by Penny Alley
The temptation was incredible, and one that Gabe the wolf had no intention of resisting. Until he was attacked.
A high-pitched snarl from a throat too young for such savagery was Gabe’s only warning before sharp puppy teeth sank into his ankle, ripping and jerking, a hamstringing move if only Scotty had had the strength and experience to carry it through.
For the first time, the man interfered with the wolf, choking back a counter snap of his much more powerful jaws. Gabe braced himself, weathering the gnawing attack, waiting until Scotty tired or, better yet, circled around into his easy reach. A broad paw planted on the pup’s back would pin him, but Neoma never gave him that chance. She Shifted, her form changing beneath him, elongating until he had to adjust his stance and they no longer fit quite so perfectly together. Her fur dissolved, revealing a slew of fresh cuts and scratches and forcing him to either release his hold or bite her fragile neck. He didn’t want to hurt her any more than the blackberry thorns already had. As the sleek length of her back broadened under him, flattening into the bare, pale expanse of a human female, he Shifted too.
Her paws became hands and she grabbed her son, pulling the wriggling pup under her. She never tried to escape. She simply curled in tight around him, rolling him under her to protect him as much as she could.
That annoyed Gabe all over again, but it didn’t last. Not beyond the time it took his paws to recede, his hands to grow, and his fingers to sink into the soft earth at either side of her trembling shoulders. He had a raging erection, but his awareness of that vanished along with the simplicity of his fading wolf-thought. After that, all he saw was Neoma’s back. The gray and white mottle of volka fur had hidden what the naked stretch of human flesh could not. A tapestry of scars crisscrossed her, marring the delicate curve of her shoulders, tearing at her ribs and the slope of her spine; visual proof of a past crime so brutal that Gabe refused to believe he was seeing anything more than a trick of shadow and sunlight.
“What is that?” he demanded, his voice still hoarse from the Shift.
When she drew up her legs, Gabe shoved back off her. The effects of the chase still pounded inside him. His cock strained high and hard despite the swell of outrage that launched him to his feet. When he pointed at her, she flinched and Scotty snarled. Gabe couldn’t stop staring at her back.
Someone had beat Neoma. Someone had beat her severely and from the age of those marks, he knew it had to have happened years ago. In Scullamy. Under Deacon’s rule, if not by his own hand.
“Why?” His mind raced, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of one good reason for what he was seeing.
Neoma didn’t look at him, but Scotty did. Volka ferociousness beyond his tender years burned hot as fire in the yellow of his eyes.
“Don’t touch my mother!” he growled, his form rippling as he struggled to complete his own Shift.
Staring hard at the back of Neoma’s bowed head, Gabe willed her to look at him. She never did. She never answered him either, but in the end, he really didn’t require one. He already knew who to blame. Nothing happened in Scullamy without Deacon’s knowledge and permission. And if the marks on her back were a result of one time when it had, than it was an oversight Deacon would come to regret. Gabe was going to make sure of that.
The next time he saw the Alpha of Scullamy, Gabe was going to make him wish he’d never lain eyes, much less hands, on Neoma Michaelson.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She couldn’t run fast enough. In her dreams, she never could. Their breath was at her back, their teeth at her heels and her feet, bare and bleeding from the cuts of the belts, kept slipping in the wetness of the moldering leaves. Roots rose up to trip her. Thin branches whipped her face, grabbing at her hair and arms, becoming claws she couldn’t escape. Alaric was almost on her, with Detric not far behind, and somewhere—somewhere out in the shadowed darkness behind her—Matson was baying in agony as Deacon cut him out of his pelt.
She’d never get away, not without shoes, not with a crying infant in her aching, welted arms. It all came down to a choice; the same choice she always made: she threw Scotty to the ground behind her, screaming as he did when they fell on him, clawing to get up the next hill while the soft earth crumbled beneath her hands and feet. It didn’t save her. It never did. They were on her next, the tearing of their teeth and claws like hot knives ripping into the back her legs, her belly when she scrambled to fight them off, and eventually her throat. That crushing grip stilled her. Icy prickles moved through her, dark as the surrounding night. As dark as Deacon’s stare when he emerged from the shadows, Scotty’s bloody blanket in his arms, to stand over her.
The wolves let her go, though neither Alaric nor Detric went far. They stalked her in circles, waiting for her to bolt again, but Neoma was done running. Frightened and hurt, she waited, her shaking hands held up in front of her face as if she were capable of blocking the next attack. She knew better, and so did they. Deacon knew it best of all. Triumph glistened in the frozen depths of his eyes, but his smile as he bent to lay the still and silent infant on her belly was as gentle as a lover. He crouched over her, arms balanced upon his knees, smiling.
“My ever obedient Neoma,” he murmured, and reached to give a lock of her hair a playful tug. He really did look like someone’s grandfather…if one paid no mind to all the blood on his hands, his arms. The entire front of him was drenched in it, and she could still hear Matson howling and howling, the unbearable pain of it causing his voice to break as he was jerked out of his skin. It was only half done. She couldn’t see it anymore, but she could feel it—every pass of the knife and impatient tug and crush of salt, ground in to keep the blood flowing and the nerves screaming—ripping through her own body as if it were she rather than Matson now writhing to the torture of Deacon’s men.
And the baby she had sacrificed trying save herself lay unmoving on her belly, as still as death with the heat of his blood seeping through the folds of his blanket to soak into her nightshirt, sticky and warm.
And she was so, so sorry.
Weeping, Neoma tried to cover him, to wrap his motionless body in her arms, but Deacon still managed to tickle his baby chin and then he tickled hers.
“We cannot run away from our wrongdoings,” he said, his finger wandering down the curve of her throat to trace along the modest neckline of her shirt. “We can only accept ownership of them and continue on, being good and dutiful children to the alphas who guide us. You can do that, can’t you, child? My Neoma. My ever obedient, little Neoma.”
“Hush now.”
Neoma startled awake, shaking and sweating and crying. The forest was gone. She lay on her side in Gabe’s bed, the warm length of Scotty lying curled up safe beside her, her tears soaking into his hair. She snapped her mouth shut, afraid of what she might have said. “Did I wake you?” she whispered, but Scotty didn’t answer. He was fast asleep.
Struggling to control her breathing, Neoma wiped the wet from her face, then smoothed her fingers through his soft bangs. She kissed the top of his head. “I’m sorry I threw you away,” she whispered again, praying he never learned how close he had come to dying that night. “I won’t let it happen again, I swear.”
She heard it then, the rustle of soft movement a half second before the bed dipped under Gabe’s heavier weight.
He lay on top of the blankets, apart from his shoes still fully dressed as he eased in at her back and wrapped his arm around her. His hand founds hers in the darkness, holding it as she held Scotty. His other found her hair. He stroked her, the same soothing gesture she had just given, albeit without the kiss.
“Shh,” he told her softly. “Go to sleep, Neoma. No more nightmares.”
She almost cried again. She kept her mouth tightly closed, fighting to make each breath as slow and even as she could, but he must have heard the tiny hitches each time she inhaled and he certainly had to feel her trembling.
His hand on hers shifted, his fingers weaving in between her ow
n. He held her, his grip as gentle as it was strong. “Close your eyes,” he murmured, and eventually Neoma did. “Now, go to sleep.”
Eventually, Neoma did that too. It was late, and despite the awfulness of her dreams, she was too tired not to give in to the exhaustion. It was well past dawn with bright sunlight streaming in through the crack in the window curtains when she opened her eyes again. Scotty had kicked the blankets off his feet and thrown his pillow onto the floor. He lay on his stomach, still fast asleep, but the bed behind her was empty. Sometime during the night, Gabe had got up again and returned to the couch.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next empty signature line waited for her mark, but Neoma only rolled the pen between her fingers. Her hands were shaking and she couldn’t concentrate. She’d read the entire form, twice now, and yet she had no idea what she was agreeing to. All she could think about was how wrong this town was for her and Scotty and yet, how strange it had felt—strange but good, comforting as well as frightening—with the heat and the hardness of Gabe’s body all around her. And now, standing in the principal’s office at the admissions desk, she could still feel it. The moisture of the earth against her belly and thighs. The greenness of the crushed vegetation in every ragged breath. The sting of all those cuts, oozing into tickles of dripping blood. The tension in Scotty’s tiny puppy body and the ferocity of his gnawing attack against one who so easily could have killed him…
Oh, and the way Gabe had stared at her scars… She hadn’t seen him look that angry since he’d Claimed her.
“Do you need help with that?”
Startled, Neoma glanced up as the secretary sidled up to the counter. She was pretty, young. Probably not more than a few years out of school herself, though she might just have looked that way because of how she’d pulled her short red hair back into a ponytail. Tied with a white ribbon, no less. It gave her an innocent-seeming sweetness, virginal, angelic almost. The smile she affected was meant to reinforce that image, but there was a slyness to her eyes that exposed that for the lie it was.
It was the grocery store all over again. She dropped her gaze first. “I’m fine,” she said, but she felt anything but. What form was this? She had to read it again—the permission slip to have all of Scotty’s records faxed from his old school. As if the school would dare without informing Deacon first. As if Deacon would comply with any request regarding Scotty, or her, or coming from Hollow Hills for that matter. Neoma knew better, but she signed it anyway.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” Folding her arms on the countertop, the secretary leaned over to better see where she might be stuck. Scotty’s information was already filled in. Literally, the only line left blank was the one waiting for her signature. “Most people don’t take half this long to fill out six forms.” Lowering her voice to a mock whisper, the secretary added extra sweetness and teeth as she asked, “Can you read it okay?”
From his seat between Scotty and the door, Gabe spoke up, “She said she was fine, Vivie.” Arms folded across his chest, his long legs stretched out before him, the look he gave the secretary said clearly he was not taken in by her smile either. “Thanks anyway.”
“Just trying to be helpful.” Play pouting, Vivie went back to her computer.
“Sure you were,” Gabe said, not buying it for a minute.
Flushing almost as red as her hair, Vivie hiked her chin as she began to type.
How could she have ever thought she could make a life here in Hollow Hills? This was a horrible place. Not just the school, but all of it and especially the one aspect Neoma hadn’t considered back when her only thought had been getting out of Scullamy alive: its people. Everyone hated her, but to be fair, they probably would have hated her no matter where she’d gone.
She didn’t understand. How many times over the last decade had residents from Hollow Hills found sport in coming to Scullamy, raising hell, picking fights, vandalizing the command center because for some teenagers, stealing Deacon’s crest medallion off the compound’s front gate had become a right of passage? How many work parties had she been assigned to, specifically to paint over the graffiti slurs that appeared on the outer compound walls as if by magic every few days all summer long? And the biggest reason—or at least, the official one—Deacon had given for why they weren’t allowed outside the compound at night was because of the risk of being caught and beaten up by other marauding packs. But Neoma didn’t hate them for that. She didn’t hate anyone.
Clearly, that could not be said in return.
Norma, that poor woman. That the pain of her loss still ravaged at her was as plain to see as the awful hatred she’d aimed at Neoma. Yes, she was Scullamy and yes, she knew (the way everyone in Scullamy knew) how Deacon dealt with suspected marauders. She’d never once participated in dispensing justice on any of those kids foolish enough to get caught, nor could she have stopped it if she had been there, so how could anyone blame her for what had happened?
Did they blame Scotty, as well?
Her trembling pen hovered over the signature line on a page marked, ‘Policies and Procedures’. Every nerve sparked panic, finding threats in the smallest of noises—the burbling water at the cooler when the Vice Principal emerged to fill her cup and steal guarded peeks at the new student before disappearing back into her office. The rhythmic click at Vivie’s keyboard while the secretary pretended to be caught up in her work. The chug of the printer as it spat Scotty’s class assignment out into a plastic tray, and the furtive whispers of two pups waiting for the principal on a bench under a collaboration of kindergarten artwork and a plaque that read, ‘Striving to Excel’. Neoma was fielding looks from them too, but worse, from the chair beside Gabe, still too short for his feet to reach the floor, so was Scotty, whether he knew it or not.
Oh please, don’t let him know, was her recurring thought. Her chest hurt with how much she wanted him to be blind to it, but kids never were. And Scotty was so quiet, the way he got whenever he sensed something wrong. How could she leave him here?
Slapping his hands against his thighs as he sighed, Gabe stood up. Neoma couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but at least she didn’t flinch away when he came to stand at her elbow. He looked over all six of the forms she’d been given, and then at the two she’d completed.
“Signature,” he said, tapping the bottom of the Policies and Procedures page.
She wanted to cry. She refused to do it here. “I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.” Leaning into her, he lowered his voice. “He has my name and the Alpha’s endorsement. He’ll be fine.”
No, he wouldn’t, but Neoma signed the paper anyway. Because she was a coward. He’d told her what to do and she’d done it. Like always. That was the end of it. She shriveled inside, wanting so badly just to run, but licking his thumb, Gabe flipped the form to expose the medical release underneath. When he tapped the signature line on the bottom, she signed that one too and felt worse than before.
The entrance door opened and an older boy in a hall monitor’s jacket appeared.
“Hello, Jacob.” Vivie flashed him a sunny smile as she passed Scotty’s class schedule across the counter. “Mrs. Freeman’s class, if you please.”
They were taking Scotty away from her now. Neoma swallowed back her panic. Her hands itched. Only by supreme effort did she keep from grabbing after him when Scotty slid off his chair to follow Jacob.
“Remember,” Gabe told him, “you’re a Michaelson now. Today won’t be easy, but it’ll get better and before you know it, you’ll have more friends than you know what to do with.”
His expression closely guarded, Scotty took the paper Vivie handed him. The need to hug him tight became almost more than she could swallow back, but mindful of the other kids, Scotty kept his distance. He held out his hand, a courteous little gentleman waiting for a polite goodbye. Her arms ached, but she shook it and settled for a quick comb of her fingers through his soft hair just before he stepped out of reach.
“Mom,” he growled, and left the office smoothing his hair back the way he liked it. The door closed behind him heavy as a tomb, and cut off all her air. It wasn’t until she felt Gabe’s hand on her shoulder that she realized she was holding her breath. She sucked hard and a tap of his finger redirected her gaze back to the last form on the counter.
“Sign,” he said. Pushing away from the counter, he left her with Vivie and headed into the back. If the principal thought she could avoid him by staying in her office, then both she and the vice principal were firmly and quietly corrected. Without knocking, Gabe opened both their office doors. “You have my number,” he told them. “If there’s a problem, I expect to hear from you.”
Accepting their heavy silence as agreement, Gabe came back to Neoma. With her shaky signature dotting the final page, he gathered up the forms and handed them to Vivie. “Don’t lose them,” he told her as he held the office door for Neoma.
She left on rubbery legs, tears welling up in the back of her throat, choking her with the force of will it took to hide them. No one said one word as she walked out.
“I’ve got you,” Gabe said, the heat of his hand settling in the small of her back, guiding her down a hall full of artwork, sports trophies and spelling bee accolades, all of which blurred with every blink until all she could see with crystal clear certainty was that she’d just left her child where anything could happen to him. What if she never got him back again?
Her knees buckled. Gabe caught her elbow, his arm hooking around her waist. He kept her walking. Some steps he carried her. “Keep going,” he told her. “Car’s over here. We’re almost there.”