Sage didn’t like it at all, but part of him was sensitive to bad situations caused by shitty parents. He and Sienna had barely survived with their skin intact.
“What’s your permanent solution look like?”
Sage would need a bigger picture if he was ever going to get Brody on board.
“I have some contacts in Quebec and one in Vancouver,” Samuel said. “They’re really strong packs and I think if I have enough time, I could convince them to take her in and help her get on her feet somewhere new, where she could blend in. New name. New identity.”
“But those things take time, right?” Sage knew the answer to the question.
“It’s a business transaction in cases like these,” Samuel nodded. “I need to know if they’re even a good fit for Emery in the long run and what kind of deal they’d want.”
Sage rolled his neck and sighed. This wasn’t going to be an easy sell at all. Brody was damn-near paranoid and aggressive and even if he could get him to agree, what’s to say he wouldn’t run the girl off with his terrible personality and constant growling and brooding.
Sage had a flash of brilliance. Brody wasn’t the one he needed to convince.
***
“Cardoza, huh?” Sienna asked through the phone. Sage could practically hear the wheels in his twin’s head turning. “Have you met her yet?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I wanted to know what you guys thought first.”
“Liar,” Sienna interrupted. “You wanted me to agree because you knew Brody never would.”
There was no point in lying to her.
“True.”
In the background, he heard Brody’s gruff voice. His supernatural hearing must have kicked in.
“You can’t be serious, Sienna,” he was saying.
“Hush,” Sienna said, cutting off her mate and returning to the conversation with her brother. “Do you trust Samuel’s judgement in this one, Sage?”
“I do,” he replied. It was true. Their brother hadn’t asked them for anything over the years. For him to reach out like this meant he’d reached the end of his options and was truly looking for a way to help the girl.
Sienna was arguing with Brody again and Sage could only catch snippets of it before a door slammed with a bang somewhere in the room with Sienna. She gave a soft laugh.
“What’d you do to the Alpha?” Sage asked slowly.
“Sent him to his room for a while,” his sister replied casually. “He needs to cool off and let me think for a second. The second we found out we were pregnant he’s been up my ass like a boil. A girl need’s a little breathing room when she’s trying to think.”
Only Sienna would ever get away with treating Brody McAllister like that. He chuckled.
“Sage, I trust you more than anyone else, except for maybe my mate,” Sienna finally said. “I think if you meet her and it’s something you want to take on, I support you 100 percent. Just know that if you do this, Brody’s going to pout for a couple days and will probably make you take total responsibility for her health and safety.”
Sage was worried about that. Being the pack’s Beta was an all-consuming kind of a role and adding a babysitting charge to the mix could spell disaster. Sage was good at what he did for one reason—singleness of mind and purpose. What kind of distractions would something like this cause?
“I’ll go meet her and let you know what I decide,” he said finally. “Try to be nice to Brody in the meantime. Something tells me I’m going to need him a good mood.”
The devious chuckle on the other end of the phone made Sage frown.
“No worries, big brother,” she said. “I know how to make sure my man is in a very good mood.”
Sage groaned.
“Gross,” he said as he ended the call.
Sage returned to the lodge’s large community room and told Samuel to bring the girl in. Sage would agree to meet her and make his decision from there. It took 30 minutes for Samuel’s sentries, guards who kept the pack lands safe and did any heavy lifting the Alpha or Beta might order, to find Emery Wilkins.
“Bring her here,” Samuel said into his phone before tossing it on the sofa next to him. He let out a long sigh. “She was out in town at a hostel when Ricky found her. I’m not convinced she planned on coming back.”
Interesting. She didn’t necessarily want to come with him to Colorado. The predatory wolf in Sage surged forward, wanting to see this little rabbit who wanted to escape so badly.
Twenty minutes later, Samuel’s two sentries walked through the front door followed by a bedraggled, angry girl who looked like she had murder on her mind.
“This is her?” Sage asked Samuel.
“Her has a name,” she said as she dropped her duffel bag to the floor and walked to the lodge’s small, open kitchen and grabbed a water from the stainless-steel refrigerator. “I’m Emery.”
He bit back a laugh of surprise at her surliness. Damn, but she was angry.
“Emery Wilkins, this is my younger brother, Sage,” Samuel said as he stepped forward, putting himself between Emery and Sage. Sage’s wolf jumped at the motion, not liking it at all. What the hell? “Sage is the Beta of the Boulder Pack and is here to help you if you agree.”
“I don’t.”
Samuel’s words were hardly out of his mouth before Emery cut him off. Instead of getting angry, however, the Tahoe Alpha merely rolled his eyes.
“Settle down, Emery,” he said. His words were kind enough, but the slight wave of Alpha dominance Samuel sent out had her lowering her eyes and letting out a breath without probably meaning to. Alpha dominance was like that—able to bend another wolf to their will if they pushed hard enough. Even dominant wolves had to bow to an Alpha if he was strong enough.
Samuel was strong, but getting Sage to act against his will would have been a lot more of a fight. In most circumstances, though, Sage didn’t resist. Especially in an Alpha’s home.
“Come sit down and talk with us for a minute,” Samuel said, motioning to the sofa. Emery trudged slowly over and kept her eyes in front of her as she passed the men. Sage could feel the anger coming off her—she hadn’t appreciated the dominance one bit. He bit back a smile and made note of that particular bit of useful information.
When they were all seated, Samuel explained his stance to Emery and why he was insistent that she leave as soon as possible.
“I can’t,” she said when he was finished. “Dad’s getting out in a couple months. I need to be here for him.”
Samuel just shook his head.
“You’re in danger, Emery,” Samuel said slowly. “Cardoza’s men are going to find you if you stay here. They’ll hurt you. Worse. You need to disappear for a little bit so that we can concentrate on protecting your dad when he gets out.”
Sage watched the woman from across the low table between them. She was tall with long, strong legs she was showing off by wearing a soft, flowy sundress and strappy leather sandals. Her hair was a deep, rich shade of dark brown and shone in the sun coming in from the window behind her. Trying not to be too obvious with what he was doing, Sage scrutinized her a little more.
If he was being perfectly honest with himself, he’d admit that she was fucking gorgeous. Her eyes were a bright blue and the small smattering of faint freckles across the bridge of her nose and dotting her cheeks might possibly just be his undoing sometime in the future. Sage shifted his focus to the window behind her to catch his thoughts, which had begun to tailspin.
“…Sage?”
Shit. Samuel was asking him something.
His older brother frowned slightly but repeated the question.
“I said, Emery is always free to return if she likes,” he said. “We’re simply asking her to give us a little time to settle things with the Cardozas in the meantime.”
Sage nodded.
“Of course.”
He didn’t miss the amused glint in his brother’s eye as he turned to get Emery’s answer.
She
was playing with the ends of her long hair between her fingers, twirling it over and over as she thought. Her eyes darted to the door and back to Sage while she deliberated. Something was off about her—Sage picked up on it immediately.
She had plans of her own.
“Fine,” she said, letting out a breath. “But only temporarily. I need to go back to my room and take a quick shower, obviously. And grab my text books. I’ll be back in 20 minutes.”
Liar. He could sense it off her right away, from the too-quick acquiescence to the constant flexing of her right hand. She was lying and nobody else in the room had picked up on it.
Sage watched her walk out the front door and shot his brother a crooked smile. She wanted to play him for a fool?
Fine. He could play, too.
Chapter Two
Emery
No real offense intended to her Alpha, but the man was out of his mind if he thought Emery was going to agree to leaving with a complete stranger. So, sure, she could play along and pretend to be the obedient little wolf she always was.
She wasn’t sure she’d fully convinced the stranger, but so be it. She’d be long gone before either of them realized where she was. She had a couple friends in her graduate program she could stay with for a few weeks until she sorted it out and wait for her dad’s release.
Her room was in one of the communal houses on the pack’s property. Mated couples got their own houses, but the unmated males stayed in two of the larger houses on the property and the unmated females stayed in another.
She shared the house with four other shifter females who ranged in age from 19 to 28, and none of them paid her any attention over the three and a half years she’d lived there. Emery hadn’t exactly tried to make friends, either. Between trying to stay afloat in her studies and keeping tabs on her father, she hadn’t had time for any real female bonding. Luckily, as she pushed her way inside the front door, she saw she was alone.
Perfect.
On the second floor, she grabbed a change of clothes and tossed it on the bed. Moving quickly, she threw her textbooks and a few personal items she’d missed into the large duffel bag she had carried earlier. She’d spent a night in a hostel in Jackson Hole after meeting with her father’s public defender. That’s where Ricky had found her earlier today, forcing her to come back to talk to the Alpha immediately.
If she was being perfectly honest, Emery knew something like this was coming. That’s why she’d packed the duffel bag with a couple extras so she could stay off pack land for a couple days in hopes that Samuel would forget about her. She wanted to stay under the radar and had thought she was doing a good job. She’d been wrong.
Her things packed, she arranged them under her window and raced to the bathroom across the hallway. She hadn’t been lying about the shower part. Racing through the razor, the soap, and the shampoo and conditioner, Emery was dressed with wet hair slicked into a messy top bun in no time. Doing a double check to make sure she had all her essentials, she lifted the window of her second-floor bedroom and carefully dropped her backpack and duffle bag to the ground below.
She closed her bedroom door and locked it, hoping it would buy her a little more time. Then, moving back to the open window, she stepped one foot through it, then the other. Turning over on her stomach, she slowly inched herself off the ledge while her hands clung to the frame for dear life.
Damn, but she was terrible at this whole escape thing. Her fingers and hands were screaming at the strain and she’d obviously miscalculated how far a second-floor window really was from the ground. She chanced a glance down and gulped.
Holy crap that was one hell of a drop.
“Don’t be a baby,” she gritted through her teeth as she willed her hands and fingers to let go so she could drop. But they wouldn’t obey. Part of her was panicking at the thought of willingly dropping herself the ten feet it would take to reach the bottom.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” She dangled there, knowing that any moment, her fingers would give and she’d plummet like a stone.
“How’s the great escape plan working out for you?”
The sound of the stranger’s voice made Emery yelp and twist to look at the source. That motion made her momentarily forget her death grip on the window sill and she slipped, falling like an ungraceful bag of potatoes to the hard ground below.
Emery landed funny and gave a cry at the sickening crunch of her ankle. She rolled over to her side and grabbed the screaming joint, knowing she’d just broken it.
“Damn it!” She screeched at the newcomer, Sage Blaine. How the hell had he known what she was going to do?
Despite the grin tugging at the corner of his handsome mouth, he did have the decency to look concerned at her agony and kneel beside her. His warm hands covered hers as he tried to get a good look at her ankle. Emery pushed herself up to her butt and was ready to neuter the jerk who caused this.
“Let me see— “Sage started, but was interrupted by a swift right hand to the side of his jaw. It wasn’t the best right she’d ever thrown, but her dad had taught Emery well enough that even from the seated position and the searing pain from her ankle, she’d managed to knock the Boulder shifter on his ass.
“What the hell, asshole?” She shrieked at him, trying to hit him again while she scooted on her butt in his direction. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Emery continued her lame assault on the much bigger, much less injured Beta who had regained his feet and had captured both of her hands in one of his.
“Stop,” he said quietly and emphatically. “Stop it right now, Emery. You’re making it worse. I’m sorry I spooked you. I never wanted you to fall, you idiot.”
His face was inches from hers and he loomed over her as he spoke. The intensity radiating off him like the fan inside a furnace.
“Let me go.”
She knew she sounded insolent and petulant, but she really did want this stranger to butt out of her business, regardless of what her Alpha wanted.
“I’m going to let go and you’re going to calm the hell down, right?” He waited for an answer, not moving an inch out of her space. Emery glanced up and caught herself momentarily lost in his warm hazel eyes. They were almost bewitching. She gave a slight nod as if to assent to what he asked her for and he let go.
“Now, we’re going to…” He began and once more, Emery swung for the fences, this time connecting with the upper part of his face, just below his right eye. This hit was clean and on the mark and the temple shot dazed him just enough to send him back to a knee while he struggled to regain his equilibrium.
“Son of a bitch!” He roared, but Emery was staggering to her feet and foolishly attempting to hobble away as fast as her bum foot would take her—which wasn’t fast at all.
Seconds later, she felt rough hands grab her from behind, flip her around, and deposit her over a shoulder before she had a chance to launch a third assault.
***
In less than two hours, Emery found herself in the backseat of an oversized, leather interior with all the bells and whistles Tahoe speeding southeast toward Boulder, Colorado.
She was still pissed off and hadn’t said a word since they hit the road and left the Tahoe Pack’s land.
She’d finally agreed to spend a few weeks out of Wyoming, thanks to some strong handing from her Alpha and the sheer, utter, pig-headed stubbornness of Sage Blaine.
Despite the fact that she’d probably never really had a choice, Samuel had assured her that the choice was hers, but that her father would, in all honesty, want her safe and as far away from Cardoza and his men as possible.
“Imagine his face when I have to tell Hank that you’d been kidnapped or worse, killed,” Samuel said, putting the final blow in. Hank Wilkins wasn’t much of a sentimentalist and he was one of the least traditional fathers around, but Emery knew her dad loved her and wanted her safe. Knowing she’d stubbornly put herself in danger because of him would likely kill him, too.
“You
have to make sure he stays safe, Alpha,” Emery had pleaded just as they were walking toward the vehicle. “Please don’t let them kill him.”
She hated tears and the weakness they portrayed in front of her Alpha, but she was unable to stop them fall, one from each eye as she begged Samuel Blaine to keep her father safe.
The Alpha put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly.
“We’ll better be able to keep him safe when we’re sure that you are, Emery,” he said as he opened the door to the back seat. Emery was on crutches by that point after the pack’s healer reset her bones. Shifters had accelerated healing, but a broken bone that would take a human two months to heal would take her at least two weeks. In the meantime, she was hobbled and she hated it.
“You have everything?”
Sage asked the question as he put the key in the ignition and cranked the engine. Because of her air cast and relative pain level, he’d put her in the spacious back seat where she could spread out and get as comfortable as possible.
It was a nice gesture and she normally would have thanked him for it—except he was the reason her ankle had snapped in the first place. Well, in her version of events, anyway. He’d said over and over that her hanging her ass out the window had pretty much sealed her fate.
Whatever. Details.
Wyoming was a large state to drive across north to south, so Emery opted to put in a pair of earbuds and fire up some music while she tried her best to sleep through most of it. She’d had a long night the night before so it wasn’t hard.
Up ahead, Sage said something but she couldn’t make it out. Whatever. She didn’t really care what he had to say at the moment, anyway.
Emery sighed. It wasn’t exactly how she planned things to go, but she’d adjust and make the best of it. Either that, or she’d have the Beta’s head on a pike and start a pack war.
Either way. At least she wouldn’t be bored.
Chapter Three
Emery
Rocky Mountain Shifters: Complete Series Box Set Page 9