2. Shale
Chapter two
Shale
S hale Aged 16
“Fuck you, too!”
Eben swears at me as he gets in the car. My brother’s showing all signs of being an alpha. He’s already taller than me and much wider. But he’s still got that sweetness that I have loved since I was old enough to recognise him as my brother. His blue eyes are normally dancing with joy, but, right now, he’s glaring out the other window, swiping bitter tears from his cheeks. Our brand new step brother, Emrys Landry, follows him nervously. He’s painfully thin and quiet with very introspective energy compared to Eben’s puppy-like emotions. They are fourteen and have no idea what the world is really like. I hope they never find out.
At least they are together. I feel a pang of guilt leaving Eben, but this is the best thing for both of us.
Mum glares at me from the driver’s side window. It’s the ultimate betrayal, you see. When parents split up, their kids should choose a side to be on. They should be obedient. I was supposed to choose her so she could parade us around her new world saying, “look how evil my ex is.”
Except I was never good at being obedient, and I know the truth about her. She’s been her new scent match’s toy for four years already. Dad knows all about it, too. The only reason he hasn’t done something about it is because he doesn’t care.
She should have come a year ago when I needed her. Now Dad needs me, wants me, threatens me, does it make a difference? I don’t know why Mum came back, why she tried to manipulate me into this again. Dad and she are cut from the same cloth. Children are weapons they can use against each other.
But if I try to go with her, Dad will fight for custody of Eben. And he will win. I cannot allow that. Eben won’t survive his brand of punishment.
Dad’s rarely ever home anymore, which is a relief. I basically do everything alone now. My lonely isolation. Wishing I had someone who was happy to see me.
He came home three days after Mum and Eben left with a new woman on his arm. I didn’t try to get to know her. Just like the others, she will be gone soon. There is only one woman who haunts my father, and that’s my mother and her black soul.
Dad cornered me yesterday when I refused to call the new one Mum, and I suffered for my arrogance until he got bored. My dad’s rage comes in fits and bursts. I wonder if one day he will accidentally kill me, and will he regret it if he does?
I trot up to my bedroom and enter the bathroom. I’m careful when I draw up my shirt. My entire left side is black. There are fingerprints on my throat and biceps. It’s inconvenient to have to try to hide them, but at least he’s not asking about Eben.
My dad spent hours raging at me, kicking me around like I was his damn boxing bag. Then he did what he always does when he fucks up. He ran away. No apologies, no taking me to hospital or getting me help. Nope, my father is a coward, and he just checked out until, one day, he will come back and see I have survived his punishment.
I miss my brother so badly, but it’s easier on us both if he hates me. At least he won’t be caught in Dad’s self-destructive spiral. Mum has been taking him for longer and longer time periods, leaving me here to deal with my furious and sadistic father.
As time passes, I’ve developed my own brand of dealing with the world. My fists can hit as hard as my fathers. My piercings, tattoos, blue hair, and attitude piss everyone off, but they make me feel like me. Like I can be me, and they won’t be able to destroy my soul. People fear me now and get out of my way when I walk by.
And with Eben gone, I found my pack mates. Beau’s tattoos are spreading wider and further across his body, while Keagan’s almost silent aggression is a thing of beauty. Even my dad is afraid of him.
We’re the same. Keagan, Beau, and I.
Three forgotten sons. Angry, bored, and locked on an island that is driving us all out of our minds.
I stare at my blue and black ribs and the cold look in my hazel eyes, and I wonder if I’m truly my father’s son. I have all the aggression, all the rage, but no fear.
No, I am my father remade.
All I care about is Keagan and Beau. The rest of the world can burn.
S hale Present day
I hate the sound of people talking. It grates on me. Children’s laughter does a similar thing. I’m just not one of those people who needs to be around or have kids. I’m far too fucked up. People? Well, I might want to be around them more if they didn’t piss me off so much. Right now, everyone is on my shit list and digging deeper.
We live in paradise, and if it isn’t loved-up couples making out on the beach and on every square inch of my island home, it’s kids running a muck. Love, happy endings, the future, it’s so tedious. Especially when this place is one of the most toxic hellholes I’ve lived in.
I scowl as a couple taking a video walk straight into me. They glance back at me with a frown and, with a cry, quickly get out of my way. I walk faster, trying to find where I lost her. Aspyn Montauk is my sun. I literally revolve around her. Nothing else matters but her. Full stop.
It’s been that way since we found her. My scent match who was almost dead, forgotten, and discarded. Never again! The golden light of her was almost extinguished.
Aspyn is beautiful, so very pure, wise, kind, and the strongest person I know. We are her opposites. Her devils. The hounds that will unleash hell upon anyone who makes her sad. We are her vengeance.
The irony of spending my life trying to be worse than my father only to be brought to my knees by an omega who looks at me and doesn’t see a monster. She sees me as safe. She loves me even if she’s not ready to accept it yet.
Now, I wear a chain. Her chain. I’m not the boy I used to be, and I don’t even care. I’ll be whatever she needs me to be.
Keagan jogs to catch up with me, brushing his blond hair out of his eyes. He scans the stalls and tourists, searching for our wayward omega. As he jogs, half the street turns to watch him go by. He’s a gorgeous alpha, but he only has eyes for us and her. He hates people more than I do. I at least need a reason to hit someone. Keagan will do it just for fun.
We’ve been together since we were kids. Keagan, Beau, and I. Lost teenagers who were forced to live on this shithole of an island. We found each other by chance on the beach here. Three kids, lost, who found a connection that built into a lifelong bond. We made promises I will die before I break.
They are mine, and I am theirs. But we belong to her.
Beau bounces along the street, weaving in between people as he searches. His intensity and the tattoos scare people. They look at Beau like he’s terrifying, but while they are looking at him, they miss us passing like hungry sharks under the swimmers struggling to stay on the surface of the big blue.
Morons.
Where did she go? I grind my teeth in frustration.
It baffles me how a woman with an injury that affects her left leg so badly can vanish so quickly. But she’s damn good at it. I’ve had enough. I’m sick of this. We’ve waited long enough, and the only person she is hurting anymore is herself. And why? Because she thinks she’s not good enough.
It’s crap! I grind my teeth as I glance at the hotel, quickly establishing that she’s not in their café.
The damn birds are shrieking so loudly this morning, and it’s just driving a pickaxe of pain into my skull. Why does she have to get up so damn early?
A woman gets in my way. I snarl, and her expression turns to fear. She promptly gets out of my way with a bounce and a squeal.
I snarl at the idiot who goes to defend her. His jaw snaps shut, and he backs off, his arms in the air as he stumbles, almost falling in his efforts to get away from me.
I keep going, my anger and frustration growing, but when we get to where her market stall is, it’s empty. None of her stuff is here, and she’s not here either.
I curl my hands into fists.
“Keagan!” I growl and close my eyes, taking a few seconds to calm down.
I lost my ability to fear. Until her. Now I know intimately what fear is. Losing her. Aspyn getting hurt. Aspyn needing us. I fear for that little omega, and it drives me wild.
“I’m on it.”
Keagan runs off to talk to the other stall owners. Not that they will be much help, but he has to try. We have to try.
Fuck, I’ll destroy everyone on this island if I have to. I’m not losing her.
“She’s down the beach!” Beau shouts.
I frown even as a bolt of terror slams into me. What’s she doing down there? She hates the beach. Aspyn is terrified of water. Why would she go there?
It takes us a few minutes to get to the shore. The white sand stretches in both directions in a picture perfect view, the ocean glittering like a gem, the sun sending warm light on everything. It is a postcard view.
The warmth of the morning is spreading, and more and more people are getting up, invading our home with their nonsense holidays. Kids race down to the water and build sandcastles, digging holes that will break ankles later tonight. The parents sit with thick glasses, hiding their bloodshot eyes and stinking of booze.
I walk straight up to the only local in sight. “Bodie!”
He stumbles backwards, his eyes wide. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“I don’t care what you did. Have you seen Aspyn?”
Bodie shudders, and I grab him by the shirt, dragging him right up close to me.
“Use your fucking words, Bodie, or I’ll feed them to you. Where is our girl?”
He lifts a shaking arm and points down the beach. I frown. The water is always calm here, but, in that direction, the ocean gets rough. There are currents that can suck you out in seconds, and the waves that break there are almost impossible to fight, and when they crash on the beach, they often surprise people by coming in higher than people expect.
There are signs everywhere.
That’s where the surfers go to catch their waves.
I start marching in that direction, scanning everywhere just in case she went somewhere else or she’s in trouble.
We shouldn’t have left her. She only came out of her heat two days ago. She’s always a bit more sore and uneasy after. Why would she come to the beach?
I swallow hard. I’m not ashamed to admit just how afraid I am for her. It’s not safe. This whole fucked up island isn’t safe for her. These people and this pack are at war, and it all revolves around my omega.
It’s not just the fact she can’t swim, is terrified of water and rain, but the people. They have given her hell. More than hell. They treat her like dirt and get bolder every day.
We give it back, but we’re only so many, and we can’t stop them all. Though we make the ones we’ve caught pay dearly for the pain they’ve inflicted upon her.
Beau hums and bends, picking up sand and letting it slip through his fingers. He’s got the attention span of a flea ninety percent of the time, but when the hyperfocus sets in, you can’t move him. His whole being is chaos, and I love that about him.
“What did she come down to the beach for?” he asks with his lyrical accent.
“Fuck knows,” Keagan says darkly; a tourist goes white and snatches her child up and hurries away.
I might be scary, but I’ve got nothing on Keagan. He’s got long blond hair with tanned skin and pale blue eyes. Keagan has had the kind of fucked up childhood that turns you into a scary son of a bitch.
Mine wasn’t clean, neither was Beau’s, but, then again, our families didn’t just leave us. When we found him, he had no one. He didn’t even have a home.
I spot the surfers coming down to the beach and groan. The last thing we need is the pretty air-headed surfers taking up every surface in town. I ignore them and continue my desperate search.
I think I spot her through the crowd and sprint.
“ASPYN"!”
I brush my blue hair out of my eyes and ignore everyone. I’m the fastest, so I put quite a distance between me, Keagan, and Beau.
Yes, it is her. I call out, but she can’t hear me. Why is she heading towards the water? Why is she trying to run? She drops her cane.
I scream at her to stop.
I see her in the water on the wet sand. It’s an area of beach that’s known for its powerful currents. The outgoing waves can rip you straight off your feet, so what is she doing in the water when she has her leg?
Aspyn goes into the water. Her face is white, and she’s clearly terrified, but she keeps going.
“ASPYN, NO!”
I roar.
I see the child and hate kids more. I swear, if anything happens to her, well, I don’t know what it will do, but it will hurt a lot of people.
I get close and call her name.
“ASPYN!”
She jerks her head in my direction, startled; her face bleached of colour, her gold eyes are huge. Aspyn looks at the child and mouths something.
She draws herself up, leaving herself unbalanced. The white rush of water sweeps up the sand until she’s standing thigh deep in water. She screams.
“Don’t you do it!” I howl at her. I’m so close now, just a few more steps.
Aspyn throws the tiny child in my direction. I have no choice.
I catch the kid and call for her again, but she’s struggling. With my legs spread wide, I brace myself. White water rushes towards us. It hits, cold and hard, the water splashes up my leg but only to the knee. If I were anyone else, I’d go down. I hold the kid high. I can see her struggling, fighting, but it just lifts her up and sucks her out.
“NO!”
Someone takes the child off me, and I run at the water. I’m not going to lose her! A flash of gold catches my eye, and a body surges past me, swimming into the deadly surf.
Kelly fucking Raines. I recognise the famous surfer instantly. If he saves her, I’ll kiss him. Maybe.
He struggles in the water, but he gets to her, pulling her up so her head is above the water. The waves crash into them again, but he’s not letting go or giving up. They tumble over and over, but he keeps fighting. When he gets up, he goes down but gets up again. I fight my way towards him, struggling to keep my feet in the drag.
Another surfer reaches them before I do. I don’t recognise him, but, together, we lift her out of his arms and race up the beach.
Her eyes are closed, and she’s completely limp. Is she dead?
No! Don’t think like that.
We lower her to the sand, and Keagan and Beau drop to their knees opposite me and start checking her over. They are so careful with her. I dare not take my eyes off her.
I lean over her, putting my ear to her chest. She’s breathing. She’s alive. It’s going to be okay.
Fuck. I swallow the lump in my throat and blink away the tears. Too close, far too close.
“Wake up, my precious sunshine. You’re safe,” Beau purrs, and his voice is deeper and scratchier, too.
Her eyes open, golden honey eyes full of tears. She sits up and wraps an arm around my neck like she knew it was me, like she knew I was here with arms open. Her sobs are heart-wrenching. They are ugly, full body cries that I would do anything to take away. I hold her tiny frame in my arms.
“I’m never going to let you go, Aspyn. You’re safe, baby, it’s okay, we got you out. You’re okay. Stop crying, darling, you’re going to hurt yourself,” I whisper and stroke her hair. I say the same thing over and over until the sobs start to slow.
Keagan pats her back and hair, while I hold her, while Beau murmurs sweet things to her from the other side.
I pick her up and stop when I find the three surfers staring. They are in a line with expressions that are expectant and shocked. I want to kill them. How dare they intrude on our private moment?
On closer inspection, Kelly Raines looks furious, those blue-green eyes spitting fire at us. The olive-skinned guy appears to be in shock. His dark brown eyes are wide and hair is pitch black and caught by the wind. He’s got stubble on his face that doesn’t make him look older at all. The last closes his eyes and appears to be talking to an invisible someone. He has dark curly hair and looks a little more delicate than the others, but he’s got a surfer’s physique. The three of them make quite a picture.
Right. Enough.
“Thanks.”
Kelly opens his mouth to talk, closes it, and then stops. “Aspyn Montauk?” he asks, his voice is defensive and full of accusation.
I pause, confused. How does he know my omega’s name? I glance down at the tiny omega in my arms.
Keagan and Beau exchange a look that I just catch. They are not happy with this at all either.
Aspyn lifts her head and turns towards him. Her whole body goes stiff. Her jasmine scent gets stronger. She lets out a tiny meep of sound and then struggles to get closer to me as if she’s running. As if she’s frightened.
No, I don’t like this. Make it go away.
If I could, I would, but I can’t stop anything.
“You know her?” The darker-skinned man asks Kelly.
“Yes. What, you know her, too?”
It’s like we aren’t even here. No one ignores us.
“She went to school with Noah.”
Oh, these punks can fuck right off. I let out a vicious growl, and Keagan and Beau take the hint and fan out behind me. I will beat them all dead.
“Noah?” Aspyn asks and hiccups. Her hand is clenched in my wet shirt, unwilling to let me move even a fraction.
“Noah Dahan.”
“I remember him. How is he?” she asks politely. Her eyes are glazed. Is she in shock? I need to get her home. Ring Nat to come and look at her.
“He passed away. It’s why I’ve been searching for you.”
She blinks and shudders? But there is a spark of something. Curiosity maybe. I think it is. She might be interested in their little stories, but I’m wondering which of my favourite spots can be used to dispose of the bodies. I’m going to kill them all.
Keagan and I do one of our silent exchanges and decide we hate these guys and if they try anything, it’s over for them.
“And who are you?” Beau spits.
“Ezy.”
Even with her silent sobs and tears running down her cheeks, she hears his words and stiffens in my arms. My rage explodes. This is the guy she dressed up for, the one she was going to meet. This is the fucker who ghosted my girl?
Oh, I’m going to bury this fucker so deep it will take a paleontology team to find him.
“You’re Ezy?” she whispers in so much pain that I swear I will destroy him if it’s the last thing I do. “My Ezy?”
My Ezy. I hear those two words like it’s a broken record stuck on repeat. It goes around and around in my head.
My fucking Ezy.
“You almost died because of him,” Keagan growls, “and instead of checking, he just blocked you and moved on.” Keagan flicks her in the head. “Use your brain, Aspyn. I know you have one.”
Three alphas snarl at us. I hand Aspyn to Beau and step up to Kelly. Our eyes lock and hold.
He’s trying to show me he’s bigger, badder, and stronger than me, but he’s got no idea who he’s messing with.
“You’re going to want to back off, Raines. And take your cubs with you.”
“How old are you?” Kelly scoffs.
I smile and show him all the death and rage that I have lived with. I have given up so much and fought for so much, and I’m not losing her.
“Old enough.”
“I want to talk to her.”
I let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, that’s not happening.”
“She’s my scent match.”
I react without thinking, slamming my fist into his jaw. He tumbles back, but I fall on him again, slamming my fist into him over and over.
I think I get five hits in before I’m pulled off him. I narrow my eyes.
“She’s our scent match.”
“No,” Ezy says with a pale face. “She’s our scent match.”
I snarl and take a step when he holds up his hand. “Wait! I don’t mean ours. I mean all of ours.”
I freeze, glancing sideways at the alpha who hurt my omega. He looks stunned senseless.
“I don’t care. We’ve been here. She’s ours now.” And I mean those words.
“Wait!”
But I don’t wait, and she doesn’t argue with me. Why doesn’t she argue with me? Does she want them? Does she want us?
A million horrible thoughts go through my head, and I have no idea what to do or say, so I hold my silence.
I hold my peace.
And I wonder if there’s anywhere on this planet deep enough that I could hide them from her now. Maybe this is a problem the pack is going to have to take care of in true pack style.