Chapter 10
LUCY
Imake it maybe thirty feet along the track before I look back, and there’s a shape stepping out of the firelight after me.
He’s big and charging in my direction fast.
My heart slams into my throat, and I break into a run. I don’t even have to see his face, as I know from the outline that it’s one of the Alphas, all shoulders and chest. My sneakers pound the dirt with each fast step I take, roots grabbing at my feet, while dark trees swallow the track ahead.
“Lucy!” Wolf growls. Of course it’s him, yet hearing his voice lights the whole fire in my chest again.
Fury and shame also crash over me at once, since he had no right to sit there and call me out in front of everyone.
Sure, it was exactly what I was doing, hunting for a reason to see if taking the pills was even an option, but he read me in two seconds flat.
Which is why I’d rather die than talk to him. So I run.
“Go away!” I fling the words over my shoulder and push harder, lungs already burning, cold air scraping down my throat.
The track narrows, the pines crowd in, and the last of the firelight dies behind me.
Somewhere amid the panic in my head, a voice reminds me exactly how it felt to have his hands on me in the ferns, how much I wanted to lean back into all that heat, and I hate that voice. I want to bury it here in the dirt.
I glance back, and he’s bigger, closer.
Behind me, his footfalls pick up. “You can be angry!” he shouts as he gains on me, and God, he doesn’t even sound out of breath. “Just stop running before you break your neck in the dark.”
“Stop chasing me and I will!”
“No.”
I put on a burst of speed out of pure spite, glancing back again, and he’s right there. Oh, shit!
I face front and fly forward.
The track bends and blows open into a small clearing where the pines fall away, and the moon pours down through the gap, laying the whole space bare.
A tree stump sits off-center, waist-high and pale.
In the distance, the lodge lamps burn low and gold, close enough to see, too far to save me.
My foot skids in the dew. I stumble, and that half second is all he needs.
His hand clamps around my wrist. He wrenches me around mid-stride, and the whole world spins, moon and trees and darkness.
I crash into his chest with a gasp knocked clean out of me.
Both my palms smack flat against him, his heart going as hard and fast as my own under my touch.
Heat pours off him, and for one breathless second, I’m exactly where every screaming cell in my body has wanted to be all night.
Then I shove him. Hard.
“Leave me alone, Wolf.”
I stagger back, and he lets me go, watching with those intense eyes, his chest heaving for breath. I keep backing away over the grass until the backs of my thighs hit the stump. The breeze lifts the hair off my overheated face, but it’s doing nothing to cool me down.
“Why were you running?” he demands.
“You’re the one who came crashing through the trees like a bear after me.”
“Thought you’d like that.” He steps closer with a sly grin. “That’s the whole fantasy, isn’t it? Girl runs and a big bad thing chases her down, then catches her.” He drags his tongue slowly across his lower lip.
My knees give out, and I barely catch the edge of the stump to avoid falling over. “Wow. Is that what the romance novels taught you?” I’m breathless in his presence.
“Never said I read them.” Another slow step. “I just pay attention.”
I want to issue a comeback, but I’ve got nothing because he keeps moving closer. My gaze drops to his throat, the stubble along his jaw. Then there are those forearms, and he catches me staring, which is why the corner of his mouth curls upward.
“See something you like, songbird?”
“A gnat. Right by your ear. It’s enormous.”
He grins while I contemplate bolting, but he’s got that look, the one that says he’d have me before I finished the first stride and enjoy every second of it, so I plant my feet and tell myself I can deal with him.
“Don’t think your size scares me,” I tell him, tipping my head back because he’s close enough now that I have to.
“Wouldn’t dream of scaring you.” His voice drops to a sexy whisper. “Not in the fun way, anyway.”
Then his hands are on my waist.
A high, helpless little moan slips past my lips. God, I need the ground to open right now because he definitely heard me. Before I can die properly, he lifts me off my feet and sets me to sit on the stump.
“There, now you’re eye level with me. Better?” That wicked curl of his lips comes again. “Or was that a moan of complaint?”
I scrunch up my face. “I didn’t moan.”
He leans in, delighted with himself by the huge smile. “It’s all right. Happens to people around me all the time. I’ve made peace with it.”
I give him my best glare when his hands grip the stump on either side of me, caging me. He’s suddenly all stormy eyes and broody, and I have to lean back just to hold his gaze because he’s that close.
“Talk to me, Lucy. What happened back there? I’d cut my own arm off before I’d hurt you, so I’m sorry for pushing. But you’ve got to see it from where we’re standing. We’re about to lose our freedom, and every one of us is watching you, trying to read which way you’ll jump.”
I flatten a hand on his chest and push, buying an inch. “I just need to breathe.”
“I have that effect.”
Slowly, I drag in a breath, which is a mistake, because it’s all coffee and cut wood, and not helping me.
“And yeah, I get it. The bite, the bond, all of it happening this fast, it’s a lot, and my approach was a stupid, cowardly thing to do because obviously you’d rather be out here than in a cell.
” The words come faster, and fire burns up my neck and into my cheeks.
“Then you opened that big mouth and made it clear you saw right through me. And the truth is I hadn’t decided anything.
I don’t want to hurt anyone, but honestly”—I wet my lips—“I’m not sure I actually get a say in any of it, as it feels like I’m on a roller coaster and my path has already been decided for me. ”
“No pressure. Nobody’s cornering you.” He tilts his head to the side, studying me for a long pause. “What does your heart want?”
I meet those steel-gray eyes, deciding I have nothing to hide.
“To know you all better. See how real this scent-match thing is and work out what you three actually want, because it’s not just my life on the table.
” I release a shaky laugh. “I get you wanting me to confess how attracted I am to all of you, while, for all I know, you’ve been locked up for years and I’m just the first Omega to wander past. Maybe this is a good time for you. That’s it.”
He doesn’t blink. “You want my honesty, then here it is. Roman’s gone, smitten to hell and back with you.
Grayson’s already halfway lost, but he’s the patient one.
He’ll wait you out if it kills him.” His gaze locks onto mine.
“And me, in case you missed it, I’ve used every excuse to be near you since you turned up.
So no, songbird, this isn’t a good time for us.
We’ve wanted an Omega to build a future with more than you’d believe.
We talked about it when we were inside, just never expected it to happen so suddenly. ”
His words are swirling in my mind because it’s a lot, and he’s right that this is moving fast.
“When I was in my cell at night, I used to watch the stars through a window no bigger than my hand.” He glances up at the clear sky overhead.
“Then I started borrowing books from the prison library and teaching myself the constellations. I became obsessed with the three stars in a line that make up Orion the Hunter. Greek mythology says Orion was a giant who boasted that he could kill anything that walked the earth, so the goddess sent a huge scorpion to stop him. When they both died, the gods placed them in the sky to chase each other forever, but never to fight again.”
His gaze settles on me once more. “Orion didn’t get to choose that fight.
Neither did the scorpion. They were just the two unlucky bastards who happened to meet.
” A corner of his mouth lifts. “That’s the thing about life.
You don’t get to choose every battle. You only get to decide which ones you carry with you afterward. ”
His words strike me deeply, and I don’t miss the symbolism of his life in comparison. “I didn’t have you pegged as a stargazer.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “Might even surprise you, if you stop disappearing into the woods.” He’s near again, and I’ve stopped pretending I’m not breathing him in.
“Ethan told me why you went to prison,” I suddenly say.
A humorless laugh envelops him. “Yeah? Then you know enough.”
“I know what happened. I don’t know you.”
He exhales loudly. “I worked for my old man, who ran a drug cartel. Moved product. Collected debts. Did what I was told until the day I stopped.” He shrugs, but there’s nothing careless about it.
“I’m not dressing it up to make myself easier to swallow.
I did the time because I earned it.” He runs a hand through his hair.
“My family taught me exactly what I was worth. Something to throw at the fire so they didn’t burn.” His stare never leaves mine. “Don’t waste your sympathy. They’re dead to me.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I say truthfully.
“You need to understand something, Lucy. I’m not a good man pretending to be dangerous.” His expression doesn’t change. “I’m a dangerous man trying to be better. There’s a difference.”
God help me… I love hearing those words from him. He’s brutally honest, with a complete lack of excuses, and he doesn’t polish the worst parts of himself or ask me to forgive them.