by J. L. Wilder
It was hard to believe. They’d run away from home. They’d abandoned Weston’s bike. They’d slept in a boxcar. Somewhere along the way, they’d rediscovered their love for each other. And now Charity was pregnant, and they were living in their own place together.
It had all been almost too easy.
If it wasn’t for the fact that he’d had to leave his bike—his most prized possession—behind, Weston would have thought the Hell’s Wolves must have just decided to let him go. He had hoped for a successful escape. He had believed it was possible. But he had never really thought it would be accomplished this smoothly.
And yet it had.
Charity seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “Is this real?” she asked. “We really got the place?”
“We really got it.”
“We live here now?”
“Yeah, seems like it. At least for the next six months. Then we’ll probably have to find somewhere else, but that’s plenty of time.
“Wow,” she whispered. “I kind of can’t believe it.”
“You want to go get that breakfast now?”
She grinned saucily. “Maybe we should break in the bedroom first.”
He had to laugh at that. “Maybe we should. Can’t let an omega go wanting, can we?” He scooped her up in his arms and carried her off to their brand-new bedroom.
They found a brisk pace this time, expediently stripping off each other’s clothes and tossing them away. He lay back on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows, and she lowered herself on top of him and rotated her hips slowly. Weston closed his eyes and let his head fall back. “God, you’re good at that.”
“I could do this all day,” she panted.
“Me too,” he groaned, wrapping his hands around her hips and pulling her closer.
And he would have done just that, but they were both hungry, and he was conscious now of the fact that she needed to eat for the babies she was carrying. When he felt his orgasm approaching, he didn’t slow his pace, but rather leaned into it, lifting his hips to meet her thrusts until they came together, and she collapsed forward into his arms.
“I wish I could say let’s go break in the shower, too,” she said, chuckling slightly, “but I’m afraid we’d never get out of here if we did. And I really do need to eat at some point.”
“We’ll do it later,” he promised. “I think I saw a twenty-four-hour diner back by the motel.”
They dressed and went outside. Weston took particular pleasure in locking the house’s door and slinging the key’s lanyard around his neck. It made it feel as though the place was really his, in a way no place ever had been before. He took Charity’s hand and they walked through their chain-link fence and back through the town to find the diner Weston had seen.
It was easy enough to locate. This town was so small that Weston thought it would probably be hard to get lost in it even if you didn’t have the uncommonly good sense of direction that came with being a wolf. They went inside, took seats, examined the menus, and ordered skillets and bacon and a bowl of fruit to share.
The waitress poured them each a cup of coffee. Weston took a long sip of his and made a face. It was nothing like the stuff he was used to drinking back at home. Norma’s coffee was rich and flavorful. This stuff was watery and flat.
“Let me see that.” Charity pulled his cup to her. She added a packet of sugar and a generous pour of cream, then passed it back. “Try that.”
“I drink coffee black at home,” he objected.
“Yeah, I know you do, but diner coffee is different,” she said. “It’s cheap and mass-produced and they burn it half the time. You have to add that stuff to make it taste decent.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
“I used to work at a restaurant, remember?”
“That wasn’t a diner.”
“It was the same idea, though. None of our food was as good as anything Norma makes.”
Weston nodded, stirred the coffee, and took another sip. She was right. It did taste better like this. “I guess there is something worth knowing in being human,” he said.
“Hey, if we’re going to live in this human town and do human things like go to diners and sublet apartments, you’re going to be glad you’ve got my experience and know-how on your side,” she said, grinning.
“Okay then, let me have it. What do I need to know in order to be a successful human?”
“You need to know how to socialize with the rest of them,” she said. “That was the hardest thing for me when I left the pack the first time. I couldn’t even look anyone in the eye for weeks. I felt like they would know I was hiding something, like they’d smell it on me or something.” She stirred her own coffee and took a long drink. “The truth is, they’re not anywhere near that perceptive. You could straight up tell them you were a wolf and they’d just laugh and tell you to pull the other one, probably.”
“Which doesn’t mean we can let our guard down,” Weston said. “The humans won’t know anything, it’s true. But if they get an idea that there’s something weird or off about us, something that sets us apart from them...well, that’s the kind of thing the Hell’s Wolves might clue in on, if they come this way looking for us.”
Charity nodded. “We can blend in best by being friendly but distant,” she said. “Smile at the neighbors, but don’t learn their names. Come and go at normal hours. Wear normal clothes...we’ll have to go shopping. I don’t have anything but the clothes I was kidnapped in, and you’re dressed like a lumberjack.”
“We don’t have much money left.”
“We can go to a secondhand store. We can get things cheaply there.”
“Okay. That’s a good idea.”
Their skillets arrived and they dug in with gusto, quieting down for a few minutes to focus on the meal. Weston hadn’t realized until now how hungry he was until he took his first bite. When had he last eaten? He’d had a granola bar after he’d been shopping at the gas station, but that was it. Before that...it had been back at the cabin, before they’d run away.
And now he was sitting before a hot meal, full of eggs, meat, cheese, potatoes, and vegetables. He didn’t think he could possibly be any happier.
Charity was also making short work of her skillet, and Weston wasn’t at all surprised. She must have been even hungrier than he was. They hadn’t given her much to eat back at the house, and she hadn’t kept down her share of the granola bars. And the fact that she was pregnant was probably ratcheting up her appetite a few notches too—her body knew what it needed.
“Something else,” she said after they had devoted about five minutes to nonstop eating and had begun to slow down between bites.
“Something else? About being human?”
“No, it was something Robbie said back at the house,” she said. “He said that you drink too much.”
A weight settled into Weston’s stomach. He didn’t want to lie to Charity, but he didn’t want to disappoint her either. “Robbie worries too much,” he said. “And he involves himself too much in other people’s business.”
“He didn’t do that when I knew him.”
“People change,” Weston said.
She eyed him steadily. “I know,” she said. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
“I haven’t had a drink since we left the Wolves.”
“Of course, you haven’t,” she said. “We’re on the run. When would you have had the chance? But you did have him bring you a bottle the night I was kidnapped. You drank most of that.”
He couldn’t deny it.
“I’m just anxious, I suppose,” she said. “We’re going to be parents. And we have to blend in. And...and I want to feel like you’re here with me. I’ve seen what people are like when they have too much to drink. I don’t want to feel alone with no one to help protect me—and our babies—while you’re passed out or off at a bar or something.”
Weston felt as guilty as if he’d already done the things she was su
ggesting. “I don’t want you to feel that way either,” he said.
“What should we do?”
It was strange. She had told him exactly what she wanted, and yet he could see that she wasn’t going to come out and ask for it. She bowed to his authority. She submitted. He could tell her right now that it was just too damn bad, that he would drink if he wanted to and she would have to deal with it, and she’d probably never say another word on the subject.
It was scary, having someone surrender control to him like that.
But it made him want to do right by her. She was placing an overwhelming amount of trust in him, and the very least he could do would be to show her that her trust hadn’t been misplaced. In that moment he realized that he would always try to give Charity what she needed and protect her from harm. She might be the one submitting to him, but in doing so, she had won herself the fiercest ally anyone could ever have.
“I’ll give up drinking,” he said. The words came so easily that he might as well have been offering to switch off the lights or lock the door. It was what Charity needed, so of course he would do it. What other path was there to take?
She looked surprised. “You will? Really?”
“I’d do anything for you,” he said. “I already ran away from home. I left my bike. I left my life as a wolf. And I don’t regret a bit of it. This is nothing, Charity. Of course, I’ll give up drinking. I want to be a good mate to you. I want to be a good father.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “You will be,” she said. “You could never be anything less.”
Chapter Fourteen
CHARITY
When breakfast was over, they headed back to the home they’d acquired, walking hand in hand down the quiet, rural sidewalk.
For a few golden minutes, Charity felt almost impossibly lucky.
This was the exact life she would have chosen for herself if the choice had been placed in her hands. She was away from Hawk and away from the terrible things the Hell’s Wolves would have planned for her—and yet she was no longer alone, a shifter hiding her true identity in a world of humans. She would have a pack of her own. She would have children to raise and nurture and a mate—a partner—to love.
And best of all, that partner was Weston.
She had thought she’d lost him so long ago. She had been sure that their life together was at an end. And yet, here he was, back in her world, the division between them healed so neatly that it was as if there had never been a break.
Life could hardly help but be beautiful from now on.
And then, just as this thought was occurring to her, a motorcycle came ripping by.
Charity felt a sense of wrongness, without being sure exactly what had caused it. The motorcycle—its speed, the bulky build and leather attire of the rider—they didn’t fit in this quaint little town. They didn’t belong here, and she couldn’t have said why, but she was sure of it. It was as if something alien had landed in front of them.
The bike skidded around, pivoting to face them and coming to a screeching halt.
Weston stopped walking. “Get behind me,” he said.
“What?”
“Get behind me!” He was already stepping in front of her.
Then there was a sound like nothing Charity had ever heard before, deafening and explosive, and suddenly Weston had her hand in his and was cutting off the sidewalk, between houses, running as fast as he could and dragging Charity behind him. She couldn’t keep pace with him, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was pulling so fiercely on her arm, she would have fallen over in his wake.
Where are we going? She didn’t question it; she just ran as hard as she could. Behind them, more explosive sounds echoed, and it occurred to Charity that these were probably gunshots. It was an idea that seemed deeply melodramatic, and yet what else could they be?
But who would be shooting at us?
Could it be the wolves? She couldn’t imagine that. Surely not even Hawk would do such a thing. They had grown up together, after all. They had been family once. Hawk was cruel and violent, she knew, but he couldn’t possibly want her or Weston dead.
But who else was there? Who else on Earth would even take an interest in the two of them?
In the backyard of a random home, they came upon a toolshed whose door hung open. “Get in,” Weston said, propelling her toward it, and Charity complied. He followed right behind her, pulled the door closed, and latched it.
They stood there panting, staring at each other in the dark.
“He can shoot us through the door,” Charity whispered as her breathing recovered. “Can’t he? It’s only wood.”
Weston didn’t answer. He peered out the window that was built into the shed’s front door. After a moment, he waved his hand in her direction, indicating that she should come forward.
She did so and joined him at the window. “What’s going on?”
“Do you see him anywhere?”
“No. Do you?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean anything...” Weston sighed and ran his palm over his short hair. “Who was that?”
“It definitely wasn’t one of the Wolves, right?”
“No, did you see his colors?”
“Not really.”
“He didn’t have the claw.” Weston lifted the sleeve of his shirt to reveal the tattoo of a human hand ending in wolf claws on his bicep. “I didn’t recognize the patches, but I would have recognized this. He was something else.”
“A different club?”
“A different pack,” Weston said, nodding.
“But why would another pack attack us?”
“Maybe he knew you were an omega,” Weston said. “Maybe he thought if I was out of the way—”
“How could he know I’m an omega?”
“He might have smelled you,” Weston said. “It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he had.”
“Then...then I’m putting you in danger,” she realized, her veins flooding with ice. “Then people will try to attack you—kill you—to get to me.”
“Stop it,” he said firmly. “Don’t even go there. You and I are not splitting up. If you try to leave, I’ll follow you. So just put the idea out of your head.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Weston,” she said, “I can’t let you put yourself in danger for me. I’m not worth that.”
“What about our babies? Are they worth that?”
She couldn’t answer. Of course, they were. But the idea of someone shooting at her Weston was unbearable. How could this be a choice she had to make? It was unfair. It was impossible.
Weston seemed to understand. He wrapped an arm around her. “It’s not your decision,” he told her quietly. “It’s mine. It’s my choice.”
“But how can I let it be?”
“You have to,” he said. “I’m telling you to. Let me decide. Don’t push me away. Don’t run away from me. I’m a part of this family, so let me be a part of it.”
Charity opened her mouth to argue again but found that a sort of peace had settled over her. Even though she still feared for his safety, she found that her heart had fully accepted her own lack of control. He was right. It was his choice. There was nothing she could do about it anyway, so she might as well accept it.
It was liberating. It was freeing. She looked up at him in wonder. “How did you do that?”
“What did I do?”
“You made me...you made me stop being afraid. You made me stop wanting to get as far away from you as I could so that you wouldn’t be in danger.”
He caressed her cheek softly. “That’s good,” he said.
“It is good. It’s much better. But I don’t understand how it happened.”
“It must be another omega thing.”
“Did you read about it in your book?”
“No, not specifically. But we both know that omegas naturally submit to their mates—”
“To alphas, I thought it was.”
“Well, their mates are usual
ly alphas. But in this case, you’ve submitted to me. So, this must be part of that. You’re submitting to my orders too. Haven’t you noticed how willingly you’ve been following every suggestion I’ve made since we left the pack? That’s not just because you’re a follower generally. We both know you’re not, or else you wouldn’t have run away the first time.”
“That makes sense,” she agreed. The anxious horror that had spun to life inside her at the thought that she would have to leave Weston for his own safety slowly faded away. He wanted her beside him. He had chosen to face whatever came with her.
“I don’t think that biker’s coming back,” Weston said quietly. “I think we lost him.”
“Do you think it’s safe to go back to the house?” she asked. “If he’s following my scent...”
“We’ll try it,” Weston said. “But we’ll have to move carefully.”
He opened the door of the shed and crept out into the yard. The sun had started to go down now. Weston led Charity through the yard they were in, across the property line, into the adjoining yard. He pointed across the street. There was their house.
There was no sign of a malevolent biker anywhere.
It didn’t look as though they’d been tracked. So maybe the biker they’d seen hadn’t been after Charity at all. Maybe he hadn’t known they were shifters. Maybe he hadn’t even been a shifter himself, but just a regular human biker. Maybe his attack on them had been an attempt to rob them or a random act of violence.
Maybe they were safe now.
Charity could tell Weston was thinking the same thing. And she could tell he was afraid to allow himself to believe it. He marched around the house locking doors and windows and shutting curtains. Charity went into the living room and sat on the couch, afraid to turn on any lights.
After a few minutes, Weston joined her. He fell into a posture of relaxation beside her, but Charity could tell by the tension in the arm he wrapped around her shoulders that he was still worried.
Night was coming upon them quickly, but Charity and Weston had been sleeping during the day lately and weren’t tired. And even if they had been on a normal sleep schedule, the fear and adrenaline would likely have driven sleep away from them.
