by J. L. Wilder
After a while, Weston turned on the TV and they tried to watch, but Charity couldn’t manage to focus on anything. The program was some sort of game show, but she couldn’t even seem to follow the rules. Every time a car drove by outside, she jumped, thinking the engine must belong to a motorcycle. What if he was still out there? What if he lived in this town? How could they ever feel safe again?
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but it was impossible. Her nerves were jumping.
“Do you want to go to bed?” Weston asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” The bedroom might feel safer. The living room faced the road, but their bedroom was at the back of the house. “I guess so. Yes.”
“Come on, then.” He pulled her to her feet and down the hall to the bedroom. Once there, he eased her gently down to sit on the edge of the bed.
He knelt before her and carefully removed her shoes and socks, taking a few minutes to massage the soles of her feet. Charity closed her eyes. It felt amazing. It was as if his hands were channeling energy through her feet to all the pockets of anxiety and upset in her body.
He pulled her upright just long enough to unfasten and remove her pants before sliding them down, leaving her underwear in place. Then he knelt again and rotated her ankles before moving his hands up the back of her shins, massaging the muscles there. He rubbed her knees gently, warming them, and then worked the tops of her thighs.
She ran her fingers through his hair gently as he worked. He was so amazing. She was in awe of his capacity to get her out of her own head, to help her forget the things that had been upsetting her. She hadn’t heard a car go by since they’d come in here. She hadn’t even thought about it.
Now Weston lifted her shirt over her head. “Roll over,” he said, taking her arms and guiding her to lie on her stomach. She turned her head to the side, feeling the dip of the bed as he came to kneel over her. His weight settled on her lower legs and he continued his massage up the backs of her thighs and to her ass.
To Charity’s surprise, she giggled.
“Did I tickle you?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m just enjoying it. I’m just happy.”
He bent over her and kissed the middle of her back, right between her shoulder blades. “Good,” he said. “I’m happy too.”
Now he had reached her back, and she sighed and relaxed as his skilled fingers went to work loosening the knots of muscle there. The tension and terror gradually left her body. This was Weston, her Weston. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to their family. They’d be perfectly safe. She was silly to have worried about it.
At some point, without planning it or realizing it was coming, she dropped off to sleep.
SHE AWOKE TO THE SOUND of a phone ringing.
Immediately, all the panic from the afternoon broke over her like a wave. Her heart beat a frantic staccato as she sat upright. It’s just a phone call, she told herself firmly. A phone call isn’t anything to be afraid of.
It rang again. Weston bolted upright.
“Who has our number here?” Charity asked desperately. “Unless...could it be a call from the landlord? Maybe something’s wrong with the papers?”
But Weston was shaking his head, getting to his feet and digging in his duffel bag. “That’s not the house phone,” he said, and a moment later he had emerged with his cell phone in his hand.
“Who is it?” Charity asked, transfixed with fear.
Weston was staring at the phone. “It’s Robbie,” he said.
“Don’t answer it,” Charity said immediately.
“It’s Robbie,” Weston said. “Robbie’s the only one of them I trust.”
“Okay, but what if Hawk ordered him to call?” Charity said. “What if they’re going to trace the call or something?”
“They don’t know how to do something like that. Hawk isn’t smart enough.” He took a breath. “I’m going to answer it. Don’t worry.”
And once again, the sweeping sense of calm washed over Charity. He had told her not to worry, so she wouldn’t worry. This submission stuff was amazing.
Weston touched his phone’s screen to accept the call. “Hello?” he said quietly.
A long pause. Charity tried to read the reaction on Weston’s face as he listened to the voice on the other end, but it was impossible. His expression appeared to be carved out of granite. If she hadn’t known him so well, she thought, she might have been a little afraid of him in that moment.
“Thank you for calling,” Weston said quietly after he’d listened for a long while. “Yes, we’re fine. We’re somewhere safe.” He listened for another moment, eyes closed. “No. I don’t think that’s a good idea either. Take care of yourself, okay? Yeah.” He hung up the phone and stood staring at it, not moving or speaking.
“What is it?” Charity asked. “What did he say?
“Hawk put a hit out on us,” Weston said quietly. “He’s been in touch with other pack leaders, other alphas. He’s offering a monetary reward to anyone who can bring us in.”
“You’re kidding,” she whispered.
“What it means is that any number of packs could be out looking for us now,” he said. “I’m sure they’ve shown pictures of us, so people will know what they’re looking for. That guy who saw us earlier must have thought he’d hit pay dirt.”
“You think he definitely was a shifter, then? Hunting us on Hawk’s orders?”
“There’s no other reason for him to go after us,” Weston said. “Who are we to him? We didn’t know him. But if he knew about Hawk’s reward—”
“Why would he try to shoot us, though?” Charity asked. “The reward is for bringing us in alive, isn’t it? Not...not for killing us?”
“That’s right, but I bet he wasn’t trying to kill us,” Weston said. “I bet he thought he’d shoot me in the leg or something so I couldn’t run off with you, and that’d make it easy to bring us in. Charity, we can’t stay here.”
Her heart was heavy with loss—in only the few hours that this had been their home, Charity had grown attached to it. It was strange and new to have a place of her own where she truly felt she belonged. But she knew he was right. If their attacker hadn’t yet told anybody about seeing them, odds were he would do it soon. He might even contact Hawk directly and let him know he’d seen Charity and Weston.
So, she swallowed her pain and silently said goodbye to the little house, the little town, and the life she’d hoped to have here. “Where will we go?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll think of something. But we have to leave tonight.”
She steeled herself. “Okay.”
They packed up quickly and quietly. Weston placed the house key on the kitchen counter but didn’t leave a note—they couldn’t risk an explanation for their departure falling into the wrong hands. He locked the door from the inside, and then they were back out on the street.
They hadn’t had even a single night in their new home.
They moved carefully again, down the street that had once been theirs and around the corner, and there, on the side of Lombard Lane, fortune turned in their favor.
Someone had left a motorcycle parked by the sidewalk.
Weston approached it slowly, as if afraid it might buck and run away from him. He laid his hands on the handlebars, exploring.
“Get on,” he said quietly.
“Are we stealing it?”
“Yes.”
Charity had never stolen anything in her life, much less a vehicle. But Weston was her mate. Any guilt she might have felt about what they had to do was mitigated by the fact that the order had come from him. Weston would never choose to do something criminal if there was a good alternative, she knew. She trusted him to bear the moral weight of this decision.
She got on the bike.
Weston got on in front of her and pulled some wires free from behind one of the handlebars. He took a pocketknife from his jacket pocket and flicked away the plastic covering. Caref
ully, he brought two of the wires together.
The motorcycle roared to life. Charity jumped in shock.
“Hang on,” Weston said grimly, and she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her forehead to his back. Weston rolled slowly down the street, then gave it some gas as they turned the corner.
Five minutes later they were on the highway again, swallowed up by the night.
Chapter Fifteen
WESTON
When was the last time he’d gotten a full eight hours of sleep? Weston had no idea, but he did know that his body was responding to the pressures of their situation in ways he never would have expected. It was as if the wolf within him had been waiting for a fight like this. Robbing liquor stores had made Weston feel weak—that was a pathetic way to use his strength—but digging into the reserves of himself to protect his family seemed to make him stronger.
They rode all night. Weston paid careful attention to the way Charity gripped his waist. If her embrace slackened, it would be a sign that she was drifting off to sleep, and that would be an unsafe way to ride. But she seemed to have found a reserve of strength within herself too, and she stayed upright, holding on tightly.
As the sun began to come up, they crossed the Mississippi River. Weston didn’t know much about the kind of shifters who lived on the East Coast, but the best chance to protect themselves probably came in getting as far away from Hawk and the Hell’s Wolves as possible. Maybe the Hell’s Wolves themselves had returned to Montana now that they had other packs out looking for Weston and Charity.
Maybe word hadn’t spread this far yet. They might be safe here. There was a chance.
There was no money to spare on a motel room for tonight, so Weston parked the bike about a mile off the road in the middle of a wooded area. “We’ll sleep here,” he said quietly, helping Charity down. “Will you be all right?”
She nodded, her face a mask of determination. “I’m fine.”
“Okay.” He cleared a bare spot on the ground, moving piles of sticks and leaves aside, and then dug in his duffel bag and laid out his jacket on the ground. “Sleep on top of that,” he said. “It’ll help you keep warm.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to shift.”
He eased his way carefully out of his clothes, packing them away in the bag so he’d be able to grab them and run at a moment’s notice, and then he closed his eyes and reached inward, calling his wolf self forth.
It was shockingly easy. It was easier than it had ever been. Usually, Weston had to take several minutes to relax his mind and drop into the instinctive aspects of himself, to explore scents and reach out for the greater depth they had when he was a wolf, to feel the strength of his muscles and will it to build. But today the transition was as easy as breathing. It was as if he’d been riding the edge between wolf and man for days, and it required a mere step to take him over.
He opened his eyes and looked at Charity. She was watching him trustingly. It might have been intimidating for her to be human in the presence of a wolf, but she didn’t look bothered by it. Even knowing that wolves had very little control over their impulses, that a wolf was much more likely than a man to lash out, she seemed to feel safe. She rested a hand against his shoulder, burying her fingers in his coarse, dark fur.
Weston settled himself beside her, his protective instincts at the forefront of his mind. Protect her. Protect the babies. Keep them warm. Keep them safe. He curled his body against hers, sheltering her from the wind and helping to increase her body temperature.
“You’re really handsome like this,” she murmured, stroking his fur softly. She was already falling asleep, he could tell. Good. They would need to take as much rest as they could get.
He tried to sleep himself, but for a long time, he couldn’t. His hearing was more sensitive as a wolf, and the forest seemed to be suddenly full of sounds. Birds twittering, branches moving, even the sound of the wind gusting. Which sounds were indicative of danger and which were just the normal sounds of the forest? It was impossible to settle down, impossible to let sleep take him.
Eventually, though, his exhaustion won out. He closed his eyes and let himself slip away.
WHEN HE WOKE, IT WAS dark out.
It was a deep, suffocating sort of dark, and if Weston had been in his human form, he knew he would have found it oppressive. As a wolf, his vision was a little better. He could see the area around him. He could see Charity sleeping by his side.
He rose to his feet in a fluid motion, the fur along his spine standing straight up. What had he heard? Something had woken him. The night was silent now, but Weston sensed danger.
Should he wake Charity? Maybe they should be ready to move? He felt paralyzed by indecision. What if it was nothing? What if he’d just imagined that he’d heard something? He couldn’t rob her of sleep because he’d gotten paranoid in the night.
A twig snapped.
Weston lowered his head to the ground, lips peeling back from his teeth in a silent snarl. Human or animal, there was something out there.
He sniffed the air cautiously, trying to figure out what the threat was, but the woods were too full of other scents to locate the one that was stalking him. It might have been anything. It might have been just a deer passing by.
Or it could be a human...
The moonlight glinted off something metallic. Gun!
There was a split second when Weston didn’t know whether to launch himself forward, to take his attacker on, or whether to move backward and shield Charity, and in that instant of hesitation, he lost his chance to do either.
The first gunshot woke Charity. He heard her scream behind him and was sick with horror. Had she been hit? Was she okay? Were the babies?
There was no time to check. Something collided hard with the side of Weston’s head and he saw stars. A moment later the breath was forced from his lungs as he landed flat on his back, the attacker astride him, pinning him down. One hand found his throat and closed slowly, firmly. Weston gnashed his fangs and battered the body on top of him with his claws, but he was at too much of a disadvantage. He couldn’t get away. He couldn’t turn the tables.
He tried to gasp for air, but the hand closing his windpipe was too strong.
His vision began to fade...
Suddenly there was a loud whap and the pressure on his neck and chest disappeared. Weston found his feet and wheeled about, snarling and snapping, ears laid flat back on his head, ready to take a bite out of the attacker if he came close again.
Charity was on her feet, holding the duffel bag in both hands. She had swung it at the attacker to knock him off Weston. Weston was flooded with relief at the sight of her alive and unhurt. He made his way to her side, pressing himself against her.
And there was the attacker, also on his feet only a few yards away, gun aimed at Weston’s head.
“Give up the girl and I’ll let you go,” he said.
Weston’s shoulders lifted defensively. A snarl ripped from his throat.
“Girl,” the attacker said. “Come over here. He doesn’t need to die.”
“You won’t kill him,” she said. “He’s wanted alive.”
“You’re wanted alive. He’s wanted alive or dead.”
“I’m not leaving him,” she said firmly.”
The attacker shrugged and cocked his gun. “Up to you.” He took careful aim at Weston’s head.
Weston lunged.
He plowed into the gunman’s body at full strength. The gun went off, the bullet scattering some birds off in the distance, but as Weston and their attacker hit the ground, the weapon was knocked loose and skidded away. Weston raked his claws across his attacker’s shoulder, but the attacker didn’t give in. They rolled over and over, fighting for dominance. Weston was amazed by the other man’s strength. For a human to hold his own in a fight against a wolf was impressive, but this man was doing it.
He broke free of their entanglement and ran to Charity’s side again. She
was now holding the gun. She must have picked it up when it had dropped.
She raised it and pointed it at the man who’d attacked them. “Who are you?”
“I’m nobody.” The man seemed to have lost all his confidence now that he’d lost his weapon. “Hey, point that somewhere else, how about? Come on, this doesn’t have to be violent.”
Weston huffed out a laugh.
“You threatened to kill my mate,” Charity said. “Do you think we’re going to just let you walk away?”
Now Weston detected a tremor in her voice. He wouldn’t have picked up on it, he thought, if he hadn’t known her so well. But she was afraid. He could tell. She was afraid of how far this was going to go. She was afraid of having to fire the gun in her hands, of having to take this man’s life. She would do it, he thought, to protect her family. But what would it do to her?
He stepped in front of her, between her and the man.
Shifting back into human form was harder. Everything in him wanted the safety of being a wolf, the strength and the teeth and claws. His human body was soft by comparison, weak and incapable of dealing much damage. Even though Weston was roughly equal in size and strength to his attacker, returning to human form made him feel much smaller.
Still, he managed it. And when he stood upright again, he spoke. “We don’t want to hurt you,” he said quietly. “We would much rather go our separate ways. But if you try to hurt her again, I’m going to kill you. And I’m pretty sure that if you try to hurt me, she’s going to kill you. So, you decide. How do you want this to end?”
The man licked his lips, looking anxious and fearful. “No need. No need for that. I’m going.”
“Do you have friends in the area? Is anyone else working with you?”
“No, I’m alone.”
He might have been lying, of course, but Weston thought it had the ring of truth to it. “All right. Get lost, then. Don’t come our way again, and we won’t follow you.”
