by J. L. Wilder
The man hesitated.
“What?” Weston barked.
“Can I get the gun back?”
“No.” Weston didn’t trust him that far.
For a moment, the man looked as though he was going to try attacking again barehanded. Weston crouched low, ready to absorb any blows.
The man turned on his heel and strode away into the night.
Weston watched him go for a long moment, then turned and raced to Charity’s side. He gathered her into his arms, easing the gun out of her hand, and held her firmly against him as she began to shake. “You’re okay,” he said quietly. “You did perfectly.”
“I thought I was going to have to shoot him, Weston.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if I could have done it. Actually shot a man—”
“It’s okay. It’s good that you didn’t.”
“But what if he tells people he saw us? What if he was lying about not having friends, and he tells them where we are, and they come back?”
“We won’t be here,” Weston said. “We’re not staying. We’ve had plenty of sleep. It must have been at least twelve hours.”
“I thought—” she hiccupped out a sob. “I thought we would be safe here. Isn’t that stupid? I thought that crossing the river would make us safe.”
“I sort of hoped it would too,” Weston admitted.
“Where are we going to go?” she asked. “If word’s made it this far, if people this far from Montana know there’s a price on our heads, is anywhere going to be safe? Is there anywhere we can go that they won’t find us?”
“We’ll have to disguise ourselves,” he said. “You’ll cut your hair. I’ll grow mine out. We’ll change the color. You’ll wear a lot of makeup. We’ll start dressing differently.” He swallowed. “We’ll figure something out, Charity. I promise. I’ll find a way for you to be safe. I’ll find a safe place for our babies.”
She reached up to embrace him and kissed him deeply. “Nothing in the world could be safer than having you with us,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do without you, Weston, I really don’t.”
“Without me you wouldn’t be in this situation. You’d be somewhere safe, not on the run.”
“No, I’d be back with the Hell’s Wolves, probably carrying Hawk’s litter instead of yours. That isn’t safe. There’s nothing about that life that I would want.”
He nodded. “I’ll never let that happen to you.”
She kissed him again, and he lifted her in his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist, already feeling himself starting to grow hard against her. He braced her back against a tree and leaned back to remove her pants. As he entered her, he sealed his lips against hers so that all the sounds they made went directly into each other’s mouths rather than risk making noise and attracting anybody else who might be looking for them.
It was a wonderful release, letting go of his fear and anger and tension and losing himself in the pleasures of Charity’s body. He couldn’t believe he’d lived without this for so long. He wrapped one arm around her waist and allowed his other hand to explore her breasts, stroking first one nipple and then the other with the pad of his thumb. Charity bucked against him, her insides squeezing as her orgasm broke over her.
Someday, Weston thought, We’ll do this all day and all night. We’ll do this for hours. I’ll make her come so many times we’ll lose count, and then we’ll sleep it off and wake up and do it again. Someday that would be their life, and not just these stolen moments in the middle of the woods, seized upon before they had to start running again.
He managed to slow his pace as his orgasm came rather than speeding up, so that it settled over him like a radiant warmth instead of breaking like a wave, and he pressed his face to her breasts and shuddered. She clenched around him, and Weston knew she was coming too, and he eased her back down to the ground, holding her up, their lips still tightly locked together.
They broke free of each other, found their clothes, and dressed quickly and quietly. They had already wasted far too much time here in the woods. It was possible—though Weston didn’t think it likely—that the man who had attacked them would be back.
He slung the duffel bag over his shoulder again, took her hand in his, and led the way back to the stolen bike. His heart pounded in his chest as they picked their way over the forest floor. What if their attacker had found the bike and disabled it? What if he had stolen it?
But no. The bike was still right there, right where Weston had left it. Charity climbed aboard without having to be told, and Weston attached the duffel bag to the carrying basket in front of the handlebars before boarding himself. He knew they would have to ditch this bike before long—it would have been reported stolen, and besides, it was going to run out of gas sometime soon. But he thought they could probably make it a little farther.
He touched the exposed wires together, bringing the thing to life, and hoped the sound wouldn’t draw any attention. Charity wrapped her arms around him. For a minute, Weston felt as though they were a single person. He knew exactly how she was sitting. He knew every inch of her. He felt as though he even understood her thoughts—she was frightened, but she was determined to be strong.
He couldn’t have asked for anything more in a mate.
He accelerated slightly, steering between the trees, making his way carefully back to the highway.
It felt exposed out here, under the open sky, with no canopy of branches and leaves to shield them, but they would be less trackable on the asphalt, and Weston knew that made them safer. He decided on a whim to start heading west again. Moving east hadn’t given him the security he had hoped for.
But where would they go? Where was there even left to go? They could swing south, he supposed, bypass Montana and head out to the west coast. Or maybe they could travel north, into Canada...they didn’t have passports, though, and Weston didn’t know if they’d need them to cross the northern border.
And what if they reached a new destination, tried to settle in, and found that the new place wasn’t safe for them? What if Hawk’s bounty on them followed them wherever they went? Then what would they do? They had to find safety, and they were on a clock—Charity wouldn’t be able to keep traveling for long. He knew how pregnancy affected an omega’s body. She would remain strong, probably, but she would also grow huge, her body expanding to make room for her litter.
The idea was appealing, and for a moment, he allowed himself to imagine what she would look like, ripe with her pregnancy. Damn Hawk. He should have been allowed to enjoy this time with his mate, not spend it in fear.
It all came back to Hawk. This was all his fault.
And suddenly, like a light being turned on in his mind, Weston knew what he had to do.
Chapter Sixteen
CHARITY
“Can you keep going for a while?” Weston asked. “Or do you need to stop and rest?”
They had been riding for at least twelve hours, by Charity’s estimation. About two hours after leaving the woods where they’d had their confrontation with the armed assailant, Weston had detoured through a town. He’d parked the stolen bike behind a gas station, led her around a corner, and hotwired a new one. They’d made no stops since then.
Now, though, they were standing by the side of the road—or rather, Weston was standing, stretching out kinks in his back. Charity had propped her feet on the seat of the bike in front of her and was alternately bowing and flexing her spine. As they stretched, they shared a package of beef jerky.
“I can keep going,” Charity said.
“Are you sure?”
“I can keep going as long as I need to,” she said. “It’s for the babies.”
“But you need to take care of yourself too,” he reminded her. “They need you to do that. Don’t be afraid to let me know if you need a break.”
“No,” she said. “I’m all right.”
He nodded and handed her another piece of jerky. “Make sure you g
et enough to eat, at least.”
“Where are we, anyway?”
“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,” Westo
n said. “They lose them against rival alphas.”
“But you’re not...” She 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?”