by J. L. Wilder
Most days, Weston tried to forget she had ever existed. That was difficult but thinking about her was even harder. It was painful, remembering what the two of them had once had.
What they’d almost had.
But no one had spoken about Charity in years. “Why are they talking about her?” he asked. The question came out sounding sharper than he’d intended it to.
Robbie seemed to understand. “I’m not sure, exactly,” he hedged. “I came up here when I realized the direction the conversation was taking.”
“Which is what?”
“Which is...oh, you don’t really want to hear it, do you?”
“I’m going to find out anyway, right?”
Robbie sighed. “Hawk wants us to try and find her,” he said.
Weston inhaled sharply. “What do you mean, find her?”
“I mean...well, it seems like he’s organizing some kind of search,” Robbie said. “He wants us to see if we can figure out where she went.”
“We’re not going to be able to track her,” Weston said. “She left six years ago. Even if there was a trail—which there won’t be, it’ll be long dead by now—I’m sure nobody remembers her scent well enough to follow it.” He didn’t think that even he would have been able to do it, and he certainly knew her scent better than any of the other members of the pack.
“No,” Robbie agreed. “We can’t track her. I think he wants us to look for her, you know, the human way.”
“What, file a missing persons’ report?”
“Well, no, of course not,” Robbie said. “We couldn’t do that. She went missing six years ago. We’d be laughed out of the police station if we tried it. But I guess the feeling is that she might still be nearby.”
“What would make Hawk think that?” Anguish gripped Weston. What if that was true? In his darkest moments, when he’d thought of leaving the pack and trying to find Charity, he had always managed to convince himself that it would be hopeless. That she was miles away, in another city by now, probably even in another state.
But what if she wasn’t?
What if she was here? What if she had been here this whole time?
God, what if he could have just driven to the next town and asked around? What if finding her would always have been that easy? And was it possible that when she had left, she had expected him to do just that? Was it possible that she had spent the intervening years wondering why he had never come after her?
No. That wasn’t Charity. She wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t play games with him in that way. That was one of the things he’d loved best about her. She had always been very upfront about what she wanted, very honest about her feelings.
But then, he had never thought she would leave him either. And she had done that. She had disappeared without even saying goodbye.
Most likely, he thought despairingly, she had never really cared about him that much at all. If she had, she wouldn’t have found it so easy to leave.
Robbie had clearly taken note of his distress. “You should sit down,” he said, guiding Weston back into his room. Weston went willingly, feeling incapable of thinking for himself. He sat on the edge of the bed, and Robbie sat opposite him in the desk chair.
“Hawk says she didn’t have any money when she left,” Robbie said quietly. “She didn’t have a bike or a car. It would have been hard for her to travel. And she wasn’t feeling hunted because Karl wasn’t like that. He wouldn’t have sent members of the pack after someone who left of their own free will.”
“Sure,” Weston said quietly.
“So, she’s probably still really nearby,” Robbie concluded.
“Do you think so?”
He was quiet for a minute. “It makes sense,” he admitted.
“But why would Hawk want to go after her now?” Weston asked, feeling desperate.
“I don’t know,” Robbie said. “Do you hope he finds her? Or would you rather he didn’t?”
That was fraught. Part of him was already jumping for joy, internally, at the prospect of seeing Charity again. He had been so happy with her, so hopeful about the future. And now everything was such a mess. It was easy to let himself believe that if Charity came back, things would start to feel all right again.
But Weston couldn’t deny that he was also angry at her. And it was a kind of anger that might not heal. Even if she returned full of apologies for having left him in the first place, could he ever really overlook that she had left? Could he ever look at her without reliving that awful morning when he had realized what she’d done?
And then, his own personal feelings about the matter aside, there was another, more disturbing question. “What does Hawk want with her?” he asked Robbie. “I mean, why is talking about searching for her now?”
“I don’t know,” Robbie admitted.
“Because, like, she’s been gone for six years,” Weston said. Speaking the words brought it home to him in a new way. Six years. She had been gone for a quarter of his life now. The two of them had only been together for a few months. Those months had been wonderful, almost magical. But they were such a small slice of time.
“He can’t possibly want her for any good reason,” Weston went on. “Right?”
“It is kind of hard to picture Hawk having good intentions about anything,” Robbie agreed.
“I don’t really want her under his thumb,” Weston said. He was angry with Charity, but he didn’t hate her. “I mean, she clearly doesn’t want to belong to the pack at all. And if she didn’t even want to belong to Karl’s pack—”
“She would hate living under Hawk. Yeah, I see what you mean,” Robbie sighed. “I don’t think we’re going to have a whole lot of choice about it, though.”
“He’s giving orders?” That was no surprise, really.
“Yeah,” Robbie said. “He’s got half the pack down there already, and he’s handing out assignments. I thought you should know. Maybe you want to go out the window or something.”
It wouldn’t be the first time Weston had climbed out his attic room window to avoid facing the rest of the pack. There was a convenient tree near the house that allowed him to climb down and disappear into the woods without being seen. He could spend the day there, and unless Hawk asked for him by name, all the assignments would be handed out by the time he returned. He could try to avoid the hunt for Charity altogether.
But what if they were planning on doing something awful to her if they found her? He wouldn’t put it past Hawk to have that kind of plan. And if that was the case, the only way Weston could help would be if he was directly involved.
“No,” he told Robbie. “I should go downstairs.”
“Are you sure?” Robbie asked. “He hasn’t asked for you yet.”
“He doesn’t seem like knows, does he?” Weston asked. “About me and Charity, I mean.”
“No. Your name hasn’t come up at all,” Robbie said. “Did you ever tell anyone other than me?”
“No,” Weston said. “But that doesn’t mean nobody found out. They spy.”
“Yeah, but they don’t really keep secrets,” Robbie pointed out. “If they had dirt on you, they would have said something ages ago, probably.”
Weston nodded. “All right,” he said. “I’m going down.”
“I’ll go with you.” It was a mark of their friendship that Robbie so readily followed Weston down the stairs toward the kitchen. Weston knew that Robbie hated being sent on Hawk’s missions just as much as he did. And Robbie had liked Charity, certainly, and probably did not want to see her killed, but he hadn’t been in love with her. And she had left a long time ago.
In the kitchen, Hawk was holding court. He looked up when Weston and Robbie entered. “Good, you’re here,” he said. “Make sure your bikes are in good working order. We’re going into the city this evening.”
This evening? So soon? “What’s in the city?” Weston managed to ask, as if he didn’t already know.
“Omega,” Gino said, flashing a ma
ssive and sickening grin.
That did surprise Weston. “Omega? You think we’re just going to find omegas walking around in the city?” That was incredibly unlikely. Omega wolves were even rarer than alphas. Every pack had an alpha—even if two or three rogue wolves grouped up together, one of them would emerge as alpha eventually—but not every group had an omega. The Hell’s Wolves were a perfect example of the latter phenomenon. They had certainly expected to have an omega—or maybe that had just been blind hope. Weston had been awfully young at the time, after all. But when the alpha/omega ceremony had taken place and Karl had handed the reins of the pack to Hawk, no omega had emerged. No one had been chosen.
When a new alpha was named, the omega of his generation—if there was one—would be instinctively drawn to make a show of submission. These displays often led immediately into mating. Weston could still remember watching Hawk leer around at the young women in their pack, waiting for one of them to give a sign.
None of them had.
The smile had slowly disappeared from Hawk’s face as he’d realized he wasn’t going to get an omega. A few weeks later, the women of their generation had begun to disappear from the pack. Only two females remained now: Gino’s girlfriend Lita, and, of course, Norma. All the others were gone, and so was any hope of an omega for Hawk.
Which was just fine with Weston. He didn’t think Hawk deserved a chance to mate and to pass along his genes. He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised that Hawk felt differently about that. But really, had Hawk lost his mind? They weren’t going to be able to just find an omega in the city. Even if there was one, she would belong to another pack. She would be heavily guarded, well-protected. There was no chance the Hell’s Wolves would be able to bring her home.
“Don’t be crude, Gino,” Hawk said. “Of course, we’re not going to find omegas walking around the city. Not omegas plural, anyway.”
Weston realized what Hawk was getting at a moment before he said it. His heart sank into his stomach like a stone.
“We’re hunting for Charity,” Hawk said. “You remember Charity, don’t you Weston? She was one of the very first to leave the pack, all those years ago. She left before I even became alpha. Why do you suppose she would do something like that?”
“You think she’s an omega,” Weston whispered.
“I think she’s an omega,” Hawk agreed. “I think she knew what she was, and she ran because she was afraid of who she might get stuck with when the alpha was announced.” He shook his head. “Poor kid should have toughed up and stuck around for a few days. She would have been fine once she realized it was me. I’m sure she was just afraid it would be someone like Robbie.”
Weston bristled. Robbie might have been a bit chubby and emotional sometimes, but he was the kindest member of the Hell’s Wolves.
“Robbie could never be an alpha,” Rick scoffed.
“No, he couldn’t,” Hawk agreed. “But Charity wasn’t that bright, was she?”
Weston had to bite his tongue. Charity had been very smart, in fact. Her wit used to keep him in stitches. Hawk was being sexist, he suspected.
“I think she’s probably living in the city,” Hawk said to Weston. “We’ll find her and bring her back here. Let her know that it’s all right, that I’m the one who made alpha, so she can stay with us.”
“Why are you just doing this now?” Weston asked. “How come it never came up before?”
“We were talking it over,” Hawk said. “Trying to figure out why no omega ever emerged. I mean, it doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“Doesn’t it?”
“For an alpha as powerful as I am? Of course, there should have been an omega. Somebody should have submitted. But nobody did. And then all the girls just left. Well, something must have happened, right? Something we never understood before. And then I remembered that Charity actually left before the ceremony.”
“I was the one who remembered that,” Rick said.
Hawk ignored him. “We never knew what made her leave,” he said. “I always kind of looped her in with the other girls leaving. It seemed like they all decided together. Like it was one event. But Charity leaving first means it might actually have been two separate events. She might have left for a totally different reason. And I could only think of one thing that would have driven her to leave.” He grinned. “She’s definitely the omega. I’m just surprised none of us ever realized it before.”
So that was it. “You want to bring her back and mate with her?”
“Of course,” Hawk said. “It’s my right as alpha. And it’s her duty. Besides, we hardly have any women in this pack. What are we going to do, make Gino and Lita have seventeen children?” He laughed at his own feeble joke. “That’s hardly likely. If you want a strong back, you need an omega. Everybody knows that.”
Weston felt on the verge of saying that if you wanted a strong pack, you needed to respect your packmates and not force them to rob liquor stores, but he managed to hold himself back. Still, his brain was buzzing. Was he really going to see Charity again, after all this time? Surely not. Surely, they wouldn’t actually be able to find her. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Wouldn’t it?
“I want you with us, Weston,” Hawk said. “Robbie, you’ll stay behind. But Weston, I need you to be part of the team that goes into the city to find her. You’re one of our best trackers.” He regarded Weston expectantly.
That wasn’t an order, Weston realized.
He hadn’t been forced.
He couldn’t say no, of course—if he did, Hawk would realize he hadn’t given an order, and he’d correct himself. But he could say yes and then fail to follow through. He could ride with them to the city, split off from the pack, and go get a drink or something. He wasn’t under any obligation to actually look for Charity.
But he didn’t want to thwart Hawk’s instructions. Not this time.
Weston wanted to be the one who found Charity.
He wasn’t sure if he actually wanted to see her or not. In fact, he thought he probably didn’t. It would be hell to face her again after all this time. But at least he had what might amount to some answers. They had worried, back before she’d left, that she might be the pack’s new omega, or that he might be the alpha, and that their new roles would come between them.
She shouldn’t have left, he thought. Or she should have told me. I would have gone with her. He had to assume she had left him behind because she hadn’t wanted him to come. She hadn’t cared for him the way he’d cared for her.
But if anyone other than Weston found her, she might be hurt. And that was the last thing he wanted. He had to take some control over the situation while he could.
“Okay,” he said to Hawk. “I’m with you.”
Chapter Four
CHARITY
“We’re going out tonight,” Bethany announced. “I need a girls’ night.”
Charity didn’t look up from the silverware she was wrapping in napkins for tomorrow’s lunch service. “You always need a girls’ night,” she pointed out. “You say that every Friday evening.”
“This time is different,” Bethany insisted. She untied the uniform apron all the servers at the restaurant had to wear while they were on shift and threw it down on the table. Then she threw herself into a chair with equal force and drama. “I think Brian is going to break up with me.”
“But you always think Brian is going to break up with you,” Hallie said, sounding utterly mystified. Hallie was the youngest waitress on staff, just barely eighteen, and always carried an air of surprise that she was allowed to hang out with her older colleagues. Charity found her sweet.
“This time is different,” Bethany said again.
Charity highly doubted that this time was any different. Bethany’s boyfriend Brian was a philanderer and a scoundrel, but he always seemed to come crawling back to her after he’d done wrong. If they ever did break up, Charity thought, it would be because Bethany
had finally summoned the courage to pull the trigger. Brian would never be the one to do it.
And she wished her friend would break up with him. Bethany could do so much better. She was beautiful, and she was incredibly smart—she had a college degree—and even if she was a bit of a neurotic mess a lot of the time, she was also kind. Any man would be lucky to have her.
Also, if she left Brian, maybe there wouldn’t be so much pressure to go out every weekend. Charity liked her friends, but she always felt out of place on these girls’ nights. There was no equivalent to them in the shifter world in which she’d been raised. The closest point of comparison was her early childhood, when she’d been surrounded by girls and women at all times, forbidden from interacting with the boys her own age. And that wasn’t a particularly pleasant memory.
Bethany hung onto Charity’s arm like a child begging for ice cream. “Please, Charity,” she said. “Please come out with me tonight. I’ll do anything.”
“I need to get some sleep,” Charity protested. “I open tomorrow.”
“That’s not for hours. Besides, you know you’re not going to go home and go right to sleep. You’ll watch reality TV for at least three hours first. You might as well spend that time with me.”
Charity sighed inwardly. She should have known better than to tell the girls at the restaurant about her reality TV obsession. There was something about those shows that appealed to her—probably the fact that so many of them featured packs of people living in a house together. That was a familiar dynamic, and one she missed now that she was on her own. But of course, her human friends would never understand that. They tended to think the whole thing was shallow and stupid.
“I want to go out,” Hallie said, bouncing a little on her seat.
Bethany raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you have a curfew?”
“No.”
“Yes, you do,” Charity said. “You were complaining about it two days ago.”
“Okay, fine, I do. But so what? I’ll blow it off. It’s not like my mom can do anything to me.” Hallie puffed her chest slightly. “I am eighteen now.”