by T. S. Joyce
“You think it was easy for me to tear myself away from her?” Wyatt yelled. His eyes roiled with blue fire, and his nostrils flared with fury. “Leaving felt like ripping my own guts out of my body and then going on with my life, pretending I wasn’t some empty shell. And then I hear she has The Unrest. I heard it from Damon after her first seizure. He said it was my fault, and here I was suffering and hurting the woman I’d bonded to because I thought I was bartering my happiness for her life. So I went to work. I searched the entire damned country, every territory, desperate to stake a claim somewhere so that I would have something to offer her. To offer a crew because I knew it was too late for me to stop The Unrest alone. It’s done. She’s got it, and she already has the nosebleeds. This—” Wyatt jammed his finger out the front door to the autumn woods. “This was me trying to give Harper something so she’ll be okay.”
“Fuck,” Aaron muttered, hooking his hands on his hips. He looked as gutted as Wyatt did right now.
Harper couldn’t breathe. Wyatt had been working to claim territory, but not for his alpha-destined bear. For her.
Aaron flicked two fingers at Wyatt’s scarred-up neck. “For money to buy this place?”
Wyatt huffed a humorless breath and nodded. “From that, saving every penny I’ve made at the mine, and working odd jobs, I’ve got fifty grand saved. I’m a hundred thousand shy still on the minimum Martin told me he would take for this place. The bigger the offer he gets from a crew, the more the government will match to have the territory settled, and this place is worth a lot.”
“So what?” Weston asked. “You’re going to set up a territory here, you’re going to recruit a crew and be the alpha your dad always swore you would be, and everything will just work out?”
“Weston,” Ryder warned.
“No, I want to know the plan. I want to know why you didn’t fucking tell us what you were doing! For years, you were just gone on your own. I hated you, Wyatt! I hated you for what you did to Harper. You let us all think you were a coward. You let us watch Harper wither, blaming you for every tear, every seizure. You couldn’t fucking call us and explain what you were doing, alpha?”
“I don’t want to be alpha.”
“What?” Weston snarled, and now his eyes were black as pitch.
“Alpha should go to the most dominant shifter, yeah. But it should also go to the smartest. To the one who can keep a crew in line and who can stay objective in a fight. Alpha should go to someone who deserves it much more than me.”
Ryder snorted. “Thank you. It’s me, obviously.”
“No.” Aaron canted his head and narrowed his eyes at Wyatt. There was a faint smile in the slight curve of his lips. “Who?”
Wyatt dragged his blazing gaze to her and nodded his chin once. “Alpha should go to Harper.”
Chapter Eleven
Well, Wyatt had laid it all out there, and from the silence at the table, it was clear as crystal the boys were out on this idea.
Weston hadn’t said a word all through lunch and had a faraway look in his eyes, and Aaron and Ryder kept looking from Wyatt to Harper and back again with matching frowns.
Wyatt dropped a half-eaten french fry into his steak finger basket and leaned back. He hadn’t tasted a single bite, and the silence was killing him. “Look, it’s okay. It was my plan, and I missed it. It’s not like I’m begging you to stay. I can’t afford the territory anyway.”
“I have ninety-three dollars in my savings account,” Ryder murmured. “Even if I cashed out my retirement, it wouldn’t be near enough. And I have a life! I have a good thing in Montana. No, it’s not a lot of territory, but it’s something. And I have a dog. I can’t just pack up and move my whole life out here for land we can’t even get.”
“And you’re talking about counter-offering against the Valdoro Pack, man,” Aaron said softly. “Vamps are one thing, but you are going to put whatever crew pledges under you into a total free-for-all bloodbath. And it’ll be you leading them, Wyatt. Look at Harper. She’s had leaving in her eyes since the second you threw her name in the ring for alpha.”
Indeed, Harper had been doing a really good job of avoiding his eyes since they’d left the property.
Harper ripped up the corner of a napkin. “It’s just that I wouldn’t make a good alpha—”
“Bullshit,” Aaron and Ryder drawled out in unison.
“Yeah? And when I sicken? What happens to a crew under me then? We’ve all seen it through the years. A crew is only as good as its weakest link, and that would be me. The damn head of the crew would be the weakest.”
Wyatt made a ticking sound behind his teeth in a soft argument. Harper didn’t see in herself what he did. “You’re a dragon—”
“A sick dragon, Wyatt. A sick one. Whenever one of the alphas has struggled over the years, what has happened to their crews? Huh?” She shoved her hamburger away with a disgusted look and raked her furious gaze from Ryder to Weston to Aaron to Wyatt. “Huh?” she asked again, louder.
“Chaos,” Weston murmured.
“I don’t want to go out like that. I don’t want to be remembered for dragging you guys through hell with me.”
Wyatt touched her leg gently. “You might not go out at all—”
“But I am! And I was okay with that. I’d accepted it, and now you’re putting this beautiful offer in front of me and making me want more.”
Wyatt slammed his hand on the table. “You should want more. You deserve it. You should be fighting.”
Harper’s dark hair fell in front of her face, hiding that gorgeous tear-rimmed dragon eye from him. “I should be fighting vampires and werewolves for territory I won’t live through claiming? No, Wyatt. You should fight. Take out a loan, do what you have to do if the territory means that much to your bear. You were destined to be alpha, not me. Claim your land, recruit a crew…be happy.”
“Harper—”
She shrugged and offered him a trembling smile. “It’s what I want.” And then she stood and dumped her uneaten hamburger and drink in the trash on the way out of the restaurant.
Outside the massive wall of windows, Harper hunched inward, and her dragon burst from her. Green, iridescent scales faded to gold along her belly. She wasn’t as big as her grandfather, or even her mother, but she was beautiful. Spikes rose along her back like mountains, and two long ivory horns arched from the back of her head. Her eyes blazed blue, and as she opened her mouth to roar a deafening sound, she exposed a row of razor sharp teeth. She was breathtaking.
A couple of human women in the parking lot were screaming in terror. Harper tossed one last look over her shoulder at the restaurant before she bunched her muscles and spread her wings. Leaping into the air, she caught the wind, and with powerful thrusts of her wings, she was airborne. Harper was grace in motion.
“She’s leaving, man.” There was a tinge of panic to Ryder’s voice.
Wyatt blinked hard. He’d been so enamored with her Change he’d lost all logic. “What?”
“She’s leaving!” Aaron shoved Weston’s shoulder and bolted for the door. “Come on!”
“Shit,” Wyatt gritted out as realization slammed into him. He sprinted out of the restaurant where the gravel grit was kicked up in a cloud from her take-off. “Harper!”
As if she could hear the ragged desperation in his voice, she beat her wings faster, lifting up and up, aiming for the thick cloud cover coming in from the south. No, no, no. Weston grabbed his arm and shoved him toward his truck as he passed. “Get in!”
Wyatt climbed into the passenger’s seat, Aaron and Ryder in the back, and in a moment, Weston was peeling out of the parking lot, headed in the direction Harper had taken off. The smell of Wyatt’s own fur and the rubber from the skidding tires as Weston took a sharp left was suffocating.
“Do you have eyes on her?” Weston asked, squinting through the front window.
“She broke the clouds,” Wyatt muttered, eyes on the dark shadow of her outline. Dammit, Harper.
<
br /> “I lost her,” Ryder said from where he was hanging out the back window.
Weston slammed his fist on the steering wheel and hit the gas even harder. “She’s fucking running.”
“I shouldn’t have asked her—”
“Stop it,” Aaron gritted out from the back seat.
“I shouldn’t have! We were building something! I pushed too hard too fast. At least I had a part of her back. Fuuuck!” Wyatt yelled out the window, the curse tapering to a roar. He wouldn’t be okay losing her now. Not after last night. He hadn’t bitten her, no, because he wanted to take things slow for her. He wanted to be patient so he could keep her. But claiming mark or no, she was his. Always had been. And now she was bolting.
He deserved it.
Wyatt scrubbed his hand down his jaw. He wasn’t used to it without a beard, but he’d shaved for her because he didn’t want to hurt Harper when they kissed. She was soft and perfect, and he’d been too rough against her last night. He’d stayed up, unable to sleep after they’d been together. He’d watched her for hours, watched the red rawness fade from her cheeks and swore he would hurt her less next time. He’d shaved because he thought they had more time together. Stop thinking like that. You’ll find her.
“If you’re going to Change, give me some warning,” Weston ground out. “This is a new truck.”
“I won’t.”
“You smell like a damn bear—”
“I won’t! Just get us to the house. Maybe she went back there.”
The boys didn’t answer, though, and it curdled his stomach that they knew her better than he did. They’d stuck with her in her adult years. If they thought she was gone, she probably was.
Wyatt ground his teeth and held onto the oh-shit bar of the truck as Weston took a corner and nearly went up on two wheels. Gravel spewed behind them and tink-tinked against the metal bed.
Twenty minutes. It took twenty minutes to get from the parking lot of Lottie’s Burger Bonanza to his cabin, but it felt like an hour. Every second his heart pounded harder with the desperation to get to Harper. He would take it all back, all his plans. He could give her something simple. Date her until she was comfortable, and then someday a claiming mark. She didn’t have to be alpha, or adhere to the pressure of this plan he’d set in motion. He’d fucked up and piled it on her too soon. She wasn’t like she used to be. She wasn’t the same girl who had practiced baseball until she outplayed the rest of them and earned captain. He’d been a fool to forget everything she’d been through that had shaped her into someone different. Into someone scared of letting the people she loved down. He got that. Wyatt had been a professional at letting people down.
Weston’s truck went airborne over the last hill in front of his cabin, and he slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop in the yard.
Harper’s rental car was gone. “No,” he murmured, stumbling from the cab of the truck. He searched the clearing, linked his hands behind his head and repeated his denial. “No.” She didn’t go. She couldn’t have. Wouldn’t have. She wasn’t like him. Harper was loyal and strong and didn’t run out of fear. She’d proved that much when she’d gone after the vampires who were beating the shit out of him that first night.
She wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.
He sprinted for the cabin, threw open the door, and stumbled over the pallets the boys had slept on last night. His bedroom smelled strongly of Harper’s dragon, smoke, the salt of tears, and her shampoo. But her luggage was gone.
Wyatt bolted for his closet and threw open the door, scanned it for her bag because he just couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t fathom her exiting her life like this.
With a feral snarl, he grabbed his truck keys from the hook by the front door and strode outside for his ride. The boys were standing around looking haunted, eyes tracking him as he passed, but let them think what they like. “I have to bring her back.”
“Won’t work, Wyatt,” Weston murmured.
But fuck it all, he had to try.
It was an hour and a half to the airport, and if he gunned it and avoided the speed traps, maybe he could catch up to her and convince her their fates were intertwined now.
He would do anything. After the last couple days, he was ready to give up on his dream of claiming territory for his bear and go back to Saratoga if she would just let him in. He would happily face his past, and all the people he had bolted from, if she would just let him cling to her goodness. Because Harper was everything bright in his life, and he’d been too stubborn and scared to see that before. He was nothing without her. A ghost. A phantom. A zombie walking through life numb. Losing himself in the bottle and obsessing over territory didn’t ease the ache anymore.
Only Harper did.
He would give anything in the world if she would just spend the rest of the time she had left with him.
Chapter Twelve
Wyatt was exhausted by the time he got back to his cabin that night. It wasn’t sleep he needed either, but emotional reprieve.
Weston, Ryder, and Aaron sat on the porch waiting for him, talking too low to reach his oversensitive ears as he pulled to a stop in the yard. As he approached slowly, none of them would meet his eyes, and their heads were tilted to the side. Probably best they not challenge his bear right now. All he wanted to do was Change and destroy everything.
“She didn’t go to the airport, and she didn’t turn her rental car in. She’s on the road somewhere, and I can’t get a flight out to Saratoga until Wednesday.” Wyatt ran his hands roughly over his head and stared at the night woods. Everything felt empty here now without Harper.
“It’ll be okay, Wyatt,” Weston murmured softly. His voice had that slight hitch of a lie though, as if he didn’t really believe it.
Wyatt fought the urge to double over the pain in his stomach as his bear pulsed and clawed at him from the inside. “I’ve been working so hard and so long, trying to make myself worthy of her again, and now what? If I don’t have her to fight for, what am I?” Nothing.
Ryder broke a twig into little splinters, and Aaron rested his head back on the porch railing, puffed air out of his cheeks as he stared out into the forest.
And Weston…he looked sick in the dim lighting. “I’m coming back for visits,” he murmured.
It was then that Wyatt noticed a trio of dark-colored duffle bags near the boys on the porch. More pain in his middle. They were leaving. How was he supposed to go back to his lonely existence now?
Weston dragged his green eyes up to Wyatt and tried to smile. “And you’ll visit Saratoga more because it’ll be good for everyone. Spend whole weeks there. Linger at the holidays and go get sloshed with us down at Sammy’s bar, and it’ll be like you never left. You’ll see.”
“How do you know?”
Weston stood, shouldering his bag as he went. He came to a stop right in front of Wyatt, hesitated, then pulled him into a rough hug. Wyatt thought he would release him, but Weston held on tighter instead and gripped his shirt. “I just know.” Two back cracking claps on his back, and Weston released him. He loaded up into his truck and drove away without looking back.
Ryder was next, but he didn’t linger in his affection. Wyatt thought he was mad at him until he spoke.
“Call me. Please.” His voice cracked on the last word, and when he eased away, Ryder looked gutted.
Shit. Wyatt looked up at the sky and begged the powers that be for strength as Ryder drove away. Today had started out the best day of his life and was ending one of the worst.
“She’s the one for you, isn’t she?” Aaron asked from right beside him.
Wyatt stared after Ryder’s taillights as they disappeared into the woods. He inhaled deeply and blew out a long breath. “Yeah. I think she knew from when we were little. I figured it out at sixteen, and look what I did with it? I found the girl, Aaron, and then I waited until it was too late.”
“Harper is loyal as hell. Always has been. It makes her an awesome friend, an awesome mate, but it
also sets her up to get hurt. Give her time, but don’t give up on her.” Aaron clasped hands with him and pulled him into a hug. “It’s damn good to see you, Wyatt. Damn good.” With a sad smile, Aaron lifted his leg over the seat of his motorcycle and revved the engine. With a final two-fingered wave, he pulled out of Wyatt’s yard and left him alone with the twinkling stars and the rustling leaves.
Wyatt winced at the pain in his chest and stumbled back into his cabin, determined to do what he used to do when Arabella would tear into his neck—drink himself stupid and stare at Harper’s number. Fury boiled in his veins, not at Harper for running or at the boys for leaving. He was angry with himself. This should’ve gone different. If he hadn’t been so stubborn all those years, he could have pulled this off. He should’ve had territory, a crew under him. He should’ve had a group of people he cared about under him, so that his bear could protect and provide for them like his instincts demanded.
In a flash of madness, he ripped the wooden board of key hooks off the wall and chucked it across the room. It splintered against the far wall and showered across the ground, and that’s how he felt. Those ugly, jagged pieces were him, but for a day, he’d been glued back together thanks to Harper and the boys. What a sick feeling now to shatter again.
He snarled and pulled his phone from his back pocket, slammed his back against the wall, and slid down to the floor. And after a few minutes of desperate struggle to stay in his human skin, Wyatt called a number he hadn’t touched in years.
“What’s wrong,” Weston’s dad answered. He was Beaston, and when Wyatt had been a boy, he’d been terrified of the wild-eyed, barely under control Gray Back Crew mystic.
“Did you mean what you said all those years ago?” Wyatt asked in a hoarse voice.
“She won’t die in childbirth. Not after what happened to Janey. She’s strong like my Aviana. Like my raven boy. Like her mom and her grandfather and the Bloodrunners before her.”