by J. L. Wilder
“And the men aren’t treating you well, either?”
“That’s different. They look at me like I’m dinner.”
He regarded her. “You’re afraid of them.”
“You would be, too. They’re twice my size.” Her tone was defiant.
“I wasn’t judging you,” he said. “Has no one ever taught you how to fight?”
“No.”
“An omega should know how to fight.” It seemed like a critical skill, and he was surprised no one in her life had taken the time to teach her before now. She was safe here with the pack. No one would dare touch her until the Omega Games had decided her fate. But when the games were over and someone had won...If it is Gunner, she should know how to fight him off.
Robert wouldn’t like this.
But he was resolved in his mind. She deserved a line of defense. Everyone did. “Meet me out here after supper,” he said. “Everyone will be inside then, and we can get off on our own. Meet me then, and I’ll teach you.”
IZZY
Isabel could hardly sit still through supper that night. The cubed steaks Lena had prepared were savory and delicious, swimming in gravy and each served with a piping hot baked potato, but Isabel only picked at the food. She still hadn’t decided whether or not she was going to meet Wyatt that night.
If he was really planning on teaching her to fight, it would be foolish not to go. The way some of the men here looked at her made her feel like she had centipedes crawling on her flesh, and she would do anything to fight them off. But on the other hand, this could just be a clever ploy to get her alone. They would be together in the dark, and no one else in the pack would know where she had gone. It might be the stupidest thing she could possibly do.
There was no way of knowing. She would just have to go with her instinct.
After the meal was over, she carried her plate to the sink and then slipped out the back door. Nobody tried to stop her. A few of the men of the pack were gathered on the porch smoking and talking in low voices. Wyatt saw her step out and gave her a slight nod.
She sat down on the steps to wait.
One by one, the rest of the pack drifted inside. Finally, she was left alone with Wyatt. He wasn’t looking at her, hadn’t looked at her since she’d first come out, but now he flicked his cigarette into the dirt and beckoned her over.
“You came,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“I wasn’t sure either,” she admitted.
“I’m glad you did.”
Isabel didn’t answer. She wasn’t yet sure whether she was glad or not.
“Come on,” he said, leading her down the steps and across the yard. “There’s a clearing in the woods, not too far back. We can work there.”
The clearing turned out to be manmade, an area where the undergrowth had obviously been hacked away and pushed back until it had given up trying to grow in. “The pack made this space to train young fighters,” Wyatt said. “I wasn’t here when it was created, of course. But Robert told me about it. It’s been here a long time. He learned to fight here.” He turned to face her. “This is the first pack tradition you’ll be a part of.”
Isabel swallowed. She didn’t like the idea of adopting their traditions at all. But if she could use them to protect herself in the long run...
“The first thing you want to do is to lower your center of gravity.” Wyatt showed her. “A low center of gravity is an advantage women have over men in a fight. It makes you more stable, more balanced. If someone is going to fall over, better him than you.”
Isabel squatted low and felt the solid support of the earth under her body.
“Relax your arms,” Wyatt said. “You want the element of surprise. You don’t want a potential threat thinking he’s got to neutralize you, or his defenses will go up. Let him think you’re not going to be any trouble. Then, when he gets close, you hit him.”
“How do I hit him?”
Wyatt approached her. She sank deeper into her crouch.
“Go for the soft parts of his body,” he said. “And use the hard parts of yours. Elbows. Knuckles.”
She nodded.
“I’m going to come at you now,” he said. “You stay low and see if you can keep your feet.”
She eyed him doubtfully. He was a lot bigger than her. “What if I can’t?”
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
This was the moment, she knew. Either he was good for his word or he wasn’t. Either she was allowing him to walk right up to her and harm her, or else his intentions were good. Either she could trust him, or she couldn’t.
Decide.
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Do it.”
“ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE ready to do this?” Wyatt asked.
It was their third time meeting in the clearing. Each time had gotten a little easier, and Isabel had to admit that she looked forward now to the times she could sneak off with him. It was a complicated friendship they had, and that was putting it mildly—Wyatt was a member of the Hell’s Wolves, and she knew he had signed up to compete in the upcoming Omega Games in which the men of the pack would compete for the right to mate with her. It was hard to spend time around him, knowing all that. By order of the alpha, she couldn’t be touched right now. She knew that much. But when the contest was over and someone had won her, he’d be free to do as he liked.
She tried to put that out of her head. There was no reason to let today be ruined. She had never been on a motorcycle before.
“Remember how to go?”
She touched the clutch and the throttle.
“And the brakes?”
She indicated them.
“Okay,” Wyatt said. “Keep it slow. Just a nice wide circle around the clearing.”
“What if someone hears?”
“We’re not breaking any rules,” he said.
“They’ll think I’m trying to escape.”
“No. You’re with me. Worst-case scenario is I’ll get in trouble for letting you try my bike.”
“I don’t want you to get into trouble,” she said, realizing as the words left her mouth that it was true. She wasn’t sure how much she could trust Wyatt yet, but she did trust him—and like him—more than any of the other members of the Hell’s Wolves. The men who were always leering at her, the women who treated her as if her captivity was her own fault...Lena was kind, but in a quiet, detached sort of way. There was something very active about the way Wyatt seemed to care about her.
“I won’t get into any trouble,” Wyatt assured her. “Go ahead. Let her rip.”
She engaged the bike’s engine, letting it roll forward slowly. As the bike began to glide around the clearing, she felt filled with a buoyant joy she hadn’t felt in as long as she could remember, and as she picked up speed, she heard Wyatt whoop happily.
Chapter Ten
WYATT
As the days went by, Wyatt found himself finding more and more excuses to spend time with Izzy.
It’s because I want us to be a pack that respects our omega and treats her well, he told himself, over and over. It’s because I want her to want to stay with us. He wasn’t at all confident that he’d be able to win the Omega Games, and if he couldn’t do it, he wanted to give her something worth sticking around for. That was the only reason he was spending so much time with her. It was his responsibility as a rising beta to help her integrate into the pack.
But if that were true, he would be finding things for her to do in groups. He would be taking her to the garage to sit with him and Van while they worked to keep the bikes in good order. He would be asking her to join him and Robert in the library to study the old shifter lore. But he had never invited Izzy to join him in those activities. Instead, he kept finding ways to spend time alone with her.
She did well in the fighting lessons, picking up the moves he had taught quickly and easily. She had so little weight and muscle on her that he knew she would only be good as a short-
term fighter—her best chance was to land a good hit on an attacker and run away. But that might be enough. He hoped so, at any rate.
The biking lessons were less successful. Though she clearly enjoyed riding, she wasn’t very good at it and her size was a serious hindrance. Wyatt had taken to putting her on the back of his bike and driving her around, letting her experience the thrill of a ride without having to worry about balance or steering.
Today he had taken her to the clearing again, hoping to work on ways to defend against an attacker who comes from behind, but when they reached the field, they found that someone had beaten them there.
Gunner.
He was standing in the middle of the clearing, a long, carefully debarked and sanded stick in his hand, moving through a series of what looked like martial arts moves. Wyatt hung back, uncertain. He hadn’t known that Gunner knew martial arts of any kind, and he wasn’t familiar with the moves he was seeing.
But really, was it such a surprise? This was, after all, the pack member who took the most pride in his physical prowess, who placed the most value on being able to win a fight. Of course, he would have studied multiple ways of doing that.
It was strange to see Gunner look graceful. His movements were usually brutal and heavy. But they were never clumsy, Wyatt realized. Just because he was big, it didn’t mean he had poor control over his body.
Great, Wyatt thought bleakly. Perfect. So, he’s even better equipped for the Omega Games than I thought.
He became aware, suddenly, of Izzy standing behind him, plucking nervously at his sleeve. He didn’t know what interactions she’d had, if any, with Gunner, but he was willing to bet that Gunner had been one of the men she’d told him about who had made her feel uncomfortable with the way he’d looked at her.
“Do you know him?” he asked her quietly.
He felt more than saw her shake her head. “I’ve seen him around here.”
“Gunner,” Wyatt said. “Physically, he’s the strongest member of the pack. And that’s including Robert. Some people think he’d like to take over as alpha after Robert.”
Izzy shuddered. “I hope not.”
He glanced back at her, mildly surprised. She was hoping to be gone before the pack had to worry about a new alpha, wasn’t she? Or had she given up on the idea of running away? Maybe the time he was spending with her had been helpful after all.
Gunner relaxed into an upright stance and leaned his staff against the tree. “You might as well come out,” he said. “I can see you.”
Damn. Wyatt sincerely hoped Gunner hadn’t heard what they were saying. He started to step into the clearing, but Izzy grabbed his hand and pulled him back.
He looked back at her. Her eyes were wide with fear. She shook her head frantically.
It’s all right, he mouthed.
She shook her head more vigorously.
He gripped her hand and pulled her forward into the clearing.
Gunner regarded the two of them, surveying them from head to toe. “What are you two doing here together?”
“She has to be accompanied wherever she goes,” Wyatt said.
“Not what I asked, though, is it?” He picked up his staff and tossed it idly from hand to hand. “What is she doing here? There’s no reason for her to be out here.”
“She’s interested in the woods,” Wyatt said. He had to distract Gunner from this line of questioning somehow, he knew. “What are you doing out here?”
“Came out for a little peace and quiet.” Gunner twirled the staff. “So much for that, I guess.”
“We’ll leave you alone,” Wyatt said. They wouldn’t be able to work on self-defense techniques today, anyway. Not with the clearing occupied. He would bring Izzy back some other time. He started to retreat from the clearing.
“Hold on,” Gunner said. “Don’t go yet.”
“We don’t want to intrude on your peace and quiet,” Wyatt said.
“Well, you already have,” Gunner said. “Might as well tell me what you’re doing here. Did Robert tell you to bring her into the woods? Show her the site of the Games?”
“No.” Wyatt hadn’t even known this was going to be the site of the Omega Games, although it did make sense. According to the stories he’d picked up on from the others, this clearing seemed to be where the pack did everything it deemed important.
“Does Robert know the two of you are here?” Gunner asked.
Wyatt didn’t like the spark in his eye, as if he’d hit on something valuable. “What difference does that make?”
“I don’t know,” Gunner said. “Might make a difference to him. Should I ask him?”
“I’m allowed to walk into the woods, Gunner.”
“You are, sure. Rules might be different for that one.”
This was taking an unpleasant turn. “Izzy, head back up to the house,” Wyatt said. “I’ll meet you up there in a minute.”
“No, Izzy, stay.” Gunner stepped forward, tossing his stick to the side. “You know, Wyatt, we’re not supposed to touch her until after the Games. You know that, don’t you?”
Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “We’re just taking a hike, Gunner. You don’t need to take it there.”
“A hike Robert doesn’t know about, though...” Gunner mused. “And you clearly don’t want me to tell him, do you?”
“What do you want?”
Gunner leered at Izzy, who shrank away. “Tell you what. I won’t tell anyone you were with her if you won’t tell anyone I was.”
Wyatt felt cold. “Gunner, it isn’t like that.”
“Doesn’t matter, though, does it? I caught you out here. She might as well be all alone. I know you’re not going to stand in my way.”
“She isn’t to be touched. We have orders. You can’t touch her.” The words ripped their way out of Wyatt in a growl. He flexed his hands and could almost feel the claws bursting out, the bones shifting and growing into the form of a paw. He was ready to dig into the earth and launch himself at Gunner. How dare he? How dare he threaten her, knowing that she’s beyond his reach? Gunner was subject to the same order as Wyatt. No one may lay claim to her before the Games, Robert had said. I want her to remain untouched until then. He wouldn’t be physically able to do anything.
Which meant that he was just trying to scare her.
And it was working. Izzy was cowering behind Wyatt, her breathing rapid and shallow. All she’d learned about self-defense seemed to have gone out of her head in the face of this new threat.
The animal clawed at Wyatt, bursting at the seams, desperate to get out. One good swipe, he thought, salivating with eagerness. One good swipe. That would shut him up. Almost without thinking, he moved forward, toward Gunner, blocking Izzy with his body. “Leave her alone,” he snarled.
Gunner laughed. “Are you going to fight me? Seriously?”
“Walk away.”
The smile dropped off Gunner’s face. “No. You brought her here. I want a taste.” He pushed Wyatt back and strode over to where Izzy was cowering.
He can’t touch her.
But he did. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her flush against his body. Izzy let out a soft cry.
Wyatt’s vision went red around the edges. He was moving before he was fully aware of what he was doing, launching himself forward, his shoulder catching Gunner at the hip and taking him down. Peripherally, he saw Izzy go stumbling backward, scrambling to get behind a tree.
He clung to his sanity with his fingernails, knowing that if he shifted and allowed the wolf to take over, Gunner would do the same and the fight would be lost. He couldn’t beat the younger man in a prolonged fight. The only thing he had going for him was the element of surprise, the possibility that Gunner hadn’t been expecting this and would be too thrown by it to continue the battle.
They both got their feet under them. Gunner spat out a mouthful of dirt and growled, “Are you crazy?”
“I’m not going to let you touch her,” Wyatt growled. “I’m the pack beta.”
“You’re not the beta, yet,” Gunner snarled. “The rank is in flux. Robert said so.”
Wyatt ignored that. “It’s my job to enforce Robert’s rules. I don’t know how you got around his order—”
“He ordered us not to claim her,” Gunner said. “He said nothing about a quick sample in the woods.”
“He did. He said he wanted her to remain untouched until the games.”
Gunner bared his teeth in a feral grin. “That’s not an order, though.”
Wyatt’s heart sank. He was right. “If you do anything,” he said, trying to sound braver than he felt, “if you touch one hair on her head, I’ll report you to Robert.”
“What good do you think that’s going to do?”
“He’ll take you out of the Omega Games,” Wyatt said.
“And he’ll take you out just as quickly,” Gunner snarled. “You’re sneaking off with her. I’ll tell him you were up to no good—”
“No one’s going to believe that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Are you willing to risk your place in the Games on that chance?”
“Yes,” Wyatt said.
It was not the answer he’d expected to give, and clearly not the answer Gunner had expected to hear. The younger man fell back a pace. “You’d risk your right to win her?”
“Of course, I would.”
“Why?”
Wyatt felt it would sound foolish to say to keep her safe from you. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “I don’t mean to do anything wrong. I won’t let you attack her out of fear.”
“Attack her,” Gunner repeated scornfully. “She’s an omega. Don’t you know anything? She’s been dying for it since we brought her here. She can’t wait to be claimed. That’s how they are.”
“Ask her, then,” Wyatt said. “If she wants you, I’ll stand aside.”
Gunner laughed. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I think you’re afraid of her answer.”
“I’m not going to ask the omega if she’ll have me.” Gunner shook his head. “After the Games, then. I can wait.”
Wyatt nodded. “As long as you stay away from her, what happened here will stay between us.”