by J. L. Wilder
“We’ve just crossed the border into Colorado,” he said.
“You’re kidding.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Where did you think we were?”
“I don’t know, I just...I was still thinking of us as somewhere around Iowa, I guess.”
“Iowa was ages ago.”
“Well, where are we headed?”
“We’re not headed anywhere,” he said. “We’re just moving until I figure out a place for us to stop and regroup. It’d be great if we could find a storage unit or something and crash there for the night.”
“Or maybe an open shop?” Charity suggested.
He nodded. “That’s a good idea, actually. Maybe we go into the city, find a supermarket or something, and hide out until they close for the night. That ought to keep us safe.”
“But Weston,” she said, “we can’t live in a supermarket.”
“Of course not,” he agreed. “That’s a one-night plan, not long term.”
“Then we need to come up with a long-term plan.”
“I’ve got one,” he said. “At least, I’ve got the beginnings of one.”
Hope rose in her. “What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when we’ve stopped for the night,” he said.
THEY STOPPED IN THE town of Boulder. Charity did not feel exactly confident that this place would be free of wolves—it was surrounded by mountains and forests, and if she had been choosing a place to raise her family, she would have chosen something like this. But it was so beautiful that she allowed herself to forget her fear and just enjoy the scenery.
They found a supermarket on the edge of town. Weston parked the bike a block away on a side street. “I hope it isn’t stolen,” he said.
“It’s already stolen,” Charity pointed out, and the two of them shared a rare smile. She was amazed that, in the midst of all this trouble, she could still find moments of pleasure and happiness. She wouldn’t have been able to do that, she thought, with anyone but Weston. He was a gift.
Once inside the store, they set about finding places to hide and eventually, settled on the public restrooms as the best option. “Wait until the lights are turned off for the night,” Weston said. “Then wait half an hour more. Don’t come out until then. If you come out early, they’ll probably escort you out of the store.”
“Don’t worry,” Charity said. “I’ll wait.”
“They might try to check the stalls to make sure none of them are occupied.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
“Okay,” Weston said. “I’ll see you soon, then.” He kissed her, briefly but fiercely, and disappeared into the men’s room.
Charity entered the ladies’ room, chose the farthest stall from the door, went in, and locked the door carefully behind her. She climbed up and sat on the toilet tank, resting her feet on the seat and hunching over so that she wouldn’t be seen from any angle.
And then she waited.
The seconds seemed to tick by. Every time the door to the bathroom opened, she fought the impulse to inhale sharply, sure that this was it—an employee had come to shut down the facility for the night. Over and over, though, she was disappointed. It was just another customer of the store come to use the bathroom.
And then, when she thought she could wait no longer, the lights flicked off overhead.
Charity had to fight the impulse to sit up straight in surprise.
Footsteps crossed the bathroom floor and paused in front of her stall. Charity felt her heart skip a beat.
A sharp knock came on the stall door. “Is someone in there? We’re closing.”
Charity didn’t dare to breathe.
The door rattled a little in its frame.
And then, just when Charity felt sure she was about to be found out, the footsteps receded. The bathroom door opened and closed on its hinges.
She was alone.
She was safe.
For now.
Now she had only to hope that Weston had survived the investigation of his own bathroom—but she thought he probably had. If they’d found a stowaway in the men’s room, surely they would have been more suspicious of a locked door in the ladies’ room.
She sat still, remembering Weston’s order to wait another half hour. She had no watch and no way of telling time, but she did have as her guide the pressure imposed on her by the fact that she’d been given an order. The pressure would lift, she imagined, when the time frame Weston had set for her to wait had expired.
So, she waited.
She actually felt the moment the command lifted. It was a sort of tumbling forward, as if she had been pressing up against an obstacle that had suddenly decided to shift out of the way. She clambered off the toilet and opened the stall door, looking around quietly to ascertain that the bathroom was indeed empty, then crept to the exit and slipped outside.
Weston was sitting on the end of one of the store’s checkout lanes, waiting for her. “You made it,” he said.
“So did you.”
He nodded. “Let’s go find a comfortable place to spend the night and I’ll tell you my plan.
The store was ominous after dark. It seemed larger when it was empty like this, and Charity had the feeling it might be possible to get lost in here, even though that wasn’t a realistic idea—the aisles were numbered, after all. They moved quietly, even though the place was deserted, as if someone might hear them.
“Do you think there are security cameras?” she asked.
“Probably,” he said. “But we’ll be gone by morning. No one should ever know we were here, if we do this right. I doubt anyone will even think of reviewing the tapes, and if they do, it’ll be too late for them to do anything about it. Over here.” He turned down the seasonal aisle, which featured some camping equipment at the far end, and pulled down a couple of sleeping bags. He unzipped both of them all the way, spread one on the floor, and laid the other on top of it as a blanket. “This should do.”
Charity sat down on the makeshift bed and pulled the top blanket over her legs, but she didn’t lie down yet. “What’s your plan?” she asked. “You said you’d tell me about it when we stopped for the night.”
He nodded. “You’re right, I did.”
“So?”
He drew a breath, appearing to steady himself. “We’re going to have to go back to the cabin,” he said. “The cabin in Montana. I’m going to have to challenge Hawk directly.”
For a long moment, she was silent, thinking she must have misunderstood him.
“What?” she whispered.
“It’s the only way to end this,” he said. “It’s the only way we’ll ever be able to be free of him. He’ll never stop hunting us. He’ll never call off the bounty on our heads. It doesn’t matter where we go. Word will spread. And even if we find a place it hasn’t spread to yet, we’ll spend every day looking over our shoulders. That’s no way to live.”
“But...challenge Hawk?” Her heart was pounding. It went against everything in her to question Weston, to doubt his judgment, but this was suicide. “Hawk doesn’t care if you live or die, Weston. If you challenge him, he’ll kill you.”
“I don’t think he will,” Weston said.
“We know he will. Remember what the man who attacked us in the woods said? He said the price on you was dead or alive.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Weston said. “I know he would kill me. I’m saying I don’t think he’ll be able to do it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I think I’m stronger than he is,” Weston said.
“Do you mean...you’re going to fight him?”
“I’m going to have to. He’s not just going to call off the hunt for us because I ask him nicely.
“But he’s an alpha, Weston,” she said. “Alphas never lose fights, do they? I’ve never heard of that happening.”
“They lose them sometimes,” Weston said. “They lose them against rival alphas.”
“But you’re not...” S
he stopped, confused. She had been about to say that Weston wasn’t a rival alpha, that Hawk was his alpha...but was that actually true?
“I wasn’t subject to his orders,” Weston said, following her train of thought. “I walked away from the pack against his wishes. Remember?”
“Yes,” she said. “But we don’t know why that happened. We don’t know what that means.”
“Exactly. His authority over me broke, and we don’t know why. I think there’s a chance I could take control of the pack away from him. He won’t be able to order me to stand down, after all.”
“Do you know that for sure? What if when we get back, we find out that whatever caused his power over you to break was a temporary thing? What if he gives you an order and you have to follow it?”
“I don’t think that’ll happen,” Weston said. “It felt pretty broken on the night we left.”
“That’s an awfully big gamble to take,” Charity said. She rested a hand on her belly, thinking of her unborn children. To her surprise, she felt a slight swelling between her hipbones—she was a little bigger than she had been yesterday. It wasn’t enough that anyone would have been able to tell, probably, but she could tell. The babies were starting to grow.
“I know it is,” Weston said. “It’s a risk, no doubt about it. But I think it’s also the only way forward, Charity. I don’t think we can let ourselves believe that anywhere in the world will be safe for us now. The only thing we can do is to go back to Hawk and face him head-on.”
She nodded. “You’re probably right. I hate it and it terrifies me, but if it wins us our freedom and a safe life for our children...”
“I won’t ask you to go with me,” Weston said. “There’s a clearing in the woods about a mile from the Wolves’ cabin. Maybe you remember it?”
Of course, she remembered it. It was where she and Weston had had their first kiss as teenagers. It had been the site of many of their romantic escapes, many whispered conversations about the future and much gazing into each other’s eyes. “What about it?”
“That would be a good place for you to wait while I confront Hawk,” he said.
She blinked. “Are you out of your mind? No, Weston. Of course not. I’m coming with you.”
“I don’t want you in danger.”
“And what do you think will happen to me if you face off with Hawk and lose?” She shook her head. “If I’m there, I can help you.”
“Charity...no offense, but you’re not really a fighter,” he said quietly. “You haven’t been trained for it.”
“Maybe not,” she agreed. “But I’m also not under Hawk’s thumb. He’s probably not your alpha, but he’s definitely not mine. Never has been. That means that if things go sideways, you can count on me to have a clear head.”
“I don’t know about this.”
“Besides,” she said, “I might not be a trained fighter, but I’ve been useful, haven’t I? When that guy caught us unawares in the woods...”
“That’s true. You definitely held your own there.”
“This is my family just as much as it is yours. I want to protect it just as much as you do.”
“I could order you not to come,” he said.
She held his gaze “I don’t think you will.”
They regarded each other for several minutes.
Then Weston sighed. “No,” he agreed. “I won’t. If you want to come, if you want to fight, you have every right to try.”
She reached a hand up to him and pulled him down onto the floor beside her, in between the two sleeping bags. She snuggled up to him and kissed him, deeply and passionately. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Don’t thank me.” He sounded tormented. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. I can’t believe I’m leading you into danger.”
“You’re not,” she told him, placing one hand along his cheek. “You’re leading me out of danger. It’s just that we have to pass through it in order to get there.”
He shook his head. “That feels like a weak excuse.”
“I couldn’t let you face Hawk alone,” she said. “I couldn’t stand it, Weston. It would be too much. The idea of sitting in that clearing by myself—that clearing where I used to sit with you—and knowing you were fighting for your life—”
He smiled a little, turning his face toward her hand and kissing the center of her palm. “You remember those days in the clearing?”
“Of course, I remember. I think about them all the time.”
“Even while you were away?”
“Especially then. Those were the happiest times of my life.” She ran her hand down the side of his body. “Until now, that is.”
He chuckled. “I feel the same way. Isn’t it strange that we both count these as the happiest days of our lives, when we’re spending them on the run from people who want to kill us?”
“If this confrontation with Hawk goes well...”
“If it goes the way I want it to, we’ll never have to run again. The cabin will be ours. Any of the Wolves who want to stay with us will be our packmates.” He closed his eyes. “We’ll be Hell’s Wolves again.”
“That’s important to you, isn’t it?” she asked. “Being one of the Hell’s Wolves.” Her fingers rested on the tattoo on his shoulder.
Weston nodded. “You remember how it was when we were growing up, when Karl was our alpha? We were a pack to be proud of them. We had numbers, and we were getting bigger. It was always an event when a group came of age and got their tattoos. It was a celebration when someone got his colors. The men would go out riding for days at a time...I never got to be a part of that. It was a club I spent my whole life waiting to join, and then—”
“And then Hawk took over,” she finished.
“Yes. And he ruined everything. Instead of the runs the club members used to go on, the road trips, he had us committing crimes so that he could spend all the money Karl and his generation had saved up on drugs and indulgences. He scared away most of the pack. But if I could take over, if I could take the wheel from him, I could bring the good Hell’s Wolves back.”
She nodded. “It’s a noble goal.”
“Didn’t you miss the pack?” he asked. “When you were on your own?”
“I missed having a pack,” she said. “I missed shifter life. And I missed you, of course, and some of the others as individuals. But the Hell’s Wolves name never meant to me what it did to you.”
He nodded. “That makes sense. There wasn’t a clear place for you in it. If this plan goes the way I want it to, you’ll be mate to the alpha and mother to our new generation.” His cheeks pinkened. “I know that’s exactly what Hawk was going to give you.”
“It’s a completely different offer coming from you,” she told him. “From you, it’s exactly what I want. I would be proud to be the mother to the next generation of your Hell’s Wolves, Weston.”
He wrapped an arm around her. “You’re wonderful,” he said. “Let’s get some sleep, okay? I want us to get on the road early tomorrow, so that we can loop around to Montana and get this business over with.”
It was strange to realize that by this time tomorrow it would likely all be over with. They would have faced Hawk and fought him. Either they would win, driving him out of the Hell’s Wolves and taking up places of their own, starting a new life that was safe and secure...or else they would lose.
Charity couldn’t allow herself to think about that.
Instead, she burrowed in closer to Weston’s chest and inhaled deeply, allowing the scent of him to soothe her. There’s no safer place in the world than in Weston’s arms, she reminded herself as she drifted off to sleep. Whatever happens tomorrow, he’s got me right now. I’m safe for tonight.
Chapter Seventeen
WESTON
They woke early and decamped before the store opened for the day, taking care to roll up their sleeping bags and replace them on the shelves. With luck, no one would ever know that Weston and Charity had spent the night
here.
The stolen bike was right where they’d left it the night before, which Weston found surprising. He would have expected it to have been picked up by the police since it was hot. But on the other hand, he had parked legally. He supposed it wasn’t that unrealistic that he’d gotten lucky.
They mounted the bike wordlessly, ready for a long day’s ride. Weston sparked the ignition, and by the time the sun peeked up over the horizon, they were leaving the city limits and heading out into the open country.
The journey was long, but it seemed to melt away in front of them, the peaks of Colorado giving way to the plains of Wyoming. It was late afternoon by the time they crossed the state line and found themselves in Montana once more.
It was strange to be so near home after their long odyssey. So much had changed for them since they’d left. Weston stuck to the back roads, feeling that this was likely to be the most perilous part of the journey. Surely the Hell’s Wolves would be alert for them as they got closer to home?
But then again, there were very few Hell’s Wolves left. They couldn’t exactly keep up a tight patrol. Nor was Hawk the kind of alpha to encourage diligent searching. He’d probably put the word out on his missing pack members and then just gone back to the cabin to get high with his friends. It was possible, Weston thought wryly, that they were actually getting safer as they got closer to the cabin.
This here, this stretch of the journey, might be the safest place available to them.
He parked the bike about a mile from the house, off the road so it wouldn’t be easily found. “What’s up?” Charity asked as she slid off and landed nimbly on her feet.
“We’ll walk from here.” He was untying the duffel bag. “We don’t want the sound of the bike to alert them to our approach before we get there.”
She nodded. “Will we come back for it later, then?”
“No. I’m hoping they brought my old bike back to the cabin when they found it in the woods that night. But if not, that’s okay. I’m not going to keep the boosted bike. I’ll get another one eventually.”
Charity nodded.
They walked up the roadside by side, not speaking, both of them lost in thought. Weston was amazed at how quickly this last leg of the journey had gone—amazed and a little distressed. The road trip they’d taken together, starting from the moment they’d escaped the Hell’s Wolves, had changed his life entirely. He knew now that he and Charity would never be apart. No matter what happened, he would stay by her side.