by J. L. Wilder
What did a crawdad look like anyway?
“What are you doing?”
She spun around, badly startled, slipped, and fell with a splash.
The man—she couldn’t tell if it was Harley, Jamie, or Mark—crossed to her more quickly than she would have believed possible. He lifted her entirely out of the river and stood her on the bank beside him. “The river isn’t safe,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here alone.”
He wore tattered denim shorts and nothing else. She looked down at his arms, which were still holding hers. No scars. Not Harley.
Which meant it was Jamie or Mark. One of the two she feared. And he had her alone in the woods.
He was watching her, clearly expecting an answer. “I was trying to fish,” she said feebly, as if the only thing at issue was his curiosity over how she’d been spending her time. “I’ve never done it before. I wanted to see if I could.”
“You weren’t to leave the house.”
“Nobody told me I couldn’t.”
“Does Amy know where you went?”
Maddy hesitated. She didn’t want to get Amy in trouble. “I ran,” she said.
“You ran because you knew you wouldn’t be permitted to go.”
“I don’t belong to you,” Maddy said. “I may be an omega, but I’m not your omega.”
“You’re a guest in my home,” the man said.
“And this is how you treat your guests?” Maddy was angry now. “Like prisoners? Telling them where they can go and when? All I did was come down to the river to try and get food. I would have shared with everyone! Tell me what’s so wrong with that.”
He didn’t answer.
“There isn’t anything wrong with it,” she said. “You can’t tell me because there isn’t anything. The only problem is that I’m an omega. All I’m supposed to do is sit up in my room and be safe, be healthy, be taken care of until you decide to breed me. Right?”
“We are what we are,” he said, his voice a low rumble that was close to a growl.
“Then I don’t want to be an omega,” she said. “It’s never brought me anything but pain.” And she pulled free of his arms.
Automatically, it seemed, he reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her back toward him. She wasn’t ready for the force of the pull and stumbled, falling into him.
Immediately, it was as if a fire had kindled inside her, roaring to life. She felt dizzy, as though she had a fever, and she knew that if she could see her skin in a mirror, it would be flushed. The heat that flooded through her was so strong, so overpowering, that it took several moments to realize that the man—Mark or Jamie—held her arm in a vice-like grip.
It hurt.
It hurt, and yet, she didn’t want him to let go.
Her fear of him was still there, still present, but something was washing over it now, something intense and powerful. It was as though there was a wave at her back, pushing her closer to him.
She heard him gasp and knew that whatever it was, he felt it too.
Later, Maddy wouldn’t be able to remember which of them had moved first. All she knew was that suddenly, they were kissing − desperately, hungrily, as if trying to devour each other. Some part of her mind was protesting, in shock that she would give in to him so quickly and easily, but her body was beyond resisting. It was as if she were caught in a gravity well, being sucked in, and the only sensible thing for her to do was to let go and ride the fall.
He stripped her bare in a matter of seconds. It occurred to Maddy that she should feel strange, embarrassed, even, to be naked in the middle of the woods, but she felt nothing of the sort. Now, she could feel his skin against hers. The fire inside her cooled slightly, then roared higher as he traced her breasts, gripped them, then dipped his head to suck one nipple into his mouth. She arched her back, giving him better access, and heard herself moan eagerly as his tongue flicked against her.
His hand traveled down, parting her legs, cupping her, and she ground her hips eagerly against his palm. She felt wild, manic. Animal. She felt as though everything human within her had fallen away. All she cared about was slaking this new thirst.
He spun her around, grabbed her hips, and pressed up against her. She could feel how hard he was. He was throbbing. “I’m going to do it,” he said, his voice raspy in her ear. “I’m going to do it right now, unless you tell me to stop.”
She could no sooner have sprouted wings and flown away than told him to stop now.
She gasped as he entered her. He didn’t trouble to move slowly, and it was painful, but even that pain couldn’t quench her need for him, and she pushed back against him. They stayed that way for a minute, his hands gripping her so tightly that she was sure she’d have bruises later, and Maddy had a moment to think, I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. I can’t believe I’m just giving in to everything he wants. Hadn’t she just said she didn’t want to be his omega?
She thought she had.
But her body wanted this more than she’d ever wanted anything. More than food or sleep or any other physical need she’d ever experienced, she needed to be with him now.
He began to move, thrusting within her, and she rocked her hips as he did. He growled in her ear, gripped her hips tighter—she was afraid, for a moment, that he might fracture her bones—and began to fuck her in earnest.
He roared as he came, and a shockwave went through Maddy, stronger than anything she’d ever felt in her life. Weak and shaking, she crumpled in his arms.
He stepped back, away from her, lowering her to the dirt, where she sat looking up at him and feeling confused and slightly humiliated. The pain was starting to take hold now. She raised a hand to her lips. They were swollen.
“Come back to the house,” he said shortly, and disappeared into the woods, leaving Maddy alone to wonder what the hell she’d just done.
Chapter Nine
Harley rode up the dirt path that led from the highway to his pack’s home, his mind on nothing more than the good job he’d done fixing an alternator today and the three hundred dollars in his pocket that he would be able to hand over to Jamie. He was jolted out of his good feeling, though, by the sight of Amy running out of the house.
She was in tears. Harley didn’t think he’d seen Amy cry since her thirteenth birthday. He jumped off the motorcycle and let it fall, running to her side. “What is it?” he demanded. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine—”
“Piper and Reese?”
“They’re okay. They’re inside.” She took a shuddery breath. “The omega’s gone.”
“What?”
“She must have run away!” Amy wailed. “I know I was supposed to be watching her, but I didn’t really think she’d try to run! Doesn’t she know the Death Fangs are still looking for her?”
She didn’t know, actually. Or, if she did, she certainly had no idea of the extent and determination of their search party. Jamie had told his brothers what he’d heard at the bar last night, but they’d collectively agreed not to tell Maddy what they’d learned. “It would only scare her,” Jamie had said, and Mark and Harley had felt the same way. It felt good to come to a consensus on something. It seemed as though they might be on the road to healing the rift between them.
But now, apparently, they had a whole new problem.
He led Amy back inside and poured her a glass of water. “Are the others out looking for her?” he asked.
“You’re the first to come home.”
He nodded. “Stay here,” he said. “Keep Piper and Reese in the house. Watch them, Amy.”
“I—I will. Are you going out to find her?”
“Yes.” He just hoped the Death Fangs wouldn’t find her first. She couldn’t have gotten far, he reasoned. And it wasn’t likely that the Death Fangs were anywhere nearby. There were a lot of places for them to look. They’d probably never find the Hell’s Wolves. Everything was probably going to be fine.
Still, the thought of their omega out there
on her own—his heart hammered. She had a big mouth, but she wasn’t used to being alone. She probably didn’t have the slightest idea how to fend for herself.
God, he hoped she’d be all right.
He slipped behind the tree line, undressed quickly, and let the raw instinct of the wolf fill him. He reached out with his unusually sharp sense of smell, scenting the air, trying to remember the smell of Maddy. He’d sat beside her on her bed, breathed the same air as she had—
There.
He was off, paws eating up the ground, moving toward that smell. As he ran, he became aware that he was also going toward the river, and he picked up his pace. He couldn’t quite articulate his thoughts when he was in this form, but he felt a sense of fear and urgency. The river wasn’t safe for someone who didn’t know its rips and currents well.
He burst into the clearing where the river ran and stopped short.
There was no one here.
But it was immediately apparent that someone had been here, and not that long ago.
There were footprints along the bank, and some of them were muddy. Someone had been in the water and come back out. He examined them, trying to figure out what the person had done next. He lowered his muzzle to the ground and sniffed at them.
Here was a scuffed patch of earth. The footprints got lost here, as though someone had trodden over the same area, back and forth. Or had there been two people?
A fight?
Fear filled Harley, driving him away from his animal self and back toward his rational mind. The next moment, he knelt in the dirt, his fingers tracing over the rough area, trying to determine what had happened.
A bare footprint.
A bare footprint in the middle of the woods almost certainly meant a shifter.
Oh, God. The Death Fangs.
Harley got to his feet and ran. He stopped only briefly to pull his pants back on when he reached the pile of clothes he’d left behind the first tree. He scooped up the rest of his things and ran for the house.
Jamie was coming down the porch stairs, and he crossed the yard to Harley. “What’s going on?” he asked urgently. “Did you find her?”
“Amy told you?”
Jamie nodded.
“She was down by the river,” Harley said. “But she’s not there now. I think someone else found her there.”
Jamie exhaled sharply. “Shit.”
“Do you think it was the Death Fangs?”
“If it was, we’ll find out soon enough,” Jamie said. “They’re not going to leave us alone if they know we had her. Someone will be along to start trouble with us, to punish us for daring to defy the Death Fangs.”
Harley knew it was true. “Do you think we should get the kids out of here?” he asked.
“And take them where?”
“You could take them right now,” Harley said. “If the Death Fangs have been stalking us, they might not know there are three of us. Mark and I could make them believe it was just the two of us, and you and the kids could go hole up in a hotel until the coast was clear.”
Jamie shook his head. “None of them know how to ride,” he said. “I can only bring one person as a passenger. I can’t get all three of them away. Not without going back and forth, and that’ll make us easy to follow.”
Harley knew his brother was right. “What do we do?”
Jamie started to answer but froze. A rustling sound was coming from the woods.
Then Maddy emerged. Dazed and stumbling slightly, she crossed the yard toward the house.
The brothers ran to meet her. Harley caught her by one arm and steadied her. “Maddy! Are you all right? What happened?”
She squinted up into his eyes. “Harley?”
“And Jamie,” Jamie supplied. Harley appreciated his brother’s practical nature. He had clearly recognized that Maddy had difficulty telling them apart and was doing his best to facilitate the situation.
“So that means...,” Maddy trailed off.
“That means what?” Harley asked.
“That means it was Mark I met in the woods,” she said vaguely.
Jamie frowned. “Mark knew where you were? We were all looking for you. Amy’s been really upset.”
“Oh.” That seemed to shake Maddy from her stupor. “I should go apologize. I didn’t mean to upset her.” She slipped free of their grasp and headed for the house.
Harley turned to Jamie and raised his eyebrows. “What do you suppose that’s all about?”
“I have a guess,” Jamie said, and Harley was surprised by the dark anger in his voice. “But I really fucking hope I’m wrong.”
MARK HUDDLED IN THE shade of one of the tallest pines, gasping and alarmed.
What had just happened back there?
He had always intended to mate with Maddy, eventually, of course. He hadn’t been sure how that was going to happen, how they were going to get to that point from where they were now. He knew she was afraid of him, and he didn’t blame her. But he had planned to work on that, to reassure her, to bring her around. One day, he had been sure, they would be lovers.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
He hadn’t planned to take her like that when he’d approached her. He had planned to scold her for leaving the house unattended, for putting herself in danger when they were all doing their best to protect her. He had thought to put a bit of a scare in her and take her back.
But when she’d fallen into his arms, something had changed.
Mark couldn’t understand it. He’d never felt out of control like that before. It had been all he could do to ask her if she wanted to stop, and he was thankful that she hadn’t, because he wasn’t sure if he could have managed to grant the request or not.
Could I have stopped if she’d wanted me to? he asked himself now. Why was it like that? Why was my need for her so much stronger than my ability to make my own decisions?
A shudder went through him. He knew what it reminded him of. It was just like the feeling of needing to bite back at people who tried to push him around. It was the same feeling he’d had whenever he’d tried to hold down a job, whenever a boss had given him an order. It was something deep and primal, something that came from the very core of him.
It went against Mark Driscoll’s nature to submit to the authority of others.
Had his nature also compelled him to take Maddy the way he had?
She had wanted it too. Of that he was certain. The way she had looked at him, the way she had opened to him, the way her body had welcomed his every touch— he was not at all worried that he had forced himself on her.
So, what am I worried about?
He didn’t know, exactly. He only knew that he had had a plan for how this encounter was supposed to go, and that plan had been tossed to the wind as soon as he and Maddy had touched.
And he worried.
Will I be able to be around her again? he wondered. What will happen when I try to sit beside her at the dinner table? What will happen when we pass each other in the hall? Will I grab her and fuck her the way I just did in the woods, but this time with all our pack around to see? That couldn’t happen. He would have to figure out some way to control the raging beast that had been awakened within him.
Until he could do that, he wasn’t at all sure that he ought to go home.
He sat under the tree until the sun began to sink toward the horizon. Eventually, it occurred to him that he hadn’t gotten any food for his packmates. If he went home tonight, he would be going emptyhanded. He would be letting them down.
Yet, he would go home, he decided. As hard as it might be to live in a house with a woman he now lusted for so fiercely, so passionately, it would be even harder to turn away from her. It would be impossible. He couldn’t leave Maddy behind. He had to be where she was.
Why do I feel it so intensely? Why can’t I put it from my mind, even now?
He didn’t know.
He got to his feet, brushed the pine needles and dirt from his shorts
, and walked slowly through the forest, trying to gather his wits. He had told Maddy to go back to the house after their encounter, and he felt sure she would have done it, despite the fact she had snuck out in the first place. By now, she might have told the rest of the pack what had happened between them.
Mark hoped she hadn’t. It would be easier if he could tell the story himself. But he knew he had to be prepared for whatever was waiting for him at home.
He paused beyond the tree line, spying on his family through the brightly lit window of their little kitchen. Maddy was at the dinner table. It was her first time having dinner with the whole pack, he realized. There was Reese at the stove, laughing as usual.
Everything seemed fine.
He would just have to hope that it would be.
Heart pounding, he stepped out of the trees and crossed the yard to the front door of his house.
JAMIE HEARD THE DOOR slam closed from the library and knew at once that Mark was home.
Take it easy, he counseled himself. Don’t just blow up at him. But it was all he could do to contain his anger. He couldn’t imagine Mark had a good excuse for what he appeared to have done.
He gathered himself and walked out of the library and down to the kitchen. Mark was smiling, leaning against the door and teasing Reese about something. The kids were laughing. Jamie seethed.
“Mark,” he said, his voice clipped. “I need to see you in the library.”
The smile vanished from Mark’s face. It was all the evidence Jamie needed, really. Mark already knew exactly what this conversation was going to be about. And there was only one way he could know.
He allowed Mark to precede him into the library and pulled the door closed behind them. As soon as it was shut, Harley stood up from the corner where he had been sitting in shadow.
Mark started. “What is this?”
“You know what this is,” Harley said. Jamie had shared his suspicious with his brother, and Harley had been equally outraged.
“Are you two ambushing me?”
“Did you sleep with Maddy?” Jamie asked coolly, folding his arms across his chest.
