by Kaia Pierce
There’s going to be an alpha fight…
Why is Kaden’s twin here?
It must be his fault…
He’s the one who got Liam pregnant…
Not being an official member of our pack, Caleb was shut out from the mental conversation, and he remained oblivious to the pack’s silent judgement as Kaden continued addressing the rest of us.
“You’re not actually going to this fight, are you?” Rowan said incredulously. When I turned around, I spotted her in the very back of the barn, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.
Kaden’s expression was grim, but his eyes were shining with alert passion. “I have to. It’s for the safety of the pack.”
“What does Josh think of all this?” Tony, another packmember, asked. “Shouldn’t he get to decide, too?”
Tony had a point. Josh was Kaden’s mate. We all knew that once two separate shifters were mated, they were no longer two separate shifters at all. If anything happened to Kaden, the wolf inside Josh’s soul would be affected in ways none of us unmated shifters could ever understand.
Suddenly, I was feeling the weight of Caleb’s secret on my shoulders.
If Josh suffers, it could be my fault.
My body ached with guilt, and the fact that I was swollen and throbbing with pregnancy certainly didn’t help.
From his position at the edge of the crowd, Josh stepped towards the center of the room, drawing everyone’s attention.
“I’m an alpha’s mate. I also have the duty to look out for the welfare of our whole pack. It isn’t just about me,” he said.
As he shared a long and affectionate look with Kaden, I couldn’t help but glance at Caleb. He was staring down at the floor, his expression unreadable, but I could guess what he was thinking.
This was the pack he saw himself leading one day. Did he have it in him to make sacrifices, the way Kaden did? He was motivated by his own selfishness. Kaden was not. And now, seeing the way Josh supported our alpha only served to reaffirm how I’d been feeling all along.
The right choice for me wasn’t to stay with Caleb, no matter how strong my feelings were for him. Things were about to get dangerous. I could smell it in the air, the scent of my packmates’ sweat, their fear, mingling with the sharp, sawdusty scent of this barn. I had to take myself and my baby out of this warzone. That was the right choice.
My eyes burned, threatening tears, as I sat there, surrounded by the expectant mothers, pregnant with cousins my child would never know. There was still a tiny seed of hope buried in my heart.
How many more chances does he deserve? I thought.
The answer was none. But that hopeful seed remained, one last smoldering ember burning for Caleb.
Just one, it was telling me.
I vowed in that moment to give Caleb one last chance to come clean about his plan to Kaden and stop this fight from happening.
Suddenly, Tony stood up. A man in his late forties, he was usually laid-back and docile, but tonight his wolf was coming out.
“In that case, alpha, we’re all going with you,” he said, clenching his fists so hard that the veins in his forearms bulged.
Kaden raised his hands, immediately silencing the chorus of agreement that erupted from his pack.
“I won’t take that risk. Garland has three other alphas on his side,” he said.
“So you’re most likely walking into a trap,” Tony said.
“Yes,” Kaden admitted, “but at least I won’t be going in alone.”
He motioned with his hands, not to his leather-clad betas, but to Caleb. There was an immediate cry of outrage, emitted by several members of the pack. If anybody doubted Caleb’s ability or intentions, they weren’t shy about it.
“How can you trust him?”
“How could he possibly help you, alpha?”
Along with the others, I turned my attention to Caleb. Do the right thing, I thought desperately at him. When I saw him draw his shoulders up, preparing to speak, I stopped breathing.
He was looking directly at me.
“I have an idea,” he said, without breaking eye contact.
The entire room fell so quiet, we could hear the wood creaking around us. Even Kaden looked taken aback.
“There’s a coven of witches in town. I’ve made friends with them,” Caleb began. “I think I can get them to help us.”
Murmurs swept through the entire barn.
“Maybe they can craft a spell for us to give us the upper hand,” Caleb continued.
Jimmy, one of Kaden’s betas, briefly raised his hand like a student in a classroom. “We have our own witch, though,” he said, nodding towards Rowan in the back.
“Yeah, I know that. But she’s just one. The witches in this coven are extremely powerful. Garland is afraid of them,” Caleb said.
“It’s true,” Josh added. “I’ve seen it for myself.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Two dozen heads swiveled in the direction of Rowan’s voice. She uncrossed her arms and stood up straight. Her dark eyes scanned her audience from behind her glasses.
“If it’s the same one I’m thinking of, then that would be the coven led by Eliza Vreeland. It’s true; they’re very powerful. But they don’t believe in favors, which means any spellwork they do for you will incur a debt,” she said. Then, her mouth turned down at the sides, turning her expression grim.
The message was clear.
“So it might not be worth it,” Josh said softly. He looked uncertain, and he wasn’t the only one.
“No, that’s a good thing,” Caleb said quickly. “It means they can be bargained with.”
All eyes turned to Kaden, who stroked his chin in thought.
“Caleb has a good point,” he finally said after a short while. “I don’t see the harm in asking. Do you think you can reach out to them before the fight tomorrow evening?”
Caleb nodded.
“Then do it.”
Kaden spent some time wrapping up the meeting, but I could hardly hear him through the ringing in my ears. Caleb never took his eyes off of me, his eyebrows raised in expectation.
See? I fixed it, it seemed like he was saying.
My disappointment probably showed on my face, because the brief hope in his eyes was quickly extinguished.
“There’s nothing left to do now but wait,” Kaden said. His conclusion was unusually bleak, but he finally ended the meeting in the way he always did by saying, “Now, it’s time for our pack run.”
All around me, my packmates rose to their feet and began shedding their clothes. I joined them, just as I always did, but this time was different. Caleb was in the room with me, and I could feel his eyes on me as I undressed, especially when I peeled off my shirt.
My heavy belly exposed, I paused and glanced up to meet Caleb’s eyes. There was a look of longing on his face that gave me a plunging feeling in my stomach.
For a split second, I could feel his desire for me, the vessel carrying his child.
For a split second, I could feel my own desire for him, beating inside my soul, right alongside the tiny heart beating in my womb.
Left and right, men and women were turning into wolves. I took off the last of my clothes and shuddered, letting the change claim me as well. The wolf inside me awakened and tore out of me.
I fell forward and landed on four paws. Immediately, the smell of the barn hit me like a punch to the face. The night was just beyond the barn doors, and it was calling to me. Somewhere in the back of the barn, a wolf howled, and the entire pack began streaming through the exit.
I ran, losing sense of myself as I blended with the others. We were coursing as one, a thick, surging river, a pack. As wolves, our mind link was even stronger. It was like thinking with one brain. My reaction was the pack’s reaction, and vice versa. When I ran under the stars and through the trees and up the mountain, I felt joy, and so did everyone else.
The only one who didn’t belong was
Caleb. I could sense him, a dead spot in the back of the pack, the only mind I couldn’t hear.
The woods grew thicker the farther we ran from town. It forced our pack to splinter apart as we trickled through the forest. I found myself running with four others, then three. Then two.
Eventually, I was running alone.
Well, I was almost alone.
He was behind me. I could sense him. Caleb was on my trail, his footsteps falling exactly where mine picked up. It wasn’t unlike the night we met, when I was in heat.
Come catch me, I thought, and I began sprinting across the landscape.
I moved as fast as wind. Caleb had no trouble keeping up. It didn’t surprise me; Caleb had always been strong and fast. Even his seed was strong.
In the end, it was one of the things that turned me on most about him.
My legs burned, but I pressed on. The ground was inclined beneath my feet now, making swiftness a challenge. I could hear Caleb’s grunting exhales and the swish of his tail as he drew closer, closer, and eventually caught up to me.
His scent—God, his scent! It was in my nostrils, flooding into my skull, as we ran side by side. My body was reacting to it already, but I was still compelled to run away. My wolf was afraid, the way all omegas were afraid of their alphas…
Suddenly, Caleb stretched his neck forward and bit the loose skin of my collar. My legs gave out, and I collapsed to the ground. The moment my furry body met the earth, I forced myself to shift back.
“Liam,” Caleb whispered. He was already human, reaching for me.
Curled up on my side, I rolled over onto my back when I felt his touch.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I said.
Caleb’s face hovered above mine, close enough so that I could see his features in the darkness. He stroked my collarbone with his fingertips. “I’m trying to mate with you.”
“No, what are you doing with Kaden? I told you to stop the fight from happening. If you don’t, I’ll leave. I mean it.”
Caleb lowered his face even closer, until the tips of our noses touched, and all I could see were his wide, gray eyes.
“I’m doing this for us, Liam. Trust me,” he whispered. The sound of his words was like a rake scraping across my skin.
“You’re being so selfish,” I whispered back. Hearing myself say it made tears well up in my eyes. How could I trust him to be a father now?
“If you want to leave, then leave. But not before I fuck you one last time.”
His light fingers danced down the center of my chest. When he tried to kiss me, I turned my face away.
“Are you even taking me seriously?” I said.
“Yes.”
He licked my nipple, and I gasped. My nipples were extra sensitive, and feeling his grainy tongue on my tender points was all it took to get me fully erect.
“If you’re so upset, why are you still here?” Caleb asked, drawing his face back into my view once more.
I blinked once, and a tear slid out of my right eye.
“Because I still love you,” I whispered as he wiped it away with his thumb. My voice was hoarse and raw, choking on the tightness in my throat.
Admitting it took all the strength out of me. Luckily, I didn’t have to talk for much longer, because Caleb claimed my mouth in a kiss.
It had been over a week since Caleb even touched me. That first kiss was like the first sip of cool water after a trek across the desert. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth, drinking him in. Suddenly, I didn’t care if Caleb still refused to stop the fight, or that he refused to say how he really felt about me, because he was touching me again, and I was so, so tired of resisting it.
I pulled on the back of Caleb’s head, hungering to have him inside of me at all costs.
“Please,” I whispered, my lips moving over his. I opened my legs.
Caleb’s fingers ran down my stomach to explore the contours of my quivering cock. His touch drifted down into my crevasse. He cursed when he felt how wet I was already.
“Are you sure?” he asked gruffly, even as he gripped his shaft, guiding himself to my hole.
“Yes, I—”
Caleb released a deep groan when he penetrated me, while I threw my head back and arched my spine. The sudden pleasure blinded me. My ring opened around his hardness and pulled him inside, deeper and deeper until he struck a tender spot that made my entire body twitch.
I moaned, full of Caleb’s cock.
He wrapped his thick hand around my neck, pulling on me until he could reach my mouth. We kissed, and a second later I felt his teeth on my lips.
He was smirking.
“We won’t be able to do this for much longer,” he murmured.
I threw my arms around his neck. “Shut up and just fuck me,” I growled.
Caleb moaned again, and he dug his elbows into the ground on either side of me, furiously working his hips and cock. He tasted my skin with his tongue, from my neck to my chest to my nipples, leaving each one wet and puckered against the cool evening air when he pulled his mouth away.
I gasped and moaned as I let Caleb fuck me. My hands roamed his body, delighting in the way his abs clenched with the movement of his thrusts. In spite of the cold, his skin was slick with sweat. So was mine.
If only it could be like this forever, I thought silently to myself. But forever doesn’t exist…
Everything would be different tomorrow. Kaden and Caleb would go meet Garland and his associates, and a fight would undoubtedly occur. By then, I planned to be out of town.
I tried not to think too much about it. Instead, I focused on the moment, enjoying every last second of Caleb’s body making love to mine. I tightened my arms around him.
Our breaths blew out in white, steamy puffs as we gasped, mingling with the night air. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled at the rising moon.
Chapter 18: Caleb
“Will it work?” Kaden asked.
“Of course it will work,” I said.
We were sitting in the cab of a truck Kaden borrowed from a packmate, still parked outside the Highway Diner where he’d come to pick me up. He stared at the soft leather pouch in my hand with a look of uncertainty on his face.
“So all you have to do is burn it and it will activate itself?”
“Well…yes,” I said, beginning to hear how crazy it sounded.
“What does this spell do, exactly?”
I thought for a moment. “It’ll give us extra strength. Like, Samson-before-his-haircut strength,” I blurted out.
Kaden released a low whistle. “Sounds like a powerful piece of magic. What did the head witch want in exchange for it?”
“She hasn’t decided yet,” I said. My answer seemed to satisfy Kaden, even though it was a lie.
I hadn’t even met with the head witch of this faceless, powerful coven, who was apparently too busy to meet a stranger. Instead, I’d met Sarah at her downtown apartment where she acted as an intermediary. I sat beside her on the overstuffed couch, amongst sweet plumes of smoke rising from burning incense placed around the room, listening as Sarah called her head witch to deliver my request.
“What’s your objective? You have to be very specific if you want our help,” she said, the phone still pressed to her ear.
“Kaden and I are going up against four alphas, so we just need something to give us an advantage,” I began, and then I stopped short.
A tendril of incense smoke unfurled just inches from the tip of my nose, like a loosening fist. Be specific, a voice whispered from the back of my mind. Then, my own thoughts butted in.
How honest should I be?
I realized at that moment that this might have been the big break I’d needed all along. Kaden wasn’t here. There was literally nothing stopping me.
“Actually, just me. I want the advantage to be mine and mine alone,” I said.
Sarah’s blue eyes sparkled, even through the smoky haze. “Are you planning to turn against your brother, too? I
s that what you’re telling me?”
“Yes. I want to be the last one standing.” My mind raced ahead to what I envisioned for my life in a few months. “I want Kaden’s pack for myself. Maybe the Graybacks, too. By this time tomorrow, I want to be the new alpha.”
“Even if it results in your brother’s death?”
“If that’s what it takes,” I said before I could stop myself. When I heard myself say the words, I suddenly felt like I was jolted awake. “You’re not going to tell anyone, right?”
Sarah shrugged nonchalantly. “Of course not. Your shifter drama is not as juicy as you think,” she said.
Relieved, I exhaled deeply, releasing the tension in my shoulders. “In that case, can I ask for one more thing?”
Sarah nodded.
Smoke swirled around us. My eyelids drooped low as I thought about what I wanted. “Liam Davis. He’s Kaden’s omega, and he’s pregnant with my child. When I become alpha, I need him to be my mate.”
Sarah frowned. “Liam’s pregnant?”
“Yes.”
She fell silent, and I realized that she was listening to the head witch on the other end of the phone. Then, she refocused her gaze on my face and shook her head apologetically.
“The magic that happens between two shifter mates is beyond our abilities, so that’s something that you’ll have to handle yourself. But it should be easy for you once you become alpha. That’s something we can influence,” she said.
“Fine. That works.”
Confidence bloomed in the cavity of my chest, making my heart race. A slow smile spread across my lips.
Sarah returned my smile. “Great.”
I listened as she repeated everything to the head witch. After a few moments, she finally got off the phone.
“One alpha against five is pretty tricky. What we can do is give you a spell to make you invisible,” she finally said. Then, she told me what it would cost me.
Just one favor.
The head witch gave Sarah permission to mix the spell for me, but only if I promised to fulfil one favor for the coven. No matter what it was, I had to do it. When Sarah told me what the head witch required, I took a moment to consider whether or not it would have been worth it.