Chapter 3
Sawyer
It was a devil’s choice. The kind that left my hands trembling around a cup of tea and my heart a snared rabbit’s heart beat inside my chest. Even in my tiny apartment, with its warm tones and welcoming furniture, it left me breathless and broken.
He’d found me. There was no other way to read Lucia Kozlov’s unexpected appearance at girls’ night.
My father had sent her to drag me back to Martha’s Vinyard like a captured prize.
Kazimir and my father must have mended fences. Last I knew they hated each other.
The only other explanation was that fate was playing a cruel game of coincidence.
I suppose it was possible that Lucia was truly Juliet’s friend and was concerned about her.
Seems ridiculous that Lucia could truly care about anyone.
But Juliet had that effect on people. Hell, I fell in love with ‘all things Juliet’ within hours of meeting her.
She is Goddess-blessed, and the perfect Luna for her pack.
So, this left me with a frightening dilemma.
Did I run again? Did I abandon my new life and Menace in an attempt to protect him and the Iron Valor pack?
Or did I risk staying, keeping my true identity a secret, as I continued to lie to the man who I believed was my fated mate?
If I told him who I truly was, the circumstances of why I lied, what would that look like?
What would Menace expect his Alpha to do? I was terrified to find out.
Menace was a man who valued integrity. He was ex-Delta Force, for God’s sake. Loyalty and honesty are what kept his men alive. And here I was, lying straight to his face every day. It was a lie by omission, but a lie was a lie was a lie.
The couch groaned under my weight as I sagged back, the soft floral fabric suddenly a straitjacket pinning me to the harsh reality of my past. Tapping fingers against a porcelain teacup, darting eyes to the window, I sat like prey expecting a predator to pounce.
It would take my father’s men no time at all to reach me.
A deep, raw ache threatened to split my ribs as I thought of Menace and the devastation I’d leave behind.
I felt my wolf pace behind my ribs. She was having none of it.
She refused the idea of leaving who she’d already considered her mate. My agitated state only increased.
There were no options that didn’t tear me to pieces. There was no decision except staying that didn’t leave me broken. And staying came with its own terror.
Memories of my father and his controlling grip paraded through my mind.
I saw him, King Declan, with eyes that matched mine in shade but held no warmth.
There he stood, always looming, a tyrant in the guise of a loving parent.
Even across the country, his power extended like claws.
My thoughts flitted to Bronwyn, my gentle mother, who couldn’t summon the strength to help herself, let alone me.
Griffin, my younger brother, was sympathetic, but he knew the danger of trying to aid my escape.
My older brother Callum believed in duty above all else, and his obedience to our father was absolute.
When I’d sought freedom, I was on my own.
My life in Martha’s Vinyard was little more than a gilded prison, with a future planned by others.
Shipped off to private schools, where I begged to earn a music degree and allowed it only because it served the family’s prestige.
I was a bargaining chip, promised to another pack’s king as a strategic pawn.
I didn’t see a way that I could ever escape it.
It was almost too similar to what Juliet had just lived. Granted, her fiancé was a madman, but as far as her false identity and hiding in plain sight were concerned, the parallels were uncanny. If only my father didn’t care where I was, like hers.
The minutes stretched out. I tried to busy myself by reading a book I’d found on the bookshelf.
Pride & Prejudice. Even Mr. Darcy couldn’t ease my worries.
My options of whether to stay or run kept streaming through the back of my mind.
Running became increasingly dangerous. A lone wolf would eventually turn feral. The cards were stacked against me.
It would be another cowardly retreat. And before being tortured in Harrison’s lab, I was no coward.
I’d faced down men in alleyways in New York and held my own.
I didn’t like this frightened version of myself.
But I was afraid for more than just myself.
With Menace and Iron Valor in danger, there was no time to waste.
My resolve to stay weakened like the dying daylight on the walls.
The remnants of my old life lingered heavy.
Those eleven months on the run before landing in Harrison’s clutches had been a horror show I didn’t want to repeat.
First Manhattan, trying to stay alive on the streets of New York.
My every footstep seemed to echo with my father’s anger as I ducked down alleyways and into shadows, always looking over my shoulder for the men he sent to find me.
Each day stretched into eternity, weighed down by fear and loneliness.
I kept moving west until I’d wound up in the Ozarks.
I thought I’d be safe among the pines. Then I’d had to shift to keep my wolf from losing her mind.
Apparently Harrison’s men had seen me. That’s when the true nightmare began.
It was only Menace breaking down the door and busting my chains that gave me my first glimpse of hope after months of anguish.
Dairyville was the last in a series of desperate grasps at freedom, and the first place I had started to believe it was more than a mirage.
Until Lucia Kozlov. Until girls’ night and that sickening sense of fate crashing down.
How could I leave? How could I stay? I was at war with myself, and both sides were losing.
The bindings on my heart grew tighter. My father’s shadow loomed. It left no room for hope.
This town and these people were the love song I had given up on.
A few precious weeks of pretending I could live my own life.
Everyone I’d encountered here had been gentle with me.
Kindness like I’d never experienced in my life.
I’d only ever known people treating me with deference.
Like a princess. The freedom of a false name and a new identity opened my eyes to what life could be.
Each piece fit together into a puzzle of lies that only my own foolishness could believe.
But I wanted to believe it. I wanted Menace.
I wanted the life and love he seemed to offer without words.
For the first time, I could see it: a reckless, blinding vision of a future that I didn’t want to surrender. The way he looked at me. The warmth of his presence. The steady force that held me together when I should have shattered.
Sawyer Galloway. Not quite a lie, not quite the truth. A girl who thought she could run forever but couldn’t even manage another day.
Ms. Pearl had been a savior of sorts. I remembered arriving, wrapped in a blanket in Menace’s arms. Her warm eyes had seen the empty horror in my eyes.
She knew I needed something that felt safe.
Something that felt like my own. She mothered me in a way that even my own sweet mother could not. Was never allowed to.
Leaving her would be another tearing in a heart already split wide.
I wanted to believe in my strength. In Menace.
That I could choose to stay and protect the dream I had barely begun to live.
But I was my father’s daughter, bred for flight and the preservation of his empire.
The cowardice that threatened to consume me felt ingrained, a legacy of running.
The air felt thin and useless, each breath barely enough to keep me conscious. My chest rose and fell like an engine out of control. Like my mind, my pulse refused to slow, frantic with the fear of abandoning everything good and true in a hopeless effort to protect it.
But it was a broken knowing. If it turned out wrong, I couldn’t run from myself.
The sharp-edged pain of losing Menace would cut too deep.
His absence, my failure—each option left me skinned to the bone.
The tug in my gut that I’d felt for him.
The more I was around him, the stronger it became.
It was a constant pull. I felt certain he was my fated mate.
He seemed to be a part of me somehow. Beyond feelings, beyond explanation.
The memory of his hands on me—soft and confident, nothing like I’d expected—brought heat to my face.
This older, dangerous man, who I’d loved since the moment we met, held back as if I might shatter.
As if a twenty-four-year-old virgin, kept pure by her father’s design, was too delicate for him.
His restraint was an unsolvable mystery.
He couldn’t know I wanted him to let go.
I craved the beast he kept locked down. I’d seen him the night he’d stormed my cell.
He was a wild man that night. For some reason, that is what I longed for.
Was he disgusted by my innocence? I wasn’t fragile.
Goddess knows I’d weathered so many storms.
The air settled around me like a shroud. It held me tighter than any prison. The effort of holding myself together turned each second into hours. Each thought to ash.
Menace was the life I wanted. This town was the family I needed. Lucia’s discovery forced my hand. I didn’t know if I could trust her. Her relationship with Juliet was what I’d pinned my hopes on. She’d never cause her or her pack harm.
In the distance, I heard the song of wolves. I recognized Menace’s howl. My soul and heart instantly calmed. How could I ever abandon that? Him?
I didn’t know who I was anymore. Sawyer? Savannah?
A coward in two parts.