Hell's Wolves MC: Complete Series Six Book Box Set

by J. L. Wilder

“That would be a good place for you to wait while I confront Hawk,” he said.

  She blinked. “Are you out of your mind? No, Weston. Of course not. I’m coming with you.”

  “I don’t want you in danger.”

  “And what do you think will happen to me if you face off with Hawk and lose?” She shook her head. “If I’m there, I can help you.”

  “Charity...no offense, but you’re not really a fighter,” he said quietly. “You haven’t been trained for it.”

  “Maybe not,” she agreed. “But I’m also not under Hawk’s thumb. He’s probably not your alpha, but he’s definitely not mine. Never has been. That means that if things go sideways, you can count on me to have a clear head.”

  “I don’t know about this.”

  “Besides,” she said, “I might not be a trained fighter, but I’ve been useful, haven’t I? When that guy caught us unawares in the woods...”

  “That’s true. You definitely held your own there.”

  “This is my family just as much as it is yours. I want to protect it just as much as you do.”

  “I could order you not to come,” he said.

  She held his gaze “I don’t think you will.”

  They regarded each other for several minutes.

  Then Weston sighed. “No,” he agreed. “I won’t. If you want to come, if you want to fight, you have every right to try.”

  She reached a hand up to him and pulled him down onto the floor beside her, in between the two sleeping bags. She snuggled up to him and kissed him, deeply and passionately. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Don’t thank me.” He sounded tormented. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. I can’t believe I’m leading you into danger.”

  “You’re not,” she told him, placing one hand along his cheek. “You’re leading me out of danger. It’s just that we have to pass through it in order to get there.”

  He shook his head. “That feels like a weak excuse.”

  “I couldn’t let you face Hawk alone,” she said. “I couldn’t stand it, Weston. It would be too much. The idea of sitting in that clearing by myself—that clearing where I used to sit with you—and knowing you were fighting for your life—”

  He smiled a little, turning his face toward her hand and kissing the center of her palm. “You remember those days in the clearing?”

  “Of course, I remember. I think about them all the time.”

  “Even while you were away?”

  “Especially then. Those were the happiest times of my life.” She ran her hand down the side of his body. “Until now, that is.”

  He chuckled. “I feel the same way. Isn’t it strange that we both count these as the happiest days of our lives, when we’re spending them on the run from people who want to kill us?”

  “If this confrontation with Hawk goes well...”

  “If it goes the way I want it to, we’ll never have to run again. The cabin will be ours. Any of the Wolves who want to stay with us will be our packmates.” He closed his eyes. “We’ll be Hell’s Wolves again.”

  “That’s important to you, isn’t it?” she asked. “Being one of the Hell’s Wolves.” Her fingers rested on the tattoo on his shoulder.

  Weston nodded. “You remember how it was when we were growing up, when Karl was our alpha? We were a pack to be proud of them. We had numbers, and we were getting bigger. It was always an event when a group came of age and got their tattoos. It was a celebration when someone got his colors. The men would go out riding for days at a time...I never got to be a part of that. It was a club I spent my whole life waiting to join, and then—”

  “And then Hawk took over,” she finished.

  “Yes. And he ruined everything. Instead of the runs the club members used to go on, the road trips, he had us committing crimes so that he could spend all the money Karl and his generation had saved up on drugs and indulgences. He scared away most of the pack. But if I could take over, if I could take the wheel from him, I could bring the good Hell’s Wolves back.”

  She nodded. “It’s a noble goal.”

  “Didn’t you miss the pack?” he asked. “When you were on your own?”

  “I missed having a pack,” she said. “I missed shifter life. And I missed you, of course, and some of the others as individuals. But the Hell’s Wolves name never meant to me what it did to you.”

  He nodded. “That makes sense. There wasn’t a clear place for you in it. If this plan goes the way I want it to, you’ll be mate to the alpha and mother to our new generation.” His cheeks pinkened. “I know that’s exactly what Hawk was going to give you.”

  “It’s a completely different offer coming from you,” she told him. “From you, it’s exactly what I want. I would be proud to be the mother to the next generation of your Hell’s Wolves, Weston.”

  He wrapped an arm around her. “You’re wonderful,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep, okay? I want us to get on the road early tomorrow, so that we can loop around to Montana and get this business over with.”

  It was strange to realize that by this time tomorrow it would likely all be over with. They would have faced Hawk and fought him. Either they would win, driving him out of the Hell’s Wolves and taking up places of their own, starting a new life that was safe and secure...or else they would lose.

  Charity couldn’t allow herself to think about that.

  Instead, she burrowed in closer to Weston’s chest and inhaled deeply, allowing the scent of him to soothe her. There’s no safer place in the world than in Weston’s arms, she reminded herself as she drifted off to sleep. Whatever happens tomorrow, he’s got me right now. I’m safe for tonight.

  Chapter Seventeen

  WESTON

  They woke early and decamped before the store opened for the day, taking care to roll up their sleeping bags and replace them on the shelves. With luck, no one would ever know that Weston and Charity had spent the night here.

  The stolen bike was right where they’d left it the night before, which Weston found surprising. He would have expected it to have been picked up by the police since it was hot. But on the other hand, he had parked legally. He supposed it wasn’t that unrealistic that he’d gotten lucky.

  They mounted the bike wordlessly, ready for a long day’s ride. Weston sparked the ignition, and by the time the sun peeked up over the horizon, they were leaving the city limits and heading out into the open country.

  The journey was long, but it seemed to melt away in front of them, the peaks of Colorado giving way to the plains of Wyoming. It was late afternoon by the time they crossed the state line and found themselves in Montana once more.

  It was strange to be so near home after their long odyssey. So much had changed for them since they’d left. Weston stuck to the back roads, feeling that this was likely to be the most perilous part of the journey. Surely the Hell’s Wolves would be alert for them as they got closer to home?

  But then again, there were very few Hell’s Wolves left. They couldn’t exactly keep up a tight patrol. Nor was Hawk the kind of alpha to encourage diligent searching. He’d probably put the word out on his missing pack members and then just gone back to the cabin to get high with his friends. It was possible, Weston thought wryly, that they were actually getting safer as they got closer to the cabin.

  This here, this stretch of the journey, might be the safest place available to them.

  He parked the bike about a mile from the house, off the road so it wouldn’t be easily found. “What’s up?” Charity asked as she slid off and landed nimbly on her feet.

  “We’ll walk from here.” He was untying the duffel bag. “We don’t want the sound of the bike to alert them to our approach before we get there.”

  She nodded. “Will we come back for it later, then?”

  “No. I’m hoping they brought my old bike back to the cabin when they found it in the woods that night. But if not, that’s okay. I’m not going to keep the boosted bike. I’ll get another one eventu
ally.”

  Charity nodded.

  They walked up the roadside by side, not speaking, both of them lost in thought. Weston was amazed at how quickly this last leg of the journey had gone—amazed and a little distressed. The road trip they’d taken together, starting from the moment they’d escaped the Hell’s Wolves, had changed his life entirely. He knew now that he and Charity would never be apart. No matter what happened, he would stay by her side.

  But he would miss the feeling that it was the two of them against the world. He would miss sharing every part of every day with her. Even if they were successful against Hawk, even if they won the coming confrontation, they would have to deal with the rest of the pack. It would never be just the two of them again.

  It’s as if we had a honeymoon, he thought wryly. We went away and spent some magical time on our own together. And yeah, we were running for our lives at the time. But that’s still pretty special.

  Hell of a silver lining, if you wanted to see it.

  Charity spotted the light of the Hell’s Wolves’ cabin first and pointed it out. Weston reached down and gave her hand a squeeze. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “When we get in there,” he said, “you let me take the lead. Understand? Hang back and let me deal with Hawk. I don’t want you getting involved if you can avoid it.”

  “Weston, we talked about this—”

  “I know what we talked about. I said you could come with me. But you’re still carrying our babies, and I want them out of harm’s way, so you hang back. They’re not going to hurt you. Hawk wants you alive. But if there’s some kind of physical altercation and you get in the way, you might get hurt accidentally. Something could happen to the babies.”

  She nodded. “Okay. I’ll stay back.”

  “Good.”

  “Weston?”

  “Yeah?”

  She stopped where she was standing, pulling him to a stop beside her. “I want to tell you I love you,” she said. “In case...in case I don’t have a chance to say it later.”

  “Don’t talk like that. This is probably just going to be a conversation.”

  “Uh-huh. But I still want to tell you this.” She swallowed, looked down for a moment, then met his eyes. “Running away from you was the biggest mistake I ever made in my life, Weston. When I think about the fact that I almost gave this up—when I think about all the things that were totally out of my control that had to happen for us to find each other again—”

  “You mean like you getting kidnapped?”

  “Yeah, I do,” she said evenly. “I can’t really believe I’m saying this, but...I’m so thankful that the Wolves found me. I’m so glad I was kidnapped back into the pack. Because if that hadn’t happened, you and I would never have found each other again. When they shoved me into the back of that van, they gave me a second chance at the life I wanted.”

  He embraced her, bending down to kiss her softly, reveling in the taste of her and the way her lips moved against his. “We were both lucky,” he said. “We were both incredibly, impossibly lucky.”

  “I feel as though I did everything possible to ruin what we had,” she said. “And through a combination of good luck and your good choices, we managed to get it back. I don’t deserve it. But I’m so goddamn grateful for it.”

  “My good choices? What good choices?”

  “You never left the pack,” she said. “So many others did, and you certainly had every reason to. But you stayed. If you’d gone, what would I have found when they kidnapped me?” She shook her head. “Not an old friend. Not a chance to reclaim my old life. Just violence and pain.” She wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so glad you were there, Weston.”

  “I’m glad I was, too.”

  They stood holding each other for a few more moments, allowing each other’s presence to distract them from what lay ahead. Finally, Weston spoke. “We’d better go.”

  Charity nodded against him. Then, with apparent effort, she separated herself from him. “Please don’t do anything crazy in there,” she said. “Be safe. We need you.” She cradled her stomach.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Like I said, I think it’ll probably just be a conversation. When Hawk sees he doesn’t have power over me—over either one of us—there won’t be much left for him to do.”

  “Okay,” Charity said quietly.

  Weston squeezed her hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  The journey up from Colorado had felt terribly fast, but the final few yards up to the house seemed to take an hour to cross. Weston’s nerves were firing, adrenaline shooting through his body, and he longed to shift into his wolf form, but he knew entering the cabin as a wolf was the surest way to provoke a fight. He couldn’t do that.

  They arrived at the porch. Weston waved Charity back. He could sense her reluctance as she fell a few steps behind him. He strode up the steps to the front door and knocked.

  The door opened.

  It was Norma. Her face registered shock and dismay as she took him in. “Don’t come in here,” she hissed. “Go. Go now. Run.”

  “What do you mean?” Weston asked. “Why?”

  “Who is it?” Hawk yelled from the den.

  Rick entered the kitchen and saw them standing in the doorway. “Holy shit. The omega’s back.”

  Norma’s body seemed to crumple slightly. She stood back to let Weston and Charity into the kitchen. Weston stepped inside hesitantly. Why had Norma told him to run? She must have known Hawk was looking for him, but what did she think was going to happen now that he was back?

  Rick gripped Weston and Charity by the shoulders and marched them out of the kitchen and down the hall to the den. Norma ran behind them.

  Hawk lay on the couch in the den, staring at the TV as he always did. At least he isn’t smoking, Weston thought. He definitely wouldn’t have been able to tolerate smoking around his pregnant mate, but he would prefer not to bring up her pregnancy just yet. He allowed himself to be steered into the room and stood before Hawk.

  Gino, who was sitting in the armchair beside Hawk, sat up in surprise at the sight of them. Hawk didn’t look away from the TV. “They’re back. Who caught them? How much do I owe?”

  “Nobody caught us,” Weston said.

  That did make Hawk sit up. “What’s he talking about?” he asked Rick.

  “They just showed up,” Rick said. “Came knocking on the door.” He grinned. “Couldn’t make it out there on your own, Weston?”

  “Something like that,” Weston said tightly.

  “We’ll put the girl back on lockdown,” Hawk said. “And we’ll throw him back out on the street. We don’t need traitors here.”

  “You don’t need traitors?” Weston said. “Or is it that you’re afraid, Hawk? You don’t want me here because you know I’m not subject to your orders anymore. Isn’t that right? You know I broke your command, and you don’t know how I did it, but that scares you.”

  Hawk scoffed. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “How did you break his command, actually?” Gino asked. “Hawk ordered us all to keep the omega from escaping, and you helped her escape. That shouldn’t have been possible.”

  “I can’t explain it,” Weston said. “And I don’t need to. All that matters as far as I’m concerned is that Hawk doesn’t have any power over me anymore. And that’s why I came back. Not because I couldn’t make it in the wild, but because this is my pack. You are all my brothers. Gino, Rick...we were family once.”

  “You abandoned that,” Hawk snapped. “You gave up any claim to family when you left us.”

  “I don’t think so,” Weston said. “Charity left too, but you want her back. And that’s because you can use her and because you don’t think she’s a threat to you. You’re not throwing me out because I left. You’re doing it because you’re afraid of me.” He turned to Gino. “He thinks I can challenge him for claim to the rank of alpha.”

  “What the fuck are you talk
ing about?” Hawk said.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Charity said. “Weston stopped being subject to your orders before he left the pack, Hawk. That means his leaving wasn’t what broke the bond. It was your own weakness and his own strength. He’s stronger than you.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this.” Hawk got to his feet. “Gino, take this traitor outside.”

  But Gino didn’t move. “What do you think?” he asked Rick.

  Rick frowned slightly. “It’s bizarre,” he said. “But it does make sense.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Hawk snapped. “The bond broke because he chose to leave. He probably made that choice well before he actually did it.”

  “But he shouldn’t have been able to do that either,” Norma said.

  “Quiet, woman.”

  “You ordered us all to stick with the pack years ago,” Norma said. “Did you forget you gave that order, Hawk? I wouldn’t be surprised if you had. But the rest of us can’t forget. We live with it every day. Every order you give weighs on our hearts.”

  “Does it?” Charity asked.

  “What do you mean?” Norma asked her.

  “It’s just that Hawk ordered Gino to take Weston outside a couple of minutes ago,” Charity said. “And Gino hasn’t done it yet.”

  Everyone looked at Gino.

  Gino appeared to be rattled by the realization that he had defied his alpha. He must not have noticed, Weston thought, which was pretty telling in and of itself. “Maybe it wasn’t an order,” Gino suggested, looking at Hawk.

  “That’s right,” Hawk agreed. “It wasn’t.”

  “Yes, it was,” Rick said, frowning. “You said take this traitor outside. That’s a direct order. And you also told Norma to be quiet, and she hasn’t done it.”

  Hawk sputtered. “This is ridiculous.”

  “You’re not the alpha of this pack,” Weston said quietly. “I don’t know why, Hawk, and I don’t know how, but you don’t have any authority here. Maybe you never should have.”

  Hawk let out a sharp snarl, his teeth bared.

  “Oh, shit,” Gino whispered.

  “Outside,” Norma said. “Everyone outside right now. I mean it.”