by J. L. Wilder
“Do you think we have an alpha?” she said.
“I would say we probably do,” he said. “An omega isn’t vital for the continuation of the pack, so it’s possible we just won’t have one at all, but at some point, one of my children is going to have the alpha gene. I would say it’s probably one of these.”
“There are only three of them,” she marveled. “Three boys in the whole litter. And one of them is already destined to be the new alpha.”
“We’ll have to train him carefully,” Weston said. “We’ll teach him to respect what his pack needs and to guide them firmly without being cruel or aggressive.”
“He’ll have some big shoes to fill,” Charity said with a smile. “I don’t know how he’s ever going to live up to his father. You’re the best alpha I’ve ever known.”
“You give me too much credit,” he protested. “I’m just making this up as I go along.”
“That makes it even more impressive that you’re doing so well,” she told him. “The pack is thriving under you like we never have before. Karl would be impressed.”
“Do you think so?”
“I know so. And he’d love these babies.”
Weston smiled. “I’m sure he would.”
He lay down on the bed beside her and wrapped his arms around her. She curled into his embrace, welcoming his warmth, confident that she would hear her babies cry if they needed her. For now, she would enjoy this moment. It felt like forever since she had relaxed in her mate’s arms, relishing in the closeness of his body and taking comfort from his reassuring strength. She had missed this. She had missed him.
She was drifting, halfway between wakefulness and sleep, when she heard a soft buzzing, followed by the familiar tone of Weston’s voice.
She couldn’t pick out his words, couldn’t understand what he was saying, but his tone was one of surprise. It was enough to pull her up to the higher reaches of her mind, back to a waking state. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.
He hung up the phone, looking shell-shocked.
“Weston?” she said. “What is it? Is everything okay? Who was on the phone?”
He looked down at her. “Everything’s amazing,” he said in wonder. “That was Gino.”
“Gino?” She inhaled sharply. “What did he want?”
“They’re coming home.”
“He and Rick are?”
“No,” Weston said. “All of them. They were all together. They were in Seattle, and they’ve been together all this time.” His face split with a grin. “Our family is coming home.”
He embraced Charity, and she leaned up to catch his lips with hers.
Bitten By The Wolf
Chapter One
VINCE
“I give up,” Dax announced, propping his elbows against the handlebars of his bike and reaching around to pull a bottle of water from the bag he kept tied to the second seat. “I just plain old give up. We’re never going to find somebody.”
Vince regarded his packmate but said nothing. Sometimes, when Dax got dramatic like this, it was best to just let things play themselves out. He had a feeling that this time would be no different from the last three times Dax had announced that he was giving up on their mission.
“How many towns have we hit this week alone?” Dax asked. “It must have been at least thirty.”
“You’re exaggerating,” Tommy said. He didn’t say again, but Vince had a feeling they were both thinking it.
“I’m making a point,” Dax said. “Have you ever thought about how different our lives could be if we moved on from this wild goose chase we’re on? We could get jobs, for one thing.”
“Jobs,” Tommy scoffed. “Nobody’s going to hire you, you old drunk.”
That was a little unfair. Dax didn’t drink any more than the rest of them, and at twenty-seven, although he was the senior member of their little group, Vince wouldn’t have exactly called him old either. Still, he remained quiet. Let it be between the two of them, he told himself firmly. You don’t need to have any part in this debate.
The truth was that he couldn’t have taken part in this debate, even if he’d wanted to, because he had no idea where he stood on the question they were discussing.
It was true that they had visited countless towns up and down the west coast this week alone. It was true that they had been searching for months now, and there was no end in sight. And it was true that it would be nice to have a permanent home.
But on the other hand, it wasn’t as if they were just screwing around. This was important.
Vince’s thoughts were interrupted by the rumble of an engine. A moment later Ace came around the corner and into the motel parking lot. He killed his engine and swung his leg off his bike, landing neatly on the gravel parking lot. Completely ignoring the other three, he made his way toward the room they had rented for the night.
Vince glanced at Tommy, who rolled his eyes in exasperation and followed their leader. Vince shrugged to himself and headed after them.
Ace had been tipped to be the next alpha of the Eastern Oregon Chapter of the Hell’s Wolves since they’d been young. As kids, they’d all expected that he would take the mantle of alpha when he came of age. But Ace’s eighteenth birthday had passed and power had remained in the hands of Griff, their old alpha, who had led the pack since before Vince could remember.
Griff was old. Everyone knew he wanted to retire, to pass the torch. But stepping down from an alpha position wasn’t just a matter of what the alpha in question wanted. Someone else had to be ready to step up.
For whatever reason, that hadn’t happened yet.
Oh, Ace might act like he was their leader. Even now, he was storming around, clearly expecting that he would be followed. But the others were just humoring him. Vince felt none of the deep, visceral compulsion to obey Ace that he felt when Griff gave an order.
Inside the motel room, Ace was unpacking supplies from the plastic convenience store bag he’d brought back from his run. He handed out peanut butter crackers, fruit cups, and cans of cola. This would be their dinner tonight, just as it had been their dinner every night this week. Vince could practically feel Dax’s dissatisfaction coming off him in waves. If we did have a permanent home, he thought, we’d be able to get a good square meal.
As if on cue, Dax spoke up. “I bet Earl made something great for dinner tonight,” he said wistfully. Earl, Griff’s younger brother, was the sixth and final member of their pack, and the best cook Vince had ever met. His mouth watered now at the thought of Earl’s pot roast.
“We’re not going back,” Ace said firmly. “Not until we find someone.”
“We’ve been through five states,” Dax said. “Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and now Wyoming. And not so much as a trace of a female shifter, much less an omega.”
“We know there are still shifter females around,” Vince said, in the interest of fairness. “We’ve met plenty of them over the years.”
“But never an omega,” Dax pressed. “Don’t you think that’s strange? We’ve never met an omega. Do we even know that they exist?”
“Of course they exist,” Ace snapped. “Griff and Earl’s mother was an omega. You know that as well as I do.”
“Yeah—and that was sixty years ago,” Dax said. “They might have died out since then.”
“That wouldn’t happen,” Ace scoffed. “Omegas are an evolutionary goldmine. They breed the strongest pups, and they can give birth to whole litters at once.”
“But they don’t always live to breed,” Vince pointed out. “They attract violence, because so many people want to claim them.”
“Whose side are you on?” Ace growled.
“Jesus, Ace. I’m not on a side. There are no sides. We’re just talking.”
“Oh, there are sides, all right,” Tommy said. “No point pretending otherwise, Vince. Ace’s side wants to stay on the road and keep looking for an omega, and Dax’s side wants to go home to Oregon and get back to regular life.”
&
nbsp; “We’re not going back,” Ace said firmly. “Not until we find someone.”
“For God’s sake,” Dax snapped. “We don’t even know that claiming an omega will bring on your alpha abilities. It’s just a guess.”
Vince cringed inwardly. Dax shouldn’t have taken it there. Ace was deeply sensitive about the fact that his alpha abilities still hadn’t manifested, and while Dax was completely right that the search for an omega was largely about Ace’s hope that having one present would be the trigger he needed, it was an unspoken thing among them.
Sure enough, Ace threw his bag on the floor, stormed into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind him. A moment later they heard the shower come on.
Vince turned to Dax. “I don’t know why you have to provoke him,” he said.
“Me provoke him? He’s the one who’s dragging us all over creation. Come on, Vince, admit it. You want to go back too.”
“It would be good for us all if we had an omega in the pack,” Vince said, dodging the question. “It wouldn’t just benefit Ace. It would benefit everybody. And you know that.”
“You’re telling me it’s not messing with you at all, being back in Wyoming?”
“Whoa,” Tommy said, looking up from the stain he’d been scraping out of his jeans. “Cheap shot, Dax.”
“Well, it would be messing with me,” Dax said. “I’m just saying.”
Vince got to his feet. “I’m going out for a walk,” he said.
“Good going, asshole,” he heard Tommy mutter to Dax behind his back as he grabbed a room key and headed out into the parking lot.
Once outside and under the stars, Vince set off walking in a random direction. When Ace emerged from his shower, Vince knew, he would be annoyed to see that one of his packmates had left without asking for permission. It would needle him to have that little reminder of the fact that Vince didn’t need his permission to do anything. And ordinarily, Vince tried to avoid doing things that would needle Ace.
But he couldn’t bring himself to stay in that room and listen to Dax hint about what had happened to him in Wyoming.
Vince almost never talked about those days, before he had joined up with the Hell’s Wolves, when he had lived with only his brother Rian for company. Vince and Rian had been deeply bonded, closer than Vince was to any of his packmates now.
He had never fully recovered from his brother’s death.
We should have been out running together. The thought still came to him sometimes, even now, years later. I shouldn’t have let him go alone. It had been their custom to go out every night, take on their wolf forms, and run together under the moonlight. But one night, Vince hadn’t wanted to come. He had stayed home instead, drinking beer and watching the basketball game on TV. Rian had gone out alone.
He had never come back.
Vince knew that the ranchers who had shot and killed his brother had been under the impression that they were killing a wild wolf, but that didn’t make him hate them any less. And Dax was right—it was hard to be in Wyoming without remembering the years he’d lived here and that awful night when his world had come tumbling down around him.
But he could do it. He didn’t need the rest of his pack to hold his hand about it.
He would be fine.
He wouldn’t allow the memories of Rian’s death to drag him down, not when there was important work to be done. After all, as soon as they found an omega, they would be able to go back home to Oregon, back to the cabin where Griff and Earl were waiting for them. They would be able to have hot meals again, and spend the evenings at the local bar where the bartenders were all young and pretty.
Most importantly—in Vince’s mind, at least—they would be able to run again.
God, he missed running.
He missed the feeling of being a wolf. How much more alive and richer the world smelled and sounded when he was in his animal form. He missed the way the earth under the pads of his feet felt like it was trying to tell him something. He missed the speed he was able to attain when he pushed himself forward with four legs instead of two.
Some shifters felt more at home in their human bodies. But Vince had always felt more at home as a wolf.
Ever since they’d left Oregon and gone on the road, there had been no opportunity to run. Their days had been spent covering the distance between towns, then venturing to one local hot spot after another and scenting the air, looking for a smell that might indicate a shifter clan or a wild omega. Nights were spent holed up in motels, resting and waiting for the next day to come.
He longed for his other self. His wilder self. His wolf.
But if there was one thing he knew; it was that this part of the country wasn’t safe for wolves. He would never try to run here. Not after what those ranchers had done to Rian. He couldn’t take the risk.
Besides, Ace had forbidden it. And even though Ace didn’t have the power to forbid Vince from doing anything, disobeying Ace’s orders so blatantly would be asking for trouble.
Vince didn’t want any trouble.
He fished in his pocket and found a dollar. It would be enough to buy a candy bar. He would split the candy between the whole pack, he thought, which would put everyone in a better mood. As bad as their situation was, there was no point in all of them fighting with each other. That would only make things worse. It would be much easier to get up in the morning and get a good start on the next day’s searching if they ended tonight on a friendly note.
At least we’re running out of places to look, he thought. Their pack couldn’t go east of Colorado, north of Oregon, or south of Utah without crossing into boundaries that belonged to other packs. California was also off limits.
If we don’t find somebody here in Wyoming, we’ll have to go back home and admit it’s a bust.
Chapter Two
AMY
Being back on the ranch where she’d grown up should have been comforting, Amy thought, but it wasn’t. So far, it had only made her feel worse.
She had expected the walls of her childhood bedroom to make her feel safe and taken care of again, but they had had the opposite effect. She didn’t belong here anymore. And it didn’t help that her parents hadn’t bothered to redecorate the place since she’d been a kid. The walls were the same pale lavender, and the bed sported the same star-spangled comforter. Above her collection of white textured throw pillows were framed posters with inspirational quotes like the most important thing a girl wears is her confidence and be the best you you can be. Fairy lights were strung around the room in a way that looked careless and haphazard.
In other words, it was a quintessential teen girl’s bedroom.
And that sucked. Because Amy was not a teen girl. She was twenty-four years old. She was married, for God’s sake. This part of her life was supposed to be over.
Not that she’d been unhappy as a teenager. She had gotten along well with her parents, and they’d treated her well. She had always gotten good grades and had a solid group of friends, and although she had never had a boyfriend in high school, she hadn’t especially wanted one either. Her focus had been on getting into a good college. She would worry about romance after she had done that.
And she had. She had met Chris in her first month of school, in her Philosophy 101 class. The two of them had become study partners, and then they had become more than that. The summer after graduation, they had married and moved together into a little house, which they had furnished with wicker and secondhand furniture.
There had been struggles. But the struggles had been romantic. They had spent six months pinching pennies, eating noodles and fresh vegetables and little else, so that they could pay for health insurance. They had saved up dollar by dollar for the beautiful king size bed they’d eventually moved into their bedroom. Amy had tended bar and supported both of them while Chris hunted for a job in his field—environmental science. The plan had been for Amy to look for a job as a veterinarian after Chris had his own job locked up.
But th
at hadn’t happened.
Instead, the minute he’d landed a job, the minute the two of them had had reliable health insurance, Chris had insisted they start trying for a baby. “Everyone always says if you wait for it to be a good time, the good time never comes,” he’d said when Amy had protested that she didn’t have a job of her own yet. “Besides, if you get pregnant before you find a job, you can stay at home with the baby. Then we won’t have to worry about paying for childcare.”
Amy hadn’t been wild about that proposal. She could see where this was headed. If she stayed home during her pregnancy and stayed home with her newborn, she would end up staying home throughout the toddler years. She wouldn’t resume her job search until she sent her kid off to school, and that would be years from now.
But Amy had been raised to live by one guiding principle—be nice. Be pleasant, be respectful, be easy to get along with. People liked you better when you were nice. It had certainly proven true throughout her life. She had been nice, and she had never lacked for friends.
She hadn’t loved Chris’s suggestion. But she did love Chris.
So, she had agreed.
They had begun trying to get pregnant right away. The first couple of months passed without any results, and Amy couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief each time her period arrived. It felt like a stay of execution.
But as more time went by, the baby began to feel less and less abstract. One day, Chris brought home a little onesie that said I love Mama on it. Another time, the two of them stayed up late discussing possible names. They even agreed on Nora for a girl.
And Amy still wasn’t pregnant.
When a year had passed with no results, Chris suggested that they should go to be tested. With a feeling of foreboding in her stomach, Amy had agreed.
The test results had betrayed her.
Chris’s results had been perfectly normal, but her own had revealed a terrible truth—she was infertile. She would never be able to carry a baby.
Amy had cried all night after learning the truth. She hadn’t even wanted a baby when they had started trying, but now it felt like the center of her world. She had devoted herself utterly to the cause. And now it was never going to happen.