A Twist of Luck (Shifter City Fated Mates #2)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

EMME

F urther discussion ended with the sound of sirens in the distance. Not a huge surprise considering the house had been blown half to pieces, and despite the size of the house blocks here, we were clearly still in suburbia.

“Silver City enforcers are on the way,” Slade said, tilting his head back as he listened closely. “A dozen or more. We need to leave.”

Kellan and Hunter wasted no time ushering me into one of the blacked-out SUVs they’d parked a few blocks from the house. “As out of character as it feels to leave without a fight,” Hunter said getting in the driver’s side, “if we want to go through official channels, we can’t be caught here.”

“I’m already erasing all trace of our presence in this city,” Slade added as he slid into the passenger seat, Hunter’s phone in his hand. It reminded me that we’d lost our phones in the initial attack. I was sad to lose the group chats—they were secretly one of my favorite parts of pack life.

“Excellent,” our entitled alpha said as Kellan and Finley jumped in the car. Jewels and Warrick were in the second car, and I was relieved to have my pack with me. Even if two of them remained distant, it was better than them not being here at all.

Especially when all of our scents mingled together.

Hunter’s mocha goodness had me desperate for a hit of caffeine; Slade’s toasted marshmallow had me dreaming of nights under the stars; Kellan’s cinnamon and caramel were scents I associated with home and love; and Finley’s vanilla cherry was the least familiar but no less potent.

All of them merged flawlessly and smelled even better when combined with my chocolate and honey. If we bonded, our scents would mingle even stronger to inform shifters that we were a completed quintet. That, along with the bites I’d wear, would also be a deterrent to other alphas.

As unfair as it was, males—especially alpha males—rarely had to defend themselves against advances. If they said no, very few shifters could force them. Females weren’t quite as lucky, hence why our mates marked our throats and shoulders. A clear sign of a claim.

The silence was heavy during the drive to the airport, with Hunter keeping us well above the speed limit, seemingly unconcerned that we might be pulled over. Kellan, who sat beside me in the middle row, reached out during the drive to play with the ends of my long, strawberry blond hair. His face was calm and contented as he stared out his window, and I was relieved that the pain and worry he’d worn upon his arrival, had faded from his features.

It had been a stressful and fucked-up few days, and I was already excited by the prospect of time spent in recovery with the alphas. Eventually, we’d have to deal with the council and the Rogers pack, but only after we’d recuperated from this. Hopefully .

Staring out the window too, I took in Silver City, which appeared far less developed than Golden Claw, with only a few buildings on the horizon standing above a story or two. There were no giant skyscrapers like the Reeves Industries and Thenguard Shipping buildings. Mostly, the infrastructure consisted of large housing blocks interspersed with forests. Like Golden Claw, it was chilly outside, but without our sunshine. Silver City, for its shiny name, was actually gray and dull. I couldn’t wait to return back home.

I’d come a long way from the day that alpha scented me in Florida and changed my entire life. Weirdly, it almost felt like a lucky break now to have been dragged kicking and screaming into a world I never expected to experience. I finally understood what it felt like to truly belong to more than myself.

“Did you guys miss a hockey game?” I asked suddenly, realizing that life would have been going on as per normal, even as we were in the middle of a shitshow.

Finley was the one who answered, shocking the crap out of me. “We did. I left Coach a very cryptic message, which I’m sure will get our asses kicked when we return, but he was aware that there’d been an attack on our pack.”

His statement was delivered without his usual ire, and I let myself appreciate his deep husky voice. A voice I very much enjoyed when he wasn’t using it as a weapon to eviscerate me.

“I’m sor?—”

“Don’t apologize,” Hunter snapped. “You didn’t do anything wrong, and none of us consider hockey to be more important than our pack.”

Finley sighed, and I was hit with a gust of cherry-vanilla, but he didn’t correct Hunter. We were all more than aware of how his priorities lay. I wasn’t even a close second to hockey. I wasn’t even on the list.

Kellan’s wolf energy surged stronger as he reached over and unclicked my seatbelt, hauling me out of my chair and into his lap. My heart leapt briefly into my throat but settled as I sank into his firm chest and thighs. I was so instantly relaxed I could have taken a quick nap… It felt good to be close to him.

Hunter eyed Kellan closely, and I’d have been worried about his lack of focus on the semi-busy street, but I’d seen him do this before. Our entitled leader apparently had eyes on the side of his head because he never hit anything, even while distracted. “What did I say about slobbering all over Emme…?”

Kellan, as usual, took no offense. “Firstly, you’re one to talk, bro. Who went all alpha wolf on her when she was attacked by Jones? I couldn’t even see her pretty freckles through all the bruises and marks you left on her skin. And secondly, I’m not slobbering on her. I’m adoring her. I’m fucking obsessed with her, and I’ll never stop showing her. She’d have to kill me first, and if that’s her choice, I still stand by my obsession.”

Did I just melt into a pile of goo? I’d never been adored. Or obsessed over. Or… loved. Not even for one minute in my life before I met these alphas. I had no idea what to do with the overabundance of emotions scorching through me and burning my eyeballs.

Crying was not advisable when in close confinement with alphas, so I channeled the surge of feelings into the only available release: twisting in my seat and pressing my lips to Kellan’s.

He released a low groan from deep in his chest, before a puff of air escaped his lungs, as if he’d been too overwhelmed to even breathe. His mouth parted in a slow, perfect motion, and I was dragged into the kiss. There was no hurried desperation as I’d felt in other kisses with the alphas. This was a slow devouring. A consummation, as I was surrounded by not only the sweetness of his taste, but the buzz of his energy.

This was our wolves connecting on a spiritual level.

His fingers bit into my thighs as Kellan yanked me around to straddle him on the chair. He slouched to give us more room, and I barely stifled my moan as I rocked against him.

I’d had sex half a dozen times in my life. With humans. It was always completely forgettable, and eventually I decided my cheap ass vibrator was far superior, and stopped even bothering.

The feeling of Kellan between my thighs, though, told me in no uncertain terms that what I’d experienced in the human world had nothing on being with a shifter. With an alpha. My alpha .

Unfortunately, today I was not only bleeding quite profusely, we were also in a car with the rest of our pack. Two facts that doused my arousal fast as I gasped and tried to lurch away.

Kellan slid one hand up my spine and into my hair, tightening his grip at the base of my skull. The tugging sensation against my scalp was mimicked by another one much, much lower. “It’s natural, pretty girl,” he murmured against my lips, and for a brief, insane second, I thought he was referring to fucking in front of the pack. “None of us are turned off by blood.”

Goddess of a shifter, and I was right back to almost combusting.

When the whimper spilled from between my lips, I pulled away to catch my breath, and for no reason at all, my gaze met Finley’s, who sat right behind Kellan’s chair.

The bear shifter looked stiff and uncomfortable, but for a change the whiskey of his eyes was light and bright, those thick lashes framing their beauty as he stared me down.

At first glance I’d have said disgust lined his expression, but as I caught the slight flare of his nostrils and noted the deepening cherry-vanilla of his scent, I had to reassess.

He almost looked like he was in pain.

Our gazes remained locked, until he growled all bearlike: “Get us to the fucking airport. I don’t need to see this shit right in front of me.”

Kellan buried his face against my chest and laughed lightly. “Leave the shade of green for Slade, Fin. It’s not a good look on you.”

Slade grunted from the front, and while he didn’t turn around for me to see any other reaction, it felt like the interior grew hotter with each passing second.

Was it suddenly hard to breathe in here? Did Hunter switch the air off?

I hit the button to lower the window, desperate for waft of cool fall air, and a slight escape from the intensity pulsing like it had its own heartbeat.

Silence descended once more, and Kellan didn’t appear to be worried, as he absentmindedly stroked my side, the calming rhythm lowering my pulse. This shifter had been telling me from the start that he was all in with me, and somewhere along the lines… I’d started to feel the exact same way about him. Like I couldn’t exist without him in my life.

It was terrifying to know my happiness and future were tied up in these four alphas, especially with bonding the inevitable ending for us. I needed to tell them the truth, so we could all fight it together. It was exhausting fighting fate on my own.

I’d almost spilled it back at the clearing, and maybe this was the topic we needed right now, to fill the awkward silence. With their help, I might even be able to go through the omega books from Chelsea. She was the only other omega in Golden Claw, and her reference texts remained stacked in the corner of my room, untouched.

“I want to tell you all what happened to my mom.” I blurted out before I could second-guess myself. Even as fear thrummed through my veins like injected poison. “Explain what her pack did to her and why I’ve been running from the cities.”

Hunter’s eyes left the road again, and Slade turned as much as he could in the seat, his shoulders too wide to maneuver more than thirty degrees.

“You don’t have to if you’re not ready,” Kellan assured me, siting straighter and bringing me closer to his face. “We can be patient for as long as you need. There’s no pressure. For anything.”

Gah, perfect Golden. I was fairly sure I was in love with this alpha, and for that alone I’d take the risk. “I want you all to understand why I ran from you. Why I’ve had to fight against this pull between us. Because I promise, I feel it too. I’ve just had no choice but to take a different path. It’s been a really fucking lonely, sad, pathetic existence. Fate dealt me a bit of a run of shitty luck.”

Hunter’s tone was soft and gruff at the same time, which perfectly summed up this alpha: “There’s nothing you could tell us that would change the way we feel, little omega. Nothing. We want to be part of the solution to your problems. Let us be the solution.”

Of course, our resident genius inventor believed there was no problem he couldn’t fix. I hoped this time he was right.

“It’s not as simple as letting you all fix it, because this might be beyond…” I choked up, my cheeks heating even as the cool air from the now open window slapped against my skin. Kellan ran his hands up and down my back, soothing me once more. “This is a secret that omegas do not want others to know. Hence why it’s not common knowledge, or at least I don’t believe it is.”

“Can you fucking spit it out already, Icy,” Finley growled, and I was simply thrilled that he had a shortened version of my name that was somehow even meaner. “It clearly affects us as much as you, and the fact that you’ve been keeping it from us and rejecting us?—”

He didn’t get to finish tearing strips off me as Hunter cursed and slammed on the brakes, jerking us to the right. A wash of pungent sulfur flowed in through the window as magic wrapped around the vehicle.

I screamed as we were flipped into a deadly tumble across Silver City streets. It was only Kellan’s hold on me that kept me from being flung into the ceiling, even though I still managed to hit the edge of the door and the hard lines of his body armor multiple times.

When the momentum finally came to a halt, we were the right way up at least, but before we even caught our breaths, Kellan’s door was ripped off, and we copped the full force of the witch’s magical blast. I was slower to react, as instinct had me lifting my hands to call on my wolf, who was slightly more resistant to magic. Kellan, though, was already two steps ahead of me.

As I threw my arms up, he did exactly as he’d promised me earlier: moved my half-shifted beast out of the way and placed himself between me and danger. When the magic hit his face, his entire body shuddered and collapsed.

With a howl, I lost control of my wolf and lunged straight for the witch outside the door.