by Sara Summers
“Why did you pass out?” my captor checked.
“Apparently I’m dying. Or some part of me is dying, I still don’t understand. Passed out before they could explain any better.” I shrugged. “Shoot an email to professor Jazz at Shifty University if I die, please?”
He laughed again.
“You should probably get going, Ross will be here soon. He’s pissed enough with me that he might forget about you if you disappear.”
“Noted.” My kidnapper nodded. “It was good to meet you, Shifty Chick.”
“You too, Evil Twin.” I waved goodbye as he walked up the stairs, chuckling to himself.
A minute or two later, I heard cracking wood. That would be a door getting broken down, I figured.
“Brooke.” Ross shouted my name. His feet pounded on the stairs as he raced down. I pulled my nasty hair over one shoulder and turned my head, trying to look as sexy as was possible for someone who had rolled around in the dirt, thrown up multiple times, and not showered in somewhere around a week.
“Hey babe.” I smiled as sexily as possible. “Did you miss me?”
“How did you get in here?” he demanded
“I passed out when I was walking home. Some guy grabbed me and brought me here, then strapped me to this table.” I gestured to the table I was sitting on. “He was from your rival pack, I guess.”
“We don’t have a rival pack.” Ross frowned, looking over his shoulder. There were a few guys behind him, his backup. “What was his name?”
“He didn’t tell me.” I frowned, suddenly queasy. “If you don’t have a rival pack then who was that guy?”
“What did he look like?” Ross asked, though he looked as sick as I felt.
“I don’t know, big, like you. Probably the same height, with hair the same color as yours.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach. “Who was he?” I whispered. My heart fluttered, trying to decide whether or not to panic.
“It’s going to be okay.” Ross wrapped his arms around me and held me tight.
“Ross.” I looked up at him. “Tell me.”
“His name is Monty, and he’s my brother.”
There it was, the phrase that shattered the world.
Just kidding, it really wasn’t that big of a deal. A brother? So? Plenty of people had brothers. I’d never had one, but still.
“What, was he playing a trick on us or something?” my eyebrows wrinkled together. “Why didn’t he stay to see your reaction?”
“It wasn’t a trick.” The guy behind Ross spoke up. “He was showing Ross how easily he could kill you.”
My eyebrows shot into my forehead.
“What?” my heart started to beat a little quicker. I’d been contemplating death for years—sickness can do that to you—and I was okay with dying. I mean, I didn’t want to die. Good gracious, there were so many things I wanted to see and do. But I had always felt like if I died, I would be okay with it. Death wasn’t the end. I’d be with my soulmate one way or another.
Natural death was one thing, but murder? Yeah, I wasn’t okay with death via murder. I didn’t want to land in the afterlife and explain to people that my soulmate’s brother killed me.
“Don’t worry about it.” Ross growled at me. I could tell he wasn’t mad at me, just the situation.
“Too late.” I pulled away from him, though he didn’t want to let go of me so it took some effort. “I won’t get better if I’m stressing over the possibility of getting murdered.” I reminded him.
Ross closed his eyes.
“Fine. When we get back and I know you’re safe, I’ll tell you everything. I need to make sure the pack is alright.”
“You’re going to have to carry me, then.” I said it nonchalantly, but secretly, I was worried. Ross’s life had become a million times harder as soon as he met me, and I didn’t want to be a burden to him.
I was worried for nothing though. As soon as he heard my words, his face seemed to soften. There was even a hint of a smile, so I relaxed.
“I would do that even if you weren’t sick.” He said.
I grinned and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“My hero.” I fluttered my eyelashes at Ross. He chuckled and scooped me up in his arms.
“Hold on tight, Princess.”
It took a second for it to register. Ross was playing along? What?! Okay, yeah, I had the greatest soulmate in the world.
Chapter 14
After he spoke to his first and second, Ross was satisfied that the pack would be fine.
“So is the log cabin your house?” I checked. He was still carrying me, and my 120 pounds didn’t seem to bother him even a little.
“Our house.” He corrected me.
“Sorry.” I apologized, though I didn’t really feel bad. I wanted to know what was going on and if my life was really in danger, and I wanted to get to know my sexy soulmate. “I thought the Alpha was supposed to have a big fancy house where everyone could gather and meet or whatever.”
“Usually that’s true.” Ross nodded. “But it would be pointless for me to live in a massive house by myself. The pack shares everything, so I gave that house to someone who needed it more than me.”
“Aww.”
The door was already open when we got back to the cabin. Ross didn’t seem surprised, carrying me inside without a second thought.
“Are you okay?” a woman gasped from behind me. If Ross hadn’t been holding me so tight, I would’ve jumped right out of his arms. I definitely hadn’t expected her, whoever she was, to be waiting in Ross’s house.
I awkwardly turned my neck around to see who she was, but the two ladies stood beside me a few minutes later.
“I’m not dead or tied up any more, so yeah, I’m great.” I gave them both a fake smile, but they didn’t seem offended.
“This is Lilac and Rilla, your second and third.” Ross introduced them.
“Oh.” My smile dropped to the floor. I’d forgotten that whole part about being in a pack; the Omega had a second and third too. I was exhausted and sick, so I wasn’t really sure what to say. Be friendly and charm them over? Tell them what I was thinking? Flip ‘em the bird?
“We brought you guys dinner and just wanted to say hi.” Lilac smiled. “We can have a movie night or something this week, if you’re up for it.”
“Um,” I blinked, then plastered a smile on my face. “Sure, yeah, as long as Carla says it’s okay. I’m pretty tired right now, but…” my mind flashed back to just a few hours earlier, when the whole pack hated me. “You know what, never mind. I need to focus on getting better.”
I totally used that as an excuse, but it was necessary.
“I do have a question for you, though. How did you go from hating me and trying to kill Ross to being the pack welcoming committee?”
Their eyes widened a little.
“Ah, well…” they looked at each other.
“Don’t worry about.” I smiled coolly. “Thanks for the dinner, but I know you still don’t want me to be the Omega, and I get that. Don’t lie to me.”
There was a tense, awkward moment.
“Alright, we’re going to go. Congratulations on finding each other.”
They scurried out the door like we were on fire.
When Ross plopped me down on his old leather couch, I smiled up at him.
“You’d never guess it now, but I used to be the life of every party.” I leaned back and closed my eyes, my smile fading.
“Even sick, you make a great Omega.” he sat beside me.
“Your stomach’s been growling more than you have in the past twenty minutes. Go eat.” I shooed him, but he just wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
“The food can wait. You deserve answers.”
“You’re right, I do. How about you give me those answers while you eat? I got you beat up like fifteen times today, you need food.”
“If you insist…” Ross grinned and pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You know,” he said as he loaded s
ome sort of casserole onto a plate. “The pack is impressed with you. They thought you’d be some scared little girl, but you showed up and proved them wrong.”
I laughed.
“You’re forgetting the part where I told them all off wearing shorts the size of underwear and flaunting my cotie to the pack.” I teased, grabbing my horribly dirty hair and twisting it into a bun on top of my head. The bun stayed perfectly in place, not a good sign. My hair was even nastier than I thought.
“That’s not happening again.” Ross’s voice went flat. “The Omega is the example to all the girls in the pack, and you showed them not to respect themselves.”
His sudden change in attitude threw me for a loop.
“Um, excuse me?” there he was, the Ross I’d met in Glacier. All serious and telling me off for living like a normal person.
“We may have been raised differently, but you’re part of this pack now, and you have to respect our traditions. You’ll need to cover yourself up and try not to insult everyone next time you see them.”
I stood up and put my hand on my hip. The action made me dizzy, so I grabbed the couch just in case my legs decided to quit on me.
“You are not in charge of me, and I’m not going to change who I am and everything I believe just because you’re a fricking cave man. You don’t know me, and I’m not some employee here to do your bidding. And if you try to tell me how to dress or speak again, I will be on the next flight out of here.” I grabbed a pillow off the couch and chucked it at my soulmate.
He caught it, but looked shocked that I’d thrown it. That was what I was going for. As I stomped away, Ross called out,
“You don’t have any money.”
I whirled around to face him. If he wasn’t right, I would’ve told him off so hard core he’d be crawling around tomorrow. Unfortunately, student loans piled up fast and I’d only just started working at SUV.
“My best friend is married to a millionaire. If I tell her I’m in trouble, she’ll get me out before you can blink.”
When the door slammed behind me, I was furious. Completely furious. Ross was trying to walk all over me—dang it! I shouldn’t have given in and come with him to Georgia, if I’d put up more of a fight maybe he would’ve realized that I wasn’t a fly he could stomp into submission.
“You’re a strong, independent woman. You’ve got this. You are stronger than this.” I tried to give myself a pep talk, a really good pep talk.
It was too late, though. I was tired of pep and I was tired of trying to be strong. Tears blurred my vision as I looked at myself. Dirty, grimy, messy.
Slutty, if I listened to Ross.
A tear trailed down my cheek and I didn’t bother wiping it away.
I heard a cupboard door slam in the kitchen. It sounded like he broke the wood or something, it was so loud. When my soulmate cursed and then slammed the front door shut as he left, another tear gathered in the corner of my eye.
“Be strong, be strong, be strong.” I pleaded with myself. I was a mess, I was always a mess, but I could be strong. I had to be strong.
I lasted all of two seconds before crumpling to the ground and sobbing. Pain and I were well acquainted, but this was a different version of it that I hadn’t spent much time with. It was the pain of a broken heart.
Somehow, that emotional pain hurt more than any physical pain I’d been through. It was debilitating, and it felt hopeless.
Even as I cooled my burning face against the tiled bathroom floor, I knew that Ross was my soulmate and I needed him. My stomach, head, and heart all felt like they were going to explode, so I had to do something.
I hurried to my feet and opened the bathroom door, searching for a phone. I needed to talk to Jazz, needed her advice. I needed help.
Ross’s phone was on the counter in the kitchen, and I dialed my best friend’s number without a second thought.
It rang and rang against my ear. When the call went to her voicemail, I hung up and tried again.
After six more calls, it was clear she wasn’t going to pick up. I collapsed to the floor again, pressing my hands to my head as the world seemed to shrink around me.
“Think, Brooke.” I ordered myself. “Jazz can’t talk, I have no idea what to say to Ross, and he hates who I am. What should I do?” I looked up at the sky, desperately desperate. “Please, help me.” I begged the creator.
My eyes caught on Ross’s clothes, strewn through the room. I had a feeling he hadn’t gone for a midnight naked-walk, which meant he was in animal form.
The wheels in my brain began to spin normally again, ditching panic mode in favor of productive mode.
“I don’t know how to be myself around Ross, but my lion does.” I realized. The animal side of me was the part that connected me to Ross anyway, so if I shifted…
Well, then maybe we could be together without trying to rip each other’s head off.
That was it; the decision was made. For the first time in my life, I would let the lion in me take control. And when I shifted only moments later, it was the first time in three years that I felt like I could breathe in without getting sicker.
I caught Ross’s scent and chased him down. Wherever he was, I’d find him. He was mine, and he needed to prove it to me.
Chapter 15
There’s no way to describe how I felt, running through the forest. The trees were different than what I was familiar with, the sounds were even different, but it felt…
I don’t know. It felt free. It felt like there was another part of me that started to come out of its shell as I ran. It was like I rediscovered the lion side of me, or at least started to rediscover it. The shift hadn’t been forced, I had wanted to change forms. Needed it, even.
And so I had shifted.
It was incredible.
I followed Ross’s trail for a good while, but time felt inconsequential. It was like I could run forever. The trail did finally end when I reached his cabin-house, though.
As I stopped outside, Ross stepped out onto the porch. His eyes widened when he saw me in lion form, and he came toward me.
“I’m sorry.” He sighed, taking a seat on the stairs that led up to me.
I walked up to him and rested my face on his knee. He rubbed his hand down my neck, which felt awesome.
“Life is simpler when I look at it with these eyes.” I said softly, into his mind.
“The eyes are the same but the viewpoint is different.” My soulmate nodded. “I was frustrated with you until I shifted. Then, I was furious with myself. You’re my missing piece, and if you see things differently then the Creator must intend for me to change. You are the single most precious thing in my world and I…” he shook his head, as if the pain was too much. “I’m sorry.” When he looked at me, I saw tears in his eyes.
His emotions astounded me. Yes, we were soulmates, but we’d only just met. We didn’t know each other well enough to feel that sorry, unless…
Well, my lion mind saw things differently. Ross and I hadn’t spent a lot of time together, but we were soulmates. From an animal point of view, that was all that mattered. He was my other half and because of that, he was more important than anything else in the world.
It felt strange to care so much about a person I’d only just met. Strange, but right.
“Is it always like this for you?” I wondered.
“If you mean the way the animal part of you refuses to give in to drama or selfishness, yes.” There was a sliver of a smile in his eyes. “This is why we’re not like humans. Our world is very literally different, because the things that matter to them mean nothing to us.”
“That’s not entirely true. We all want to be happy.”
“Yes, but humans search for happiness in objects. We look to our families and the Creator.”
“You’re wrong. Not all humans are obsessed with their possessions and not all shifters care about their family. You only see it through your caveman perspective, but I’ve lived both sides.” I nudged h
is hand with my nose. There was an itch on my ear, and Ross was in the perfect position to scratch it.
“Maybe you’re right.” Ross shrugged. He rose to his feet, brushing dirt off of his hands. He hadn’t touched the ground, so I knew the dirt must’ve come from me.
“I know, I need a shower. Do you have shampoo and conditioner?” I asked.
“I don’t have conditioner, but I’ll call Carla. She’ll bring something over.” Ross walked inside and I followed behind him, still in lion form.
“She doesn’t need to come over here, you can just run and grab it.” I didn’t want to give her another reason not to like me.
“You’re not leaving my sight.” He shook his head. “We don’t need a repeat of what happened earlier.”
“You mean when your brother kidnapped me?” I opened my mouth. “What? Why wouldn’t you want a repeat of that?” the sarcasm practically dripped off of me.
“Good question. I had a really great time playing hide and seek with the two of you. On second thought, I’m just going to leave so he has another chance to grab you.”
“You’re good.” I smiled, or at least, I would’ve smiled. Don’t ask me what a smiling lioness looks like, I honestly have no idea. “Now, there’s a shower calling my name…” I stepped closer to the bathroom.
“I know, you’re not leaving my sight, remember?” Ross’s sly grin told me everything I needed to know. He was way hornier than he let on, and I can’t lie, that thrilled me.
“Good luck with that.”
I bolted for the bathroom before he could realize what I was doing. I used my hind legs to slam the door shut behind me, then hurried to shift back to my human form. Just as Ross grabbed the doorknob, I locked the door.
“You don’t have a roommate, so I’m betting you don’t have a key.” I taunted, grinning big and wide.
“I’ll find one.” Ross promised. His voice was a little muffled, but I could tell he was serious.
I shook my head as I turned on the shower, still wearing a massive smile. For the first time in, well, as long as I could remember, I felt good.
Like, I actually felt GOOD. It was incredible! My stomach seemed to have kick-started itself, my brain was calm and refrained from stabbing me. I felt so much more alive than I had for years.
