A Beta Protects (The Weakest Wolf #4)

1. Kira

1

KIRA

W e eloped after graduation.

An eight-hour drive to Las Vegas, vows exchanged in The Little Chapel, and I came home a wife.

Years later, I can’t remember if it was my idea or his, if it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, or something we’d always planned. I think I created a block in my mind in case it was my idea, because I would never forgive myself if it was me.

I just know one thing.

It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life.

There are different kinds of control, just like there are different ways of twisting a person into doing things your way without ever lifting a finger to them.

I know all about those ways. I’ve had five years of knowing them.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

I jump, ripping my mind from the past as I blink the tears from my eyes and hurry to finish up in the highway rest stop bathroom. Now I’m no longer lost in the past, the pungent stink of piss makes my nose twitch and eyes water as it did when I first walked in.

I swing the door open as a mountain of a man with a protruding belly and a trucker’s hat is getting ready to bang again. I take in his size and immediately retreat.

I don’t know what he sees in my face, probably the same alert, always on edge Kira Matherson I was since I left Missouri three days ago.

No.

That isn’t right. I was still alert, still watchful, even before then. But for entirely different reasons.

The trucker’s hard expression melts away, and he raises both hands, palms to me. “Sorry for the banging, miss. Wasn’t looking to scare you. Just in a hurry, that’s all.”

Sure.

There’s a massive rig that wasn’t there before. I think I’m looking at an eighteen-wheeler belonging to this big trucker. Hot red front, a dusty stainless steel bumper, and an endlessly long white canvas style back with who knows what he’s hauling.

I’d be less jumpy if I hadn’t spent my first night huddling under a musty blanket in a Walmart parking lot, reliving every true crime show about serial killers I’d ever watched.

Skirting around the trucker’s bulk, I stay on high alert. The moment I’m past him, I hurry away, peering over my shoulder. My long, strawberry-blonde hair swings into my face, briefly blinding me, so I nearly run right into my car. It’s nearly 8 and the last thing I want is to be near strange men so late in the evening.

The trucker watches me, hands now lowered, frowning slightly.

As I get into my car and start the engine, I try not to notice how badly my hands are shaking, or how naked my finger is without my wedding ring on it. There’s still a pale band of skin where it should be, and I yanked it off three days ago. How long until that band fades? Weeks? Hopefully not months.

Tonight I won’t have to sleep in my car. Soon, I’ll be in a place I’ve dreaded and looked forward to arriving for days now.

Will Dom slam the door in my face? Or will he peek through the peephole, see someone he couldn’t have made any clearer he wanted nothing to do with, and just not answer?

You’re stupid , I tell myself, as I pull out of the rest stop and onto the highway. Who drives hundreds of thousands of miles to reach someone who won’t want to see them at all?

But until you know desperate, you have no idea how low you’re willing to go.

I’m fighting to keep my eyes open when the sign for Wylder, upstate New York, flashes past. I change lanes to make the turning for it. As I drive, I think of how tense I always was as I prepared dinner.

Bryce’s hours were regular unless something happened that meant he couldn’t finish work when he said he would. I think he preferred that.

He liked to surprise me.

I’d turn to grab something from a cupboard and jump out of my skin.

He’d be in his usual chair at the kitchen diner, his gun on the table and a smile on his handsome face as he said, “Did my sweet wife miss me?”

Except that last day.

That last day I realized we were out of BBQ sauce, so I ran to the grocery store, thinking I’d be back well before he came home. A problem with a malfunctioning cash register meant I was gone far longer than I’d intended.

His truck was in the driveway as I approached our house.

I imagined him in the kitchen, frowning at the seasoned steak I’d left beside the iron pan, plates on the table, and no sweet wife to greet him.

I had nothing.

Just a few dollars in my pocket and a jar of BBQ sauce on the passenger seat. Not nearly enough to start a brand new life. I’d known one day I would leave him. I’d planned out exactly how I’d do it. But that day, I saw his truck in the driveway and instead of pulling my car up beside his, I put my foot down and just kept driving.

Past the house that was more of a cage than a home. Past the life I regret ever choosing.

Away.

Another sign flashes up on my right.

I have a split second to read it before I’ve passed it.

Wylder. Population of… not sure. Writing was too small to read it.

It’s past 9 as I drive through the small town, and the faint scent of baking makes my stomach rumble.

As I pull off the main road, down a dirt trodden side road, cicadas or some other insects hum in the forest, and a pretty farmhouse with a couple of downstairs lights on is just ahead. It’s nice, if a little isolated.

It seems fitting for the man I came here to see. He was always a little sharp whenever I spoke to him, and so intense I knew he hated me.

I never knew what I did to get on his bad side, but right from the first time he saw me, he had a problem with me.

I’d climbed out of my car and rounded the front, my belly freezing from hugging the bowl of macaroni salad fresh from the refrigerator. My gaze had clashed with my big brother’s endlessly tall, distractingly attractive, dark-haired next-door neighbor. He had a stubbled jaw carved from granite, a sloped nose, and velvety dark brown eyes a person could fall into.

I liked him.

Sure, I was standing next to Bryce at the time, but you can’t help who you like and when you’ll like them. The feeling just hits, and sometimes it sticks on landing. And my attraction to Dom? It stuck.

So maybe it was a good thing he hated me, because married women should not be thinking a man’s eyes are deep enough to fall into. Other than her husband. Of course.

His coldness bothered me before. It doesn’t now. When you have nowhere to go, an enemy becomes a friend.

Pulling my car to a stop, I leave the engine running because who knows what kind of welcome I’m going to get? I climb out, and before I can take a step toward the pretty farmhouse, I spot someone sitting on the porch steps. They were so still, my eyes must have skipped right over their figure. But now I see them.

And I halt.

The person—the man—shoves himself to his feet.

It’s near dark now. The sun has finished setting behind me, so he’s mostly in shadows. I can’t read his expression or even see his face, but his lean build and coiled strength is as familiar as the man who hated me five years before.

“Kira?” He takes a step down the porch steps.

I summon the ‘everything is perfectly fine in the world of Kira Matherson smile’ that I spent the last five years perfecting. “Hi, Dom.”