Two

Slowly, I turn in a circle and my eyes connect with the guy filling up a battered truck at the gas station. Or at least, that was what it looked like he’d been doing before he scented me, just as I scented him.

Without taking his eyes off of me, he shoves the gas pump back in its slot and straightens from his lean against the truck.

When he takes a step away from the truck he’s filling, I get my first unobstructed view of his body.

He’s big. At least six feet, which puts him about the same height, if not build, as Shane. This shifter is more heavily muscled than Shane is not that anyone could describe Shane as lean.

My mate has the sort of muscles most women sigh over, something I know all too well because before I knew what my life would be like in the Dacre pack, I sighed just as loudly as they did.

I feel panic surging at the sight of this shifter’s heavy muscles and the narrow-eyed steel-gray stare, which tells me he can only be one thing.

Alpha.

My duffel slides off my shoulder and hits the ground with a thud. I barely notice. This brawny, shaved haired, alpha takes another step forward, and I back up. Fast. “Hey, there’s no need to—”

I don’t stick around to hear what he has to say, or what lies he intends to use to trap me here. Maybe if I was an ordinary shifter, then I wouldn’t be breaking out in a cold sweat at the thought of him getting his hands on me.

But I’m special. Different. It’s the reason I stayed clear—well clear of any place I knew there were any shifters.

Since we shifters are a violent bunch, there are less packs around than there used to be. Some have been so aggressive, they’ve imploded and they exist only in shifter memory now, packs like the Raleighs, who even my father used to say he’d hesitate to take one on.

The reason I have so much value is because I can stop a pack from imploding the way the Raleighs did. It’s the reason why shifter history is full of stories about omegas being stolen from their homes and never seen again.

When I was younger, I think I was thirteen, I had enough of feeling like I didn’t belong, so I ran away from home. My father found me right away. On the long walk home, he told me story after story about attempts to breed more omegas because what I am is so rare.

All that night I thought about what that would be like, to be stolen away to another pack and forced to bear child after child with an alpha who was only interested in producing another omega.

I never tried to run away again.

When my father would hold meetings with other alphas, I saw the greedy way they studied me when he wasn’t looking. It wasn’t hard to guess what my fate would be if my father wasn’t so feared.

Coming from a well-known pack, I know most, if not all, the shifter packs in the states. Or at least I thought I did. This just goes to show how wrong I was.

So, although Shane treated me like I was worthless, I was only worthless to him. There was a reason his father pushed him to get me pregnant when we discovered we were fated mates.

It was the reason which meant that no matter how Shane felt about Bree, once his father learned who or rather what I was, there was no way he would agree to a mating between Shane and Bree.

Shane would have fought his father on it. But the price of Bree would mean handing back his new position as alpha, a position that would revert to the old alpha, his father, who was still young enough to seize control of the pack.

I spin around… and glimpse someone else heading toward me from across the road. Someone who halts as soon as my eyes lock on him.

This other brown-haired shifter in a white tee and blue jeans is less tall, less muscled, and overall, less threatening. The beta, most likely. But that doesn’t mean I want him anywhere near me.

His brown eyes are deep with concern, though I don’t understand why until I realize I’ve backed out into the road, and barrelling toward me is a semi-truck going too fast to stop.

Oh God, my baby.

Like one of those too-stupid-to-live characters in a horror movie confronted with the big bad, I freeze instead of running. Sheer terror floods my body that I can’t think of anything other than curving an arm protectively around my belly, feeling like my feet are glued to the ground.

After all my running, all the things I’ve done to stay hidden and not make any mistakes, mine and my baby’s life is going to end in a town with a population of two thousand under the wheels of a semi.

I worked so hard. It’s just not fair.

Before I know what’s happened, a solid weight sends me hurtling out of the way. I hear tires squealing, and the gust of wind that tells me how close the semi came to flattening me, and then my body hits the ground. Hard.

I land awkwardly, and my impact is immediately followed by a series of sharp and overly loud cracks. And then the pain hits, telling me I broke a bone in my right leg. Probably several bones, both big and small.

I’m gasping as searing agony blows through me, then my vision goes blurry, like that moment just before you drift off to sleep. As if you’re not really awake, but you know you’re not sleeping either.

For a single second, I feel the weight of a stare on my face. I get the sense someone is leaning over me, maybe even saying something.

As time goes by, my vision doesn’t get any clearer—if anything, it gets worse.

Then I blink, and the sharp agony radiating outward from my leg grows until I’d do anything, give anything to escape it. I blink again, feeling a tear slide down the side of my face to be buried in my long, dark hair.

The next time I open my eyes, it’s to blackness. Or maybe I don’t open my eyes at all because in this dark place there’s no light or sound or pain.

There’s nothing.

Male voices coming from a few feet away wake me.

I open my eyes and fix my gaze on a solid dark wood door, but I don’t move.

“She’s pregnant. And in case you didn’t notice, she’s also mated. We need to find out why she’s here and return her. I doubt her mate will be happy finding her here.” It’s the brawny shifter.

Even though the voices are coming from just outside a door that someone has left open a crack, I know it must be the alpha shifter from the gas station. Clearly, he must not have guessed what I am to be so eager to send me away. If he knew, I doubt he’d be so against my staying.

Not that I want to, and not that I intend to.

I shift my gaze away from the door, wanting to take advantage of my alone time to examine the room. I'm guessing the beta, the wolf with the warm brown eyes, brought me.

Sooner rather than later, one of them will realize I’m awake and come looking for answers to their questions. Answers that I have no intention of giving them.

The rich and strangely comforting masculine scent in this sparsely decorated bedroom clues me in that I’m in a guy’s room. Probably the betas'. God, I hope it’s the beta and not the gruff alpha who sounds like he would’ve preferred if the semi had flattened me.

“She’s hurt. And she was running, in case you missed it. Or were you not paying attention to the duffel and the way she sprinted away from you the second she realized she’d stumbled into a town of shifters?”

This other voice is softer, friendlier, and the one I’m guessing is the beta who saved me from my fate.

A town of shifters?

I can’t believe I’m this unlucky, I think with a grimace.

And then I turn a little so I can see even more of this room filled with dark wood furnishings, and the lowered blinds preventing me from telling what time it is.

As I shift to examine even more, I suck in a sharp breath at the searing agony shooting up my leg at my tiny movement.

My eyes widen at the sight of my right leg that someone—again I’m guessing the beta—has heavily bandaged before strapping on a leg brace. But that’s not all.

There are two large cushions set on either side to keep my leg straight. That’s when I know it’s bad because we shifters heal fast.

We don’t need heavy bandages or leg braces. And the pain. The slightest movement has my eyes watering, so I lie back down on the bed and try not to breathe, let alone move.

I remember hearing a series of cracks, so I must’ve broken my leg in several places, that much is clear. Just how long it’s going to take me to recover is a mystery because I’ve never hurt myself as bad as this before.

What’s disturbing is I have no memory of going to the hospital, or of anything other than nearly being run over by a semi, and being tackled out of the way. But someone bandaged my leg, and removed my jeans and t-shirt, replacing it with an oversized white t-shirt that hits me to mid-thigh.

All of that happened, but when? How much time has passed?

“It looks worse than it is.” A voice says from the door, startling me.

In a desperate attempt to scramble away from him, I overbalance and thud to the floor. Crying out, my world goes hazy with pain, making me blind to everything other than a need for it to end.

Then the brown-haired wolf, the one with the kind eyes, is gently picking me up and depositing me back into the bed. “You’re not having the best luck, are you?”

Ain’t that the truth.

“What do you want from me?” My voice is shrill, and I lean away from him, even as he’s backing up with his hands raised in the universal sign of peace.

“Nothing. Just for you to rest and get well so.”

“Can you force me to stay? Is that it?” My voice rises an octave higher.