by Sadie Moss
I swallowed down the acidic despair that crept up my throat. I should be celebrating. We had won. We’d rescued Sariah and the other shifters that padded along silently behind us as Rhys guided us along the quiet back roads leading out of Salt Lake City.
We hadn’t been able to save everyone, and the weight of that guilt dragged at me. But in this long and deadly game we were playing against Strand, we had to take our victories where we could find them. We’d managed to rescue almost two dozen shifter test subjects. We were still alive.
And we would do what we had to to keep surviving.
My wolf form retreated as we walked, slipping back down inside me unbidden. I honestly wasn’t ready for her to let go; my human form felt puny and weak after the power of the wolf. Rocks and twigs dug into the soles of my feet, and the night air tickled my bare skin. Noah shifted beside me, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and lending me some of his strength and warmth. We were both covered with blood—a mixture of ours and the hunters’—but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
My body was leaden with exhaustion as we slowly left the buildings and byways behind, making our way into the rocky terrain that surrounded the city. Finally, Rhys came to a halt on a flat stretch of earth nestled between tall rocks. They formed a makeshift barrier, protecting us on three sides, and that shelter eased the worry eating away at me a little.
If more hunters found us here, at least they couldn’t surround us again.
As the rescued shifters settled anxiously into the small space, Rhys turned to his sister again. He stared down into her face with penetrating eyes that burned with love and pain, but he didn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say, I realized. The black-haired shifter felt so much, but he wasn’t always great at expressing those emotions—at least, not until the dam broke and they poured out of him all at once in a torrent.
“Are you… all right?” he forced out roughly.
She nodded, tear tracks streaking the dirt and blood smeared across her cheeks. “You came. You came back.”
“I told you I would, Sah. I promised.”
Her head bobbed up and down again, and then she lurched forward, gripping him in another bone-crushing hug as she buried her face in his chest. He stroked her hair, closing his eyes as tears ran down his cheeks too. A lump rose in my throat as I watched them, and when Rhys’s gaze found mine, I looked away quickly, not wanting to intrude on their private moment.
But when they finally drew back, he took Sariah’s arm gently, steering her over toward me.
“Sah, this is Alexis. My mate. She helped us find you.” His voice was warm with pride and love as he said the words.
Her eyes went wide as she blinked up at me. I couldn’t quite read her reaction, and I wasn’t sure how to greet her. I wanted to pull her into a hug, but I was a stranger, and she’d been through so much trauma, I wasn’t sure that was a good idea. We were also both naked, bloody, and exhausted. Not exactly the ideal “meet the family” moment.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Before we could say anything else, West raised a hand to his ear, nodding in response to words I couldn’t hear. Then he turned to face us. “Carl’s on his way. He’ll bring our bags and a few other things we’ll need. He thinks he can help get us out of here.”
Jackson and Noah joined us, and the six of us formed a small huddle.
“Where are we going?” Sariah’s eyes were wide, and she kept darting her gaze back the way we’d come, as if expecting to be hauled back to the Strand compound any second. Hell, I could relate to that. I still felt that way most days, and I’d escaped over two months ago.
The men all shared a look over our heads; Sariah was taller than me, but still shorter than her brother and his pack mates.
“New York?” Jackson wrinkled his nose. “That was the original plan.”
“What’s in New York?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Rhys grunted. “It’s just far away from here. And big enough that we could disappear. But…”
He trailed off, glancing over at the cluster of shifters who’d followed us out of the Strand complex. They huddled close together, almost all of them back in wolf forms now, their eyes gleaming in the darkness as they gazed at us.
“It doesn’t feel right, does it?” Noah followed his gaze.
Rhys shook his head, his expression torn.
“Will they come with us?” West asked Sariah, jerking his head toward the shifters.
Her eyebrows shot up. “To… New York? I don’t know. They’re not… New York is…” She made a gesture as if she was encompassing a large space.
I could relate to that too. Unlike Sariah and the other rescued shifters, I hadn’t known I was being held in captivity the whole time I lived at the Strand complex outside Austin. But regardless, stepping into the outside world after years spent locked away had been completely overwhelming. Everything had felt exhilarating but terrifying. Too big, too loud—too much.
New York City might be the worst possible place to take a bunch of shell-shocked shifters.
“No, not New York.” Noah chewed his lip thoughtfully, his gaze darting around the circle. “What about the Lost Pack?”
“Fucking hell,” Rhys groaned. “This again?”
“It makes sense though!” Jackson piped up. “And we know exactly where they are this time. Val gave us the coordinates. The six of us can move on from there, find another place to go if we want. But there’s nowhere else I can think of to take a whole complex-full of shifters.”
“The Lost Pack? The free shifter pack?” Sariah’s voice broke on a whisper. “It’s real?”
Tears glistened in her eyes, which were huge and round, shining in the dim moonlight. Rhys looked down at her, and I could see the exact moment he caved.
“Yeah.” He reached over to ruffle her hair, a gesture of sweet familiarity. “It’s real, Sah. You want to go there? Meet other shifters?”
She nodded quickly, her eyes lighting up.
“You think the others would come too?” Noah asked.
“I… I think so. They’ll want to stick together.”
“We need to check everyone for trackers first. Shit, we need to do that now.” West’s brows drew together.
Sariah looked at him quizzically. “Trackers?”
“Implants under the skin that send a signal back to Strand.”
She shook her head. “You can check if you want, but I don’t think they put trackers in any of us.” Her voice softened almost to a whisper. “Most of the shifters at that facility didn’t live long enough to make it worth it.”
My thoughts turned to Julie, and I swallowed down a wave of nausea, my heart squeezing with grief. Whatever Strand had been testing at that facility, it hadn’t been working.
Pain flashed across Rhys’s face as he watched his sister. Then he forced a small smile and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Sah. Let’s go tell them about the Lost Pack.”
The two of them walked toward the gathered wolves, who lifted their heads as they approached. I hoped the Salt Lake pack would agree to come—leaving them behind would be like leaving them to die. Not that our plan was a guarantee of security, but at least there was safety in numbers. And I’d known my mates long enough to have seen how good they were at surviving against the odds.
West cocked his head to listen to his earpiece before walking a short distance away, staring out at the horizon as he waited for Carl.
Noah and Jackson both turned to me, letting out twin exhales.
“You did it, Scrubs.” Noah used his knuckle to raise my chin slightly, his gray-blue eyes shining. “You called your wolf when you needed her. And you let her fight. You’re half the reason we made it out of there alive.”
I didn’t believe that for one minute, but my wolf practically purred at the compliment. There was still a divide between us, a gap that existed between her and me, but there were more and more places where we overlapped. Someday, maybe, we would truly become one.
I reached up to grab his forearm, keeping him connected to me for a second longer. I wanted nothing more than to lock myself in a room with my mates for a week, to remind myself why we were doing all of this—of the love and goodness in this world that was worth fighting for.
A low whistle sounded, and I glanced over to see West lift an arm in greeting. Carl and Molly walked out of the darkness toward us, hand in hand.
Jackson made a sound that was almost a growl, eyeballing Carl as they approached. Then he pulled off his bulletproof tactical vest and yanked his shirt over his head, tossing it to me.
I plucked it out of the air gratefully before slipping it on. It barely covered everything, but it was better than nothing. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I ran the back of my hand over my face, though I knew it was a pretty useless attempt. And Molly, at least, had already seen me covered in blood.
Noah shifted back to wolf form, and the three of us walked forward. When we were halfway to them, Molly broke away from Carl to meet me. She pulled me into a tight hug, ignoring my bloody face and oversized t-shirt.
“God, that was terrifying to hear from the outside. I’m sure it was awful to actually live it.” She pulled back. “Are you all right?”
I nodded on autopilot. “Did you guys see any other Strand hunters show up? What’s going on at the complex?”
“No more of them. No cops yet either.” Carl huffed a breath. “Believe it or not, from topside, it’s hard to tell anything really happened. And I know how much shit I sent you down there with. With that amount of explosives, the inside should be pretty well wrecked.”
“Thank you.” I spoke fervently, even knowing the words would never be enough. “For everything. Thank you both.”
A lopsided smile tugged at Carl’s mouth. “You know, I didn’t just do this because I owe you—even though I do pay all my debts. What Strand’s doing isn’t right. I’ve done a few things in my life I’m not proud of. Every once in a while, I like to do the right thing.”
Molly rolled her eyes, but neither one of us pointed out that Carl was a much better man than he gave himself credit for.
A faint noise in the distance made me jump, and my attention was drawn to the dark landscape behind them. Despite his reassurances, I still felt on-edge, anxious to get out of here.
“Rhys said maybe you can find a way to get us out of here? All of us?” I gestured behind me to the huddled pack.
For a moment, Carl’s gaze stuck on the large, shadowy forms of the wolves, a look of awe and disbelief passing over his face. Then he shook his head, bringing his focus back to me.
“Yeah, I do. But I’ll warn you, you’re probably not gonna like it.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“This. This is why wolves don’t road trip.”
West’s low voice sounded loud as it bounced off the metal walls of the large semi-truck.
I let out a noise that was half chuckle, half groan. “Yup.”
Carl hadn’t been lying. None of us had liked his solution. But we also hadn’t been able to come up with a better way to transport almost thirty shifters several hundred miles.
He and Molly had led us back to where he’d parked the van in a nearly-empty gas station parking lot, and they’d handed off our few belongings. When he’d jerked his chin toward the large semi nearly hidden from view in an ancillary parking lot, my jaw had almost dropped. But the back was spacious enough to accommodate us all, and he’d swapped out the plates for new ones that would run clean. As long as we didn’t get pulled over, we should be pretty untraceable.
It was the best option we’d had, though to be honest, I still hated it.
The air outside was cool, but inside the back of the truck, it felt stuffy and warm. For the recently freed shifters, it probably felt horrifyingly like the place they’d just escaped. Sariah had convinced most of them to shift back to human form so we’d all fit easier. A few had refused, but most had surrendered to her gentle prodding.
The dynamic between the Salt Lake shifters was strange. They were a pack, but also… not. I couldn’t identify an alpha, and although they seemed to function as a tight-knit group, they each existed in a sort of bubble, separate from the others.
It made sense, I supposed. They’d been forced together by circumstance, but almost nothing about their situation had been natural. I hoped, once we reached the wide open space where the Lost Pack had gone and they were able to run free, things might change for them. So far, I hadn’t had a conversation that lasted longer than a few words with any of the rescued shifters. They were all still too shell-shocked for that.
Rhys had insisted on driving again, and none of his pack mates had argued with him. This truck was a beast. Sariah, Jackson, and Noah had hopped into the front with him, but I’d offered to ride in the back with West. I needed to talk to him, and I wasn’t sure when we’d have the chance to be alone again.
Or somewhat alone, anyway.
I kind of wished a bunch of strangers weren’t sitting around us for this conversation—but then again, it was pretty self-involved of me to imagine that anything I said would be more meaningful or important to them than their own private pain.
In the darkness, I couldn’t see West, but I could feel him next to me. A few centimeters separated our arms from touching, and I wondered if that space was deliberate.
Gathering my courage, I cleared my throat. “Um, West?”
“Yeah, Scrubs?”
His use of the nickname the guys had adopted for me warmed my chest, and I forged ahead. “Jackson told me… about what happened to you in San Diego. About the forced mate bond.”
There was a pause. “Oh.”
“He didn’t tell me everything!” I added hastily. “No details. Just that it happened.”
“Right.”
Even without touching him, I could tell his muscles had just bunched up with tension. I knew he didn’t want to talk about it, but I had to get this out.
“West, the thing is—” A lump caught in my throat, and I blew out a slow breath before continuing. “I don’t know what Strand did to you. I hope someday you’ll trust me enough to tell me, but if you don’t or can’t, I’ll accept that too. But I need you in my life. More than I need food or air, it sometimes feels like.”
I pulled my twisting fingers apart, sliding one hand along the smooth metal of the truck bed until it brushed against West’s. His arm jerked, but he didn’t pull away.
“I love you, West. Somewhere in the middle of all this running and hiding and fighting, I fell in love with all four of you. You’re my mates, but it’s even bigger than that. It’s you.” Tears tracked down my cheeks, but I didn’t bother to wipe them away. No one could see them in the darkness anyway. My chest ached as I said the next words, but I somehow kept my voice steady. I needed to make sure he understood. “I love you. And I’ll always want more. I want everything. But if that’s not what you want, I won’t push you. I just need to have you in my life. Even if it’s just as—as a friend.”
He pulled in a shuddering breath beside me, and I was pretty sure he was crying too. Then his large hand enveloped mine, squeezing tightly.
“I want more too, Scrubs,” he murmured, his voice thick. “I want you so much it’s all I can think about sometimes. But the mate bond… what Strand did… it fucked me up. I’m so… fucked up.” He sighed, turning toward me slightly. “I’ll try. I’ll keep trying. But I just need time.”
My heart cracked open at the pain in his voice, at the doubt that underscored it. His unspoken words lingered between us, and I heard them—felt them—as clearly as if they’d been said aloud.
He might not ever be ready.
“It’s okay, West. You have all the time in the world. I’m
not going anywhere.” I laced my fingers with his as I spoke, tightening my grip on his hand as if to prove my point.
His heavy exhale whispered through the quiet confines of the truck, and when I rested my head on his shoulder, he leaned his head against mine. I let that small contact soothe me, closing my eyes and sinking into it.
I hadn’t been lying. I would always want more from him. The mate bond, and the love I felt for these men, made me crave everything about them.
I wanted his heart. His body. His soul.
But for now, I had a little piece of him back. I had this. And that would have to be enough.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Are you sure this isn’t a huge fucking mistake?” Jackson asked for the third time as we made our way through the pine forest in northern Montana.
“No.” Rhys’s answering growl was gruff and to the point, but I was pretty sure he spoke for us all.
He’d accurately summed up my feelings, anyway.
After driving through the dawn and into the day, we had abandoned the truck by the roadside more than a dozen miles from our final destination. Jackson had eagerly volunteered to “take care of it,” but the other three had shut him down quickly, thank goodness. After witnessing the fireball a van was capable of producing, I really didn’t want to find out what kind of fireball a massive semi-truck would create.
Most of the Salt Lake pack had shifted back to wolf form as soon as we’d left the cramped confines of the flatbed, and they padded along in a loose cluster around us.
I’d changed into a new set of clothes from one of the bags Carl and Molly had delivered and used Jackson’s old shirt to clean off my face as best I could, but I still felt pretty ragged. It felt like blood had seeped into my pores, and I was desperate for a shower—a craving I tried to curb, reminding myself it might be weeks or months before I had access to those kinds of amenities again.
“Should we not have come?” Sariah cast a scared gaze over the five of us, and Rhys slipped an arm around her shoulders, tugging her toward him.