9. Zander
Zander
Ishoved the phone into Lane’s chest as he opened his mouth to say something, glaring at him.
I pinned my gaze on Colt next, who was leaning against the blacked-out SUV I’d had ready and waiting for us.
He had earned my trust and respect many times over during the past six years, but stealing an omega was asking for a whole new level of trust. When he told me it was an emergency, I thought one of his wolves had gotten into trouble with the big city wolves, but this situation was going to be way more challenging to manage.
“You didn’t think to tell me that we would be smuggling an omega out of the state?!” I snarled. With how rare omegas were these days, each one was guarded to the point where the Senate wouldn’t hesitate to kill those who dared to touch an omega that didn’t belong to them.
Colt’s head shot up, and he met my gaze, just barely flinching at my aggression. “It’s not smuggling when your own brother is the one who changed her, Zander. I have every right to be here and to take her back to our pack.”
Tossing back my head, I started to laugh, a loud belly laugh that almost made me shed a tear.
“You think that, do you? Well, I have news for you, pup—if she gets noticed by anyone else, then you can kiss your omega goodbye. She has no pack scent nor a mate mark to keep her safe. How the hell did you even know about this?”
“She called me earlier, right before I called you. Cory bit her, and she hasn’t had her first shift yet. They might not even know who or what she is,” Colt challenged, stalking over to me.
Before it could come to blows—as it often did between alphas who weren’t pack—Lane cut him off.
“Easy, Colt, we need to get moving. She said she was going early to get food, so if we don’t want her sitting alone at a diner in some strange town for too long, then we need to get a move on.”
Colt just growled at me, shoving Lane off, and stomped to the SUV, yanking open the door so hard the hinges groaned.
I didn’t even try to argue with him as he slid into the driver’s seat, knowing that Lane was right about this situation.
Even a pretentious prick like myself would put the needs of an omega before my own.
But the little omega doesn’t need Lane to be in the front seat.
Smirking at the frown on the stuffy alpha’s face, I cut him off and claimed the front passenger seat.
I made myself comfortable, sliding my Gucci shades on and pushing the chair all the way back.
It was far too easy to ruffle Lane’s feathers, so it made for easy entertainment.
Pairing my phone with the radio so I could control the music, I flipped to my newest album, knowing it would piss Lane off to no end. “I’m guessing you guys haven’t heard this yet since that pack of yours likes to live under a rock.”
“Staying out of werewolf politics doesn’t mean we live under a rock, Zander,” Lane grumbled as he sighed heavily from the backseat.
I peered at him over the top of my shades. “You keep telling yourself that. Just know that ends once you tell the Senate that you have an omega in your pack. Especially when they find out she’s a changed omega. They are goddamn fucking rare.”
The SUV came to a screeching halt. “What the fuck did you just say?”
“Fucking hell, man! You trying to get us killed before we even leave the airport?” I snapped. “If you’re going to be like this, then it might be better if I drive the rest of the way.”
“Explain what you meant about a changed omega. Why would the Senate care?” Colt said, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly it was making his knuckles white.
I looked at him closely, trying to understand what had made him so upset.
“Um, okay… Well, some omegas can come about by being bitten, but two conditions have to be met. One, the bite has to come from an omega. Two, the bitten individual must be a person who would have been a natural omega had they been born as a wolf. I would say there aren’t many of them.
I mean, how many omegas do you know that would attack someone instead of running away? ”
Colt shook his head slowly. Was that sincere disbelief on his face? “Why don’t we know about this? How many omegas could be out there in the world, so scared to ask for help that they end up dead or captured?”
It was then that I figured out he was envisioning his brother in this woman’s place, what could have happened to him if he hadn’t been born into the pack he was.
From the few things I knew about Cory, I was aware that Colt had taken on the role of guarding him and keeping him safe within their old pack.
When an omega was raised in a healthy pack, they were given a protector to keep an eye on them until they were mated and under the protection of an alpha.
Cory had never gotten the chance to find a mate, or even to live much of a normal life.
Through some of my connections, I’d caught wind that he was being kept by Delilah yesterday, and if that was true, I shuddered to think what his life had been like in her care.
I’d planned to tell Colt once I checked a few things out, not wanting to get his hopes up.
I had heard whispers of some of the shit Delilah was into, and given her reputation, my own hopes hadn’t been very high.
This led me to wonder how Finley had wound up being on the receiving end of an attack by an omega.
It never would have been Cory’s first reaction to lash out—he had to have been left with no other option but to attack.
“What do we know about this woman?” I turned slightly so Lane knew I was directing the question back at him.
I could hear Lane stiffen as if he didn’t want to share anything with me, but that was pointless because I was an older alpha than him.
If I wanted him to back off, I could make him.
Before this woman stepped foot on the pack lands where I resided, I was going to make sure she wasn’t a threat.
I might not want to be bound to a pack, but I would always protect those who gave me protection in return.
“I don’t know much other than her name, that she was bitten by Colt’s brother, and that she was hurt. Thanks to her new abilities kicking in this close to the full moon, she’s healed,” Lane answered begrudgingly.
I rubbed my hand over my jaw as I mulled that information over.
“She said she was staying in a safe place that only had MREs to eat, the phone she called us from was blocked, and she was surprisingly knowledgeable about our journey. Something about this doesn’t add up to me.
No omega would be able to survive being attacked; they don’t have the drive to fight back like other werewolves. ”
“Well, she hasn’t shifted yet, so her nature wouldn’t be changed as much… Right?” Colt interjected.
“Possibly, but I plan on having all those answers before she’s on my plane back to Tennessee,” I growled, feeling my wolf’s hackles rise along with my suspicions.
It wasn’t hard to find the town. It was just as she’d described; Maybelle’s Diner was right off the short two-block strip they called their ‘downtown.’ Colt took a parking spot right in front near the door so that she wouldn’t be out in the open for long when we left.
With it being so close to the full moon, I was more worried about her shifting early.
If that happened, it could bring on her heat and, subsequently, our rut, and I did not want that to happen with an omega I’d just met.
The chances of marking her would be too high, and I wasn’t going to bind myself—and all the danger that came with who I was—to some stranger.
The moment Lane opened the door to the diner, I was smacked in the face with her scent.
There was a bite of cardamom and clove, but it was sweetened with a hint of vanilla that made you want to bury your nose in its warmth.
My wolf sat up, eyes alert, seeking out the owner of this addictive scent, and seconds later, I found my gaze landing on a slight woman sitting in the back corner, staring at us with wide eyes.
The bright cobalt blue of her eyes was just as alluring as her scent, and before I knew what was happening, I was standing before her.
Her long brunette hair had hints of red running through it in the sunlight, and her frame was so small, almost as if, were I to hold her too tightly, I would break her.
Mate. That scent rocked me to my core.
My wolf let out a growl, not liking how skinny she was. She needed to be healthy if she was to be a good mate and give us strong pups.
Mate? Pups? What the fuck was I thinking?
I didn’t even know this woman, and I was already planning to keep her.
I’d heard the call to your true mate was one you couldn’t fight, but I’d always assumed it was still a choice.
After all, we weren’t purely animals. But this right here felt like an obsession, like this woman was a drug, and I needed my fix now.
It was then I noticed that Lane and Colt were on either side of me, both as rigid as I was, attempting to keep themselves from pouncing on her.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lane take a deep breath, pulling in her scent and closing his eyes as his chest started to rumble.
Hearing this, my wolf thrashed inside me, furious that this other alpha would dare lay claim on something that was ours.
Colt echoed the sound, causing me to whip my head in his direction and snarl, rising to my full height.
A whimper of distress pulled my full attention to the omega trembling in the booth in front of me. The need to fix whatever had made our omega whine had me tossing the table out of the way so I could kneel in front of her, oblivious to what was going on elsewhere in the diner.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” I demanded, her flinch letting me know my voice was too harsh.
Shaking her head, she curled into a ball, peeking out at me from behind her arms. I turned around and surveyed the diner, making sure there wasn’t some unseen danger, though nothing but shocked faces stared back at us.
I looked back at her, and, unable to take it any longer, I reached out and scooped her into my arms, holding her tightly to my chest and letting out my alpha purr.
Instantly, she snuggled into me, clutching my leather jacket as two echoing snarls sounded from Colt and Lane.
“What do you think you’re doing, Zander?” Colt demanded.
He and Lane blocked me when I tried to carry my omega to safety.
Narrowing my eyes at them, my purr changed into a warning growl. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m getting my mate the fuck out of here.”
“Your mate?!” Lane snapped. “She’s ours!”
The sound of a shotgun cocking drew all our attention to the portly man who was rounding the counter. “I think it’s best if you leave. We don’t welcome your kind here.”
My vision went red at the sight of this gun-wielding man threatening my mate.
Gently, I handed her off to Colt, trusting him far more than I did this trigger-happy bigot.
Waiting a moment, I saw her burrow against him just as she had with me, setting my wolf at ease before I turned all my attention to the diner’s owner.
Stalking over to him, rage pumping through my veins, I snatched the gun out of his hand and broke it over my leg in one swift movement.
“What kind is that, exactly?” I asked through a clenched jaw. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re the one threatening a defenseless woman.”
The color drained from the balding, fat man’s face as he stared down at his gun.
When supers had come out, humans realized that they were no longer on the top of the food chain, and they’d taken to resenting us.
Supers, just like any human, could be good or bad, but because we weren’t like them, we were considered ‘evil’ or ‘abominations.’ The fact that I was as huge a star as I was despite how open I was about being a werewolf was almost unheard of, but I’d spent my entire career trying to educate people.
“Zander, we should just go. We need to get her back home—quickly,” Lane said, resting a hand on my shoulder.
Glancing over at my little dove wrapped up in Colt’s arms, her gaze taking everything in with uncertainty, I knew he was right.
Nothing I did here would change this man’s mind anyway.
Shoving the asshole out of my way, we headed out of the diner to the SUV.
I opened the back door so that Colt could get in easier with her in his arms, and I slid into the driver’s seat.
Once everyone was in, I slammed on the gas, and we shot out onto the road, getting out of this shitty little town.