by Stormy Glenn
And that explained it. If Gene was born here, he was never questioned about his “darker thoughts.” He was just accepted as a member of the pride.
Made me think we needed to talk when we got home about how people joined our pride. There needed to be rules, or checks and balances at the very least. If someone was starting to flip out, we needed a way to tell, and then a way to fix it.
“Oh.”
I smelled Henry’s tears before I saw them.
“What’s wrong, Henry?”
Henry pointed. “That older couple coming out of the bakery, that’s my parents.”
I grabbed Henry and pushed him down.
“Samson, what are you doing?” he cried out as he struggled to get away. “That’s my parents.”
“They can’t see you, Henry, not yet.”
“But—”
“If they say something and it gets back to Gene, this entire trip will have been for nothing.” It broke my heart to deny Henry the chance to see his parents right at that minute. He’d see them later, but that didn’t make me feel any better. “Just a little longer, baby. I promise.”
Someone behind me snorted. I couldn’t say I disagreed with whoever it was.
I suspected Stryker.
But he was right. I wasn’t sure I believed me myself. I had no idea how long this mess with Gene was going to take. But I had to give Henry some sort of hope. The man was heartbroken.
His sadness gutted me.
Once we were far enough away, I lifted Henry up and pulled him into my arms. He didn’t make any noise, and that devastated me more than anything. It was almost as if he were back in the pit, silent and afraid.
“We just need a little more time, Henry.”
“I know,” he whispered, and I could tell he did. The sense of resignation about him might have been the saddest thing of all.
“How much farther is your alpha’s house?” I asked to get his mind off his parents.
Henry lifted his head and glanced toward the front of the vehicle. “It’s not too much farther. About two more blocks down and then we take a left at the hardware store. The alpha’s estate sits on top of the hill at the end of the road.”
“Just how big is this estate?”
Henry frowned. “Well, it’s not as big as Sinclair’s place, but it’s still pretty big. Alpha Darby’s grandfather built it back in the 1920s when he became alpha. It was during the Depression, and most of the pride lived there at the time. It wasn’t until humans learned of us that people started moving into town.”
“Have there ever been any problems with the humans in town?” Sinclair asked.
“No, not really. The town was built around the alpha’s house, so everyone who moved here was a shifter or knew about shifters.” Henry’s shoulders lifted when he shrugged. “I mean, there are always bullies here and there, but we’ve had more problems with shifters than we have humans.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What sort of problems?”
“The Gene sort.”
“You’ve had people disappear before?” Sinclair asked.
“Well, sure, every now and then, but I don’t think Gene had anything to do with that. Most of them were people either moving away or shot by hunters, or whatever. I was talking more about having problems with people like Gene, bullies.”
That made sense. Not every person who disappeared was in trouble. Some just wanted a change of scenery or a new life somewhere else. Others moved to get away from family they might be having issues with. Still, that was an avenue I wanted to look into.
I wouldn’t put anything past that asshole.
Chapter Fourteen
Henry
I screamed when something slammed into the side of the SUV. The impact sent us careening off the road and tumbling down the hill.
Glass shattered.
The sound of metal on metal grated across my nerves.
When the SUV stopped rolling, I found myself lying on the floor.
Or was that the roof.
I wasn’t sure.
It was hard to concentrate. My ears were ringing and there was a sharp pain in my arm. I drew in a couple of deep breaths and then glanced around to get my bearings.
I was on the roof, only it had become the floor.
The SUV was upside down.
Crap.
“Samson?”
Why didn’t I hear my mate? I expected to feel his hands all over me. He should have been growling at the very least.
“Samson?”
My heart felt as if it were breaking in two when I couldn’t see him. He was supposed to be in the back seat with me. Shade was. Bob was. Stryker kind of was. He was partially in the vehicle and partially out the window.
A glance toward the front of the SUV showed me that Stone and Sinclair were still in the vehicle and just as unconscious as everyone else.
It was only me.
With no mate.
I rolled onto my hands and knees and crawled to Sinclair and Stone. After checking that they both still had a good, solid heartbeat, I moved to the back to check on the others.
Everyone seemed to be alive, although I was sure some of them were going to regret that just as soon as they woke up. Sinclair had a gash on his head, and Stryker’s arm was bent at a funny angle. Everyone else had scrapes and scratches as far as I could tell, nothing a good shift wouldn’t help.
The only thing that would help me was finding Samson.
I crawled to the broken window, wincing when glass cut the palm of my hand. I scooted out and then sucked on the small cut as I glanced around, looking for my mate.
There!
My heart hammered painfully in my chest as I jumped to my feet and raced partway back up the hill. I didn’t know how Samson had ended up outside the vehicle, but I prayed he wasn’t hurt, or worse.
Worse would be really bad.
I grunted as I stumbled. The hill was harder to get up than I had expected. I had to use my hands and legs to climb the steep ground. By the time I reached Samson, I was out of breath and panting heavily.
“Samson.”
I dropped to my knees next to his prone body and reached for him. Before I could touch him, a chill skirted up my spine and my lion cowered inside of me.
I lifted my nose and sniffed.
At one time, the scent that filled my senses would have brought a smile to my face.
Now, not so much.
I stood and stepped over Samson, guarding him. I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to save him when it came down to it, but I had to try.
“What do you want, Gene?”
I couldn’t see my former friend, but I knew he was close. There was no mistaking his cologne. Hugo Boss. The man practically bathed in the stuff.
His cold chuckle chilled me to the bone, but it told me where he was. I tensed when I glanced farther up the hill and spotted Gene standing at the top of the rise where we had gone off the road. The crumpled front end of a pickup was visible right behind him, giving me a clue as to how we ended up down in the ravine.
Gene was not alone.
I recognized most of the men standing with him. Some were from here in town, humans and pride members alike. Two were guards from the pit.
I didn’t know the others.
I did a quick head count. Ten against one.
Could be worse.
I didn’t know how, but it could.
“I see you’ve made some new friends,” I said.
Gene’s gaze fell to the man I stood over. “I see you have, too.”
My jaw tightened as an unusual anger came over me. I fisted my hands. “Hurt a hair on my mate’s head, and I will kill you.”
I still planned to kill Gene, but if he did anything to Samson, I’d make sure it hurt.
Even from where I stood, I could see Gene lift his eyebrows.
“You? A mate?” Gene laughed. “I don’t think so. Omegas don’t get mates.”
“Actually, they do.”
My heart
beat a little faster when Alpha Darby stepped into view. The dark frown on his face wasn’t a good thing. I hoped it wasn’t aimed at me.
I tilted my head submissively out of respect. Sinclair was my alpha now and I owed him my allegiance, but I still owed Alpha Darby my respect.
“You’ve been a very bad boy.”
He wasn’t looking at me, so…
Alpha Darby took a few steps closer to my position before looking down at Samson. “Is he alive?”
I nodded.
“And the others?” he asked as he glanced down the hill.
I nodded again, too choked up to speak.
“I have men seeing to them, Henry.”
“Thank you,” I whispered after swallowing hard. I shot a quick look up the hill. “Those men with Gene, the two on the end. They’re the guards who kept me and Samson prisoner.”
“You don’t say?”
I frowned at the man.
I did say.
Just now.
Wasn’t he listening?
“Alpha—”
“See to your mate, Henry.”
“Yes, sir.” I stepped over Samson and dropped to my knees again. Samson was on his side so it was hard for me to see his face, but he didn’t look too beat up. He did have a really nice bump on his head, though. I suspected that was why he was unconscious.
I couldn’t be positive until he opened his eyes.
I started moving my hands over Samson’s arms and legs, checking to see if anything was broken. He had quite a few scratches. I imagine he got those when he was thrown from the SUV.
Again, I couldn’t be positive until he opened his eyes.
I hated this.
Samson was big and strong and he loved me. He shouldn’t be hurt.
I narrowed my eyes as I looked back up the hill. “You did this,” I snapped. “You hurt Samson.”
“Wasn’t my fault you drove in front of me and then crashed. In fact, you will probably get a bill from my insurance company for the damage to my truck.”
The man didn’t have an ounce of guilt.
I growled.
I was rather impressed with myself. It sounded almost like Samson.
“What is wrong with you?” I asked. “You used to be a nice guy, but you’ve turned into a monster.”
I could see from the way Gene’s jaw clenched that he didn’t like an omega calling him out.
“Shut up!” he shouted. “You don’t get to speak unless I tell you you can.”
My head snapped back. “Excuse me?”
Not even Alpha Darby told me when I could speak. Granted, I knew when to keep my mouth shut around him, but that was respect. Not fear.
“You’re an idiot, Gene. This is a wonderful pride to belong to, and you just kissed it all away.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, omega.”
Omega? He called me omega?
Now I was really pissed.
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “I know that you’ve been selling people to the humans to use in their fighting pits. I know you lied when you told everyone I died in a car accident. I know that your time in this pride is about to end.”
I saw a couple of the guys with Gene give him surprised looks and then take a few steps away from him. I started to think they didn’t know the whole truth about Gene’s actions.
I could fix that.
“You’re never going to be a beta now. Betas are there to protect their pride, not kidnap them and sell them off. They’re supposed to be the strength of the pack. All you’ve shown is weakness. You want to be alpha so bad that you’re willing to betray everything a pride stands for to get it.” I shook my head. “It’s never going to happen.”
“I will be alpha!” Gene’s face was turning red.
I wondered if he was constipated.
Sure looked like it.
“You’re not strong enough to be an alpha.”
“At least I didn’t bring assassins into this pride.” Gene smirked. “Their reputation for death and mayhem is legendary. The pride is in fear for their safety, and Alpha Darby isn’t protecting us. He’s consorting with known killers. He brought them into our town.”
I tilted my head. “How do you know what Alpha Darby has done? I know for a fact that he didn’t tell anyone. How did you even know panthers were coming?”
Alpha Darby shot me a look.
I shrugged. “It’s a good question.”
“It’s a very good question.” The alpha glanced at Gene again. “One I’d like the answer to.”
“Someone saw them in town.”
I shook my head. “Nope, try again. Samson made sure no one saw me.”
And now I knew why he had.
Gene narrowed his eyes. “I don’t answer to you, omega.”
“Maybe not,” Alpha Darby said. “But you do answer to me.”
I knew Gene wasn’t playing with a full deck when the man smiled.
“Not anymore, I don’t,” Gene said. “You’re relieved of your position, Alpha Darby.”
I screamed when a loud report echoed through the night air and Alpha Darby fell to the ground. I stared at his unmoving body for a moment before looking up at Gene.
“You shot him.”
The smoking gun in Gene’s hand was a clear indication he had been the one to pull the trigger. The grin on his face might have told me the truth, too. He looked way too happy for someone watching another person get shot.
“You shot Alpha Darby.”
“Yes, and now I’m the alpha.”
“No.” I shook my head rapidly. “The pride won’t follow you, not after they learn what you’ve done here.”
Gene had shot Alpha Darby in cold blood.
There hadn’t even been a challenge.
“Then I guess they can never learn what I’ve done.” Gene turned the barrel of the gun toward me.
I’d like to say my life flashed before my eyes, but that wasn’t true. Death was upon me and I couldn’t think of a damn thing. My mind went totally blank.
I was frozen in place. I couldn’t even move when I saw shadows start to come out of the darkness. I could only stand there and stare at the barrel of that really huge gun.
Okay, it was a pistol. Gene’s hand practically covered the entire thing.
But it looked huge.
A slow grin started to move across my lips when the shadows took form. “You really picked the wrong omega to go after.”
Gene frowned as if confused by my words.
What a freaking idiot.
“I mean something to my pride, and they’re not going to let you take me away from them.”
Gene snorted, the frown falling off his face. “The pride certainly buried you quick enough. No one even questioned me about how you died or why there was no body. They all just assumed you burned up in the fire from the crash. Your pride couldn’t care less about you, Henry.”
“The people here aren’t my pride.” My grin widened as I pointed behind Gene. “They are.”
* * * *
Samson
I moved the moment I heard Henry say that our pride was here. I grabbed him around the waist and pulled him down before rolling him beneath me, protecting him from the carnage. The fear tearing through me at how close Henry had come to being shot held me immobile.
“Samson.”
The scent of Henry’s tears filled the air around me.
“You’re okay.”
I wasn’t. I could actually feel the blood trickling down my back from a cut in my side. It wasn’t a deep cut, but it was deep enough to know I would need to shift before it healed properly.
I swallowed twice before asking, “Are you okay?”
Henry nodded. “My arm hurts, but I’m okay.”
I glanced down at his arm.
Damn.
It should hurt.
“Baby, your arm is broken.”
“It is?” Henry’s eyes widened when he looked down. “Damn, it is. I didn’t even f
eel it.”
He would, and I would be there to catch him when he did.
I lifted my head and glanced up the hill. The noise from there had quieted for the most part. While I was thankful my pride had come in to save us, I was a little worried about who they might have killed in the process.
Gene was fair game, as were the guards who had tortured us at the pit. It was the innocent pride members who’d been led astray by Gene that worried me. Killing them could start an incident with Alpha Darby’s pride that Sinclair couldn’t smooth over.
I still wasn’t sure how we were going to explain the alpha getting shot. If he died, we were pretty much screwed. The council couldn’t even save us at that point.
A groan drew my eyes to the body a few feet away from where I hovered over top of Henry. Some of my tension faded when Alpha Darby rolled onto his back and stared up at the night sky.
“Fuck, that hurt.” The man pressed his hand over a bleeding wound in his shoulder. “I’m going to kill the bastard.”
“I’m afraid that’s already been taken care of, Alpha Darby.” When the man looked in my direction, I gestured to the top of the hill where Sinclair, Stone, Shade, Bob, and Stryker were. “My pride takes care of their own.”
Chapter Fifteen
Henry
I waved to my parents as they drove away, part of me a little sad to see them go. Another part of me was really glad to see them go. My mother had spent almost the entire visit at the estate regaling Samson with my childhood exploits.
She had pictures and everything.
It was embarrassing.
Once the car disappeared, I stepped back inside the mansion and closed the door.
It was still a little weird to me that I now lived in a mansion. My parents weren’t rich by any stretch of the imagination. They got by, but having a butler and a cook was totally out of their realm of experience.
It was out of my realm of experience, too, although I was slowly getting used to it. I particularly liked the room service. There was nothing quite like soaking in the tub with Samson as we snacked on something from the kitchen.
The time when I barely had table scraps to eat was slowly becoming a memory I didn’t think about often. Food here was a mere phone call away, and meals were served regularly. I hadn’t forgotten, but I no longer had nightmares about where my next meal was coming from or even if I was going to get one.