Page 4

Kurt

It had been well over five years since I’d left the pack lands for anything but business reasons. The last several years of my father’s life, he’d kept me by his side, training me to take over while I tried to tell myself I’d find a way to avoid it. His shoes were so big to fill, his leadership so amazing, how could anyone do it?

And I’d been too busy since the day he left and took part of my heart with him. Mother’s attempts to comfort me had only threatened to break down the wall I’d built against the grief of Father’s death. I had to step into those shoes that moment. I did not have weeks or months to embrace the pain. Keeping busy was the best shield, and as pack alpha for a group our size, there was never a lack of tasks needing my attention. I should delegate more, but then what would I do with my time? Driving along the road on the way to the resort where I would spend the holidays, I allowed my thoughts to wander. To consider my actions since becoming alpha.

At first, I told myself it was just to get organized, to make the job my own. Father was a wonderful alpha, but we were different people and as his betas retired and I raised others to leadership positions, there were natural culture changes, nothing huge, but shifts to suit modern times and the current members of the pack. For example, the number of people who wanted to learn technology so they could work from the lands without working on the lands. That led to more machinery purchased for the farms and timber business. Busy! I would settle back a little and do that delegation stuff when the mate my father was so convinced Fate had in mind for me showed up.

But the years passed, and other packs visited or we went to gatherings elsewhere, to no avail. If there was an omega out there for me, he was sure hiding well. Could Fate be so cruel as to place him somewhere on the surface of the planet where I wouldn’t ever find him?

Or maybe it was just a fancy of Father’s dying brain. How would he have known I had a fated? Not everyone did, and I had no shortage of omegas in my own and other packs who had let it be known they would welcome a mating with me. A pack alpha with no omega was not creating successors. While there was no rule that it had to be within the line, it always had been. And the pack omega had their own set of tasks and responsibilities, all of which were currently being assumed by other members. Which was unfair.

While working hard, I had managed to avoid the issue, but it was time to consider who among the candidates I should mate with. Surely, my fated, if he existed, would have shown up by now. Time to grow up and accept someone to share the harness of responsibility with me. Someone to have young with and sit by the fire on cold nights. To grow old with.

Why did that sound so unappealing?

I stopped to refill the tank at a gas station about six miles from the middle of nowhere. Snowy countryside stretched out all around me and my wolf shifted within, wanting out. Poor thing didn’t get nearly the free time he should. Most of our runs were only with the pack, and I was about to deny him, as I often did because duty called, when the realization came over me.

There was no duty. Not today. Not for days ahead.

The sign on the pump said Pay Inside , likely due to the fact the card reader was hanging off the side by a cord, so I did, buying a coffee while I was there. “It’s pretty quiet around here, huh?” I asked the young attendant who took my payment.

“Yep. Great place to run, if that’s what you’re asking.”

I couldn’t suppress the chuckle that emerged. “I guess it kind of was.” He was not a wolf but some kind of cat, which was probably why I hadn’t picked it up right away. “We’ve been on the road for a long time and someone wants to stretch all four legs.”

“Park behind the building and walk to the tree line. We don’t get a ton of traffic, but why freak out the mundanes who will probably call the news.”

“Gotcha. Thanks.” I took my coffee out to the truck and drove around the back. Carrying it with me, I sipped it as I made my way to the forest and stepped among the trees. The air was clear and cold and smelled of pines and small creatures who would remain in hiding while the predator was among them. My wolf would want to hunt, but we had eaten a big lunch from all the food the betas packed in my cooler for the trip. As long as we didn’t see anything, they were probably safe from us. I set my cup down beside a tree and stripped down, shivering briefly before the change took me, landing me on all four feet, muzzle stretching out and fur covering my goose-bumped skin. Tipping our head back, we gave a howl and tore off into the woods, feeling free for the first time in years. Snow and the last of the fall’s leaves crunched under our paws. The bare branches of deciduous trees stood stark amid the dark green of pines, and thin ice on the surface of a little creek cracked as we crossed.

It was amazing and beautiful and somewhere in my human mind, I recognized what my betas had seen and my wolf always knew. There were times to work and times to play. Times to worry about the future and times to live in the moment. To be fair, my wolf was usually about the moment.

I had trained my betas well, and they would keep things running while I was gone. My return was soon enough to worry about a mate. For these days, I would simply be. Or give it my best shot. Relax, shift as often as I wanted, provided the resort had available lands. And it seemed unlikely that my betas would have sent me somewhere I couldn’t run. Eat good food, drink good drinks, restore my energy so I could do my job better on my return.

In a way, it was my duty to do this.

Why did it take a thought like that to give myself permission? No more whys.

I ran until we were panting then returned to dress and grab my empty cup. Before leaving the gas station, I stopped to thank the attendant for their advice. He grinned and gave me a big bag of teriyaki bison jerky. “Shifting always leaves me starving. Safe travels.”

“Thanks again.” I got in the truck and drove on.

I was exhausted when I arrived at the resort. And startled to find someone already in my cabin, but when I took a good look at the omega, I couldn’t ask him to leave. Far along in pregnancy, thin and pale with a hectic light in his eyes, he explained that he’d been given the room too, but not like me as a paying guest. Sounded like the owners had taken him in out of pity, but why in my cabin?

“No need to leave, tonight,” I told him. There would be time enough to figure it all out in the morning. “Just stay and we’ll talk to Theo and Elias in the morning and get it straightened out.” I was too tired to do anything until then.

“I’ll go sleep in the laundry room.” Wade started away, but I reached for his arm and stopped him.

“No way.” Even if he weren’t pregnant, that was not happening.

“Seriously, it’s nice and warm in there. I’ll grab a few blankets from the linen closet and be very comfortable.”

What was he used to that this was an acceptable choice? I had just met him, but my wolf was already in turmoil, demanding to know who had done this and where we could find them. The images in my mind were violent and savage, the wolf beyond irate.

“Come and sit down. You’re not sleeping in the laundry room.”

Wades eyes glistened, tears pooling before dripping down his face. “Then I’ll leave. You paid for the place, and I am just a charity case. I’ll find somewhere else to stay…”

“Omega”—I sat on the couch and patted the cushion next to me—“sit and tell me how you came to be here.”

To my surprise he did exactly that, sharing how he’d been forced to mate with the pack alpha and when he was challenged and lost, he’d been thrown out in the cold because he was bearing the former alpha’s young. He was light on details, but I got the picture. Like some of those other packs I’d heard about, Wade’s had still had brutal leadership changes. And he was a marked rogue.

His scar was livid on his cheek, a criminal act by criminal hierarchy, and one my wolf was now beyond enraged over. He struggled to get free, no matter how I tried to calm him and tell him that the perpetrators were far away and we couldn’t just run there.

Later, I finally insisted. The omega needs us now.

There was nothing else I could have said and garnered the result. He stilled. The wolf still planned revenge, but he was willing to put the omega’s immediate needs first.

“You’ve been through a lot,” I said, understating it all but not wanting to make him feel worse. “And there’s room for both of us here. I’d welcome the company, in fact. Stay with me tonight.”

“But there’s only the one room.”

“And it’s big enough for two.”