Austin would have jumped in and put himself between Savannah and anyone else in the world, but he couldn’t get between her and her mother. He stood there, shoulders hunched, wincing in sympathy. He’d have to let her fight her own battle with this one.
“I was thinking I’d save our family home and restaurant, and I’m a grown woman, and I can make my own decisions!” Savannah’s face was turning red as she yelled. “And Austin had no say in it whatsoever, so do not blame him, and do not hit him!”
“Savannah! I can live without the house, I can live without the restaurant! Do you think I can live without you?” Laurel burst into tears. They ran down her plump cheeks in little rivers, and her shoulders quivered, and her whole body shook with sobs.
Savannah flinched, looking mortified. Austin didn’t blame her. He almost wanted to start blubbering himself, he felt so badly. He knew that Laurel was piling it on thick, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t working.
“Damn it, Mom. Don’t cry,” Savannah said, her voice drenched in misery. “Couldn’t you just punch me again? Right in the face?”
“Don’t tempt me.” Her mother pulled a handkerchief from her skirt pocket and dabbed at her eyes.
Savannah hugged herself, staring glumly at the ground. “Who’s watching the restaurant?”
“I was forced to leave your sister and Niall in charge.” Her mother’s brows pinched together. “Not an ideal situation. Oh, and Anthony’s back there, with his brothers. They’re sleeping in the living room and helping to wait tables.”
“Oh. Right. Anthony. I guess he told you everything.” Savannah winced.
“After I twisted his ear half off? You bet he did,” her mother said fiercely.
“Hey,” Austin said, a bolt of alarm shooting through him. “If you’re over here, who’s watching Roy?“
“Oh my God.” Savannah went white.
The three of them raced back. The door of the truck was open, and Roy was gone. Just gone.
They ran around to the other side of the truck.
Roy was leaning on the side of the truck, free, in human form – with shattered chain links lying all around him on the ground.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” he said, his lips curved up in a sarcastic smile.
Austin clenched his fists and snarled. Savannah froze where she stood.
Laurel marched right up to him and slapped him in the face.
Savannah cried out in horror, and Austin leaped forward, standing right by her side, ready to fight. But Roy just smirked and rubbed his cheek.
“Mom!” screamed Savannah. She ran over to her mother and grabbed her arm. “Have you gone insane? You can’t run around hitting everyone! Especially crazy wolves who are going to kill you for it!”
Then she looked suspiciously at Roy as Austin moved again, angling his body between Savannah and Roy.
“Why aren’t you killing us?” she demanded.
“You want me to kill you?” He looked annoyed. “First you’re shooting me with tranqs so I can’t kill you, and your boyfriend is threating to skin me if I even look at you wrong, but now I should kill you? And people think I’m fucked in the head. Ow!” he added as Laurel hit him in the arm. “Damn, woman, you’re twenty pounds of crazy in a ten-pound bag.”
“I have no idea what that means. Watch your language in front of my child,” Laurel said huffily.
“You’ll have to excuse my mother, she’s not usually quite this demented,” Savannah said.
Austin cocked an eyebrow and made a “maybe, maybe not” motion with his hand. “Jury’s still out on that one.”
“I slapped you because you threatened my daughter. Anthony told me what you said,” Laurel said angrily.
“So you’re the lady who made the sandwiches? Did you bring some more?” Roy looked at her with interest.
Laurel just glared at him.
“Okay, okay. I apologize for threatening your daughter. I have changed my mind. I’m not going to kill anybody here. Mostly because with the way these two idiots are going—” he gestured at Austin and Savannah “—I won’t even have to. They’ll die of their own stupidity.”
“That did not earn you a sandwich,” Laurel said coldly.
Roy shrugged. “Worth a try. So here’s the deal,” he said. “New terms. Before you turn me in, I want to talk to a Truthmaker, and not from the Washborn Pack. And I want an Alpha from another pack as witness. I want them to compel me, and question me about what I’ve done since my pack fell apart. I did not kill the family of hikers.”
“Why do you care what anyone thinks of you all of a sudden?” Austin asked, scowling at Roy with suspicion.
“Something your much, much, much better half said to me.” Roy flicked a glance at Savannah. “I will not dishonor the memory of my mate anymore. I accept that I may be put to death, but I will not have false accusations tarnishing my name, because it tarnishes her name as well.”
“Did you kill the poachers?” Austin asked.
“Oh hell, yeah.” He grinned fiercely, his eyes gleaming with enjoyment at the memory. “I’d do it again, too. It was stupid of me to let myself be seen in wolf form, but my head wasn’t in the right place at the time. I caught them torturing a deer they’d wounded, making it scream, taking selfies while they were doing it, and I just ripped them to pieces.”
“It doesn’t sound like you’ve actually committed any death penalty offenses,” Savannah said slowly. “Letting people see you in your wolf form was bad, but you could argue your case on that one. You could have escaped any time, couldn’t you? This entire trip.”
“Well, the tranqs really did work on me.” He shrugged. “And I probably couldn’t have knocked out all three Alphas. But other than that, yes.”
“So why did you spare our lives?” Savannah looked at him narrow-eyed and put her hands on her hips. “I know why. You’d given up. After losing your mate, you just didn’t care. You were basically using us to help you commit suicide. Trying to provoke us into killing you because you couldn’t do it yourself. Asshole.”
She moved quickly out of her mother’s way. “You do not get to hit me more than once per day!” she said, ducking behind Austin.
Austin frowned at Roy. “Why should I trust your word?”
Roy snorted. “Seriously. You think you have a choice? It’s that or I head for the hills again.”
Austin shook his head in frustration. Roy was right. He wasn’t capable of forcing the big, crazy wolf back into his truck.
“I’m going to go buy myself a coffee and a sandwich and hit the head,” Roy informed him. “If you’re still here when I come back, I’ll assume we have a deal. You know what I want. Truth-maker. Alpha. Waiting for me in town near the Crescent Hills Pack headquarters.”
“How do you know you can trust me?” Austin demanded. “What if I say yes but then call in backup to have you killed?”
Roy snorted again. “You? You don’t have it in you to be a back-stabber. You like to think you’re all badass, but underneath that wannabe stone-cold killer facade, you’re just an oversized wimpy Boy Scout.”
“How do you even still have your wallet?” Savannah asked, looking at his shredded, dirty jeans and filthy T-shirt.
“I found it on the floor of the car. Seriously, everything that’s going on here, and that’s your question for me? You’re weird, lady.” He looked at Austin. “Your mate is weird as fuck. Hey!” he barked as Laurel’s arm twitched. “Do not hit me again. You get one free shot per day.” He pulled out his wallet, opened it, and dropped a five-dollar bill in her hand. She stared at it in confusion. “Start a swear jar,” he said. “You can use your purse for now. And every time I fucking swear on this fucking trip, I’ll put in another five dollars.” He dropped two more fives in her hand. “But for your information, lady, your little girl’s all growed up, and she’s probably heard the word ‘fuck’ a few times in her life.” He dropped another five into her palm. “Anybody want anything from the store?” He bared his tee
th at Laurel in an alarming grin. “Can I buy you a soda?”
“After the way you spoke to my daughter a couple of days ago? You can kiss my furry behind, is what you can do,” Laurel growled at him. She held her hand straight out, looking at the five dollar bills as if they were dead rodents.
“You’re right. Again, I apologize.” He strolled off towards the store as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
“Oh God. I think a crazy wolf just flirted with my mother.” Savannah clutched at her chest. “And I am not sure how I feel about that. Pretty sure I hate it, though. Mom? Your thoughts?”
“I’m trying to think what kind of soap I’ll buy with this money. I need it to wash his mouth out.” Laurel glared down at the five-dollar bills.
Austin threw up his hands in despair. They were contemplating a road trip with a psychopath, and his mate and her mother were talking about buying soap.
Roy was right, his mate was weird as fuck. He loved her, he couldn’t wait to leave his claiming mark on her, but she was so weird she almost made him look normal.
He watched the big, crazy wolf trotting across the parking lot, calm as could be. Then he realized that Roy hadn’t answered one very important question. He yelled out after him, “If you didn’t kill the hikers, who did?”
Roy paused and glanced back over his shoulder. “Jason Washborn.” Then he ducked his head to get through the doorway of the rest stop convenience store.
Jason Washborn?
“What the hell?” Savannah gasped in horror, and her mother didn’t even smack her. “Why?”
“I can guess,” Austin said. “I think Jason did it to frame Roy, so he’d have an excuse to send me after him. And so it would paint Roy as an out-of-control killing machine. That would make it easier to kill us and make it look as if Roy did it.”
“Over my dead body,” Laurel said fiercely. She glared at her daughter. “I can’t believe this. You’re grounded until you’re a million.”
Austin pulled his phone out.
“Who are you calling?” Savannah asked him.
“The nearest Truthmaker.”
He was still on the phone making arrangements when they saw a car screeching towards them. Austin tensed up until he realized that it was Grant.
He pulled up next to the truck, parked, and climbed out.
“What are you doing here?” Savannah demanded just as Austin hung up and hurried over to them.
“Excuse me. You seem to be short one psychopath,” Grant said. He looked at the empty truck with alarm, then back at Austin and Savannah. “One, two…yep, definitely short one psychopath. There should be three.” He glanced at Laurel, who was still scowling. “And you I don’t know, but you look just like Austin’s mate, so I’m guessing you’re her mother. Hello, I’m Cliff’s brother Grant. And where the hell is Roy? Is there a reason nobody’s panicking?”
When Austin explained their new arrangement, Grant looked over at the rest stop as if expecting it to burst into flames at any moment. “He’s a psycho. I don’t like it.”
“He could have killed us,” Savannah pointed out.
Austin glanced at her. “There’s something you need to prepare yourself for. If it turns out that Roy is innocent, then there’s no bounty.”
A look of weariness and resignation settled on her face. “I know. I accept that. But if he’s innocent, and I think he is, then I wouldn’t take the money from turning him in, and we can’t let him take the fall while Jason walks free.”
Admiration swelled inside him. That was his girl. She’d give up everything she had to do the right thing.
Austin glanced at the rest stop. He could see Roy through the window, calmly talking to the man at the cash register.
“I agree,” he said to Savannah. “I don’t think he’s guilty. And I know Jason’s setting me up. We’re going to meet with Mason, the Truthmaker from the Idaho Pack, and his Alpha, Shelby, in Idaho. Shelby’s going to bring a whole squad of men with him, armed with AR-15s with silver-coated bullets. If Roy’s guilty, even he won’t be able to survive that. If he’s innocent, which I think he is, then Jason will have a death order put out on his head. And he won’t have the authority to order anyone to hurt Tully’s pack; he’ll be running for his life.”
“I’m still coming with you,” Grant said firmly.
Austin felt a swell of gratitude rising in his chest, but he shook his head. “Grant. No. I can’t allow it. I can’t let you give up your inheritance and your place in the pack for me. Also, you smell funny, so I don’t really want you in my truck.”
Grant punched him in the shoulder, grinning fiercely. “I smell delightful. My mate told me so. She says I taste even better. Stop making that retching noise. Cliff and I talked about it, and agreed that one of us has to go with you, and it’s better if it’s me. First of all, technically, we don’t know for sure that you are Christopher’s son, because nobody’s done a DNA test. And the charter was written hundreds of years ago, so there’s no specific provision for that. All we have is Jason’s claim, and Jessica’s not alive anymore, so we can’t compel her to tell the truth. The Elders are going to demand a DNA test, and if it shows that you’re not Lloyd’s son, then at that point, they can forbid me from associating with you. Not before then.”
“But they might still be able to argue that you lose your place in the pack,” Austin protested. “They’ll put it to a vote.”
Grant’s gaze drifted off to the distance. “I think I was on my way out of the pack anyway,” he said. “Cliff and I are too alike. Too dominant. He’s already firmly established running the company, and I guess he doesn’t suck at it, so he needs to be the one to stay. We fight too much – I can’t even work with him anymore, much less live with him. I need to find my own pack. Make my own way.” He glanced across the parking lot. Roy, holding a paper bag, was heading towards them. “Heads up. Your own personal psycho is headed our way.”
Chapter Sixteen
The sun burned the early morning chill from the ground as Jason and his men crouched in the underbrush near the roadside, waiting. Mist swirled around their ankles, and the grass was wet with dew.
Jason fingered his rifle and imagined what Austin’s hot, sticky blood would taste like, running down his throat.
He pictured the look on Austin’s face when he was forced to watch Jason and all his men taking turns with Savannah, one after another. Not because he wanted her, but because he knew it would hurt Austin.
Austin was the thorn in Jason’s paw, worrying and irritating and jabbing, for the past year, ever since his father had gotten sick.
After years of kissing his idiot father’s ass, the position of Alpha had finally been in Jason’s reach. He hadn’t even had to death challenge his father to get it, which he’d been on the verge of doing; he’d just had to wait. Sit there by the hospital bed with a fake smile pasted on his face.
And then his mother had told him the news. His father’s death-bed confession. He’d cheated on her with Jessica Bronson…and fathered a son.
A son who was older than him.
Austin motherfucking bitchface Bronson.
He’d sworn his mother to secrecy. And then, not trusting her, he’d put a little too much sleeping medication in her nighttime hot toddy after their father’s funeral.
His poor, grieving mother. Her heart just couldn’t take the loss of her mate. She’d died a day later.
But she’d blabbed to him, so he couldn’t trust that she hadn’t blabbed to somebody else.
That meant Austin had to go.
Jason had waited for years for the position that was his due. The power, the prestige, the girls begging to share his bed, the fear in the eyes of his pack members when he strolled by, lord of all he surveyed.
He wasn’t going to lose his birthright just because his father had a wandering dick.
He’d tried to take Austin out by challenging him at the gathering…and suffered a loss so humiliating that it still made him growl just thinking
about it. Clearly, Austin had cheated, knocking his legs out from under him when he was distracted, but everyone had just let Austin get away with that.
But Jason had taken a few lessons from his father’s playbook. He’d played the long game. Taken out that family of hikers, planted evidence to frame Roy. And then manipulated Austin into an impossible situation, using Austin’s weak spot – his pack. Jason didn’t have any weak spots, because he couldn’t care less about anyone other than himself.
Unfortunately, he’d only been able to bring fourteen men with him today. Most of his pack was all about the stupid rules, all about honor among wolves and other outmoded ideals. And he’d had to bribe the men who came with him outrageously.
It set his teeth on edge.
The pack didn’t respect him the way they should. They were already muttering about him behind his back, about how he was a bully, how he had the strength but not the wisdom, how he wasn’t the wolf his father had been.
They hadn’t seen anything yet. He’d been too distracted by this wretched Austin situation.
Well, that ended today. He had the stopsticks set up on the road to blow out Austin’s tires. Austin, Grant, Roy and Savannah would never make it to their meeting with the Truthmaker.
Roy would never get to rat Jason out.
And once Austin was out of the way, he’d show them what true power was. How a true Alpha ruled. He knew who’d been talking about him, and he’d make every last one of them watch while he killed their cubs and violated their mates again and again, and then finally, he’d end them.
Rage roared in his ears as he thought about it.
They don’t respect me.
His own pack.
Some of them were even talking about finding another Alpha – from outside the pack!
Fur rippled over his body. His fingers melted together as his hands formed into paws, and he dropped his rifle on the ground.
Furious, he scrabbled to pick it up. It took him almost a minute to get control of his wolf. That was because his wolf was so powerful. When his wolf wanted out, it was nearly impossible to cage that beast.
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