Luke lets Jax lead him inside. He tries not to think of Cal in the car with Reed, but it’s hard.
“I think we’ve got an old cell in a drawer in the kitchen. Might have to charge it though. Here,” Jax passes Luke the sleeping baby.
He’s aware of Jax rustling in the other room, then the sound of his voice as he makes a call.
Luke sits heavily on the sofa and stares at his daughter. He hardly had a chance to look at her before Reed arrived.
Her hair is dark like Cal’s, not the white-blond that Luke had as a baby. Her eyelashes are long and curled against creamy skin. She looks perfectly peaceful as she sleeps. She is perfectly fascinating, and fascinatingly perfect.
“Adam’s on his way to get us,” Jax says, coming back in with an old cell at his side. He sounds more tired than Luke has ever heard him before. “He’s going to talk to Dan. I thought they could try stop Reed on his way out of town, but Adam thinks Dan will be hesitant. If it’s a hostage situation, they might need more backup.”
Luke nods slowly, his thoughts dark and heavy, his daughter soft and warm in his arms. Hostage situation. This was his fault. He’d known Reed was a danger and he’d just ignored him, hoping he’d go away.
Jax sits beside him and reaches over to smooth the baby’s hair back from her forehead. “She’s beautiful, Luke.”
“I know.”
“Adam says they think the ‘Reed’ at Button Oak was just a decoy. They think Reed knew Cal was up here, and all you alphas were supposed to be down in the town waiting for him to turn up. He couldn’t have known Cal was in labor and that you’d be here.”
Luke shrugged. It hardly seems to matter. Reed had taken Cal anyway, Luke or no Luke.
“Do you have a name for her yet?”
“No.” They’d talked names but they hadn’t decided on anything yet. They were going to see what she looked like first. Luke can’t name her now. What if he picks a name Cal hates?
“What about—”
“Can you just leave me alone for a bit?” Luke says. He knows Jax is just trying to help and distract him, but it’s not helping. He doesn’t want to do anything other than sit here and hold his daughter until his brothers arrive and he can go get Cal back.
CAL
iron bars and honey
Reed grips Cal’s neck with one hand and thumbs the small raised scar at the base of his throat with the other. Cal’s in the old attic room of the townhouse: the same one Reed put him in the first time. The place smells like mold and despair.
“I’m going to have to bite over this, aren’t I?” Reed says absently, almost to himself, then frowns. “This is going to seriously mark down your value, boy.”
He bends and puts his lips against Cal’s skin. Cal’s stomach flips, but Reed simply lets go and sighs.
“You smell disgusting. Ugh. It’s all that baby gunk still coming out of you.” He pushes Cal roughly down against the bed. “Have a damn wash. I’ll deal with you when you’re not so gross.”
Cal says nothing. He did enough begging in the car. I swear. I promise. I’ll do anything.
All the words that came tumbling out in the car keep coming back to haunt him. Cal had meant every one too.
He’d have promised the world to Reed — and he had — in order to protect his daughter and Luke. He knows Reed. The man isn’t the type to just walk away from another alpha who had not only stolen his omega but impregnated him to boot. He’s going to go back for Luke and the rest of the Winterstokes.
And so, all the words came out. It wasn’t hard falling back into the old habits of begging and crying. It made it easier.
Cal doesn’t want to obey Reed and a promise coerced isn’t a real promise at all. He knows that in the same way he knows that he meant every word. He’ll do anything to protect the people he had left behind.
Reed doesn’t seem to notice Cal’s silence. The door slams closed as he leaves, followed only by the sound of the key turning in the lock and descending footsteps.
Nothing has changed about this room. The beds still smell musty and the windows don’t open to let in fresh air. He has a beautiful view at least. He can see across the sea to the horizon from here, and the river that gives the town its name is in full flow, meeting the sea in a V-shape that breaks the waves.
He can see forever but go nowhere, not even down, because there are bars on the windows and a lock on the door.
Cal used to dream about visiting the beach he can see from the window: getting out into the fresh air, shifting and sinking his paws onto soft warm sand.
Now, all he can think is that it looks boring and unscented. He’s had almost a year of running wild in the forests of Aylewood.
I’m going to be dreaming about that for the rest of my life, he thinks.
He saw Ben on the way up the stairs, and that was another tiny ray of light. Cal has to hold onto everyone he can catch. Ben even looked him in the eye, and Cal could see by the way Ben sniffed the air and his eyes widened in sympathy that he knows Cal has just given birth and yet come back with no baby.
He wants to talk to Ben and tell him that Cal’s baby is okay, but he doesn’t know if that will make it worse for Ben. The man’s been through enough. Cal doesn’t think he’d understood until this moment. His body aches for the loss of his daughter and he knows she’s perfectly safe and loved with Luke and his brothers. What happened to Ben—
No, Cal can’t think about that now. He can’t think about anything. He needs to find a way to switch everything off in his head like Ben did.
It doesn’t work that easily though. His mind is racing, even as his body still aches and twinges as it recovers from giving birth.
Reed hasn’t given him any pads, or likely even thought of it, and Cal certainly isn’t going to ask. There is spare bedding at the bottom of the dresser; he’ll be able to make do with tearing strips from the spare bedding for now.
The bleeding might last for weeks. He remembers that from the baby books. He hopes it does. Hard as it is, it’s the only physical thing he has to remind him of his daughter, and it’s also the only thing keeping Reed away. The longer it lasts, the better.
Steps sound on the stairs outside and Cal cringes, hating himself for it. He didn’t think he’d cringed once in the years before he met Reed, and then it became second nature.
The door is unlocked, and the security bars slide back.
Eric steps into the room, carrying a dinner tray. “Eat fast,” he says gruffy. “Reed doesn’t think you deserve dinner, but he’s out. I’ll need to get the tray back before he suspects.”
The tray should smell good. It’s a rich vegetable broth with thick hunks of bread and butter on the side, but Cal isn’t hungry. He shakes his head.
“You just had a kid. You need to get your strength back.”
“What for?” A year ago, Cal would never have dared talk to Eric like this, but he no longer cares. Besides Eric was the one who let Cal get away the first time. He’s not going to hurt him now.
“You’re not stupid. Why do you think? Just eat the food. I’ll be back in twenty to get the tray.”
Eric closes the door behind him. Cal hears the key turning in the lock, and he’s left alone with his thoughts again.
Honey. Sweetheart. Reed kept using endearments up at the cabin. They’re not words Reed ever called him before. He’d used them to needle Luke, and it worked. Luke. The thought of him breaks Cal’s heart. It’s probably better like this. At least the baby will never know him. She won’t feel the loss, and Luke will be a good dad.
Cal lies back on the cot while the sun goes down in the outside world. When Eric comes to collect the tray, Cal is lying in the dark and the food is still untouched. Neither man says a word when the key turns in the lock again and Cal is left alone again.
LUKE
fallen leaves and chocolate chip cookies
The liaison from the Omega Unit is a tall skinny alpha with a salt-and-pepper moustache, and a bald head that he keeps r
unning his hands over as if needing to soothe himself.
“So, let me be clear,” he says to Luke, pinching the bridge of his noise between his forefingers. “This Reed fellow didn’t claim Sherwood in the almost nine years they were together. You did claim him after they broke up, and now Sherwood’s gone back to Reed, and now you want to get him back.”
“It was under duress! He didn’t go because he wanted to,” Luke says through gritted teeth. He’s gone over this a hundred times already.
“Sure, sure,” the Omega Unit man says.
His name is Peter Hooper, and Luke has been daydreaming about punching him in the face since about five minutes after he walked in.
“And your brother Jax was there, but he’s unclaimed?”
“He’s under our protection,” Luke says.
“Sure, sure. Best not leave it too long though. That can lead to trouble as you’ve found out,” Hooper says almost absently.
They are sitting in the interview room at the police station where Dan Callister has been shooting sympathetic looks at Luke just about every ten seconds.
“So, Reed definitely didn’t claim either omega?” Hooper says again. “Caleb Sherwood has your mark?”
“Yes! Cal has my mark. What difference does it make?”
Hooper leans back in his chair and closes the file in front of him. “Well, that’s good news then. Although Reed had him first, legally, he’s yours if he has your mark and not his. That means your claim should be valid and you’ll be able to claim him back from Mr Reed.”
Claim him back. Hooper makes Cal sound like he’s two inches of garden in a boundary wall dispute, or a lawnmower someone refuses to return. He’s not a piece of property; he’s the father of Luke’s child.
Not for the first time, Luke wishes he’d paid more attention to omega rights. He’d worried about Jax of course, but the man had three big alpha brothers at his back. It would be a particularly dumb alpha who tried take him by force.
Luke leans over the table. It’s been two days already. He’s itching to go get Cal back. Only Adam’s steady counsel has stopped him from storming Reed’s townhouse all on his own like an idiot.
“What’s next? What do we do to get Cal back? And keep him back?”
“We send him a statement of reclamation. Then he has fourteen days to return the omega. If he refuses, then we can get a court order. I’ll also need you to sign various declarations about the marking.”
Luke feels his blood run cold. “Fourteen days? We can’t—”
“Mr Winterstoke, I understand this is difficult for you but if you want to cement your claim, you’ll need to do this properly,” Hooper says. He runs his hands over his scalp again. “If it helps, we’ve had to deal with him before. He’s a difficult character, but we can manage him.” Hooper opens the file again, and searches through it until he finds what he’s looking for, then slides a couple of forms over to Luke. “Fill these in and we’ll get started.”
Luke hadn’t realized that kidnapping could be so bureaucratic. Cal has upturned his world in more way than one. Until now, he’d always thought of pack law as something a little outdated, but that ultimately kept the peace between packs.
Now, after sitting through Peter Hooper tediously explaining the various conflicts between state law and pack law, he’d be more than happy to wipe the whole lot away. Pack law is what let Reed kill the Mulhollands and pack law is what’s stopping Sheriff Dan’s counterpart in River Beach from arresting Reed and rescuing Cal.
He sits in the interview room carefully filling in the form in block letters using black ink and raging internally while Dan talks to Hooper in a low voice.
When he’s finished, Hooper reads through his statement and form carefully, then faxes them off to Reed ten minutes after that.
“I’ll let you know once I hear anything,” he says, packing his files and paperwork into his briefcase, and then shakes hands with both Luke and Dan before driving off to the Grand Hotel for the night.
“You sure about this guy?” Luke says when he’s gone. “He faxed that form. What is this? Nineteen-seventy?”
Dan snorts, and takes a seat on the front desk, his long legs swinging over the side. He pulls a packet of chocolate chip cookies from the drawer and offers some to Luke. “Hooper’s a complete dinosaur, but he knows his stuff. You know we need to do this properly. If we don’t, it can go very wrong.”
As Luke’s concerned, it already has. He shakes his head at the cookies. He hasn’t been hungry since Cal was taken. “What did he mean about having dealt with Reed before? Did he mean the Mulhollands?”
“I don’t know,” Dan says, shaking his head. “but someone like Reed, he doesn’t come out of nowhere. Cal won’t have been the first omega he’s taken or the last.”
Luke thinks about that on the drive back up to the packhouse. Cal hadn’t talked much about his time with Reed, but he had mentioned that there was another omega there who made it easier, simply because they were going through it together instead of on their own. Did that mean Hooper knew about the other omega but had failed to get him back?
Luke drives back to the packhouse over wet fallen leaves that squish under his tires and he wishes Cal was here to see the last of the leaves falling.
Next year Cal will be here for the whole thing, Luke tells himself firmly, and next year, their little girl will be big enough to be stomping around in them, and Cal will be here to see that too.
The thought of the baby that big is a peculiar one. She’s going to be a mini version of Cal, he thinks. She’s safe at the packhouse with Jax who is using up a lot more of the promised babysitting time than he was expecting to this early on.
The baby. Luke has steadfastly refused to give her a name until Cal gets back. Somehow if the baby gets a name before then it is going to jinx the whole thing. Luke and Cal are going to name this baby together.
He turns into the parking lot to find Gregor outside raking leaves, with the cub sleeping snuggly in a sling wrapped firmly to his chest.
“She likes her Uncle Gregor,” Gregor beams at Luke when he gets out of the truck. “She was screaming her head off with Jax. I’m waaaay in the running to be favorite uncle.” He puts the rake to one side and puts his hands on his hips. “So how did it go? Can we go kill that bastard Reed yet?”
“I wish.”
Luke’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his pocket and finds a message from Dan: Reed’s replied already. It’s a no. I’m on my way up. Get the pack together.
“Or maybe we can,” Luke says, and for the first time in days, he starts to feel hope.
LUKE
pack law and satellite images
There are rules for these things, and Luke knows them inside out because he just spent the last year reviewing pack law in time for the summit.
His stomach hurts. Challenging another pack leader might be legal and it might be in the rules but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be brutal or that they are going to win.
It all feels very surreal: the drive to the airport, the flight, the very mundane act of renting a bunch of vans to drive to River Beach, and now sitting in the passenger seat of one of those vans in the middle of the night on his way to fight someone, or at least be second for that fight.
Adam is going to do the actual fighting. They’d had an argument about that, and Adam had won.
Luke glances across at his old brother in the driver’s seat. Adam doesn’t seem particularly worried, but then he never does. He rarely appears anything other than calm.
Gregor is the complete opposite. He’s almost chittering with excitement. Luke is terrified that Gregor’s enthusiasm is going to get him killed.
Dan is messaging someone on his phone, his wife perhaps. The Fosters are following in the van behind them, and the Warwicks behind them in turn.
There are a few alphas left behind, but not many. Everyone else is hiding. Luke’s not unaware that their town has been left largely undefended while the most powerful
men in the pack go to a beach town a thousand miles away.
Jax is sitting at the packhouse now with Luke’s daughter, along with as many omegas and children can fit, hiding away behind barred and shuttered doors and windows, with nothing other than a phone in his pocket to call in case Reed or someone else decides to make a play for them.
No one will, Luke tells himself. At least, they probably won’t but it’s a gamble nonetheless.
Adam is just paying attention to the road, as relaxed as if they’re just going out for ice cream.
Luke has never thought much about why Adam is the dominant alpha of their pack. He just is. It’s not only that he’s oldest. It’s more that he feels like the natural leader.
Cal is Luke’s mate. Luke should be doing the fighting, but the moment Adam said he would challenge Reed, Luke didn’t even think twice. He just backed down.
Adam had some good arguments. The Winterstoke pack is his pack and Cal is now part of that pack. The way he said it made it sound completely final and Luke has never loved his older brother more in his entire life.
Still, Adam has never been the aggressive sort and Luke thinks that this will be his first proper fight. Adam’s slightly shorter than Luke but still an enormous alpha. He’s taller than Reed but not as muscled, and not as nasty. It could go either way.
Luke closes his eyes. The van smells like sweaty alphas, grease, and cold night air.
We’re going to win. We have to, he thinks. Cal is out there somewhere ahead of them in the night, afraid and thinking he’s alone again. Luke will never forgive himself if he doesn’t do everything he can to get Cal back.
Cal is somewhere at the end of this long road so very different to the roads in Aylewood. Instead of sky-high trees, there’s just open sky and open land covered with low brush and scrub. The stars stretch out as far as the eye can see.
Winterstoke Wolves Collection : An MM Mpreg Shifter Romance Bundle Page 16