by J. L. Wilder
Finally, after what felt like years, they reached the bike. Emmett had parked it only a few blocks away from the Coywolves’ house. It felt strange and wrong to be so near this place again after what had happened the last time he’d brought her here, and Emmett wanted nothing more than to throw his leg over the seat of his bike and ride away with Hazel safely in tow.
But if they were pulled over, he knew, they would face a whole new set of problems. He rummaged in his duffel bag and found some clothes for himself. He gave Hazel a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, the only items of his that were unlikely to just fall off her. “Get dressed,” he said. “We’ve got a long ride ahead.”
The woman he’d met the night he’d first rescued her would have protested at the idea of riding away in nothing but a ratty t-shirt and underwear, but things had changed. She knew more now. She trusted him more now. She put on the clothes without comment and climbed onto the back of the bike.
Emmett engaged the engine and pulled away.
He would ride all night if he had to. Right now, he couldn’t imagine ever stopping. It felt as if he’d pulled the woman he loved from within the jaws of two different traps tonight, two traps that would close around her again at the earliest opportunity. They had been incredibly lucky, maybe even too lucky. He wasn’t going to take safety for granted ever again.
Hazel clung to him, arms wrapped around him, thighs gripping his hips. He hadn’t realized this either—how much he’d missed feeling her there. Riding solo would probably never feel right again.
He felt a pang of guilt, remembering that he had kept this from his pack. He had refused to allow them to meet women, to form serious relationships, to fall in love. They had wanted to explore that side of life, he knew. Dart had talked about it regularly. And Emmett had always shut him down, always ordered him away from even the possibility of love. We can’t take women on the road with us, he’d always said. They’ll want to settle down.
He hadn’t understood that when you loved someone, really loved them, you’d break all the rules. And so would she.
He had no idea what their life would be now, whether they’d eventually find their way to the Yukon and put down roots or whether they’d decide to keep moving, riding all over the country and taking jobs the way he was accustomed to. He knew only one thing for sure: wherever they went and whatever they did, they would be a family. He was never going to let Hazel Lang out of his arms again.
He rode through the night and most of the next day. At one point, he thought he felt Hazel doze off against him. It wasn’t until they crossed the state line into Iowa that he felt safe enough to stop for the night. He spent some of the very last of his money on a motel. Hazel stood beside him as he made the transaction, and though the receptionist clearly took note of the way she was dressed, he didn’t say anything, just handed Emmett the key.
The motel was cheap, cheaper than any place he’d stayed with Hazel previously, and he half expected her to protest. But she didn’t. She took his arm and pulled him into bed beside her. “Are we safe here?” she asked quietly.
“I think we’re as safe here as we are anywhere,” he replied. “I don’t think they’re going to follow us this far very quickly.”
“They tracked me before.”
“I’m not sure they did. Once they’d realized we’d turned around, it couldn’t have been that hard to figure out where we were going to go. I don’t think they tracked you back to the Coywolves so much as they just assumed that’s where you’d be.”
“But they knew we’d turned around,” she said.
“Yeah,” Emmett said quietly. “They did know that.”
“So, they must have been tracking, right?”
“I’m not going to let them take you again, Hazel.”
“I just don’t want us to have to spend the rest of our lives on the run,” she said. “I don’t want our children to have to spend their lives on the run.” She brought his hand to rest on her belly, and he was surprised to realize that the swell had increased, just incrementally, in the time since he’d seen her last.
“They won’t have to,” he promised. “We’ll find a home somewhere.”
“Or we can stay on the road,” she said. “That would be all right too.”
“Really?”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Just as long as we’re not running. As long as we’re safe and together, I don’t care where we are.”
He wrapped her up in an embrace. “I don’t either,” he said, and meant it. “I don’t care what my life looks like, as long as it’s with you.”
She laughed a little. “I never thought I could fall for someone this quickly.”
“It’s a wolf thing,” he said. “We imprint.”
“Have you? Imprinted?”
“It explains a lot, doesn’t it?” he said. “The way we can’t choose any road that doesn’t lead us to each other. The fact that you got pregnant so quickly. Our bodies want each other.”
“Well, that’s certainly true,” she said, running a hand down his side.
He grinned. “We’re safe enough for now, I think. Safe enough that we can enjoy ourselves a little.”
“Yeah?”
In answer, he sat up and pulled her with him, peeling away her shirt. He took her breasts in his hands and lowered his mouth to suck at her nipple as he removed her shorts. She threw her head back and moaned, pulling his head closer.
He couldn’t wait. He stripped down, gave himself two quick strokes, and buried himself inside her. The relief was like nothing he’d ever felt. He wanted to take his time, to luxuriate in the fact that they were together once again, but his body was on fire. He bit at her shoulder, embraced her tightly, and came with a few deep thrusts, vaguely aware that she was falling apart in his arms.
He fell asleep naked beside his omega, cradling her, one hand resting on her stomach.
Chapter Seventeen
HAZEL
She woke up naked with Emmett wrapped around her, all her nerves firing with arousal.
She ground her hips back into him. He was hard in his sleep.
His hand was on her belly. She took it and eased it up to her breast. Even though he was asleep, he responded, giving her a pleasurable little squeeze, and a moan escaped her lips.
He stirred behind her, and she knew he was awake. His hand moved to her other breast, squeezed, and stroked the nipple gently. Then he trailed his fingers slowly down her torso and between her legs.
She lifted her thigh, wrapping her leg around his to allow him access.
“I marked you last night, you know,” he whispered in her ear. She could feel how hard he was, how desperate for her, and it was only increasing her own arousal. “That bite I gave you? Means you’re mine now. Doesn’t matter what the rest of them say. Doesn’t matter how many tattoos I give you. You’ve been claimed. They’ll all see it. Any shifter who looks at you will know you’re mine.”
She bucked against his fingers at the thought.
He tilted his hips and slid inside her, fingers still working, and Hazel thought she’d gone to heaven. She closed her eyes and lost herself to sensation, to the pure waves of pleasure crashing over her. She came once and he kept going, slowing down long enough to allow her to recover before working her in earnest again.
“You’re mine,” he said hoarsely. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
And Hazel came again, screaming her alpha’s name, her entire body shuddering. He thrust into her twice more and let out a roar that was far more animal than human.
They came back to earth slowly, Hazel luxuriating in the feel of his arms around her and his lips tenderly kissing the place he’d bitten last night when he’d claimed her. “You’re mine,” he whispered, and this time, it sounded gentle. “You’re mine, Hazel. I love you so much. You’re mine always.”
There was plenty to worry about, plenty to be afraid of, but in that moment, lying in his arms, sated and happy, it all seemed to disappear. “I’m yours,” she said. She
would give him anything, she knew. She was thrilled beyond measure to be carrying his litter. She would go anywhere with him. Even if it meant being on the run for the rest of their lives, she would do it for his sake.
They got up slowly, went to the shower, and washed slowly, soaping each other’s hair and bodies, taking time to explore each other. Hazel became aroused again as he touched her—would that happen every time Emmett touched her?—and leaned against the wall as he sucked at one of her nipples, his left hand playing with the other, his right hand fucking her slowly until she came again with a little sob. After that, she was so worn out that he had to hold her upright in his arms, and she rested against him, content, and let him rinse the shampoo from her hair.
THEY BOUGHT THEIR BREAKFAST at a little gas station off the highway in between rural towns. Seated on the back of the motorcycle, Hazel ate her chicken salad, scooping it up with little crackers. Emmett was eating jerky again.
He sized up her meal. “I guess you’ve changed your stance on the whole meat for breakfast thing?”
“This isn’t really what I’d consider breakfast,” she said, grinning. “More of a fugitive snack.”
“Okay, but what do you think your old pack would say if they could see you eating fugitive snacks on the back of my motorcycle?”
“Who cares what they’d say?” Hazel asked. “I don’t. I don’t give a damn what Matthew would think about anything anymore.”
He nodded, took a long swallow from the bottle of water they’d bought to share, and handed it to her. “I know you had friends there,” he said. “They were your family. They raised you. It’s okay if you have complicated feelings about them.”
“About Matthew? He had you beat up, Emmett. He took you away from me. He never loved me.”
“Okay, maybe not him. But there were other people in that pack. I’m sure you had some you were close to.”
Hazel thought of the way Paisley and Rita had acted while she’d been confined to her room. “No,” she said. “None of them helped me. Even if I could see that they understood what I was going through, none of them bothered to help.”
“They probably couldn’t,” Emmett said. “Matthew had probably ordered them to keep you locked down.”
“Yeah, he had, but even so...I don’t know. It was like they were all gaslighting me,” she said. “They were trying to get me to believe that I’d never loved you, that what had happened between us wasn’t real. And it wasn’t just my heart at stake. It wasn’t just my life at stake. They were going to force me to have an abortion.”
Emmett’s face hardened. “I was afraid of that,” he said.
“If it had just been me, I might be able to forgive them,” Hazel said. “But they were going to stand by and let Matthew end my pregnancy. Our children would never have been born. I can’t forgive that. Maybe they were under orders, but I’ve had an alpha all my life, and I know as well as anyone that there are always workarounds. There’s always something you can do to help the situation. No alpha is omniscient. They can’t countermand everything.”
“That’s true,” Emmett agreed.
“You look pensive. What’s up?”
“I was just thinking of my pack and the times they got things past me,” he said. A small smile came over his face. “They were clever.”
“What did they do?”
“Oh, all kinds of things. Like, one time, I ordered Judah to go out and hunt for our dinner, and he went, but then he brought home a stolen rotisserie chicken and pointed out that hunt could also mean find.”
Hazel laughed. “Didn’t he want to actually hunt?”
“No, Judah hates to hunt. It’s a weird little hang up. He’s got no problem eating what the rest of us hunt, but something about directly killing animals has always bothered him.”
“He sounds really...”
“Sensitive?”
“I was going to say kind. He sounds like he has a big heart.”
“He does. Judah’s the quiet one. The thoughtful one.”
“What about the others? Do they also defy your commands?”
“Sure,” he said. “There was one time, Xander—he’s the kid, only sixteen—well, I ordered him to get rid of this heavy novel he’d been carrying around. And he did it, but then he went back and got the damn thing out of the trash the minute my back was turned.”
“Serves you right!” Hazel cried. “Why did you want him to get rid of a book, of all things?”
“It’s tough being on the road,” Emmett told her. “We have to travel light. This book alone probably weighed ten pounds; it was huge. He couldn’t carry his share of the rest of our supplies.”
“So?” Hazel said. “I bet the rest of you could. Besides, you’re on motorcycles. Is carrying things really so much of a problem that you have to get rid of one book?”
“Nah,” Emmett said. “I was over worrying. And the truth is, I was so impressed by Xander’s determination to have the stupid book that I never brought it up again.”
“You miss them, don’t you?” Hazel asked quietly.
He had a faraway look in his eye, one that made her want to wrap her arms around him. “All of them,” he agreed.
“We could—”
“No, we couldn’t,” he interrupted. “I’ve thought about it every possible way. They’re miles away now. I’ve left them behind, most likely for good. I doubt I’ll ever see them again.”
Hazel was quiet for a moment. “I wish I’d known them better,” she said quietly. “They were your family.”
He nodded. “I wish you had too.”
“Are you sure there’s no way we could get in touch? You didn’t have a plan for what you’d do if you were ever separated?”
He shook his head. “It was shortsighted, I know that now. Pax always wanted us to get emergency cell phones. I should have listened. But it always seemed like such a good idea to be completely off the grid, and cell phones seemed like such a pointless human distraction. What did we need phones for?” he sighed. “Now, I’ve gotta admit that, in a situation like this, phones would have been a perfect solution.”
“Would you try to put the pack back together? If you could get in touch with them, I mean?”
“No,” he said. “After everything that’s happened, we can never be one pack again, any more than we can with the Coywolves. They won’t want us now that we’re together, now that we’re expecting. As alpha, I could make them submit to us, but I never will. I can’t make them accept my mate when I’ve forbidden them from finding mates of their own.”
She nodded. It made sense.
“But I would say goodbye to them,” he said. “I would tell them I’m sorry I have to leave them. I would thank them for all our time together, and for helping me to rescue you in the first place. Hell, I would know they were alive. That would be enough.”
“I’m sure they’re alive,” she said quietly. “They’re strong. Stronger than us. Especially, collectively. And nobody is hunting them, not anymore. And we’re still going.”
He smiled at her. “That’s true,” he said. “I guess, if we can make it through all the shit that’s been thrown at us, I’ve got to think my pack can too.”
She pulled him down to her and kissed him. Just the touch of his lips lit her up inside, and she wished they had time for more, but he had been firm about the need to get on the road as soon as their breakfasts were consumed. She could already feel the bonds that tied her to him as alpha, the need to submit to his orders. She wanted to finish her food quickly and ride away because it was important to him, because he had told her too. She wanted to please him.
This was how the bond between an alpha and a member of his pack ought to be, she thought. It should be voluntary, something given willingly as a sign of trust and love. She had never chosen to belong to Matthew’s pack. The thought had never occurred to her until now, but she had been born an omega, it was her destiny. Was it any wonder it had turned out to be a prison?
Emmett gathered up
their garbage, threw it away in one of the gas station’s garbage cans, and mounted the bike. Hazel took hold of his waist as he brought it to life, and they rode off together.
BY THE TIME NIGHT FELL, they were in North Dakota.
“No money for a motel tonight,” Emmett said. “We’re going to have to find a comfortable patch of ground, I’m afraid,” He looked at her anxiously. He really was afraid, she saw—afraid that, at some point, what he had to offer wouldn’t be good enough for her.
It would never happen. I’m his, she thought, feeling a little tremor of pleasure at the thought of their lovemaking. I’m his now. “Ground is just fine,” she said. “You might have to let me use your shoulder as a pillow, though.”
He chuckled. “With pleasure.”
The patch of ground they found turned out to be in a field of soybeans. It was a little frightening because, unlike the corn they’d slept in before, the beans didn’t stand high enough to conceal them from view. They compensated by lying down behind the motorcycle, which at least created a feeling of being sheltered from the road.
Hazel curled up in Emmett’s arms, gazing up at the stars. She expected to lie awake for hours luxuriating in the sheer relief of having him back, but the stress and heightened emotion of the past several days came crashing over her like a wave, and she was asleep before she knew what had hit her.
She slipped into a sort of lucid dream. Her babies had been born, in the dream, and she held one of them in her arms. He’s the new alpha, she thought, not knowing exactly where the thought had come from but sure that it was right. Emmett will train him to lead the pack one day. And the little one, there, she’s the new omega. The next in the Cavallon line. But her life will be different than mine was. She won’t be raised to think of herself as a bitch for breeding. She’ll make her own choice about who she wants, and when. She’ll have a job, if she wants one. She’ll have a life. And all of them will know their dual natures as human and wolf. None of them will ever have to choose.
