His brain shoots through one option after another, picking places, then discarding them. Doesn’t matter.
“Get packed. We’ll just get in the car and get out of here.”
“No,” Jax interrupts. “That is a very bad idea.”
Luke looks at his brother confused, “What? Why not?”
“Because your mate is about to give birth any day now, you big idiot,” Jax says. He’s leaning against the doorway, sounding serious for once. “It’s really not the right time to panic and run away.”
“But—”
“But what? All Reed knows is that a man matching Cal’s description was seen almost a year ago in a town hours away. You’re both freaking out waaay ahead of time.”
At Luke’s expression, he hurriedly adds. “Don’t get me wrong, freaking out is the right reaction but not yet. Not now. Think of this as a wakeup call instead. We’re going to have to deal with Reed sometime. But not right now.”
Luke can feel Cal’s body relax at Jax’s words. The scent of fear lessens but doesn’t dissipate.
“If it makes you feel better, Cal can hide out in the cabin for a while.” Jax continues. “Most first babies take their time coming out so we should have plenty of time to get to the hospital if we need to, but I’ll stay with you just as a precaution. I could do with a mountain breakaway anyway.”
“Guess I better unpack some of this stuff,” Cal says softly, looking at the nursery. “We’ll need it if the baby comes while I’m up there. Just a precaution, right?”
“Right,” Luke says. He wants to believe it, but the truth is that he’s just not sure. “Jax, can you take him up? I think I need to talk to the Sheriff and generally get the word out among people you can trust. I’ll ask him to come up to the cabin if I can. He might have some more questions for you.” Luke stands up, then leans over to give Cal a hug.
Cal smells like mate under the fear, and even with everything else that’s going on, all Luke wants to do is take him to bed and snuggle up against his bare skin, but that is going to have to wait. “Are you going to be okay without me?”
Cal raises his eyebrows and pulls a face. “I’m pregnant, not incapacitated. I think I’ll manage for a few hours. You won’t be more than a few hours, right? I mean, I’m used to your snoring by now,” he says hurriedly, a forced smile on his face. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep without it.”
“Oh, very funny. Yes, I’ll be there.”
Cal visibly relaxes. Luke bends down and kisses him softly on the lips. Cal opens his mouth and just touches his tongue to Luke’s for an instant. Luke cups Cal’s cheek in one hand. Cal’s skin is soft and smooth. He’s not like Luke. Luke can shave in the morning and have stubble by the afternoon. Cal never needs to shave more than every few days and when the hair does come out, it’s always baby soft.
Luke feels his heart fill. Even with Reed out there and all the trouble that portends, he still doesn’t know how he got so damn lucky.
CAL
digging dens and hidden roots
Cal climbs awkwardly into the cab of Jax’s truck. Despite the extra weight he’s carrying, he feels hollow.
Reed. He’s not here. He may never be here, but even a few hours away feels too close.
Cal knows Luke’s worried and that he’ll do everything he can to keep their little family safe, but Luke doesn’t know Reed. When he feels someone has done him wrong, there is nothing inside the man but single-minded rage until the person who crossed him is destroyed.
Cal stares out of the window as they drive. Jax is uncharacteristically silent, perhaps sensing that Cal needs to work through his thoughts on his own.
All the Mulhollands did was get the better of Reed on a property deal. They didn’t do anything close to what Cal did. Cal wonders where the information is coming from about Reed’s whereabouts. Reed never shared anything with anyone other than a few trusted alphas in his pack. This information is coming from inside his pack.
He wonders if it’s Eric. Cal still doesn’t know why Eric prompted him to escape that day, although it’s been on his mind.
The truth is that he doesn’t actually know. It could be almost anyone. No one stays in Reed’s pack because they want to. They do it because they’re scared.
Maybe if he’s lucky, Reed will think he’s gone wild and explore in the wild wolves’ territory and they’ll eat him. Cal takes a certain amount of satisfaction in the thought.
The truck jumps and bumps over the rocky road. Cal can feel it in his stomach, and so can the baby because she starts kicking and thumping him from the inside as if protesting the bumpy ride.
She’s been active in the last few days and Cal wonders if that’s because she’s ready to enter the world and is trying to find her way out.
He’s still not used to the idea of having a baby. Him, Cal Sherwood, having a real baby daughter. He’s only just got used to the idea of being pregnant.
Jax glances over at him. “You okay?”
Cal answers honestly. “I don’t know.”
He wants to run, but he can’t. If it were only him, he might be able to keep running forever like he planned to, but it’s not. It’s not even just him and the baby. They’d all have to go.
Reed would go after anyone if he thought Cal would be upset if they got hurt.
That would be all Luke’s brothers, all the people in the town. The whole town can’t run away, and they can’t all fight. The whole Mulholland pack had learned that the hard way.
Cal shakes his head, trying to get rid of the image of the Winterstokes dead like the Mulhollands. He can remember how Reed had crowed about it. When he speaks, his voice shakes. “Reed will—” He breaks off, not able to form the words.
“I know,” Jax says softly. “I’ve been looking into him. The man’s a complete psychopath. We know what we’re getting into.”
“Someone’s going to get hurt, Jax.” Cal shivers. He just doesn’t know who that will be.
Even if they somehow win against Reed, and he has no idea what that would even look like, there is no possibility that Reed won’t get in a few good blows first. The man is mean and he likes hurting people. Cal can’t see a way out for them. It’s making him feel sick.
They’re drawing up to the cabin now. The sun is shining directly overhead. A few hours, Luke had said, and Cal had joked with him. He doesn’t feel like joking now. He wants his mate, and he wants him close until this all has passed.
Jax parks the truck and turns the engine off. He turns to Cal and looks him in the eye.
“Don’t underestimate Luke,” the other omega says. “He’s never been someone who gets into fights, but that doesn’t make him weak. Luke will fight if he has to, but his real strong point is that he’s clever and he loves you. If anyone can find a good way to end this, it’ll be Luke. Trust me.”
Cal does. He trusts Luke too. He just doesn’t trust Reed and that’s the problem. The Winterstoke brothers, with the exception of Jax, match Reed’s pack on alpha muscle, but they’re good people. Reed’s been starting fights – and ending them – all of his life.
He goes around the back of the truck with Jax to get their bags and the baby things, but Jax bats him away and threatens to tell Luke that Cal was trying to carry heavy things so Cal heads up the steps to open up the cabin and get it aired out instead.
He hasn’t been back up here since his heat and finding out he was pregnant. It feels like a million years ago.
Jax has been up here a few times since. The other omegas in town are all married or coupled up, so it hasn’t had much use as a place to hide away for some years by anyone other than Jax Winterstoke. Not a lot of people know about it, and those that do, are trusted by the Winterstokes. It was meant to be a place for their omegas to hide from predatory alphas, after all.
Cal walks through the cabin, opening the windows and shaking dust sheets off the furniture. They’re cotton and not too heavy so he doesn’t think Jax will shout at him for that.
&nb
sp; They leave the bags to unpack later, then go for a run in the trees behind the cabin. Cal is more comfortable in wolf mode, but he’s still slower than Jax and aware that a single slip-slide off of a pile of leaves or a hidden root might result in a fall that neither he nor the baby can afford, so he simply trots along breathing in fresh gulps of forest air and enjoying the scent of the trees while Jax races ahead, jumping and sliding through the fallen leaves.
The cub is coming soon. Cal can sense it. The urge to sniff out a safe space and dig out a den is almost overpowering, but Cal holds it back.
The wolf inside wants to birth his cub very differently. He’d also snap at anyone who came near if the birth started going wrong. Sometimes the wolf doesn’t know what’s best.
They head back to the cabin as the shadows start deepening and the air grows colder, and Cal’s looking forward to spending some time wallowing in the cabin’s extra big bathtub while Jax makes his famous green bean casserole.
He’s not going to have a lot of me-time when the cub gets here and he has his hands full so he’s going to take advantage of the quiet time while he can.
Still, he breathes a sigh of relief when the cabin comes into sight through the trees and there are no cars outside other than Jax’s truck, and the only scents in the air are the familiar cherry scent of Jax nearby, the woodsmoke flavor of the cabin, and the fresh fall scents of the forest.
He climbs the steps to the cabin on soft tired paws and shifts on the porch so he can use the door handle. Some wolves have difficulty shifting, but Cal never has. He just puts the request in to his body, and his body obliges, shifting quickly and effortlessly and so fast that he hardly notices it.
This time is different. As he shifts, his human body clenches and pain streaks from the top of his spine to his tailbone, feeling as if it’s taking all of his blood with it. With sudden horror, he realizes it has. Something is dripping between his legs and streaming down the inside of his thighs.
“Dude,” Jax says behind him. “I think your water just broke.”
LUKE
pack dynamics and hierarchies
Luke wishes he’d paid more attention to inter-pack dynamics and how to manage conflict, but it had never felt that important before. Aylewood and its surrounds had always been relatively peaceful with close-knit alliances between the local packs. The only pack that ever represented any willingness to fight were the wild wolves and that was only if anyone encroached their territory.
The Aylewood packs have never been like any of the west coast packs who are always involved in some pack war or another or the southern wolves’ strict hierarchical structure that allows no one to step out of line.
The Winterstokes and their neighbours have just rubbed along, and other than the occasional summit to reconfirm their alliances, had mostly spent the last decades getting on with their lives and not bothering each other.
Luke’s standing in the break room at the police station — a room that mostly only Dan and his deputy use occasionally — and trying not to fidget. He’s too antsy to sit down and Adam’s told him off twice already for disrupting him while he’s trying to check in with the local packs. Luke wants to get back to Cal, but he can’t do that until he knows where Reed is going to be.
Adam’s on the other side of the room, phone cradled under his chin while he talks to Max Foster. Aylewood is the end of the road with the Fosters’ hometown — Button Oak — the last stop before it. If Reed comes to Aylewood, that’s way he’ll have to come.
Adam’s listening to something Max Foster is saying and rubbing his temples with the tips of both fingers. He looks tired.
Luke feels guilty for a moment. His big brother hasn’t complained at all about the danger Cal is putting them in, and he dislikes fighting as much as Luke does.
At least they have Gregor. The second youngest Winterstoke brother has always enjoyed a good scrap. He’s busy patrolling the town with Dan Callister, almost willing Reed to turn up so he can get payback for what he did to Cal.
Adam hangs up, then looks at Luke, and Luke knows this expression. It’s the one his older brother has when he doesn’t want to tell Luke something.
“What?” Luke says, “Spit it out.”
“Reed’s in Button Oak. Foster says he came into town this afternoon asking about Cal. Apparently, we’re the next stop on his road trip.”
Luke’s stomach clenches. He slumps into Dan’s armchair and stairs unseeing at the stack of paperbacks beside it. He’d known this day was coming, but somehow it had always seemed like tomorrow’s problem. Now it was tomorrow, and he has no idea what to do. “What did else did he say?” His words come out in all a jumble.
Adam gave him what he probably thought was a reassuring smile, but nothing was going to reassure Luke right now, other than hearing that Reed had somehow been magically been sucked into a black hole or knocked over by a bus.
“Foster didn’t see him personally. Didn’t think Reed would take an omega seriously,” Adam continued. “He sent Eli out to talk to him.”
Luke nods. That makes sense. Eli Foster is the biggest man that Luke has ever met, and a cool-headed one. It’s what Luke would have done.
“Eli played it cool, told Reed he hadn’t seen anyone that could be Cal,” Adam went on. “Then they had a nice friendly conversation over a couple of beers and commiserated over how much trouble omegas are. Reed’s staying in Button Oak tonight, then heading here tomorrow morning. They’ve got someone watching Reed’s hotel so that we’ll get a heads up the moment he leaves.”
Luke’s mind races. It’s almost three in the afternoon. They’ve got one night left. He wants to run so badly, but he can’t leave his brothers to face Reed alone and he can’t send Cal off alone either. Their best chance is to meet Reed casually tomorrow and send him back where he came from thinking he’s hit another dead end. “Do you think he’ll be able to smell Cal in town?”
Adam shrugs. “Maybe. We had rain yesterday so that should help, and you’ve got the bookstore closed so he can’t go in there. I’ll get Gregor to start hosing off everything around the packhouse and mix in a little of that scentblocker. You do the same for the outside of the bookstore. As long as Reed doesn’t go into either of them, we should have a good chance and he’ll leave without knowing Cal was here.”
Adam hesitates, eyes on Luke’s, and there’s that expression again.
“What?”
“Foster says he’s alone,” Adam says, watching Luke’s face for a reaction.
“But that’s good,” Luke says, relieved if a bit confused. “If he causes trouble, we can take him on easily.”
“That’s the problem. It doesn’t match his MO. He should have at least one second with him. Something smells hinky. I just don’t know what it is.”
“Is Foster sure it was Reed that he spoke to?”
“Sure as he can be. The guy introduced himself as Mason Reed and matched the description. He was open about looking for Cal, said he was a runaway omega and gave the same embezzlement reason that Dan got from the database.” He gives Luke’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. “Try not to worry. We’ve got everyone on high alert, including the Sheriff. Reed would be a damned fool to try start a war tomorrow. If he finds out about Cal the best that he can do is try to persuade us that Cal belongs to him thinking we’re one of those packs who believe in omega ownership and trade them like candy. He’ll need a lot more men if he wants to take us physically.”
Luke’s heart rate slows, and he can feel himself starting to breath normally again. He can’t help it. The alpha in him completely freaks out any time he perceives a threat to his mate. He hates being so primitive, but he doesn’t think he can control it.
Luke pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “I think I better go up to the cabin,” he says. Adam opens his mouth as if to argue, but Luke keeps going. “If it comes to a fight, I’m game, but I’m going to take one look at Reed and go for his throat. I don’t think I’m capable o
f playing it cool.”
Adam’s mouth curves into a smile. “That was going to be my suggestion. I’ll wash down the outside of the bookstore. If things start getting weird here, I’ll send you a message. Make sure you keep your phone close by.”
Luke nods, and jumps to his feet. He’s been itchy as hell away from Cal, even if it’s only been a couple of hours. Their cub is going to arrive any day and it feels unnatural to be away from his side.
He passes Dan and Gregor on the way out of town. He slows the truck to talk to them and pass on the news from Adam, only to find that they already know. Adam called the moment Luke left. He continues up the long drive to the cabin feeling vastly reassured. Whatever happens and whatever Reed tries, Luke and Cal have the whole Winterstoke pack at their backs.
CAL
knees and a bag of potatoes
Cal grimaces as another wave of pain washes over him. They’re coming steadily now. Jax says that’s a good thing, but it feels like nothing of the sort while it’s happening.
He’s in the largest bedroom and squatting on the bed on his knees. The squatting is another thing that Jax says is a good thing. He’s not supposed to lie down like they do in movies; that’s bad for some reason although he can’t remember why. He wants to lie down. Jax won’t notice if he does it for a just a minute.
“Nuh uh, that risks prolonging your labor,” Jax says, coming into the room, a bowl of ice in his hand. “Up you get. Here, put your back up against the headboard, I’ll get some pillows to help.”
Cal wishes he had a crane or at least Luke to help haul him up like the bag of potatoes he feels like. How can one tiny baby turn him into this great lumbering brute?
“Can’t we just go to the hospital?” Cal says through gritted teeth.
Winterstoke Wolves Collection : An MM Mpreg Shifter Romance Bundle Page 14