27. The Past Hits The Present #2
My body responds before my mind can catch up. Emotions— panic, fury, bone-deep exhaustion —surge up like flood water, and I do the only thing I can: I slam them all down, lock them away behind walls I built during countless Iron Ridge pack meetings.
My face goes carefully blank, voice emerging steady despite the earthquake in my chest.
"What are you doing here, Blake?"
He steps closer, and I catch his scent— cedar and musk, that Alpha smell that used to make me feel safe and now makes my skin crawl.
"Well hello to you too, wife." The emphasis on the last word is deliberate, cruel. "Though I suppose that's ex-wife now, isn't it? Amazing how quickly some people move on."
"I asked you a question."
His smile is all teeth, no warmth.
"Business, actually. Funny thing happened after our divorce.
Some interesting discrepancies came to light about undisclosed assets.
Imagine my surprise when Iron Ridge's forensic accountants discovered your dear grandfather had quite the portfolio.
Properties, investments, mineral rights.
" He gestures at the town around us with obvious disgust. "So here I am, come to assess what this shithole might be worth. "
"The town's not for sale," Cole says, and I'd almost forgotten he was there, my focus so narrowed on the threat in front of me.
He moves smoothly, positioning himself between Blake and me with a casualness that doesn't hide the tension in his shoulders.
Blake's attention shifts to Cole, and his smirk deepens.
"And you are?"
"Someone who doesn't appreciate outsiders insulting our home." Cole's voice carries that particular Alpha edge that promises violence, controlled but present. "If Sweetwater Falls is too 'dirty' for your prestigious touch, I'd suggest you leave. The town doesn't take kindly to disrespect."
"The town?" Blake laughs, the sound sharp as breaking glass.
"This place is a dump. Half the buildings need condemning, the streets are barely paved, and it smells like cow shit and desperation.
" He takes another step forward, chest puffing out in that way insecure Alphas do when challenged.
"But money is money, even if it comes from dirty sources.
Iron Ridge needs capital for our new ventures, and every penny counts. "
"Then count them somewhere else."
Blake's eyes narrow.
"You going to make me, old man?"
The insult hangs in the air like a challenge. Cole doesn't rise to it, just stands there solid as a mountain, immovable. The morning sun casts harsh shadows across Blake's face, highlighting the cruel twist of his mouth as he turns his attention back to me.
"I see you've found yourself another protector, Willa.
Though really, scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren't you? First that pathetic pack in Nevada who the government allows Omegas to “borrow” so you get your shit and be out of anyone’s way, and now some washed-up rancher who probably can't even get it up anymore.
" His voice drops, becoming conversational in that way that always preceded his worst cruelties.
"Does he know how disappointing you are in bed?
How you just lie there like a dead fish?
I tried to train you properly, God knows, but some Omegas just don't have it in them. "
The words hit like physical punches in the depths of my gut, each one precisely aimed at old wounds.
To dare say that publicly — boldly in hopes someone in this small town will pick it up and spread it like wildfire — only proves just how much this man hated me.
Despised my existence that was only in his favor when it blessed his and his pack’s pockets…
My cheeks burn with humiliation as several townspeople slow their steps, pretending not to listen while obviously hanging on every word.
Mrs. Henderson from the post office.
Jim from the hardware store.
The teenage Johnson twins who help at their family's feed mill.
All witnessing my degradation, Blake's clinical dissection of my failures as an Omega.
"Personally," Blake continues, warming to his theme, "I think this old dog just wants some young pussy and doesn't care about quality. Can't blame him—at your age, Cole, you take what you can get. Even if she's not really good in bed."
The silence that follows is deafening.
I can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but stand there while my past strips me bare in front of the whole town.
My hands shake, and I clench them into fists, nails biting crescents into my palms.
Then Cole chuckles.
Cole…laughing?
It feels like a phenomenon that will lead to the end of the world as we know it.
It's not the reaction anyone expects, least of all Blake, whose eyebrows climb toward his hairline.
The sound is rich and genuinely amused, like Blake's just told the best joke he's heard all week.
"Not good in bed?" Cole shakes his head, still grinning.
"Son, that's where you're wrong. See, the thing about Willa is she rides cock like a woman possessed.
Like a maddening bull at the rodeo, all wild energy and sweet desperation.
" His voice drops to a rumble that carries clearly in the morning air.
"Course, you probably never experienced that.
Takes a real Alpha to bring out that side of her. "
My mouth falls open.
Blood rushes to my face so fast I feel dizzy.
Did Cole just—in front of everyone ? —
"And let me tell you," Cole continues, apparently just getting started, "I'm counting down the days until the paperwork's final.
Because when it is?" His eyes glitter with dark promise.
"I'm going to enjoy every second of her tight pussy taking every inch of my knot.
Going to fill her up so good she forgets any other Alpha ever touched her, let alone her own name. "
Blake's face goes through a series of expressions— shock, fury, disbelief —before settling on defensive rage.
"You're lying."
"Am I?" Cole's smile is all predator now.
"Guess you'll never know. But I will. Every night once she's officially ours.
Going to worship that body you were too stupid to appreciate, going to make her scream so loud the whole ranch hears it.
" He pauses, letting that sink in. "Speaking of the ranch—that's private property.
You set one foot on our land, try to sniff around our business, and I'll have you arrested for trespassing.
The new chief in town would enjoy that. We're real particular about unwanted visitors. "
"You can't?—"
"I can and I will." Cole's done playing now, voice going hard as granite. "Sheriffs in these parts take property rights seriously. And they take threats to our Omegas even more seriously."
Blake shifts tactics with the ease of long practice, expression morphing into concerned sincerity.
It's a look I know well—the one he used on judges, on pack members, on anyone he needed to manipulate.
"I'm just worried about her mental state," he says, voice dripping false concern. "This whole divorce has clearly been traumatic. Made her... unstable. I mean, look at her—running off to the middle of nowhere, shacking up with the first pack that'll have her? Classic signs of a psychotic break."
"My sanity is fine," I manage through gritted teeth.
"Is it?" Blake tilts his head, studying me like I'm a particularly interesting lab specimen. "Because stable Omegas don't usually flee to backwater towns and spread their legs for every Alpha who shows interest. That's not normal behavior, Willa. That's someone in crisis."
"The only crisis here," Cole drawls, "is you thinking you have any say in her life anymore. My pack adores her. Values her. Sees her worth in ways you never could. So if you're done pretending to care about an Omega you tried to burn alive, I suggest you move along."
The words hang in the air like a bomb.
It’s like a virus in the air—contagion igniting before my words even finish echoing.
"Burn alive?" ricochets in and out of doorways. There’s a pause in the rhythm of Sweetwater’s morning: Mrs. Henderson’s step falters, her hand stalling mid-latch at the post office door; Jim frowns so hard the veins bulge at his temples, then barks at a stack of fertilizer sacks like it’s their fault he just heard what he did; a knot of teens near the feed mill scatter and regroup, faces slack with disbelief, one of them already typing, thumbs blurring.
The whole main street is suddenly a waterlogged wire for every unspoken suspicion about why I left Iron Ridge and whether the rumors about Blake’s last Omega had been true after all.
Blake senses the shift too. The easy dominion in his stance wavers as the people he aimed to cow with his words now level their gazes at him, faces hardening with a familiar small-town anger reserved for those who think themselves above consequence.
For a split second, he looks less like the untouchable predator I remember and more like the cornered animal that he is—a flicker of panic behind slicked-back confidence.
Cole doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, just lets the words settle, lets the crowd’s absorbing silence do the damage. It’s a master class in Alpha intimidation, the kind that doesn’t need fists or howling threats—just the truth, delivered for maximum effect, left to fester in the open air.
Blake's mask slips for just a second, showing something ugly underneath, before he catches himself.
"I have no idea what you're implying," he says smoothly. "The fire was an accident. The investigation?—"
"The investigation was bullshit and everyone knows it." Cole's voice could strip paint. "Now get out of my sight before I forget I'm a civilized man."