Since Shane came to our room, which was really only my room three times a week, I guess it has to be recent. If I was a couple of months along, there’s no way I wouldn’t have known it before I left.
Even if I’d somehow overlooked it, one of the packs would’ve noticed my scent changing. I’m sure I only missed it when I was running because every day meant being somewhere new, with unfamiliar scents and smells. That and my desperate fear distracting me that Shane or his father were only one step behind me, ready to drag me back to a place I’d have no hope of leaving again. Soon I’ll start showing, and then eventually they’ll be a child which brings with it another fear. A deeper one that never leaves me. At twenty-two and being a rare type of shifter, I’ve never had to fend for myself before since I went straight from my father’s pack to Shane’s. I need to find a way to support us both. If I can’t, then I’m going to have to go back to Shane and that’s something I swore I would never do. Not when every time I look at him, all I’ll see is him fucking Bree. Or the bite on her neck. It would kill me if I had to go back to a life that was slowly crushing me to death. But if I don’t find some way to survive, I’ll have no choice. This baby means I can’t afford to only think of myself. Not anymore. Having to tell Mack I needed help to use the bathroom was one of the most humiliating things I’ve ever had to do. For hours, I hoped the urge would go away. I thought if I didn’t think about it, then magically, I would no longer need to go. After hour two, I realized I’m not one of those people who can ignore the urge to go for a long time. I just can’t. Thankfully, I didn’t have to shout down the stairs. Mack came in to see if I wanted lunch since I’d slept right from the semi accident the previous day through breakfast that morning. While it was a relief to find out five or more days hadn’t passed without my knowing it, I was busy working up the courage to tell him I needed to use the bathroom because I didn’t think I could get up on my own. As I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I watch the deep blush spilling over my cheeks and down my neck in remembered embarrassment. At first, I refused Mack’s offer of carrying me, telling him I just needed someone to lean on. He didn’t fight me, just helped me rise from the bed, but the second I put any pressure on my leg, the pain had my eyes filling with tears as I sucked in a sharp breath. “Please, let me carry you.” There was no demand in his voice, no look in his eyes that told me he thought I was being stupid for refusing his help. Just a soft offer to ease my pain, and one I could deny if I wanted. It was the very opposite of how an alpha would have spoken to me. If it’d been Shane or my father, I doubt they’d have cared enough to offer to carry me. My father would’ve told me to stop being stupid and do what I was told as he stalked away and left his beta to deal with me. Shane would’ve just ignored my pain, pretending he didn’t see me. I doubt he’d have even gotten anyone to help me, either. So, at Mack’s gentle offer, I blinked back my tears and agreed. He didn’t rush me. He asked me if I was ready, and when I nodded that I was, he curved an arm around my waist, slid the other under my knees, and then he lifted. Other than the brief agonizing pain that came from bending my leg, there was nothing. He lifted me so easily, so smoothly, and didn’t jar me at all as he carried me out of the bedroom and down a cream carpeted hallway to a spotless bathroom opposite. Although Mack isn’t built like the big guy—the alpha, Bennett, I felt the coiled strength in his ropy lean muscles and I knew he was every bit as strong as Bennett was. He could even have been stronger. It’d felt nice being in his arms. And, of course, being closer to him meant I could inhale more of his scent. That or run a hand through his tousled dark brown hair, which looked soft and inviting. So, even though I wanted to press closer for a longer sniff or a touch, I didn’t. Having an attraction to a shifter who saved me from certain death is one thing, but acting on it is another thing entirely. I can’t imagine any guy would appreciate a pregnant girl who still carries the scent of her mate burrowing close. You’d have wound up on the floor before you knew what’d happened. So don’t mistake kindness with something else, Aerin. Just concentrate on getting well and getting out of town. Even though it’s been a week since I was last with Shane, Mack couldn’t have failed to pick up his scent on me. A week is nothing to a shifter’s nose. I scrubbed my body in a motel shower for what felt like hours after I’d left Shane. I think that’s all I did in the first motel I stopped at. Just focused on getting clean and washing away my past. It was a waste of time. I knew it, but that didn’t stop me from trying, anyway. The moment he bit me and we joined as mates, his scent and mine created a new scent. A soul- deep connection. As long as I’m still mated to him, any shifter who comes within sniffing distance would know, just as Bennett and Mack did, that I have a mate. I shake my head and refocus on my reflection, knowing it serves no purpose to dwell on the past. I got away, that’s what matters. That Shane and his father haven’t tracked me down is a good sign. I just have to keep moving and never let up my guard, not for a moment. After Mack left me just inside the bathroom, I used the toilet and hopped over to the sink so I could wash my face and brush my teeth. I know a shower is impossible with my inability to stand on one leg for too long, and the thought of me going anywhere near a slippery surface seems like a terrible idea. So, I tug my shirt over my head and leave it on top of the sink, trying not to think about Mack undressing me after the accident. I grab a washcloth in a small wicker hamper filled with clean towels that Mack left close beside the sink. Although I’d love a shower or a long soak in a bath, I settle for a sponge down instead. With one hand clamped around the sink as I balance on one leg, I do the best I can to clean as much of my body as I can, doubting I’m any cleaner several minutes later. I certainly don’t feel like I am. Before I pull the t-shirt back over my head, I wipe the steam from the mirror and stare at the bite on my neck. It healed a long time ago, minutes after Shane bit me at our mating ceremony, and as always, when I see it, my thoughts turn to Bree and Shane. How could he bite someone when he already had a mate? Surely his wolf would’ve reacted in some way because not only is the human side of me Shane’s mate, so is my wolf side. It’s what makes us mates. We’re fated to be together. Both halves of us. I force my eyes away from the bite and think of Shane. I think of all the ways he made me think I didn’t matter, that I was worthless and in the way. That I was weak. But he was the weak one. He was the one who couldn’t say no to his father. If I had known what he would be like—what my life would be like, I would’ve forced myself to ignore the mate bond. But I wouldn’t have had to if Shane had told his father—told me—that Bree was what he wanted and not me. “I reject you, Shane Dacre,” I murmur so softly that I can barely hear myself, much as I’ve done every single day since I ran away from the Dacre pack. “I reject you, Shane Dacre.” They say saying things three times gives it power. So I lean closer to the mirror, staring right into my eyes, pretending it’s not my wide blue-gray eyes I see but Shane’s bright blue. “I reject you, Shane Dacre.” And then I wait, but of course, nothing changes. Nothing will. The mate bond is still there, and it will always be there until I say it to his face, or he says it to mine. But whispering it under my breath is one thing. To meet an alpha’s gaze and reject him in front of a pack… Well, that’s another thing entirely. “Are you okay in there?” Mack’s voice has me jerking my head to the door, which, other than my choosing Winter Lake as a hiding place, proves to be one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made so far. My fingers skid off the edge of the sink and no matter how desperately I try to cling to it, it’s no use. I go down with a heavy thud and a strangled gasp of pain. I lay on the cool bathroom tiles, one hand reaching for my leg to check it’s still there because it felt like it snapped off. The level of agony is unreal. I don’t hear the door open, but Mack is suddenly in the room beside me, his cool hand on my brow, asking if I’m okay, but I’m in too much pain to reply and I can barely see him because my eyes are filled with tears. If my leg hurts when he lifts me to carry me back to the bedroom, I don’t feel it. I’m still suffering from the agony of my collision with a cold tile. It isn’t until several minutes after I’m back under the sheets with two cushions on either side of my leg that I realize I didn’t put my shirt back on. That it’s still, if my memory is correct, at the back of the sink where I left it. My eyes snap open, and I stare at the door. “Oh God, he saw me naked.”Okay, so maybe I wasn’t completely naked because I was and still am in my panties, but that’s still a whole lot more skin than I wanted him to see. And he covered me with a sheet, which means he didn’t want to see any more of me either.“Don’t worry, I didn’t see much.”His quiet voice has me spinning my head to my other side, cutting off a cry of pain when my leg twinges, and there on the floor beside the bookcase, with a book draped over a raised denim covered knee, is Mack.I should’ve known he was already in the room, but with his scent everywhere, I wasn’t paying attention.“Uh, thanks?” “No worries.”After closing the book, he shoves it back in the bookcase before rising smoothly to his feet. I’m desperate to know what he was reading, but I’m also desperate for him to leave so I don’t have to look into his face and know he saw me naked, stretched out on the floor like a beached whale.I know I’m not fat since I’m built like most shifters, lean and athletic, but still…At the doo
For the first time, he talks directly to me, like I’m stupid, but he talks to me. Which I guess is something. “I don’t understand why. In your pack doesn’t your al—”“What Bennett means,” Mack interrupts, making my eyes widen with shock because a beta interrupting an alpha like that is practically unheard of, “is that there are different dynamics in all packs. His role doesn’t mean he’s always the only one giving orders.”I stare at him in confusion. “But that’s what an alpha does. Give orders.”Penny has a coughing fit and Mack turns to clap her on the back. Once she’s stopped, he continues speaking. “Things are a little more fluid here.”Since I’ve never heard, or seen any pack dynamic like this—where the beta can order the alpha to do something and there’s no pushback, I shift my focus back to Bennett to see what he’s making of all this.Bennett’s expression is completely blank. “Alpha,” he murmurs.“Alpha,” Mack repeats with a wide smile. “Now, did you want more bacon, Aerin?”I l
Although Adela stops wrapping to glance up at me, she doesn’t call me a liar, and neither does Mack, though they must be able to tell I’m not being entirely truthful.Mack’s eyes dip to my stomach. “Did you want to talk to Adela about the baby while she’s here? I can wait outside if you want?”You mean why did I run away from my mate? Uh, no thanks.They, Adela at least, think I’ve been abused. I caught her glances as if she were searching out bruises or cuts, but it’s pointless. Not just because we shifters heal too fast to leave lasting bruises. There are some wounds, some hurts that aren’t on the outside. They cut too deep for that.The worst was the indifference, I think. The way Shane would turn away when I was speaking as if what I had to say wasn’t important, or the way he wouldn’t care if I saw him disappearing with Bree. He’d return still doing up his pants as if he wanted me to know what they’d been doing. And if I somehow missed it, he’d stand next to where I was sitting
Soon it gets dark enough that Mack returns to lower the blinds and draw the curtains. I pretend to be asleep when he switches on the lamp beside my bed and turns off the overhead lights. I lay perfectly still, taking slow measured breaths until he leaves. His steps are light, unhurried, as he makes his way down the thickly carpeted hallway.After a short time in the bathroom, the sounds of running water stop and he moves into what must be another bedroom further down the hallway. The sounds now are quieter as he readies himself for bed.And then the house is still.Even then, I don’t move. Not until I know he’s gone to bed. Not until I’m sure he must’ve fallen asleep.Then, only when the house is completely silent do I sit up, peel the covers off me, and use both hands to shift my injured leg to the floor.At the first contact my toes make with the floor, I suck in a breath at the sharp pain. For several minutes I sit on the edge of the bed, just breathing in and out as I work myself
I catch the brief flash of relief in his eyes before he nods. “No one here will hurt you or threaten you, or do anything that you don’t want them to do. Not because I would stop them, but because no one in Winter Lake is like that.”I don’t even try to hide my disbelief because a pack like that doesn’t exist. My father hosted more than his fair share of alphas from all around the country, so if anyone would know, it would be me. It’s not even just that. Although I believe he won’t hurt me, he’s not the one I’m worried about.Mack wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing to stop the one person who has the power to do the most harm. Not unless he wanted to challenge Bennett for leadership of the pack, and after seeing the size of Bennett, I doubt Mack would want to do that. I doubt Mack would survive that.Right now, it seems he’s been able to talk Bennett into letting me stay, at least until my leg is healed. After that? I’ll be lucky if the door doesn’t hit me on the way out. That’s if Be
I guess protein bars aren’t a real food after all. “So, what do you want to do today?” Mack asks. I shrug. “I don’t know.”Although Mack has said it’s okay for me to read and watch TV and do nothing for three days, it’s hard to know what I actually want to do.Since I left the Dacre pack, I’ve spent all my time either moving to the next place or thinking about where I’d go next, because I knew staying in one place for too long would make it easier for Shane to track me.Although the Dacre pack is in a small town in Minnesota, the bus station doesn’t go to a lot of places. A determined shifter could track me, and Shane has every reason to be determined. His father taking away his position as alpha would do it.Winter Lake was supposed to be my short break. A place to catch my breath before I headed east to lose myself in New York. A city where there must be so many places to hide that no shifter nose could track me if I lost myself there. At least I hope not.I could even ask Mack to b
Sometimes the presence of an omega will unearth the deeper problems buried in the heart of the pack, making it easier for her to heal. It’s a little harder to ignore the malicious glee in their voices.It doesn’t take five minutes surrounded by the pack to know that my being here won’t change things because I don’t want to be anywhere near them, much less heal them.“You think he told her?” I hear someone else murmur, and once again I avoid looking in their direction. The last thing I want to be accused of is eavesdropping when I’ve barely been here a day.I can feel more lingering glances. They’re trying to figure out where I belong in the pack hierarchy, but just as with the Boone pack, I know I won’t fit here either. I feel the difference between us, even between me and Shane who’s supposed to be the one I’m closest to in the world. The other half of my soul.Shane’s pack is full of energy and fighting spirit. There are a lot of dominant personalities here. I feel them clashing an
So, I tried to read their emotions as they disappeared into the forest, and all I got for my trouble was a migraine that lasted for three hours, and a bad case of dizziness that made me throw up.When I missed dinner, Shane’s father came to visit me, probably thinking it meant Shane had finally gotten me pregnant. One sniff later and he was away again, leaving me alone in a dark room with a pounding head and the world spinning around me.No one else came to see if I was okay. No one cared.But this time, the distance between me, Mack, and Bennett isn’t as great as it was back then, and we’re all outside, so it should prevent me from getting a migraine. Even if it does, if I learn something important, it’ll be worth it.Opening myself up like this isn’t easy, and the only reason I know how is because the omega who trained me explicitly warned me never to attempt it.It takes every ounce of my concentration to cast my senses out in a tightly focused way because all around me I’m surrou