by J. L. Wilder
Matthew looked down at Emmett. “Now, get out of my house,” he said quietly, “or I will shoot you. And after I do that, I will shoot her.”
Emmett got to his feet. He walked toward the door, but when he reached the doorway, where Hazel stood, he hesitated.
“Go,” she said. She felt as if she were being ripped in half. But she couldn’t stand to see him killed. “Go, now.”
He looked at her for another long moment, and she had the impression he was storing up memories of her for the days ahead. She tried to memorize as much of him as she possibly could too. She could feel her heart trying to shatter, but she held that at bay for now. It would wait. For now, all that mattered was Emmett’s face, which she might never see again.
“Go!” Matthew roared.
Emmett turned and walked out the door, and Hazel watched it slam shut behind him.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Rita said quietly. “You could have let them stay together.”
“He challenged my authority,” Matthew said.
“He fell in love,” Rita said. “They’re children, for God’s sake. They fell in love, Matthew. It happened to us once.”
“She’s not a child,” Matthew said. “She’s an omega. She’s a Cavallon. She’s the most valuable thing we have as a pack. We are not handing her over to some piece of filth off the streets.”
“She’s pregnant,” Paisley said. “She’s going to have his litter.”
“She’s definitely not going to do that,” Matthew said. “She’s our omega, and she’ll have a litter for our pack. Am I the only one who’s managed to remember that this is a Cavallon we’re talking about? Her litter is going to contain the next Cavallon, and we want that person in our family too. Right?” He looked around. “The Cavallon omegas produce strong litters. Large litters. Our family will be huge. Our pack will be dominant. But none of that will happen if we let her mate with some barbarian and the Cavallon line passes to his pack.”
Matthew looked at Hazel now. “I’m sorry,” he said to her. “I know this was harsh. I didn’t mean to be hurtful to you. But you’ll understand, one day, how important it is to keep the Cavallon line in our pack. We can provide for you, and for your children, in a way that a man like that can’t.”
“I love him,” she whispered.
“You think you do. I understand. But you’re young.” He smiled indulgently at her. She couldn’t believe that this was the same man who had been looking at her with such violent rage just a few minutes ago. “I’ve made a decision, though. I’m going to mate you with Paulie. That will be nice, won’t it?”
Paulie. She had grown up with him. They had played together as children. And a few minutes ago, she had watched him hit Emmett with a bat. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to look at him again without wanting to scream.
“What about her pregnancy?” Rita asked.
“We’ll have it terminated,” Matthew said. “These things happen. We forgive you, Hazel, all right?” He looked around at the rest of the pack. “That goes for all of you too. Hazel is going to be welcomed back as one of us. She’ll be forgiven. Understood?”
“Understood,” everyone in the room chorused.
Hazel began to sob.
Chapter Fourteen
EMMETT
He sat on his motorcycle for a long time, staring up at the house, unable to believe what had happened. His shoulder throbbed where the bat had made contact and he wondered idly if it was broken. A few of his ribs felt sore too, and his head was swimming. But none of that seemed to matter.
They had taken Hazel.
Emmett had thought of Matthew as a weak alpha, a bit of a sad sack, worthy only of pity and disdain. He had completely underestimated the man. Matthew wasn’t weak. Matthew was a forceful and charismatic leader. He might not be a physical fighter like Emmett, but he commanded his pack with authority. They were practically his disciples.
It just made it more horrible that he’d done nothing to find Hazel when she’d been kidnapped. He wasn’t a fighter himself, but he had fighters at his disposal. They could have tracked the Savage Rangers. They could have stormed the bunker and tried to rescue their omega. And they’d done nothing!
But Matthew probably wouldn’t have even thought of measures like that, Emmett thought disgustedly. They wouldn’t even have occurred to him. And why not? Because those were animal things to do, and Matthew wasn’t an animal, was he? Oh, no. Far be it from him to connect with the wolf inside, to use the extraordinary abilities he’d been granted. He was the most disgustingly human shifter Emmett had ever met.
Hell, even the way they’d beat him up had been stupid and human. They could have shifted. They could have made it a wolf fight. He could never have fought off that many wolves, even if he’d shifted himself. But no, instead of taking the sensible approach, they’d decided to hit him with a baseball bat. That had hurt, no doubt about it, but if Emmett had wanted to shift in the Coywolves’ living room, he could have quickly gained the upper hand.
But of course, he couldn’t shift there. He couldn’t make it a wolf fight, not with Hazel in the room. Wolf fights were messy, and sometimes, wolves lost control. A bystander could easily get injured. He couldn’t let that happen to her.
He would have liked to think that was Matthew’s hesitation in shifting too, that Matthew had been trying to protect Hazel from harm. But he didn’t trust the other alpha to do that. He won’t keep her safe, Emmett thought, feeling as if he was going to explode out of his skin. He can’t protect her. And she’s carrying our babies—
What was going to happen to their babies?
Emmett couldn’t imagine it would be anything good. Would Matthew terminate Hazel’s pregnancy? Or would he allow the babies to be born and raise them to be members of his pack—weak, sniveling, stupid Coywolves? Either option would be unbearable.
Emmett threw back his head and let out a frustrated cry that was almost a howl.
He saw the curtain at the living room window draw back. A young woman—one of the ones who’d stood and watched as Matthew had ordered him beaten—looked out. Her eyes met his, and she turned to someone behind her and said something.
She was probably letting the Coywolves know that he was still out here. Emmett decided he’d better make himself scarce. For the moment, at least.
He kicked his bike to life and pulled away, even though it tortured him to do it. Leaving Hazel and his children behind went against his very nature. But storming back into the house would gain him nothing. They would do the same thing they’d already done—beat him and throw him out. Only, this time, the beating would be even more savage. And Matthew had a gun...
A gun. What a weak man’s tool. When you had fangs and claws and the strength of the wolf at your disposal, to resort to a gun, of all things! He might as well have hung a sign around his neck proclaiming that he was vulnerable to attack, Emmett thought disgustedly.
The problem was that, of course, he wasn’t vulnerable. Not as long as he had that gun.
So, Emmett would have to find a way to take it from him.
But he was going to need help. He was dramatically outnumbered, not to mention outgunned, and there was no way he could take them on by himself. He was going to need his pack.
If they would even consent to help him.
They would be angry. He had no doubt about that. He had been unbending for years about the rules he’d made regarding women in the pack. And now, he was going to tell them that he’d impregnated an omega and he needed their help to save her...
I can order them to help me, he thought. I’m the alpha. They’ll have to do it if I tell them to.
He hated the idea of giving that order. Emmett didn’t mind giving orders when they were necessary—that was part of being an alpha. But he had always tried to avoid giving his brothers orders that weren’t for their own good, or for the good of the pack. This would be essentially drafting them into his own private army to achieve a personal goal that had nothing
to do with pack health or harmony.
He would do it, though. To save Hazel, he would do it.
But first, he was going to have to find them. And that meant tracking.
He rode back to the outskirts of town, to the field where they’d all been camping together the night the Savage Rangers had caught up with them. Even though he’d already explored this area, it was the only place he could think of to start. And who knew—maybe he’d see something here that he’d missed. Maybe there was still a clue, something time and weather hadn’t worn away, something he could use to find his pack.
Or, hell, maybe they’d come back this way looking for him. That was always possible.
He reached the field, parked his bike, and made his way carefully in among the corn, walking slowly and looking for any sign. He explored the campsite first, but it was completely bare, as if no one had ever been there. The corn that had been bent by their tarp had now resumed its shape. Their footprints in the dirt had been covered by fresh dirt. There was nothing here that Emmett could use to get his bearings, nothing that offered him a clue as to where his pack had gone.
He went to the site of the fight, just a few feet in front of the campsite, and dropped to his knees. The blood he and Hazel had discovered was long dry. A few of the cornstalks were broken, but otherwise, you couldn’t really tell anything had happened here either. This was starting to seem hopeless.
Emmett walked over to the place where they’d parked their bikes.
And here, finally, fate gave him a lucky break.
There were tire tracks in the dirt. Four tire tracks, all leading the same direction.
Emmett’s heart raced. Assuming the bikes had been taken by the Hell’s Wolves and not stolen by the Savage Rangers—or by someone else—he could follow these tracks. Of course, they were days old, and who knew how helpful they would be. But it was a place to start, and that was a hell of a lot better than nothing.
He returned to his own bike, mounted up, and rode slowly through the corn, picking up the trail the other four bikes had left. He was pleased to see that they’d kept to the dirt for a while, and for about a mile, he was able to follow their path without much trouble. When he eventually reached paved road, the angle at which the tracks merged onto it made him feel fairly confident about the direction they’d taken.
But now, he would need to look for further signs of their whereabouts. There were no more tracks to follow here.
There was, however, a small gas station. Hoping against hope that he might get some information, Emmett pulled in and went inside.
“Evening,” said the clerk, and then did a double take. Emmett hadn’t thought about what he must look like. He brought a hand to his face. His cheek felt swollen, and he wondered whether he had a black eye.
He went back to the cooler and pulled out a bottle of soda, feeling that his odds of getting this clerk to talk to him would be a bit better if he patronized the store. He went up to the counter and pulled out his wallet.
“Jesus, mister,” the clerk said. “You look like somebody cleaned your clock.”
“Just the drink,” Emmett said, laying a five-dollar bill on the counter.
The clerk went on staring at him for a few moments longer, then picked up the bill and punched the transaction into the register. He pulled out a few ones and some change and handed them back to Emmett.
“Say, I was wondering,” Emmett said, as if the thought had just occurred to him. “I’m looking for a few friends of mine, and I think they might have passed through here a few days back. They’d have been on motorcycles. Two of about my age, one a few years younger, and the fourth a teenager. You see anyone like that come through here?”
“A lot of people come through here,” the clerk said. He had an eye on Emmett’s wallet.
Good God. If he’d walked in here without a black eye, Emmett thought, this man probably wouldn’t have dared to ask him for a bribe. The clerk was rail thin and pale as cream. But Emmett supposed that looking as if he’d come off worst in a fight didn’t make people feel very intimidated by him. And he didn’t have time to convince the man to give up the information he wanted. The Coywolves could be hurting Hazel right now. He needed to find his pack.
He opened his wallet, took out a twenty, and laid it on the counter, holding onto it with two fingers. “That’s all I’ve got,” he said. “Did you see them or didn’t you?”
The clerk nodded. “They were here a few days ago, all right. They were talking about hiding out somewhere.”
“Where? Did they say where they were going to go?”
“Wouldn’t be a very good hideout if they had, would it?”
“Think back,” Emmett said sharply. “I’m sure they said something useful.” And he pulled the bill on the counter a little bit closer to himself, a little farther away from the clerk.
“They said something about going to ground.” The clerk screwed up his face, thinking. “They mentioned a little town. New Shoreham, maybe?”
“New Shoreham. Where’s that?”
“Got a phone?”
“No.”
“Buy a map.”
Emmett looked pointedly down at the twenty on the counter. “How about you give me a map.”
“Okay, okay.” The clerk reached over the counter and plucked a road map from the rack, and Emmett felt a small surge of satisfaction. Maybe he was intimidating this guy a little bit after all. He was still much bigger than the clerk and much more solidly built, and he had come in here fresh off a fight. He wondered idly if there was blood on his face.
The clerk was marking the map with a pen. “We’re here,” he said. “New Shoreham is about twenty miles down the road this way. It’s a cute little town. Kind of touristy. Your buddies seemed like maybe they weren’t from around here, so it makes sense that that’s where they’d go. Doing a little sightseeing, maybe?”
Emmett wasn’t about to answer that. “Thanks,” he said, folding up the map and releasing his hold on the twenty. He grabbed his bottle of soda and made his way to the restroom to assess the damage to his face before heading out.
It wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. It wasn’t as bad as he was sure it had been half an hour ago. Shifters healed quickly. At least, Emmett and his family always had. He wondered if the same could be said for shifters who divorced themselves from their animal natures the way Matthew and his pack had. He sort of hoped not. He would have dearly loved to return to that house and break Matthew’s jaw, and of course, it would be that much sweeter if Matthew couldn’t count on rapid healing.
Emmett’s own face was only slightly swollen. One eye was slightly shut, but he could still see well enough through it, and he didn’t think his cheekbone was broken. He lifted his shirt and probed at his ribs, trying to determine how bad the damage was there. One on the left side might be cracked. He would have to take it easy for the next couple of days, if he could.
He left the bathroom. The clerk’s stare followed him all the way out the door. Emmett wondered what the kid was going to tell his friends about their encounter later.
Back outside, he mounted his bike and set off for the little town of New Shoreham. He had no need to look at the map. Emmett had a keen sense of direction, one he suspected came from his dual nature and was heightened by his animal side. He couldn’t imagine true wolves often got lost. Getting lost was a human thing. And seeing the gas station clerk draw out the route to New Stoneham once was enough to make Emmett feel confident in his ability to find the place.
About half an hour later, he was there. He rolled slowly into town. It was a tiny coastal place, but the homes were old and wealthy looking, and none of it looked like the kind of place the Hell’s Wolves were likely to stay for very long.
Maybe they took another job here, he thought. Maybe they’re earning money while they wait for me to find them. It was a pleasant thought. Maybe he would find them in a motel somewhere with an envelope full of money, killing time while they waited for their alpha to re
turn.
Maybe they’d be bored. Maybe they’d be eager for a fight with the Coywolves.
No, that was probably too much to hope for.
Emmett drove around the entire town, getting the lay of the land and looking for possible places where he might find his packmates. Very quickly, he realized there were no motels here of the type they usually chose to stay in. The town itself was just too nice for that. He spotted a bed and breakfast—almost drove by it at first, mistaking it for just another private home, until he saw the deliberately rustic sign hanging out in front of it. But they wouldn’t be here, he knew. His brothers would laugh at a place like this.
The only other choice was the New Shoreham Hotel, which was big and sprawling and looked like the kind of place southern belles would have sipped iced tea on the porch and talked about gentleman callers all summer long. Emmett steered into the parking lot and rode around, looking for motorcycles, but there were none. Maybe they’d hidden them, parked somewhere else to throw potential Savage Ranger pursuers off?
He parked his own bike and went inside, where he was met by a man in a white tuxedo. “How may I help you today, sir?”
Emmett was impressed. Apparently, this guy wasn’t going to comment on his appearance. Then again, maybe he was being intercepted for the well-being of the other hotel guests. Maybe someone was already calling the police to report a dirty bum in the lobby. “I’m looking for some friends,” he said, and gave the tuxedoed man their description.
The man shook his head. “No one like that around here, I’m afraid.”
“What about somewhere else in New Shoreham?” Emmett asked. “Have you seen any men on motorcycles around?”
“Don’t really get many of that type around here,” the man said. “They’d stick out like a sore thumb if they were. You sure this is where your friends came?”
He wasn’t sure at all, of course. “Maybe I’ve got the name of the town wrong,” he said.
The man had a hand on his back and was already showing him out, not having even inquired as to whether Emmett wanted to rent a room. Emmett had to admire how neatly and easily he was being gotten rid of. “I sure do wish you good luck in finding them,” the man said. “If anyone like that does show up, I’ll be sure to pass along that you were looking for them.”