “You’re an Alaskan shifter, right?” he continued, his voice low. “Your father is part of the Alaskan shifter’s council.”
I pursed my lips, wondering where he could possibly know me from. He didn’t look familiar, and even if I hadn't seen him in a while and he’d grown since I last saw him, if I got anywhere near him, I would have caught his scent. Even if I couldn’t recognize his face, I would definitely know his scent, but aside from realizing just how lovely it was, it wasn’t familiar.
“Well, then…it’s nice to meet you as well, Evan.”
He made a sound of acknowledgement but didn’t lift his head. He kept his body perfectly still, and I realized I still had my hands holding onto his arms, but I didn’t feel like pulling them away. Watching him, my smile grew a little bigger.
Evan was just lovely. The instant connection I felt between us was strange, but I loved it. And I loved how polite and shy Evan was acting. Most Omega’s would act the same in the presence of an Alpha, but maybe the ones in my pack were too used to me, because they tended to be a lot bolder, sometimes to the point of annoyance. Plus, Evan was unbelievably easy on the eyes.
I leaned in a little close, inhaling his scent and feeling warmth spread through my chest. None of the Omegas in my pack had ever made me feel this way just from scent alone. It was only a little regrettable, because I couldn’t believe I was meeting this gorgeous creature in such terrible circumstances.
He probably has family back there. I hung around the entrance so I didn’t see him, but if he’s out here alone…
Before I could ask him about his pack members, there was another huge crash from behind, in the direction of the gala building. I turned around, worried at how loud the sound was when we were so far away, even with enhanced hearing, and the screams that followed.
“Dammit,” I growled, releasing Evan and turning to go back.
Only, he stopped me with a hand on my arm, freezing me immediately. When I turned to face him, he was looking at me again, his eyes wide and panicked, fingers digging into my arm as if he was going to hold me down by force.
“Please stay,” he asked, his voice slightly high.
I grimaced. “Evan, there’s still trouble back there and I have to go and help.”
He shook his head rapidly, his body once again visibly shaking. I knew he was scared and he wouldn’t want to go with me. the distressed scent coming off him was making me anxious, but the problem behind us was much bigger than giving him peace of mind in that moment, no matter how badly I wanted to. I placed my hand over his where he was holding onto me, squeezing gently, but with some urgency.
“You don’t have to go back, Evan,” I said softly. “Just stay here and wait for me, okay? I’ll send someone to come get you, or come back for you myself depending on how things are. Is that okay?”
He shook his head again, and I could feel frustration start to build, but then he spoke.
“Please don’t leave me.”
The words were whispered, and his voice trembled. A shiver wracked through my body, my instincts telling me to just stay there and protect him. But I had to keep myself lucid! In that moment, Evan was out of danger, but there were plenty of other people that were not. I was the future leader of our pack after my father, I knew all about responsibility, and I couldn’t just ignore it because my instincts were telling me to.
“Look, Evan,” I said quickly, adding pressure on his hand. “I would love to stay here with you, but I need to go and see if the others need help right now. Hide somewhere, and I promise I’ll come back okay? With all the blood and my scent being so heavy here, no one should be able to find you if you hide well.”
A Beta ranked below both Alphas and Omegas in a number of ways. One of them, was their senses. While all wolf shifters had acute senses, Betas were a little worse than the rest, especially their sense of smell. For a Beta, it would be difficult not to scent out an Alpha because the scent would be too strong, but it would be just as difficult to scent out an Omega, especially with a heavy Alpha smell in the area.
Evan hesitated a bit, and I could see it in his eyes when he remembered this little detail. He bit down on his lip, his anxiety obvious. But he did as instructed, letting go of me, then looking around for a place to hide. I watched to see where he would be, though catching his scent now that I had it would be easy for me.
Once I was sure he was hidden properly, I turned and sprinted for the gala. If I hadn't seen that Beta running into the woods, I wouldn’t have left the gala hall at all, and I could feel my heart start to beat fast in growing anxiety.
When I got back, the mess was a lot bigger than what I’d left. Bodies were strewn around, both in human and in wolf form, and the scent of blood hung so heavy in the air I couldn’t tell who was what, but there were definitely Alphas, Omegas, and quite a few Betas. I wasn’t sure who was alive or who was dead, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to check. Most of the noise on this was coming from outside, and one side of the event room had even collapsed. It appeared that most of the fighting had either stopped or moved.
I wondered just what kind of force those Betas came with that could have caused this much damage, even with their surprise attack and larger numbers.
When I looked around a little more as the cloud of dust cleared, though, I felt some relief to note there were some people around, and they were alive, though quite a few were injured. I wasn’t the only one walking around in the nude, there were other Alphas sticking close to some Omegas huddled by the walls that must have shifted back from wolf form.
“Father?” I called out into the room, not expecting a response, but wanting one. “Alpha!”
I had to find him. When the whole thing went down, I’d stepped outside for a chat with some shifters I’d met on previous events. I caught a strange scent on the wind, but didn’t think much of it until we heard the crash of glass from inside the building. My parents and my pack mates were inside, so I’d immediately rushed in to see the growing chaos. I couldn’t find anyone familiar,
and then I saw that Beta running out, and my body just moved on its own to follow.
Shit. While I didn’t regret saving Evan, I hated that I’d left my parents to fend for themselves. My elderly Alpha father and the Alpha of my pack had been inside, but I didn’t know in which side of the room. The scents around the hall were too mixed up so I couldn’t find him that way, and I walked further inside the ruined buildings to try and find him.
Even as my stomach turned, I looked at the bodies strewn on the floor, moving some that had fallen over each other or were lying on their fronts. Some of them were so disfigured I couldn’t recognize a face, but I knew my father’s build, and none of them were it. I even looked through the huddling groups, but couldn’t find him, or my Omega father who’d been with him and pack members.
My heart was a piece of ice in my chest as I looked over the rest of the room. I’d looked over every body and hadn't found them, which could only mean two things. My eyes drifted to the side of the room that had crushed down… either they were under the debris, or they were outside of the hall. I wished for the latter, even though I didn’t have much hope.
I stepped back outside, but the noise had died down there, too. There were some bodies around, but most of them were downed Betas, and none of them were the ones I was looking for. I wanted to follow the trail of shifters that had moved a distance away, but I was worried. What if I went and found them, and they weren’t okay?
“This is a mess,” I muttered, rubbing a hand down my forehead.
I would go after them. If the remaining Betas were on the run, then no one was in need of help at the moment. I turned back around to go and pick up my clothes. Then, I would go back for Evan so we could both start the search for our families.
Chapter 3
Max
I’d tossed my clothes off on the fly as I ran out, so they weren’t ripped. I quickly put them on and headed for the way I’d left Evan on foot. My speed wasn’t much slower than my wolf form so I figured it was fine. I arrived where I’d left him not long after I set out, and I went to the hiding place.
“Evan?” I called softly.
I was frowning, though, because I could already tell he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. The area was heavy with his scent, but I could tell it wasn’t fresh. He hadn't been there for a few minutes.
“Evan!” I called louder.
Shit. Shit! Did someone else come and find him? Was it a Beta?
I’d thought he would be safe all the way out here, but maybe there were some patrolling outside? And I’d just left him alone and gone back! Fuck! I should have taken the little guy with me. I could just imagine how scared he was…
Worry filled my chest and made me stupid for a minute. I kept cursing at myself inside my mind, but it was only for a few seconds, and then I remembered that cursing myself out wouldn’t help him. If he was in danger somewhere else, then I had to help. It wasn’t just my sense of duty to a fellow shifter, and an Omega, at that, but I didn’t look too closely at my confused emotions in that moment.
I put my nose in the air as I walked around the vicinity. The area he’d stayed the most in was practically saturated with his scent, and it distracted me so I couldn’t get a clear sense of direction. I hadn't caught it coming from the destroyed event room, which meant he must have gone deeper into the woods. I moved to where the air was fresher, and walked in a semi-circle around the spot I’d left him.
Finally, I managed to catch a scent. It was faint, but I could just barely pick it up, and how could I not recognize it? Relief washed through me, making my tensed body relax, before excitement started to grow. I was about to set off and look for him immediately, but then another smell caught my attention, and it made me feel cold. There was the scent of blood hanging in the air, not quite as thick as in the event room, but it was unmistakable. I’d left the Beta I killed a few feet away, and I wasn’t standing downwind of that position, so the blood came from a different source.
Evan.
There was no way for me to tell if the blood was his. He’d only just passed through this route, but he’d definitely had blood on him. I could have traced it back toward his hiding spot, and I wondered if I would find the remains of a fight. Before that, though, I had to find him. Already too many people had died that night. I didn’t want him to be one more.
I decided not to shift as I went after that faint scent. In case Evan was injured or he was frightened, a wolf barreling at him would scare him. I just had to be on higher alert. If there were more Betas around to dispatch, I would be ready to shift on a second’s notice.
The smell went deeper into the woods, and the further I tracked it, the more worried I grew. I doubted he would have gotten further away if there wasn’t someone on his tail, but I couldn’t catch any other scents. Was he just scared off? I didn’t think my nose could be mistaken…
After a long while, I thought I was getting somewhere. The scent led me to a hunting cabin in the woods. I stopped a distance away from it, surprised to even find it there. Did this place exist here before? I’d never been to this side of the woods, and never gone this far, so seeing it threw me off. But Evan’s scent went in there, so I only hesitated for a second.
I reached for the door handle, noting that not only was the door not locked, it hadn't been properly closed, which meant someone could have come by recently. Evan’s scent was a little thicker around here, and cautiously, I entered the cabin, unsure what to expect.
The inside of the cabin was dark and dusty. My nose wrinkled at the heavy scent that made me want to cover the lower half of my face. It looked like the place was only used seasonally. Now that I’d walked inside, I realized Evan’s scent was heavy in here, though I still couldn’t see him. The good news was that besides the stale scent, I couldn’t detect that anyone else was there.
“Evan?” I called out, looking around. It wasn’t that big a cabin and this was only the front room. Was he in the back? The kitchen, or one of the bedrooms, maybe, hiding out? “Evan, it’s Max. If you can hear me, can you come out? Or just make a sound and I’ll come to you.”
I didn’t have to wait for long, I heard a sound, and then Evan came out from some dark corner. Before I had a chance to be relieved, I saw he was holding on to one of his arms. He’d taken off the coat and tie he’d had on before, and one of the sleeves of his shirt was ripped and dyed red with his blood. His hair and the rest of him was pretty messed up, too, like he’d rolled around on the ground.
Feeling distressed, I crossed the space between us quickly, extending my arms but stopping just before I touched him.
“What happened?” I asked, keeping my voice low so he wouldn’t catch the anger in it.
He looked up into my eyes, his own filled with relief. “I stayed hidden like you told me, but a Beta sniffed me out and attacked me. I fought him off as best as I could, but I’m not really much of a fighter. I just managed to get him off me long enough to run. He didn’t follow, so I guess he was injured pretty badly.”
He looked a little ashamed of himself, and I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to feel that way. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how to protect himself. Most Omegas would fall under protection, so when the rest of the pack was learning how to fight and hunt, more often than not, Omegas wouldn’t be included. As for Evan, while I wasn’t sure who his parents were or what pack he came from, just being able to attend the gala meant his background wasn’t anything simple.
“It’s fine,” I said with a sigh. “There’s nothing wrong with running. Any time you’re in a situation you can't handle, it’s a lot safer to just run.”
Evan’s mouth tilted up in a smile, but it just looked pain. I looked around the room and saw a small couch. I led him over to it and had him sit down, and I sat next to him.
“Forget about everything else. For now we need to take care of the cut on your arm, okay?”
Evan bit down on his lip and nodded his head a little. My eyes hesitated on his lips for a se
cond before lowering.
“Tell me if it hurts,” I instructed, then I reached for his arm, catching onto the sleeve and carefully ripping it around the cut so I could see just how bad it was. “Shit, this looks bad.”
The gash on his arm had obviously come from being bitten. I was worried about it, because his arm looked like a total mess, and he’d probably lost a lot of blood. It was still dripping even now, and I imagined the reason I hadn't caught much of it on the way, was because most of it had dripped at the place he was hurt. Shifters might have fast healing, but it wasn’t that much better than a human.
Even worse, he hadn't been in his shifted form when he got the injury. When injured in human form, shifting to wolf and back wouldn’t have that great an effect on an injury. Like before, if I’d fought that Beta in my human form, instead of as a wolf, and I got injured, I wouldn’t have gotten out of it lightly. It might still help, if he shifted to his wolf form and rested that way for a while, but we didn’t have that kind of luxury. He might be faster in his wolf form, but he would also have an injured forelimb and he wouldn’t be able to move quickly.
Staying where we were wasn’t exactly advisable, especially with only the two of us there. If we got attacked, we would be at a serious disadvantage.
“Should I shift?” Evan asked, looking at me nervously.
I shook my head. “Let me take care of this, you just sit down. If you shift now you know you can't shift again for a while, right?”
His face flushed as he looked down. “Yeah,” he whispered. “I guess you’re right. I’m not sure I have the energy for it right now, anyway.”
I frowned. “When was the last time you ate?”
He sighed. “I don’t know? We ate before coming to the gala, so some time before lunch.”
I wanted to curse, but refrained. Another reason why it wasn’t convenient to shift to wolf form with an injury. Shifting took energy, and it took a lot less to shift back into human than it would shifting into a wolf. Trying to shift on low energy could be slow, and it could also be painful. In his current shape, it really wasn’t worth it.
