“Well?” Jax said.
Cal hadn’t realized Jax was waiting for confirmation. “Yes, I’m Cal Sherwood. What charge sheet?”
Jax looks up as if trying to remember. “Fraud. Theft. Extortion. The sheet was light on the detail, long on the accusations. Tsk tsk. Bad omega.”
“What? No, I didn’t!”
“That’s what I thought. That’s what I told Luke too.” Jax sighs. “He’s naturally more suspicious than I am though. It’s an alpha thing. Oh my god, stop panicking. No one’s going to shop you. Only Gregor’s dumb enough to do something without thinking, but he wouldn’t cross Adam.
As for Adam and Luke, neither of those two big idiots does anything without thinking it through a dozen times first. That’s why us Winterstokes never get involved in anything. By the time Adam and Luke have made their minds up, whatever it is has passed.”
Cal relaxes into the seat.
“Where the hell did you come from anyway?” Jax asks. “I mean I’ve got a good idea. You’re not the first panicky omega on illegal blockers that I’ve seen. Not that many come through Aylewood admittedly. We’re not easy to get into or out of, but when I was living in the city, you couldn’t move without bumping into some poor sap on the run. Not that I’m saying you’re a poor sap. Actually, I am. I mean you are on the run, aren’t you?”
Cal grins. “You talk a lot. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“All. The. Time.” Jax grins back. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll understand, but it’ll be good to know what we’re getting into.”
“There’s a pack over on the west coast, run by an alpha named Mason Reed,” Cal begins. He glances over at Jax. The other omega is uncharacteristically silent, and appears to be paying attention, a sympathetic expression on his face.
The drive to the cabin takes an hour, some of it slow going in the snow, and Jax listens for the whole of it. When Cal is finished, Jax pulls the truck over and gives Cal a huge hug, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. The hug says everything Cal needs to know.
CAL
mountain peaks and bubble bath
Jax stays long enough to show Cal where the generator is and how to get it running, then makes his excuses by complaining about Cal’s on-heat scent and saying he’ll be back in a week to collect him.
Cal listens to the sound of Jax’s engine until it fades completely, then sets out to explore his surroundings.
The cabin is set in a small clearing near one of the mountain’s peaks. There’s a small woodshed attached and a double garage, now empty.
A long porch wraps all the way around. In summer, Cal imagines it’ll be heaven to sit out under the eaves, drinking a beer and listening to the birds in the surrounding pines.
The cabin is really nice. When Jax mentioned it, Cal had imagined some out-of-the-way, run down place that they use to stash omegas who are causing too much trouble. This isn’t that. Someone has taken the time to decorate.
The cupboards in the kitchen are fully stocked with easy-to-make meals: pasta and sauces, tins of fruits and vegetables, powdered milk and cereals. The contents aren’t the cheap stuff either. They have Cal’s favorite brand of coffee beans – the type Dad used to buy – and a machine that looks like it needs an engineering degree to operate.
The main room has a couple of soft sofas, a large screen TV with an old-fashioned DVD player, and an enormous fireplace with a rug in front of it that Cal imagines has seen a lot of action, though it looks clean enough.
There are two bedrooms to the back of the cabin, both with huge king-sized beds and a lot of spare linen in the closets. Each room has a large dresser with the top drawer filled with sex toys. The second drawer is filled with neatly folded but comfortable clothing: soft pants and cotton shirts, as well as pads. There are ornate boxes on the side of each bed filled with different sized and flavored condoms. Jax said the pack omegas used this place to wait out their heats. It’s quite clear that they don’t always wait them out alone.
Cal chooses the second bedroom on the basis that the window looks out onto the peaks behind and he thinks it’s kind of pretty. He doesn’t have anything to unpack. He leaves his cash in his bag, and he hasn’t brought any clothes than the ones he’s standing up in which are pretty whiffy from sweat and slick.
He hates to wash off Luke’s scent, but he can’t spend the rest of the week like this. The bathroom has both a large old-fashioned claw tub big enough for two, and a massive shower with the kind of round metal shower head that makes you feel as if you are under a hot waterfall.
An arrangement of bubble baths and scented soaps lie on a shelf along with a selection of soft towels. A basket of new toothbrushes, still in their wrappers, sits alongside, but Cal’s attention is immediately drawn to the bubble bath.
Cal sits on the side of the tub, turns on the faucet and lets the water run for a few minutes while it heats up. He hasn’t had a bubble bath in years. The last time must have been in the small apartment he’d shared with Dad up north. That had been the last place with a proper bath for a while. Often the places they stayed in only had space for showers or didn’t have running water at all if they were squatting.
It was when they were squatting that Cal had been taken. The house wasn’t bad for a squat, he remembers. It was clearly abandoned but hadn’t been for long. The shutters were nailed down, but the glass in the windows underneath was still intact. Mice and birds hadn’t yet had time to invade so the rooms, while dusty, were clean of animal droppings.
Cal was nineteen. Old enough that he didn’t want to live with his Dad anymore and that his own little dream of settling down somewhere had the feel of something that could become reality. Dad had strict rules about new towns, ever had since Cal had entered puberty and presented as an omega.
Cal wonders sometimes if Dad was disappointed about that. If Cal had been an alpha, they could have settled somewhere with Cal’s presence finally keeping his father safe for the first time in his life, but if Dad ever thought that, he never let on.
One of Dad’s rules was no going out unless it was for something necessary. Cal could go out to buy bread and milk, or to look for work. And when he did, he had to do so during the daylight hours, preferably in the morning. And unless it was urgent, they both went together.
There’s safety in pairs, Dad had said.
Except Cal had thought he’d known better. He wasn’t dumb enough to go to a bar, but it was just past nine in the evening and he’d run out of snacks. Dad was working a cleaning job at the local hospital and wasn’t going to be home until past midnight.
Cal wonders often what Dad did when he got back to the squat and found Cal gone. Had he waited for him to come home? Gone out to look for him despite his own rules? How long had he looked for? Was he still looking?
The stupid thing was that Reed hadn’t even twigged that Cal was an omega when he and his second drove past Cal on the way to the store.
Reed had just seen a pretty teenage beta and decided to have some fun, and he’d been pleased as punch when Cal’s blockers wore off after a week. That was when Cal knew Reed was never going to let Cal escape.
Tears burn at the corners of Cal’s eyes. He brushes them away angrily. It was the first heat he’d ever had. Until then, he’d been on blockers.
This is the first time he is going to be on his own for his heat. And yes, he’s needy as hell for Luke and won’t turn him down if the alpha turns up the door, but he’s also looking forward to spending it on his own, without having to worry about Reed being there to laugh at the neediness that he’ll use like a stick to goad Cal with later.
At least Reed never officially claimed him. It was another stick he used.
A marked omega is worth less, boy. If you get too much trouble and I have to sell you on, I’m gonna want to get my money’s worth.
Cal stands up from the side of the tub and pulls down the first two bubble baths with a defiance that he recognizes as slightly ridiculous.
Cal scrutinizes the bottles. Lavender Heaven or Relaxing Rose. He unscrews the caps and sniffs each. Lavender Heaven, it is. Relaxing Rose can wait until tomorrow. He’s going to be here a week and he intends to have a stupidly long bubble bath every single day.
Cal turns off the faucet and tests the water. He strips off his shirt and boxers, grimacing a little at the stickiness of the latter, then drops them into the laundry basket in the corner of the room.
He lowers himself into the hot scented water, letting out a very unmanly moan as he does. The heat seeps into his muscles, and into his bones. Cal feels his entire body relaxing, and he sighs with pleasure.
His dick bobs along the surface of the water. Finally, he has nothing to do. Nothing to run from or run to, and no one for miles around to bother him.
Cal slips his hand down his stomach, feeling the soft lining of hair, then further down between his legs where he grips his dick gently. Cal sighs, closes his eyes and thinks of Luke.
LUKE
picnic thoughts and whiskey
“What do you know about Mason Reed?” Luke asks.
He’s found Adam in his study in the packhouse where his older brother is busy scanning copies of paper invoices and grumbling about how everything costs twice what it used to.
Adam looks up, frowning when he sees Luke’s expression. “Not a lot. He’s based in some town on the west coast. Can’t remember the name exactly. Something Beach.” Adam bundles up the invoices he’s working on and dumps them in the filing cabinet behind them, then takes his chair behind the desk. “He’s one of those ex-military wolves who insist on running their own little fiefdoms where everyone jumps when he looks at them. He was almost certainly the architect of the Mulholland pack slaughter, but there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him.”
Mulholland. White-cold fear flashes through Luke. He remembers that. A whole pack slaughtered as part of some kind of pack-on-pack challenge.
“That was definitely him?”
“As definite as anyone can be without actually being there. Why do you ask?”
“I just had a word with Jax. He drove Cal – Sherwood – up to the omega cabin. He’s claiming to be on the run from Reed’s pack,” Luke continues. “He says he was forced into it and stopped from leaving.”
Luke wonders when Sherwood became Cal in his head.
About the same time that he found out Cal was an omega and likely not guilty of the charges. About the time that he realized that that Cal smelled like his mate.
He lets none of this on to Adam. His big brother will either ignore it, or burst out laughing, and Luke isn’t in the mood for neither.
Adam pinches the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Could be right. It fits the rumors.”
Fury rises. “You knew about this? You knew Reed was keeping omegas against their will?” Luke knows he’s being ridiculous even as the words come out. The Cal situation is making his alpha hormones go crazy.
Adam startles at Luke’s sudden anger. “What?” He gives Luke an appraising look. “Is Jax right about you and Sherwood?”
“No...maybe.” Luke sighed. “Okay, yes.”
Adam raises his eyebrows and Luke has the distinct impression he’s trying not to laugh.
“I don’t know,” Luke admits.” I’ve never had to deal with this kind of thing before. I’m still working it out.”
Adam puts up his hands. “Don’t ask me. I never know how to deal with the whole romance thing.” He frowns. “Sometimes, I’m not sure anyone does.”
That’s part of what Luke’s not sure about. Is it a romance thing that he’s feeling towards Cal? He does want to do stupid gooey things like bring him flowers and lie with him on a picnic blanket on warm summer grass and point out shapes in the clouds.
But then he also wants to follow up both of those things by shoving down Cal’s jeans and pushing himself deep inside and thrusting until they both come so hard, they can’t take it.
“Earth to Luke? You still there?”
One look at Adam’s wry smile and Luke realizes it’s pretty obvious what Luke is thinking. He turns red and tries not to bluster. “Yeah, sorry.”
“So, what do we do now?” Adam asks. It’s evidently a rhetorical question because he doesn’t wait for Luke to reply. “We can’t hand him back to Reed, but the moment Reed finds out he’s here, we’ll have a bucket load of trouble on our hands.”
Adam’s right, but all Luke can think about is the Mulhollands. That was the man that Caleb Sherwood was running from? It makes all of Luke’s worrying about threats to the Fosters feel like child’s play.
“Shit,” Luke says. “I need a drink.”
“Come on, then.”
Luke follows his older brother down the corridor and into the empty common room. It’s a bit weird seeing Adam in full leader mode. He doesn’t do it that often, but when he does, Luke is reminded of why Adam is the one in charge.
Adam crosses to the bar, pouring himself an orange juice, and getting down the expensive whiskey for Luke.
For all Adam’s steadiness, he does have one weakness. He hasn’t touched the hard stuff in years. Now he keeps to fruit juice and water.
Luke takes one of the empty stools and leans on the scarred wood. Adam slides a generous sized helping of whiskey over to him in one of their mother’s old crystal glasses.
Adam sips his juice and leans back against the wall. “Right. Let’s go for a three-prong approach. I’m going to quietly and carefully start asking around about Mason Reed. Let’s find out more about what we’re getting into.
You dig into those charges. Something doesn’t add up there. I’ll get Gregor to take a wander around town and give everything a good sniff. We haven’t picked up traces of any strange wolves recently other than your new beau, but let’s not let anyone take us by surprise.”
Luke grips the glass in both hands, as the whiskey scent fills his nostrils. Adam is taking this a lot more seriously than he expected. Adam. That means that the situation is so serious that he can’t delegate responsibility to his younger brothers.
It’s both comforting and terrifying. Luke swallows the last of the whiskey and gets up to follow his brother’s orders. It’s the last thing he wants to do. All he really wants is to get in his truck, drive up to the cabin and stand growling on the porch to keep everyone else far away.
LUKE
romance novels and police stations
The Aylewood sheriff is a quiet wolf by the name of Daniel Callister whose wife Elyse runs the Grand Hotel and is a regular at Luke’s store where she buys romance novels by the bucket load.
Dan enjoys them too, although he tends to hide them under his desk when he thinks anyone other than Luke might be looking.
Aylewood isn’t big in the crime stakes. They have seasonal drunk students urinating where they shouldn’t be, and Dan patrols twice every evening in winter to make sure none of them have been dumb enough to get stone drunk and pass out in the snow.
Other than that, there isn’t much other than the occasional fist fight and Jonah Lawson who, every now and then, decides it’s good business opportunity to go into the city for a stash of whatever’s going cheap so he can sell it round the back of the Grand Hotel.
Luke wonders where Cal got his fake blockers from. He hopes it wasn’t Lawson. God knows what was in them if it was.
The police station is quiet when Luke walks in and finds Dan reading one of the romance novels that he definitely doesn’t read.
“Slow night?”
Dan looks up and grins, stashing the book under his desk. He’s a lanky man, all long arms and endless legs that always seem to stick out from ordinary-sized furniture. “Yup, always is when it’s cold like this. People do their crime indoors. I’ll find out about it tomorrow. What can I do for you?”
�
�A favor. You were in the packhouse the other night when we had a new wolf come in. Smelled like a beta and gave us the name Paul Rowland.”
“Oh sure, I remember. He causing you trouble?”
“Not him directly.” Luke explains what Gregor had found out and what Cal had told Jax.
Dan growls. “Hate to break it to you, Luke but that’s common as heck. Some poor omega finally manages to make a run for it, and his alpha leans on the closest wolfy sheriff to plug in some bogus charges into the system. Makes it easier for ‘em to catch the poor fellows and bring ‘em back. I’ll take a look, but I’m willing to bet it won’t tell you much. They put the minimum info into the system. And I know of Mason Reed. He’s got a reputation and a half. Hang on.”
Dan wheels back in his chair and walk-rolls to the desktop computer on the other side of the station where he inputs his password and starts tapping. Then he rolls back.
“Now, I’m not saying the charges definitely fake. It’s not unheard of for an omega to steal cash before he makes a run for it, but by the vagueness of the charges and the fact that it’s Mason Reed of all people? I’d bet they’re not real.”
“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.” Luke turns to go but Dan flags him up.
“Hang on. I’ve got something that should help.” The sheriff stands and crosses the room, before rifling through a filing cabinet. “I know I’ve got something around here somewhere.” Finally, he pulls out a sheaf of papers. “Ah, here they are.”
He walks over and offers them to Luke. “Now, if your fellow Sherwood wants to lay charges against Reed and hell, I’d love to, then all he needs to do is walk himself in here and I’ll do it for him, but we both know it’s never that simple.”
Luke looks down at the papers in his hand. One is a booklet covering the service of an omega shelter. The other is a flier for a national helpline for abused omegas.
Dan nods at the papers. “They’ll have some good advice on how to proceed. All of these situations are different, and different omegas have different support needs. I’d strongly suggest Sherwood gives them a call.”
Winterstoke Wolves Collection : An MM Mpreg Shifter Romance Bundle Page 7