Page 63 of Same Thing

No home, no Pack, no stability.

It had been torture not responding to her texts, but he just needed to get through this week. He couldn’t talk to her when he was broken. Not like this, when he had nothing.

This lack of purpose was inconceivable for a man like him. For a wolf like him. For an Alpha like him.

He hadn’t even thought about where he would go. He’d been so focused on making sure the boys had support as they drifted to the four winds.

The week had been almost silent.

He would never admit it aloud, but he was going to miss them terribly. They weren’t friends. They’d fought like wild animals in every important moment. They’d rejected peace in the Pack for years. They’d lived separate lives, and didn’t share anything personal.

They didn’t know each other. Not really.

But…that night Nate had been waiting for him to go after Jackson had changed something in Liam’s heart. Seeing Vic, and Tabian, and Dodger come out of those woods dragging the man he was hunting…seeing Bridger’s wolf defending Nory and Delta when he’d come back home to find the Elders here?

It had, for the first time ever, felt like the beginnings of a real Pack.

They had been on the cusp of figuring it out, but now?

Emptiness.

Already he could feel the bonds to his people stretching thin as they left him here.

He hated the Elders. He hated how far they had fallen. He hated that Aro had used his daughter’s power-grab Arrangement to eradicate the wolves here.

But most of all, he hated that they had taken the life he could’ve given Nory before he’d even had a chance to build with her.

The only way it could’ve ever worked with her was if he had a Pack to form a circle of protection around her. She was human. Fragile. At risk with this destructive life. Her ankle would bear the scars of the first meeting with his Pack. The marks on her neck from where Aro dug his too sharp claws into would always serve as a reminder that she didn’t belong with Liam…but she could have.

He’d imagined it when he’d watched her and Delta laughing and working together in the kitchen. When she conversed with the males of his Pack.

“We should kill them,” a voice said from the corner of the empty house.

Liam jerked his attention to Bridger, who stood there leaned on the home, staring with glowing eyes at the two enforcers on the tree line.

“What could they do to us as punishment?” Bridger asked. “Kill us? They kind of already did that.”

“We aren’t dead yet,” Liam murmured.

Bridger said, “This was my last chance at a Pack, and we both know it.”

Fuck. Liam knew he was right. Bridger didn’t have a steady wolf who worked well with others. He’d bounced around, from the snippets Bridger had let slip over the years.

“I thought you’d left already,” Liam said, giving the enforcers his attention again.

“I was paired once.”

Liam frowned. Bridger was putting him on. “No, you weren’t.”

“I was. Married five years.” A faraway look took his eyes. “She was a spitfire like your Nory.”

“Nory’s submissive—”

“Nory’s an Omega and you know it. Why you don’t want her knowing that information is beyond me. She would be fine in a Pack.”

“Like your mate? Where is she now?”

“Six feet under,” Brighter said in an empty tone. “Humans can be sickly creatures.” He pushed off the house and disappeared around the corner, heading for the back yard.