Page 191

They’re here.

Knock-knock!

My head jerked up from the car seat, and I looked wildly about me. The first thing I saw was my son cringing back in his seat, the second was the biggest man I’d ever seen.

“Fuck!” I yelped as he peered inside the windshield, his brows creasing when he got a look at us.

I slammed my hand down on the door lock, frantically doing the same with Kade’s and the back seats.

Another man, not as big, approached my door, stopping for a moment, his hazel eyes widening.

He had longish dirty blond hair tucked behind his ears and a serious beard going.

I saw them look at each other, and some sort of secret men’s business passed between them before bearded dude walked closer to my window and made a gesture to wind down the window.

“Mum, who are these men?” Kade’s voice was a reedy waver, his back jammed up tight against his seat.

Fear, like a moth in a jar inside my chest, fluttered faster, harder, wanting to get out, but I squashed that down. Somehow, I managed to keep my voice clear and even when I replied.

This is them. This is Sanctuary.

You’ve lead us to a couple of random truckers? As mental collapses go, this is pretty shit.

This is who we need.

My mouth filled with a weird acid taste, a little like bile, but I didn’t feel the need to throw up. I hurt everywhere in every way, but thankfully, I wasn’t nauseous.

“Not sure, baby. I’m going to open the window a crack and see if they can help us.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“Of course, love,” I lied. “Who would want to hurt us?”

I wound the window down a little, just enough to let the whipping wind from outside in. I looked them over for…what? Signs that they were good people? That there was no blood on their knuckles, no weapons, no booze? I wished men were like those poison frogs, advertising their threat.

“Yes?” I said to the bearded man who had placed his hands on either side of the driver’s seat window.

“You alright out here, love? This is a shit of a place to break down.”

I didn’t want to answer. I wanted them to go the fuck away, even though as I looked out at the landscape we’d broken down in, there was no other more acceptable sources of help.

It was just flat empty scrub as far as the eye could see.

But because I was a woman, the social pressure to respond pressed down hard on me and the words came out.

“The car, it started making some funny noises and overheating. We’ve just been trying to cool it?—”

The larger man moved in, shoving his mate out of the way. His brown eyes stared into mine, only shifting slightly to catalogue every damn mark Rick had left. He was huge, should have been terrifying, with his brows jerked down, his jaw working as he saw all of me.

Him. He is pack. Get out of the car.

Are you fucking insane?! These guys could be mass murdering, rapist, sex traffickers.

He is pack. Go to your mate.

The bile flooded my mouth, burning my tongue, making my teeth ache. My hand went to the door handle without me even consciously doing so. I watched in horror as I undid the lock and opened it.

What are you doing? I shrieked, feeling myself step out of the car. Stop!

“Mum?” Kade said, his voice high and thready.

“It’s OK, love,” someone said with my voice, my mouth. “Everything will be OK now.”

“Whoa,” the blond-haired man said when I stumbled, reaching out to catch me but backing off when I recovered.

I found my eyes taking in the broad breadth of his chest, those muscular arms, those narrow hips.

He was pleasing, had an open, giving manner, and obviously had a bond with the other man. He was worth considering.

But it wasn’t him my mouth, my teeth ached for. I took slow, dragging steps towards the bigger man, his head cocking to the side as he watched me, frowns coming and going, his eyes shifting from deep brown to bright green as I did. His face transformed as I reached for him.

His expression was so alien, I had no idea how to unpack it initially.

He caught me with those massive arms, stared into my eyes with ones that burned and saw everything.

Had anyone looked at me like this? Like I was the most perfect thing in the world?

Like he could see through the fucking roadmap of abuse that was my face to who I was beneath it?

How? my human brain balked. How could this be possible? We haven’t spoken a word to each other.

“By the fucking Goddess…” the other man hissed. “Pete, mate, don’t?—”

The other man didn’t get to intervene, as the larger man did something I would never have thought possible.

He tilted his head away, baring that muscular column of a neck in a perfect picture of surrender.

This moved him somehow, I could feel the tremble in his hands, the rapid pant of his breath as I moved closer.

My lips peeled tentatively back from my teeth, something that had him breathing out, “Yes…yes…”

This is it. This is Sanctuary , I was told one last time before lashing out, digging my teeth into his rigid muscle and clamping down.

My mouth burned, poisonous saliva spilling from fuck knows where and onto his skin.

His arms snapped around me, digging into ribs, muscles that were bruised and battered, but somehow, I leant into the pain.

An explosion of energy washed over the both of us, the fiery burn of my venom spreading through our bodies, then tearing reality away.

I was seen then, perfectly and completely.

All the many, many indignities I’d suffered were catalogued and mourned, all my pain weighed and added to a list of injustices to seek retribution for.

My beautiful boy, from the moment he was born to the usually chirpy little nine-year-old he was now, was represented in a million flickering memories.

Everything that made me who I was, was soaked up and held in the gentlest of embraces.

This is pack , the beast inside me said in her gentlest of tones.

But that wasn’t the strangest thing. I saw a great big pair of green eyes watching me, and with them came a tremendous feeling of love from beyond both of us.

Of being held when you hurt, of being seen and cared for, and an immense feeling of empathy.

I found my breath catching in my chest as it rolled over me, so intense, so complete was the feeling.

You’ll hurt no more , she said, whoever the eyes belonged to. You’ll see.

I came to only briefly and felt the wind on my face, drying my tears almost as soon as they had formed.

“Protect the cub,” I said, my words little more than a slur before the smoke inside me swallowed me down.