by J. L. Wilder
Emmett walked over to the place where they’d parked their bikes.
And here, finally, fate gave him a lucky break.
There were tire tracks in the dirt. Four tire tracks, all leading the same direction.
Emmett’s heart raced. Assuming the bikes had been taken by the Hell’s Wolves and not stolen by the Savage Rangers—or by someone else—he could follow these tracks. Of course, they were days old, and who knew how helpful they would be. But it was a place to start, and that was a hell of a lot better than nothing.
He returned to his own bike, mounted up, and rode slowly through the corn, picking up the trail the other four bikes had left. He was pleased to see that they’d kept to the dirt for a while, and for about a mile, he was able to follow their path without much trouble. When he eventually reached paved road, the angle at which the tracks merged onto it made him feel fairly confident about the direction they’d taken.
But now, he would need to look for further signs of their whereabouts. There were no more tracks to follow here.
There was, however, a small gas station. Hoping against hope that he might get some information, Emmett pulled in and went inside.
“Evening,” said the clerk, and then did a double take. Emmett hadn’t thought about what he must look like. He brought a hand to his face. His cheek felt swollen, and he wondered whether he had a black eye.
He went back to the cooler and pulled out a bottle of soda, feeling that his odds of getting this clerk to talk to him would be a bit better if he patronized the store. He went up to the counter and pulled out his wallet.
“Jesus, mister,” the clerk said. “You look like somebody cleaned your clock.”
“Just the drink,” Emmett said, laying a five-dollar bill on the counter.
The clerk went on staring at him for a few moments longer, then picked up the bill and punched the transaction into the register. He pulled out a few ones and some change and handed them back to Emmett.
“Say, I was wondering,” Emmett said, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “I’m looking for a few friends of mine, and I think they might have passed through here a few days back. They’d have been on motorcycles. Two of about my age, one a few years younger, and the fourth a teenager. You see anyone like that come through here?”
“A lot of people come through here,” the clerk said. He had an eye on Emmett’s wallet.
Good God. If he’d walked in here without a black eye, Emmett thought, this man probably wouldn’t have dared to ask him for a bribe. The clerk was rail thin and pale as cream. But Emmett supposed that looking as if he’d come off worst in a fight didn’t make people feel very intimidated by him. And he didn’t have time to convince the man to give up the information he wanted. The Coywolves could be hurting Hazel right now. He needed to find his pack.
He opened his wallet, took out a twenty, and laid it on the counter, holding onto it with two fingers. “That’s all I’ve got,” he said. “Did you see them or didn’t you?”
The clerk nodded. “They were here a few days ago, all right. They were talking about hiding out somewhere.”
“Where? Did they say where they were going to go?”
“Wouldn’t be a very good hideout if they had, would it?”
“Think back,” Emmett said sharply. “I’m sure they said something useful.” And he pulled the bill on the counter a little bit closer to himself, a little farther away from the clerk.
“They said something about going to ground.” The clerk screwed up his face, thinking. “They mentioned a little town. New Shoreham, maybe?”
“New Shoreham. Where’s that?”
“Got a phone?”
“No.”
“Buy a map.”
Emmett looked pointedly down at the twenty on the counter. “How about you give me a map.”
“Okay, okay.” The clerk reached over the counter and plucked a road map from the rack, and Emmett felt a small surge of satisfaction. Maybe he was intimidating this guy a little bit after all. He was still much bigger than the clerk and much more solidly built, and he had come in here fresh off a fight. He wondered idly if there was blood on his face.
The clerk was marking the map with a pen. “We’re here,” he said. “New Shoreham is about twenty miles down the road this way. It’s a cute little town. Kind of touristy. Your buddies seemed like maybe they weren’t from around here, so it makes sense that that’s where they’d go. Doing a little sightseeing, maybe?”
Emmett wasn’t about to answer that. “Thanks,” he said, folding up the map and releasing his hold on the twenty. He grabbed his bottle of soda and made his way to the restroom to assess the damage to his face before heading out.
It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. It wasn’t as bad as he was sure it had been half an hour ago. Shifters healed quickly. At least, Emmett and his family always had. He wondered if the same could be said for shifters who divorced themselves from their animal natures the way Matthew and his pack had. He sort of hoped not. He would have dearly loved to return to that house and break Matthew’s jaw, and of course, it would be that much sweeter if Matthew couldn’t count on rapid healing.
Emmett’s own face was only slightly swollen. One eye was slightly shut, but he could still see well enough through it, and he didn’t think his cheekbone was broken. He lifted his shirt and probed at his ribs, trying to determine how bad the damage was there. One on the left side might be cracked. He would have to take it easy for the next couple of days, if he could.
He left the bathroom. The clerk’s stare followed him all the way out the door. Emmett wondered what the kid was going to tell his friends about their encounter later.
Back outside, he mounted his bike and set off for the little town of New Shoreham. He had no need to look at the map. Emmett had a keen sense of direction, one he suspected came from his dual nature and was heightened by his animal side. He couldn’t imagine true wolves often got lost. Getting lost was a human thing. And seeing the gas station clerk draw out the route to New Stoneham once was enough to make Emmett feel confident in his ability to find the place.
About half an hour later, he was there. He rolled slowly into town. It was a tiny coastal place, but the homes were old and wealthy looking, and none of it looked like the kind of place the Hell’s Wolves were likely to stay for very long.
Maybe they took another job here, he thought. Maybe they’re earning money while they wait for me to find them. It was a pleasant thought. Maybe he would find them in a motel somewhere with an envelope full of money, killing time while they waited for their alpha to return.
Maybe they’d be bored. Maybe they’d be eager for a fight with the Coywolves.
No, that was probably too much to hope for.
Emmett drove around the entire town, getting the lay of the land and looking for possible places where he might find his packmates. Very quickly, he realized there were no motels here of the type they usually chose to stay in. The town itself was just too nice for that. He spotted a bed and breakfast—almost drove by it at first, mistaking it for just another private home, until he saw the deliberately rustic sign hanging out in front of it. But they wouldn’t be here, he knew. His brothers would laugh at a place like this.
The only other choice was the New Shoreham Hotel, which was big and sprawling and looked like the kind of place southern belles would have sipped iced tea on the porch and talked about gentleman callers all summer long. Emmett steered into the parking lot and rode around, looking for motorcycles, but there were none. Maybe they’d hidden them, parked somewhere else to throw potential Savage Ranger pursuers off?
He parked his own bike and went inside, where he was met by a man in a white tuxedo. “How may I help you today, sir?”
Emmett was impressed. Apparently, this guy wasn’t going to comment on his appearance. Then again, maybe he was being intercepted for the well-being of the other hotel guests. Maybe someone was already calling the police to report a dirty bum in the lobby. �
��I’m looking for some friends,” he said, and gave the tuxedoed man their description.
The man shook his head. “No one like that around here, I’m afraid.”
“What about somewhere else in New Shoreham?” Emmett asked. “Have you seen any men on motorcycles around?”
“Don’t really get many of that type around here,” the man said. “They’d stick out like a sore thumb if they were. You sure this is where your friends came?”
He wasn’t sure at all, of course. “Maybe I’ve got the name of the town wrong,” he said.
The man had a hand on his back and was already showing him out, not having even inquired as to whether Emmett wanted to rent a room. Emmett had to admire how neatly and easily he was being gotten rid of. “I sure do wish you good luck in finding them,” the man said. “If anyone like that does show up, I’ll be sure to pass along that you were looking for them.”
“Right,” Emmett said, defeated. “Thanks.”
The man turned and went back inside, leaving Emmett alone on the porch.
This was stupid, he thought, his hands fisting in frustration. His pack could be anywhere by now. They might not even be in Rhode Island anymore. He was chasing ghosts, hoping to find them, and in the meantime, God only knew what the Coywolves might be doing to Hazel. To Emmett’s children.
He wasn’t going to get any help with this.
He was going to have to go back and save her himself.
He had no idea how he was going to do it. There were so many of them. And that gun, however little he thought of such crude tools, would kill him pretty damn quickly if he gave them a chance to fire it. But he was going to have to figure something out.
Hazel needed him, and he had made her a promise. He had promised that they would be together. That they would be a family.
It was a promise he intended to keep.
Chapter Fifteen
HAZEL
It was like being in prison all over again.
Hazel woke every morning to a feeling of deep despair. How could she have ever been blind to the fact that she’d been a prisoner all along? Had it only been her subjection to Matthew as alpha that had prevented her from seeing what this family was and how little they cared for her?
It felt like a blindfold had been removed from her eyes. It felt like she was seeing them for the first time.
Paulie, thank God, had refused to touch her until her pregnancy had been terminated. “I don’t want her while she’s carrying that scum’s pups,” he'd said, a look of disgust on his face, when Matthew had suggested that Hazel move from her room into his. So, for the time being, she’d been permitted the privacy of her own room. That couldn’t last forever, she knew. She had taken to lingering in doorways, trying to catch snatches of conversation, trying to learn what the plan was for her and her babies. She had caught Matthew talking about an appointment a few times, so she knew that one had been made. But she had no idea when it was supposed to take place.
One day, she supposed, they would just come into her room, haul her out of bed, and take her there. She would put up a fight, but she had no real hope of resisting. There were too many Coywolves, and they were all stronger than she was.
She spent her days alone, pent up in her room, trying to think what to do and how to escape. She had tried the window first thing, but there was a lock on the outside. Had that always been there? She realized she didn’t know. She’d never had occasion to think about it before. But they had clearly taken the time to think about what she might do if she were able to get the window open, and they’d taken measures to prevent her from doing it. Thoughts of creating a rope by tying her sheets together and lowering herself to the ground evaporated like smoke. There would be no escape that way.
She thought of sneaking out in the night—just creeping down the stairs and out the front door. Matthew had issued an order against it, but despite Hazel’s promise to submit to him, his orders still seemed to roll right off her back. It was the one encouraging thing she had to cling to. However, when she tried to open the bedroom door after midnight, she found that was locked too.
They had her. There was no way out.
She wanted to hate them. As a group, she did hate them. And yet, some among them were still kind to her, were still the family she remembered and had loved. That made it confusing and painful.
How could she hate Paisley? Paisley, who had always been her best friend, with whom she had giggled about boys when they were young? It was Paisley who brought Hazel her breakfast tray every morning. Today, the tray contained pancakes with bananas and powdered sugar, and Hazel remembered the paltry trays of soggy food the Savage Rangers had given her. It could be worse.
It just didn’t feel like it could be any worse.
Paisley set the tray down and climbed onto the foot of Hazel’s bed. “Are you feeling any better?” she asked.
“I don’t have the flu, Paisley,” Hazel said wearily. Her friend had asked this question for the past three mornings in a row, and Hazel understood that this must be the story Matthew was spreading. She wondered whether anyone else had been foolish enough to believe it, to think that she was spending all her time in this room because she was body-sick rather than heartsick.
Paisley ignored her rebuttal, as she had for the past three days. “Matthew says I’m to sit up here and make sure you eat all your breakfast,” she chirped. “You need your strength. And he suggested I should fix up your hair and makeup too, that you might feel more yourself if you cleaned up a bit.”
“By more myself does he mean less wild?” Hazel asked.
Paisley’s smile slipped a bit. “Hazel...I don’t know what that biker did to you, exactly, but you need to come to your senses. He’s not a good person.”
“You don’t know him, Paisley.”
“Well, he isn’t like us. Matthew says he doesn’t even live in a house, for God’s sake. He just drives around on that bike, sleeping on sidewalks and eating out of dumpsters like an actual dog.”
“He’s a wolf, not a dog,” Hazel said. “And so are you, Paisley. So are we all. Did you ever think about it that way? We are wolves. It doesn’t make sense to pretend we’re not all the time, the way we do. We should be embracing that part of ourselves. Don’t you think?”
“I think I want a bed with a mattress and a pillow,” Paisley said stubbornly. “I want a warm meal every night. I want a job where I earn money that I get to spend on things I want. Some of us like being human, Hazel.”
“You don’t have to choose one or the other,” Hazel said, exasperated. “You can be human and be wolf too.”
“No, you can’t,” Paisley said. “The ones who live wild, they lose their humanity eventually. They turn into animals. That’s why he picked a fight with Matthew. He’s a wild animal.”
“What?” Hazel couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Emmett didn’t start that fight, Paisley. You were there. You saw what happened. We were all just talking and then Paulie hit him with a bat! He hardly even fought back!”
“He came in looking for a fight,” Paisley said. “Matthew smelled it on him as soon as he walked in the door. The aggression. If Paulie hadn’t taken the first shot, he was probably going to try to kill Matthew.” She shook her head sadly. “I can’t believe you fell for his lies, Hazel. But don’t worry, okay? We all love you. We’re going to help you figure things out. Soon enough, you’ll remember who your real family is.”
Hazel could only stare at her friend in shocked silence. She couldn’t believe how brainwashed Paisley appeared to be, how taken in by the story Matthew was apparently spinning. Had she been this naive before she’d been kidnapped? She wanted to think she hadn’t been, but she suspected she probably had.
Paisley sat with Hazel until she had finished her breakfast. Then she took the tray away, shooting her friend one last troubled look and not bothering with the promised hair and makeup fixing. Hazel had the feeling she’d scared Paisley.
Good, she thought. She should b
e scared. I thought these were good people, people who loved me, and now, they’re holding me here against my will. They’re going to end my pregnancy. No one who loved me would do those things.
She laid down, staring at the wall beside her bed, one hand resting on her stomach. It had already started to swell. She knew enough to know that shouldn’t be possible—it was far too soon—but it must have something to do with her omega nature. Her body welcomed pregnancy, thrived in pregnancy.
They’ll have to knock me out, she thought grimly. I’ll never consciously let them take my babies.
But they would knock her out. She had no illusions about that. Matthew wouldn’t hesitate.
The boredom of lying in her room alone hour after hour was enough to numb anything. Eventually, sleep crept in. When she awoke, it was to the sound of a match being struck.
She sat bolt upright. Was this it? Were they taking the babies?
No. It was Rita, puttering around the room and lighting candles. She placed a fat scented one on Hazel’s bedside table and glanced over. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“That’s okay.” Hazel struggled to sit upright. “What time is it?”
“Ten thirty. In the evening,” Rita added, clearly anticipating Hazel’s next question. “You slept all day. That might mean you’re on the road to recovery.”
“I don’t have the flu, Rita. I think you know I don’t. Why are you pretending?”
She saw the anguish in Rita’s face by the light of the candle. “Matthew says you have the flu,” she said carefully.
“But I don’t. You know I don’t!”
“Matthew ordered me to help you recover from your illness,” Rita said.
And Hazel understood. It all made perfect sense now. Matthew had ordered the others to treat her as though she were in bed with the flu, probably so that no one would acknowledge her pregnancy or her broken heart. They were caring for her on the surface, but they were deliberately ignoring the source of her pain. She wondered whether Matthew understood how much worse he’d made things for her by insisting on this treatment.
