Chapter 22 SoonerLater
Chapter twenty-two
Sooner or Later
Pack Hail was a pharmaceutical giant within the werewolf world, the largest producer of all wolfsbane medication—shift and heat suppressors mostly.
“The assembly is taking place at the cabin resort within Wolfsong National Forest,” Cole said.
We had travelled for hours. Hours of quiet radio and Chloe discussing Cole’s schedule and another assistant I had never met before—James.
He was quiet and had typed away on a laptop for most of the journey.
Only pausing occasionally to interject with numbers and percentages that Cole nodded appreciatively at.
“A cabin resort?” I asked.
“It’s quite popular in the summer,” Chloe interjected.
Cole gave her a look that challenged the woman to speak again.
“Pack leadership will be staying within the resort; supporting members and others attending for non-pack business are staying at a nearby hotel,” Cole explained.
“Will I be at the hotel?” I asked her.
“You’re staying with me,” she answered.
“Until you have your money back that Ashford owes you?” I asked.
She hummed in the affirmative.
I lay my head against the cold window and watched as we left behind the highway onto roads lined with more and more trees, passing small service stops until we were surrounded by thick forest on a winding road.
A large green-and-blue sign welcomed us to Wolfsong National Forest and reminded visitors that camping and campfires were not permitted during certain months of the year.
The cabin resort was much larger than I had anticipated.
At first, I thought we were travelling through a small town, passing restaurants, small shops, and town halls until we drove further, and each road we passed became gravel and led to groups of maybe half a dozen or more luxury wooden cabins.
There had to be at least a hundred cabins or more.
The driver turned down a gravel road that ended in a circular car park surrounded by cabins, each with its own porch deck and facing one another in the circular formation. A mini-community within a larger organism.
The doors opened automatically, and Cole was the first to get out of the car, holding her hand out to help me out.
Part of me wanted to ignore the offer; a greater part of me wanted to feel my hand in hers.
It could be the last time we touched.
Something inside me was repulsed by that thought, like it couldn’t be true, but it was.
At some point in the coming few days, I would be handed back to Ashford, and I’d never see Cole again.
I might have the opportunity to glance at Darren if he and Ashford were playing at the same poker games, but it would be a passing glance, not even any small talk.
Eventually, he would forget about me, make new friends, and find a partner, probably at Nina’s party.
I took Cole’s hand.
She squeezed mine, brief but real, before she released me once both my feet were on the gravel.
“You’re in cabin forty-four. The key should be waiting on the hook next to the door,” Chloe informed Cole from within the car. Neither she nor James exited with us.
The driver retrieved Cole’s suitcase and my rucksack from the trunk and brought them to Cole.
“Thank you,” Cole said, accepting the handle of her suitcase and swinging my near-empty rucksack over her shoulder.
I followed Cole up a slabbed path as the car drove away.
Another car neared the small car park as we reached the decked porch. Darren jumped out, stretching his long arms above his head and cracking his back.
“I’m not built for long car journeys,” he said loudly, and turned, looking around, waving when he saw us.
Cole lifted her hand, which held the key to the cabin, and waved back, very much unenthusiastically. I waved too.
“I’m number forty-six. What number are you?” he called.
“Forty-four,” I answered.
“No! I want us to be neighbours,” he replied, turning to Alpha Sara as she and her husband exited the vehicle while their driver retrieved their bags. “What number are you?” he asked Alpha Sara.
“Forty-five,” she answered.
“Swap with me?” he asked.
Branden laughed.
“We’ve got the executive cabin, son. You’ll have better luck exchanging cabins with Ikenna, Morgan, Harold, or one of the other directors,” he told him, listing off names of people I hadn’t met in my time within Sandstorm. It was a reminder that I wasn’t part of them; I was only temporary.
“Right,” Darren said, turning as another car pulled up and a man in a dark grey suit carrying a laptop bag under his arm stepped out.
“Ikennaaa!” Darren called excitedly and ran over to him.
Cole turned and unlocked the cabin door.
“Are you coming in?” she asked.
I turned away from Darren; his excitement was such a contrast to my ever-increasing dread that it seemed foreign, like I’d never felt the feeling before and couldn’t imagine what it felt like.
I nodded to Cole and followed her inside.
The inside was the warm brown-orange of polished treated wood.
A rug ran from the entrance past a couple of closed doors and into the open centre space.
A couch in front of a large wood fire and a kitchen area to the back corner under a staircase, which led to a loft bedroom, which looked out over the living space.
Cole set down her suitcase and my bag at the foot of the stairs and walked back down the hall.
“The bathroom is the door on the left. The coat closet is to the right,” she told me from down the hall.
Impressively tall floor-to-ceiling windows gave a view of the forest beyond. To the side of the porch was a covered hot tub.
“What do you think?” Cole asked when she returned.
I looked around. It was nice. Two glasses and a bucket of ice with a bottle sat on the side table next to the couch. Everything was clean and neat.
I could just see the foot of the bed from the loft above, but something was off. Like when you know something isn’t quite right but you just can’t point it out. I looked around again. Bathroom down the hall, kitchen space, couch, bed.
“What’s wrong?” Cole asked, walking towards me, and I realised what was missing.
“There’s only one bed,” I said.
“The accommodation was arranged months ago. I’ll take the couch,” she told me.
Her suggestion stung. It was completely irrational; it wasn’t like I had a right to share a bed with her. I didn’t even want to. I mean, I was the one who pointed out the bed issue.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I looked up at Cole. The couch was large, but she was tall and definitely needed more space to spread out.
“I should take the couch; you need more space,” I told her.
“It’s not for long. You’ll sleep in the bed,” she said, and that stung worse. That she was probably only planning on sleeping on the couch for a night or two because I’d be gone soon enough and she’d have the bed to herself.
“Okay,” I replied.
“There’s a hot tub. I think it’s wood-fired,” she said.
I hummed. I didn’t care about a hot tub.
She slid open the screen door to the back porch and walked out.
We had direct access to the forest. It would make it easy to leave and come back before and after the full moon.
A bit of privacy. Only likely to come across your own Pack if you happened to destroy or lose your clothes and had to return naked.
I sat down on the edge of the wooden porch and stared at the forest.
I could run; Darren would bet on me escaping.
What lay beyond the forest?
Mountains?
Sleepy human towns where I’d be unlikely to come across another wolf?
Could just as easily be a mixed community, or a Pack town, or endless miles of road.
I could hitchhike, but chances are some sleazy guy worse than Ashford would pick me up.
“What are you thinking?” Cole asked, sitting down beside me.
“What’s past the forest. I’m not all that good with geography,” I answered.
She hummed.
“Wait here,” she instructed and got back up.
I watched as she entered the cabin and opened her suitcase, retrieving a small, shiny white cardboard box.
She sat back down next to me and handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked. The box had a bit of weight to it.
“I thought maybe it could be useful,” she told me.
I found the edge of the box and pulled it open.
A phone.
I could feel her waiting for a reaction. How ungrateful would she think me if I told her that he’d just take it from me?
Three years ago, I’d have been turning it on, setting it up, straight onto social media, ready to scroll my life away.
But I didn’t miss endless feeds. Or all the pointless noise.
I missed notifications of messages, stories and photos from the people I thought cared about me. Maybe I just missed who I was.
“Thanks,” I said and set the box aside.
“It’s got my number in the contacts,” she told me.
I laughed. A mix of self-deprecation and disbelief.
“I told you, you don’t have to pretend,” I reminded her.
“Harriet, I want to be able to make sure you’re okay,” she said.
“I’m sorry—either you’re an idiot or you think I am,” I told her and stood up.
“This is difficult for me too,” she said, matching my anger.
“Is it? Really?” I asked, my tone mocking.
Cole growled but didn’t reply.
“You can growl all you want. I’m not intimidated. We’ll be out of each other’s lives soon anyway. Why are we even dragging it?” I challenged, anger heating my chest. “You should take me back to him now. He’s around here somewhere, right?”
Cole stepped towards me, and I backed up until I was crossing the threshold and back inside the cabin.
She followed me, sliding the door shut behind her, without even turning to look, her eyes on me.
“Is that what you want?” she asked, cornering me when the back of my knees hit the couch.
“I want this to be over,” I told her.
I wanted to get rid of the mix of dread and anxiety that made me nauseous.
And I’d rather feel the pain of her abandonment for real than live in a worse limbo, being reminded every moment that she didn’t want me.
That even being true mates wasn’t enough for her to choose me.
“You’ll get what you want once your Alpha’s father bends the knee,” she growled.
“What?” I asked, confused. “I thought you took over Ashford’s debt,” I said.
She sneered.
“Do you think I waste my time buying gambling debts? I purchased leverage,” she told me.
“If it wasn’t about Ashford, why did you take me?” I asked.
“Humiliation is a strong motivator. I needed to ensure he went to his father and not another backer,” she explained.
“It’s difficult to hide the loss of an omega,” I said.
I was just a pawn in some Pack politics game she was playing.
And that’s all I would ever be to her.
“Yes,” she said in agreement and pressed forward.
I had nowhere to go.
She bent towards me, and for a moment I thought she was going to kiss me, but she pressed her nose firmly into the crook of my neck and produced a growl that rumbled through to my chest.
I stretched out, offering her more space, instinctively.
“You’ve got to stop doing this,” she said, her lips against my skin. “Offering your neck to me,” she continued.
With her words, I became aware of myself and reached out, my hands pressing against her firm abdomen.
She pressed herself closer to me.
I pushed her back.
“Get away from me,” I said, my voice weaker than I wanted it to be.
She stilled and, after a lingering moment, lifted her head from my neck, freeing me.
There was a notification ding, and she growled frustratedly, pulling her phone from her pocket.
“You might get your wish sooner than you thought,” she told me, putting her phone back in her pocket.
“What?” I said, panic tightening my chest.
“Blizzard wants a meeting this evening before the official start of the assembly tomorrow,” she told me.
I took a deep breath, forcing my lungs to expand.
“Okay,” I said, straightening my shoulder.
Nothing had changed, not really.