by J. L. Wilder
VINCE
“You just disappeared,” Ace complained as he barged into the motel room. “Did it not occur to you that we might be wondering where you went?”
“You knew where I went,” Vince said absently. He wasn’t paying much attention to the other members of his pack right now. His attention was still taken up by the girl at the bar.
He had recognized her. He had known her face.
She had been the same girl he’d seen in the woods the other night. The same girl who had freed him from the trap he’d been caught in.
If he hadn’t recognized her by her face, he would have been certain by the scar on her wrist. The bite mark he had left on her. It was healed now, thank goodness, and he knew she would be all right. But it had been shocking, for a few minutes, to see that scar and have to confront how badly injured she had actually been. She would definitely have that scar forever.
And yet she had wanted him tonight in the bar.
Don’t be stupid, he told himself. She had no idea who you are. She couldn’t possibly have connected you with the wolf that bit her. But he wasn’t sure if that was actually true. He had shifted before she had passed out, and he thought she had seen him in human form. It wasn’t impossible that she might have remembered him.
He had found her so appealing. And that was strange. Vince had never been that attracted to a human before. Sex with humans was nice, but it was never irresistible.
But this girl—he’d felt as though, if he didn’t get his hands on her, and quickly, he might explode. He had been out of his mind with lust. He wasn’t used to that feeling. Even on the rare occasions he’d mated with fellow shifters, things had never been that intense. Was it just the fact that he had known who she was? Had their shared history been enough to elevate his physical reaction?
If only I’d been able to tell her who I was. But of course, there was no way to do that. You couldn’t exactly tell a human girl that you were the wolf she’d freed from a trap in the woods the other night. That was pure insanity.
“He was just getting some action,” Dax said. He lay sprawled on the bed, which he had taken over again as of last night, claiming that Vince had recovered well enough to go back to sleeping on the floor. “You saw him leave with the girl. We all did.”
“Okay,” Ace allowed. “But we all thought he’d come back, too. And then the girl came back without him.”
“Yeah, looking like she’d been mauled by a tiger,” Dax chortled. “What did you do to her, Vince?”
Vince frowned. “Did she look hurt?”
“She looked like she was sleepwalking,” Tommy said. “She looked like she was in shock. But she was smiling. I think she had a good time. Anyway, her friend hustled her out of the bar pretty quick after that.”
“Right, she was there with a friend,” Vince remembered.
“Did you two talk at all?” Ace asked. “Did she find out any information about us?”
“Information?” Dax sputtered. “What, you think she’s some kind of spy?”
“She could be a spy,” Ace said. “We don’t know anything about her. She might be affiliated with another pack.”
“She was a human,” Vince said.
“Are you sure?”
“The girl she came to the bar with was definitely a human,” Dax agreed. “I don’t mind telling you I was sniffing around while Vince was outside, trying to see what all the fuss was about, and she was about as basic as they come.”
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” Vince told them. “I didn’t tell her anything. We didn’t even exchange first names, for God’s sake. She knows nothing about me. It was just random sex outside the bar.”
“Pimp,” Dax said approvingly.
“Not really like you,” Tommy chimed in. “Is everything okay?”
“Oh, let the man have his fun,” Dax said. “We’ve been on the road for ages, and the most exciting thing that’s happened to him is getting his leg stuck in a trap. So he wanted to get a little action. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
“That’s right,” Vince said. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
But he felt the lie in the words. It had been a big deal. He had never experienced anything like what he’d felt tonight with the girl at the bar, and he wondered if he would ever find anything like it again.
It had only been a couple of days since he’d sustained his injury, and he was healing incredibly quickly. He knew that Ace would want them to move on. They had done all they could in this part of Wyoming.
But suddenly Vince realized he wasn’t ready to leave.
He wanted to see the girl again.
I should have tried harder to get her name, he thought. I should have asked for a phone number. I should have done something other than just walk away and leave her in that alley to go home and forget all about me. But I was so overwhelmed. I wasn’t thinking.
That was the best sex I’ve ever had.
And there was more to it. She had saved his life. He had been in his wolf form, and virtually any other human would have run from him or shot him. They would have been afraid of him. But she had empathized with him. She had risked her own life to save his.
There was something very special about that girl.
He lay down in his pile of blankets on the floor and pulled the top one over his head, blocking out the light and the sight of the rest of his pack. He didn’t want to talk to them anymore tonight. He wanted to spend the rest of the evening reliving what had happened with the girl at the bar. He wanted to think about returning there the next night and possibly finding her again.
I can ask the bartender, he thought. A small down like this, everyone probably knows everyone. Maybe I can get a lead on where she lives or how I can contact her.
With that hope in his mind, he drifted off to sleep.
HE WOKE TO A ROOM FULL of action.
Overhead, Tommy, Dax, and Ace were already up and moving. Beds were being stripped. Items were being stuffed into duffel bags. Dax had one boot on and the other one off. Tommy’s shirt hung open, unbuttoned. Ace was adjusting his belt.
“What’s going on?” Vince jumped to his feet, then winced as he tried to put weight on his bad leg. He had been healing well, but it still hurt to give the leg his full weight, and he’d been favoring it slightly. He sat down on the bed.
“Get dressed,” Ace said shortly. “We’re leaving.”
“Leaving? Now?”
“We’ve got a lead on a possible omega in the eastern part of the state,” Ace said. “We’ve got to hit the road quickly, though. Rumor has it she belongs to a pack that moves her around a lot. We need to get on the road immediately if we don’t want our information to go out of date. Get dressed.”
Vince blinked. He had been counting on having the chance to return to the bar tonight, to search for the girl he’d met the night before. He wasn’t ready to leave her behind. “I’m not supposed to be riding yet,” he said feebly.
“You’re fine to ride,” Ace said. “You’ve been walking all over the place. Besides, we all know you only want to stay here for that girl.”
“She’s nothing. A booty call.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t had a booty call in years,” Dax pointed out. “I get it, man. Of course you don’t want to leave.” He turned to Ace. “Maybe we can leave him here and circle back. Let him have some fun.”
“The pack doesn’t split up,” Ace said firmly.
Tommy grabbed his other boot. “Vince, can you help me check something on my bike?”
“Something wrong with your bike?” Vince followed Tommy out of the motel room and down to the parking lot, distracted. “What’s the problem?”
“Nothing,” Tommy said. “I’ve been thinking. About Ace.”
Oh. God. Talking about their alpha behind his back was a risky proposition. “What about him?” Vince said carefully.
Tommy drew a breath. “I’ve been thinking he might not be the alpha.”
He watched Vince, clearly n
ervous.
Vince sighed. “To tell you the truth, Tommy, I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
“Shouldn’t his abilities have manifested by now? Omega or no omega?”
“I have no idea. I just...I can’t see us ever following him, can you?”
“No,” Tommy said. “Even if he does find an omega. I worry she won’t submit to him.”
“But what are you getting at?”
“I just think, I don’t know...” Tommy raked a hand through his hair. “I think you’d better not get too attached to any townies. We don’t know who the alpha is, and whoever it is shouldn’t be having affairs with human girls, you know?”
It took Vince a moment to understand. When he did, he burst out laughing. “You think I’m the alpha?”
“Well, I don’t think it’s me!” Tommy’s face flushed. “Look, I don’t know, all right? And that’s my point. We don’t know. None of us knows.”
“Tommy, c’mon.”
“You come on. Listen, I know you had fun with that girl last night, and that’s cool, and I’m glad, but I just don’t want you to forget that we’re on a mission. Or why we’re on a mission. This isn’t just about Ace. This is about what our pack needs. We need to have an alpha in our generation, or we’re going to fall apart. It’s already starting. Dax suggesting that we leave you behind. That’s messed up and you know it.”
He had a point. “Okay, but what do you want me to do? I can’t just walk in there and challenge Ace for alpha seniority.”
“Of course not. I’m just saying stick with us. Keep an open mind about it. And don’t let a pretty face distract you from what we’re trying to do here. She’s still just a human, you know? Even if it was really good.”
Vince smiled ruefully. “I don’t know how you know so much about everything, Tommy.”
“It’s because I’m the only one of us who actually listens instead of trying to run my mouth all the time,” Tommy said with a grin.
“Well, that’s a fair point. I’m guessing there wasn’t anything actually wrong with your bike, by the way?”
“Just an excuse to get you out from under Ace’s thumb.” Tommy grinned.
“You’re very clever. What are you going to tell him when we go back in?”
“Nothing,” Tommy said. “I bet you a million dollars he won’t even ask. It’s Ace. When has he ever asked about something that didn’t directly relate to him?”
“Fair enough.”
They went back into the motel room. Ace and Dax had finished packing. Vince grabbed a duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder, and followed the others back out to the bikes, Tommy’s words replaying themselves in his mind.
Chapter Ten
VINCE
At first, Vince allowed himself to believe that when he and the others had finished searching the available territory for possible omegas, they might return to the little town in Wyoming with the bar and the girl. He allowed himself to think there might a chance of seeing her again.
But he was deluding himself, of course. No one had any intention of going back the way they had come.
Ace, when it became clear that there was no omega to be found, wanted nothing more than to go home immediately. “This whole thing was a waste of time,” he complained. “We should have been working with Griff to figure out the transition. Maybe he’s just having trouble letting go of his power. I bet that’s what the problem is. If he relaxes and lets me take over the way he should, we’ll be just fine.”
Dax rolled his eyes at Vince behind Ace’s back. Vince knew that Dax had wanted to abandon the search for an omega and go back home almost from the very beginning, so he wasn’t going to object to doing it now. But it was clear that Ace was pretending the change of plans had been his idea rather than what it was—a failure to achieve what they’d set out to do.
Tommy had been watching Vince carefully over the past three days, as if he expected Vince to make a run for it. Yeah, right, Vince thought somewhat sourly. Even if he had wanted to—and he didn’t, not really—he couldn’t run away from his pack. He had been a member of the Hell’s Wolves all his life. It was the only thing he knew how to be.
Besides, Tommy was right. So a pretty girl had turned his head. He couldn’t allow that to keep him from doing what was necessary for his family. It was a big problem that his generation didn’t have an alpha yet. If there had been an alpha, that person would have brought Dax to heel. He would have told Vince what to do about the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about the girl in Wyoming.
But they had no one. And they were starting to fall apart.
Pulling up in the driveway of their cabin was a welcome relief after all the time they had spent on the road. Vince had almost forgotten how much it relaxed him to be at home, how much easier everything was when he was in his safe space. He was looking forward to a cold beer and a hot meal, and to catching up with Griff and Earl after all the time they had spent on the road.
The older men were waiting on the porch. Griff was smoking a cigar and relaxing in his rocking chair, and Earl was leaning on his elbows on the porch railing. They both stood upright as the motorcycles drove up the driveway and parked. Earl lifted a hand in greeting, and Griff made his way down the porch steps and out into the yard to greet the four younger members of his pack.
“Welcome home.” He slapped Ace congenially on the shoulder, then reached past him to shake Vince’s hand. “Heard there were a few mishaps along the way.”
“We didn’t find any omegas,” Dax said. Was it Vince’s imagination, or was there a hint of satisfaction in Dax’s voice? “None in the whole territory. Are we even sure omegas still exist?”
“Let’s not worry about that now,” Griff said, his voice soothing, and Vince immediately felt a sense of calm move through him. He had forgotten how good it could feel to have an alpha in charge, to have someone whose authority he could just submit to. What Griff had said hadn’t even been an order, and yet Vince was comforted by knowing exactly what he needed to do. “Come inside,” Griff continued. “Earl made steak and eggs. You’ll love it. And I’m sure you’re all hungry.”
“I am,” Dax agreed, heading up the porch steps and into the house ahead of the others.
Maybe Dax is the true alpha, Vince thought. He did seem to take the lead more often than any of the rest of them. Ace was given the lead plenty of times, but he never actually seemed to take it. Dax, by contrast, was assertive and opinionated. He didn’t wait to see what the others were doing, whether they were following him or whether they thought he was making the right decision about things. He simply moved.
Vince followed Dax into the house. As soon as he was inside, the scent of steak and eggs hit him. He stood in the kitchen doorway and inhaled, enjoying the rich scent of food that hadn’t come from the shelf at a gas station or convenience store. God, it had been so long since he’d had a proper meal.
“Sit down, sit down,” Earl said, moving to the stove and pulling down a stack of plates. “You’ve had a long trip. I’ll get the food.” He set out the plates and began to load them up with massive piles of hot, steaming food.
For a while nobody spoke, and the only sounds were those of forks scraping against plates as they all ate. Vince felt he could have finished three times as much as the amount he’d been given. It wasn’t that he was hungry—the dinner was very filling, and his serving was more than satisfactory—but he had just missed having real food so much that he didn’t want to stop eating.
“Is there more?” Dax asked when his own plate was cleared.
Tommy kicked him under the table. “Don’t be a pig.”
Earl laughed. “There’s more, but don’t you want to save room for dessert? Strawberry shortcake.”
Strawberry shortcake. The closest thing to dessert they’d had while they’d been on the road had been the occasional candy bar, and even that was a rare treat—Ace hadn’t approved of spending money on candy, even though he’d never complained about grabbing a beer, m
aking it a weird double standard. Vince got to his feet and headed to the fridge, thinking he’d get a beer now.
“Hey, sit down,” Griff said. “You’re injured.”
“Injured?” The incident with the trap flashed in Vince’s mind. His leg was almost entirely recovered now—it still hurt a bit when he walked on it, but he had stopped favoring it. “How did you know about that?”
“Are you kidding?” Griff said. “Tommy called us the night it happened.”
A cloud passed over Ace’s face.
He didn’t say anything, and he composed himself quickly. Nobody else said anything about it. Vince thought that maybe he was the only one who had seen it. But it had definitely been there.
Ace had been angry.
Why?
Did it bother him that much to think of Tommy calling home when Vince was hurt?
Of course it does, Vince thought. Tommy reported back because he wanted the comfort of talking to his alpha. His real alpha. He was worried about me, and he wanted somebody to tell him what to do. He wanted authority and confidence and power.
And Ace has never given him that.
Tommy had been right. And so had Vince. There was no way Ace could be their alpha. If he had been, he would have risen to the occasion that night. They had been alone in the world. There had been no other alpha for miles, no one to compete with Ace for power. And they had needed someone to step up.
Why hadn’t anyone stepped up?
It was worrying.
He was still standing, and the others were still watching him, so he shook his head. “I’m all right now,” he said. “Healed up just fine. Besides, I’m only getting a beer. Anybody else want one?”
Hands around the table went up. Vince went to the refrigerator and pulled out an armload of bottles.
“I’d like to take a look at it tonight,” Griff said, his voice making it clear that this was only nominally a request and that it would become an order if Vince put up an argument about it. “I need to make sure it’s healed up properly and that we don’t need to do any re-breaking of the bone.”
