by J. L. Wilder
“I wasn’t coming back. I had a job. I had a life.”
“This is your life,” he said. “You’re our omega. You can’t just run away from that.” He shook his head, looking half sad and half disgusted, and shut the door on her. She heard the bolt slide home and knew she’d been locked in.
She sat down on the bed and let the horror of the situation wash over her.
Hawk had found her. He had taken her back, brought her here to be his mate. And no one in this pack, no matter how much they might care about her, was going to be able to help her.
She belonged to them. That was what they believed. She was theirs, to use however they liked. This was why she’d run away. This was what she’d been most afraid of. And now it was happening, and Charity knew that they’d learned from their mistake. They would never let her escape again. There was no way out.
Chapter Seven
WESTON
He burst into the house, half-mad, unthinking, and would have charged right into the den to speak to Hawk had it not been for Norma in the kitchen.
She planted herself in his path, eyes wide with concern. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked.
Weston shook his head. He would have liked to tell Norma, both back in the day and now, about the relationship he and Charity had had. He trusted her. She was like a mother to him. Her advice would have been good, helpful, and she probably would have had some words of comfort. But of course, he couldn’t talk to her. Not about this. And especially not now that Hawk, not Karl, was in charge. The more people that knew, the more danger he and Charity would be in.
Nevertheless, Norma seemed to understand how upset he was. “Sit down,” she told him.
“I need to talk to Hawk.” And say what? It wasn’t as if he would be able to tell Hawk to let Charity go. Would hearing the circumstances of her capture really make him feel better?
“Let me get you a glass of water first,” Norma said. “You’re heated.”
“I’ll take a beer.”
She frowned, but her desire to calm him down won out over her desire to discourage his drinking habit. She passed him a bottle. He flicked the cap off with his calloused thumb and took a long swallow.
“They’re back?” he asked her. “The others?”
“Most of them. One or two are still trickling in.”
“And is Hawk telling the truth?” He held up his phone. “They really found Charity?”
“They really did.” To his horror, Norma’s eyes became misty. “She’s grown up so much since she left. She was just a little thing.”
He thought of Charity as he remembered her—short, slender, soft hair, wide eyes. What would six years on her own have done to her? What would she be like now? Did he even want the answer to that question?
“It’s for the best she’s back,” Norma said. “She’s better off with us, her own people.” Was it Weston’s imagination, or did she sound like she was trying to convince herself?
“We haven’t brought back any of the others who left,” he pointed out. If being kidnapped and brought back into the pack was really what was best for everyone, why weren’t they going after the other packmates they’d lost?
Norma didn’t seem to have an answer. She rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment. “You control yourself in there,” she told him quietly.
He’d always had the feeling that Norma could read his emotional state. He allowed himself to take comfort from her as he finished the dregs of his beer. Then he tossed the bottle into the sink. “Don’t clean up after me,” he told her. “I’ll come take care of it later.”
But she was already moving toward the sink. “Nothing to worry about,” she assured him. “Just try and keep your cool, will you?”
He would try. But he couldn’t guarantee success.
Hawk was alone in the den. Good. Weston had been afraid of finding him with Rick and Gino as usual. It would be harder to talk to him if he was surrounded by cronies. Finding him on his own was a stroke of good luck.
Not that he had any idea what he was actually going to say. How could he hope to tell Hawk anything that would be helpful here? He couldn’t. He had no control. Not for the first time, he longed for Karl, who had always tried not to abuse his power as alpha and would have been willing to listen to anything his pack had to say.
Hawk sat slumped in his recliner, staring at the TV. “Can you see about my dinner?” he asked Weston without looking up. “Norma was supposed to bring it in here.”
“She’s still cooking,” Weston said.
“Well, she’s taking her time about it. She ought to hurry up.”
“So, you found Charity, then?”
“First time out. It’s like it was meant to be. Pretty wild, right?”
“Pretty wild.” He felt as if his blood was boiling beneath his skin. “Where is she now?”
“Oh, Gino locked her up in the spare room. We can’t have her escaping again, right?” He laughed. “Not that she’d try, once she realizes how good she’s got it here. But you know, it’s her first night. Makes sense she’d be a little freaked out. Which reminds me.” He sat up. “I need you to take a shift.”
“Take a shift? What kind of a shift?”
“What kind do you think? Guard duty. I need you to go stand guard over her.”
This was the very last thing Weston wanted to do. Seeing Charity again would be bad enough. Seeing her when she was at such a disadvantage would be pure hell. He was angry with her. He wanted to dwell in that anger. He didn’t want to have to deal with feeling sorry for her, which he was sure he would if he had to face her in lockdown, where she’d be afraid and possibly pleading for escape.
“I don’t think I’m the best person for the job,” was all he could manage.
“Well, I’m ordering you to do it,” Hawk said, and sure enough, the tug of compulsion was suddenly there. He had to obey. He had no choice. Damn it, damn it, damn it.
“When do I have to guard her?” he ground out, furious with himself for coming in here in the first place. Norma had been right. He should have kept his distance. He should have known Hawk would do something like this. And Hawk didn’t even know how agonizing this was going to be for Weston.
“Go now,” Hawk said. “Gino’s there, but you can relieve him. And you’ll stay the night.”
“What, all night?”
“Yeah. Just don’t go to sleep.”
Fuck. Great. Now he wouldn’t be able to go to sleep because he’d been given the order to stay awake. And Hawk was always lazy and forgetful about countermanding those orders. The last time he’d ordered Weston to stay up all night for a job, he’d forgotten to give the okay, go to sleep now command until halfway through the following day. Weston had almost had a nervous breakdown.
He slumped out of the room and down the hall, dragging his feet as much as he could while still being propelled forward by the weight of Hawk’s command. The spare room was a new addition to the cabin, having just been built the previous fall, and nobody actually lived there yet, hence the moniker. Hawk had made noise at the time about the possibility of Gino and Lita having a baby or two and needing a nursery. Gino and Lita had both insisted that such things weren’t on their radar at all, though, which made Weston think that perhaps the motivation for building the room had never had anything to do with babies.
Now Gino sat on the floor outside the room, his back pressed against the door, fiddling with his phone. “Hey, Weston,” he said. “You getting any service?”
“Haven’t looked. Is she really in there?”
“Yep,” Gino said, a note of pride in his voice. “I was the one who found her. Couldn’t believe it myself. There was a scent on the air, I thought it seemed omega-y, but what do I know about it? I’ve never met one before. And then I turned the corner and there she was, walking down the street. I just about died.”
“How’d you get her to come back with you?”
“Just picked her up and put her in the van.” Gino shrugged. �
��It was easy.”
Weston itched to ask Gino for more details—had he hurt Charity? Had she tried to run? Had he had to tackle her or hit her to get her into the car? But he couldn’t ask those questions without risking arousing suspicion. After all, what motivation could he have for wanting to know unless he specifically didn’t want her hurt? And what possible reason could he have for worrying about that?
“I’m supposed to relieve you,” he said.
Gino looked doubtful. “Yeah?”
“Hawk said so.” Gino could go and ask him if he didn’t believe Weston. “And Norma’s almost done making dinner, so you might as well go get some.”
Gino nodded and got to his feet. “I’ll bring you a plate.”
“Thanks, man.” Gino wasn’t so bad, really, Weston thought. If only he wasn’t living in Hawk’s pocket, they might have been close. It would have been nice to have a brother—a blood brother, a brother from his own litter—who he could confide in. But the only males in their litter had been Hawk, Gino, and Weston. And Gino had chosen his side.
He couldn’t be trusted. That was all there was to it.
Weston lingered in the hall as Gino disappeared toward the kitchen. Then he turned, without realizing that he’d decided to do it, opened the door to the spare room, and stepped inside.
And there she was.
Charity.
Norma was right—she had grown. She was different from the girl he remembered. Her hair, which had been wild and untamable when they’d been teenagers, was now sleek and well cared for. Her nails were trimmed and polished. She’d filled out pleasantly, was curvier than the stick slender girl he’d known.
But there was no mistaking her. Those bright blue eyes that seemed to pierce right through him, that could summon thoughts from his mind straight to his tongue. That clear skin that he’d once run his fingers across every day when they’d escaped into the woods together. She had been almost as close to him as an extension of himself...
“Charity,” he said quietly.
She stared up at him. “Weston. Jesus, it’s really you.”
He blinked. “Of course, it’s really me. I live here. You’re the one who left. Why are you surprised to see me?”
“Well, I...” She hesitated. “I suppose I didn’t think you’d still be here. Lita told me most of the pack had split after I left.”
“And you thought I’d be one of them?”
“Is Hawk really alpha now?”
“You know he is.”
“Then why would you stay?”
“Because not everybody just runs off when things get hard,” he snapped. “Not everybody ditches their pack. I couldn’t leave the rest of them. I’m not like you.”
She looked slapped.
“I can’t believe you’d judge me,” he said. “I can’t believe that you of all people would judge me. For sticking with my pack! You have no idea what it was like when everyone left. You have no idea what it’s been like, trying to hold this shit together while Hawk does everything he possibly can to run us into the ground.”
“Weston—”
“I really needed you. We all really needed you. And what you did was show half our family that it was okay to bolt at the first sign of trouble. It’s your fault things are like this.”
“You’re not being fair,” she said quietly.
“How am I not being fair?”
“Because I’m an omega. You know what that means. You know what would have happened to me.”
“You should have told me.”
“You should have guessed. You know me, Weston.”
“I thought I did.”
“You should have known I wouldn’t just leave for some stupid reason. I left because there was no other way out. Hawk would have forced me to become his if I’d stayed.”
“That’s going to happen now anyway,” he said coldly. “If you’d told me what was going on back at the beginning, when you first knew you were the omega, I could have helped you, maybe. I could have figured something out. But it’s too late for that now.”
She stared at him. “Why are you being like this, Weston?”
“What are you talking about?”
“We haven’t seen each other in six years,” she pointed out. “Haven’t you wondered how I’m doing? Haven’t you missed me at all?”
“What do you want from me here? You left. You decided to leave. Am I supposed to feel bad because I didn’t spend six years pining after you?” He’d be damned if he was going to admit that he had, in fact, worried about her, that he had wondered how she was doing all the time.
“I didn’t think you’d start yelling at me the minute you saw me. That’s all.”
“I’m not yelling.”
“Your voice is raised.”
She was right. With some effort, he modulated the volume of his voice. “I’m not in the best mood, all right? I’m on guard duty all night, which means I’m not going to get any sleep because I have to watch you and make sure you don’t run away again.”
“I’m not going to run away,” she said.
He scoffed. “How crazy would I have to be to take your word for it?”
“I wouldn’t do it on your watch Weston. I do care what happens to you, you know.”
“Bullshit.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You’re being really awful,” she said. “I’m sorry you don’t want to do guard duty, but in case it matters to you, I’ve had a pretty bad day too. I was kidnapped. The life I’ve spent six years building is over.”
“Don’t ask me to get upset about your stupid human life,” he snapped. “Don’t ask me to cry over your waitressing job and your human friends. I don’t give a damn about that shit.”
“You know? You know about my job?”
“You weren’t exactly hard to find,” he said. “This was the first day we even tried looking for you.”
“But you knew where I was,” she said slowly. “You knew I had a job as a waitress. How long have you known, Weston?”
She had misunderstood, he realized. She had thought he’d known all along that she was at the restaurant, when in fact he’d only found out today.
But what difference did that make? Had she been expecting him to come looking for her? Was that why she hadn’t bothered to tell him she was running away? It made sense, he realized suddenly. Why else would she stay so nearby? She must have thought he would come after her when she left.
As if that was his responsibility!
He wasn’t going to feel guilty for not chasing her all over creation when she hadn’t even bothered to tell him that she was leaving, or why. He wasn’t the one who had jumped ship on their relationship. That was her. And he wouldn’t let himself be held accountable for it now that she was back.
“Don’t do that,” he said brusquely.
She recoiled slightly, staring at him.
“Don’t act like it matters how long I knew where you were,” he said. “That’s not what this is about. That was never what any of this was about. I could have tracked you from the moment you walked out the front door, and it still wouldn’t make this my fault because I’m not the one who left. I’m not the one who ran away.”
“You know why I had to run, Weston!”
“I’m not talking about running away from Hawk,” he said.
“Then what are you talking about?”
You ran away from me. But he couldn’t say that aloud. Not only because he was afraid to admit to her how badly she’d hurt him—which he was—but also because they were surrounded by the rest of the pack. Someone might walk in at any minute. Gino had even said that he would be bringing Weston a dinner plate. Weston couldn’t allow any of his packmates to walk in on a lovers’ quarrel and discover the connection that he and Charity had once shared. He had to keep this strictly away from that subject.
Unfortunately, that meant he couldn’t clarify why he was angry with her. But that was all right. This conversation was going nowhere. It was clear that Ch
arity didn’t think she’d done anything wrong. She wasn’t going to apologize to him for leaving. If anything, she seemed to expect him to apologize to her.
Well, fat chance of that. He knew he was in the right here.
He sat down with his back to the wall, pulled out his phone, and began to fiddle with it.
She stared. “Since when do you have phones?”
“I thought you liked human things now.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“I like them fine, I just...the Hell’s Bears never carried phones before.”
“Is that why you left? Because you wanted a phone?”
“Jesus.”
That was offensive. He’d known it when he said it. Of course, she hadn’t left for such a trivial reason. Much as he might hate the way she’d handled it, much as he might judge her for it, he did understand why she’d gone. If he’d been in her position, about to be forced to submit to Hawk, he would have wanted to do something about it too.
But he wouldn’t have abandoned the rest of his pack to their fates. Nothing could have made him do that.
And no matter how bad things had been for him, he never would have abandoned Charity.
He would have done anything for her. He would have fought for her, risked life and limb for her. There was nothing he would have said no to. And when she had left, she had left his heart in pieces.
That wasn’t something he thought he could ever get over. No matter how understandable her reasons might have been.
Chapter Eight
CHARITY
If there was one thing about returning to the Hell’s Wolves that should have been good, a relief, it was reuniting with Weston.
Leaving him had been the hardest part of leaving the pack. She had loved him, she thought, even as a teenager. Even when she hadn’t quite known what love was. Seeing Lita and Norma had been bright spots in an otherwise horrifying day but seeing Weston should have been a joy.
But he had changed. Something was fundamentally different about him. He was no longer the Weston she had known and loved. Instead, he was angry and bitter, and he seemed much older than he had been when she’d left him. Decades older.
