Chapter Eleven
Wednesday…
Destiny would be starting her substitute teaching position soon. Another week and she would have her classroom. She was probably happy. God, Dodger hoped she was happy.
He’d gotten out early so she didn’t get too attached.
He was doing a good thing. An honorable thing.
That’s what he kept reminding his wolf. “We are protecting her.”
The wolf wasn’t buying it.
He had remained as the wolf after the fight with Nathan last night. It felt better that way. He didn’t hurt the same when he was the animal. He didn’t feel as sick.
He’d actually gotten a couple of hours of sleep out in those woods, curled into a snowbank.
Dodger grunted as he stepped wrong on his bad leg. He and Nathan had torn each other up. He hoped he was healing up well this morning. Hopefully Delta was taking care of him.
He grunted again as he stepped up onto his porch stairs.
“What did you do?” Liam asked. His voice carried across the space between their houses.
“I’m doing my best,” Dodger called back to him.
“Everyone can smell it.”
Dodger slid him a dirty look and then looked down at his bare leg. He didn’t remember where he’d dropped his clothes before the fight. His leg had a long gash, but it was healing. “It’s not infected,” he told his Alpha.
“I’m not talking about your injuries.
And dammit, Liam was heading this way.
“I have to get to work,” Dodger ground out. “I don’t have time for whatever you have to say.”
“You’ll make time.”
“Piss off, Liam—”
“Who is she?”
Dodger had been reaching for the door handle, but froze, his eyes trained on the woodgrain pattern on the door.
“You have a mating bond you’re trying to break. Anyone here can feel it and see it. And now we can smell it.”
Dodger didn’t smell anything but the copper scent of blood from his oozing leg.
Exhausted, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against the cold door. It felt good against his burning skin. “I barely know her.”
“I don’t think your wolf cares about that. Did she reject you?”
“I am rejecting her.”
“Why?”
“Liam—”
“Why?” Liam demanded louder.
“She’s human.” Dodger rolled his head against the door and looked at him tiredly. He repeated it softer. “She’s human.”
“Fuck,” Liam murmured, and leaned against the railing of Dodger’s porch.
“Yeah.”
“I thought you hated humans,” Liam uttered.
“I do.”
“So how did this happen?”
Dodger turned and sank down into the porch chair he’d bought for this place. It still had the price tag on the arm. He didn’t even bother to wipe the snow off.
“She was nice to me,” Dodger said.
Liam snorted and sat in the other chair. “That sounds desperate as hell man. Have you never had a human be nice to you before?”
“Not like this one. She’s just different. I kissed her. I know I shouldn’t have. I knew it was wrong at the time, but I did it and now I’m stuck. I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Were you with her when the new Pack attacked us?”
“Yes. That’s where I was. I was with her.”
“What’s her name?”
“Destiny.”
Liam huffed a laugh. “Destiny, huh?”
“I knew she was trouble from the start with a name like that.” Dodger tried to smile, but his lips had forgotten how to form those. “She’s a crossing guard at an elementary school. She’s one of those wholesome, good-down-to-her-bones women. Too good for me.”
“Your timing is horrible. We’re about to hit the new Pack.”
“No shit. I’ll be ready.”
“Will you? I don’t want you going to war with us if you’re distracted.”
“I’ll be fine,” he said sternly. Dodger shook his head to stop the growl that was forming in his throat. Liam didn’t do anything wrong. “A good fight will do me good. We should’ve hit them immediately. I don’t know why we didn’t. I need the fight.”
Liam’s attention danced to his mutilated leg and back up. “Yeah, you look like you’re doing so much better after you and Nathan went after each other. You need to fix it with him.”
“What makes you think we aren’t fixed?”
“The blood?”
Dodger made a clicking sound behind his teeth. “Nathan was doing me a favor. I appreciate him for it. We’re good.”
The chair creaked as Liam leaned back. “Nory told me what you said the night of the attack.”
“Oh, that you need to Turn her? You do.”
“You know she and Delta saved each other that night, don’t you?”
Dodger frowned at him. “Delta saved her.”
“Delta bought her time to get her weapon. Delta was in trouble in that fight, and Nory unloaded two clips into that wolf. Guess how many times she hit Delta?”
“None.” He already knew the answer. Delta had been fine when he’d seen them. She’d been consoling Nory.
“You saw the shaky aftermath of a human’s adrenaline dump, but you didn’t see her when we were fighting. There was no fear. There was only rage.”
“So what? Nory is tough. She survived this one. Congrats. Are you telling me I should risk another human here? Liam, we are under fire from the Elders, who definitely know we’ve set up territory here now.”
“Well, you can Turn her if you want,” Liam said much too lightly.
“And if she dies?” Dodger demanded, anger boiling inside of him.
Liam leaned forward on his knees and flashed his glowing eyes at him. “Now you know why I don’t like you mentioning that to Nory. No one is getting Turned. Teach her to shoot, Dodger.”
“She knows how to shoot.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I can’t put her in the line of fire right now! If any of the other Pack sees me with her, who do you think they will target? Tell me, when Nory goes into town alone, what do your instincts say?”
“She doesn’t go into town alone right now.”
“So, you want me to bring Destiny into our Pack and what? Hover? Suffocate her? Like you’re having to do for Nory?”
“You will have to protect her. That’s what the bond dictates. If she has a weak side, you protect that weak side.”
“She has all weak sides! She’s a fucking human!”
“You don’t give enough credit—”
“And you are too reckless!” Dodger yelled, standing. “What if we lose them?” The words echoed. “What if we lose them? What if we lose our humans. What if we don’t have them anymore. What if we form a bond and it gets broken?”
“That is spoken from a place of fear—”
“You’re goddamn right! I’ve spent four days away from her.
Four. And yesterday I wanted Nathan to win our fight, and I wished that I would fucking bleed out alone in the woods, Liam.
And that’s after one date. I’ve never hated being a werewolf as much as I do right now.
The bond is way too much for me. I wish I was human—”
“You don’t mean that—”
“I do! If I was human, I could dick around and date a girl for four months. Fuck her and leave. Tell her I love you in my own time. Maybe take two years to do it. Get to know her. See if she is even a match.”
“If your wolf chose her, she is a match—”
“This bond will poison her entire life, and you know it.”
“Nory is happy.”
“Nory is in danger!”
“No, Dodger, Nory is a danger!” he roared. “Stop talking about my mate like she is fragile. She’s not! I’m not dragging some anchor, man! Delta is alive today because Nory protected her throat! Probably Vic too. Does your human know what you are?”
“Look at my face, Liam. Of course she does. I’ve never been one of those soft wolves that passes for human.”
“So you what? Deserted her?”
“One date, dude. It’s a normal thing for humans. You just ghost them and they go upgrade to something better.”
“You think there is anything better than the devotion of a werewolf bond?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know. My dad died before I even knew what a bond was, and all of my mom’s boyfriends left pretty damn easy, my brother’s couldn’t take care of a female properly if you paid them a million dollars, and my sisters only date assholes, so I guess I have never witnessed a bond actually work out. ”
“Sounds like they didn’t have bonds in the first place.”
“Chh,” Dodger limped to the railing and locked his arms against it. The wood splintered under his grip. “I can’t just put her life in danger. What kind of man would I be?”
“The kind that keeps his mate safe.”
“From the danger I put her in.”
“Dodger, enough man! Geez! You’re acting like you’re going to fight your bond forever!
You can’t. It’s not how we are wired. Every day you stay away from her, you grow weaker.
Go fuck her and see what it does for you.
Go see what it does for her. Or wither away and kill your wolf slowly.
I’m not watching this shit though.” He hopped over the railing and strode off through the snow.
“Where are you going?”
“To stop enabling you.”
Dodger didn’t know what that meant though. His confusion held as Liam stormed through the snow and chucked Dodger’s phone at him. It landed in the snow near his porch. Asshole.
Whatever. Dodger turned for his den and made his way inside, but turned without telling his body to do so, and before he knew it, he was squatting in the snow next to his phone.
“No,” he ground out.
He poked the screen, wishing for a text from her, but that was impossible. He still had her blocked.
Freaking Liam. All he’d had to do was keep his phone away from him, and now it was sitting here, face up, taunting him.
It was this connection he could so easily have with Destiny.
There was no text from Destiny, but another number had texted him several times. Eyes narrowed, he opened up the message. There were no words. Only two videos and one picture.
He opened the first and pushed play.
It was of him carrying Destiny over the ice toward the restaurant.
Fuck. His chest ached. He couldn’t draw a breath.
Dodger pushed play on the second one, and it was of him opening the door for Destiny at Copper’s. She was wearing the same skirt he had laid on the end of his bed right now so he could feel close to her.
The picture was next, and it was of them through the restaurant window, smiling at each other as they talked. It was in black and white.
He saved them all, and typed out, Thank you. Send.
It was Destiny’s mother who had sent these. He just knew it.
She responded immediately. Stop hurting her.
Those three words gutted him. What did she mean? He wasn’t hurting Destiny. He would never. He couldn’t even imagine it.
He was protecting her.
My life is complicated. Send.
No shit, Asswipe. Geez, this lady had a foul mouth. You locked your wolf onto her, you got her tethered to you, you bound the both of you, now you can fuckin’ figure it out.
Dodger was confused. This didn’t match the nice lady he’d met at Coppers. Is this Destiny’s mother? Send.
Stepdad. You can save me as Behren. If you hurt my daughter, I’ll cut you from throat to dick and piss on your entrails. That’s an oath.
The blood drained from Dodger’s face.
Behren. Her stepdad’s name was Behren. Destiny’s last name was Young.
Her dad was Behren Young of the Michigan Packs. Packs, plural, because he was head of three Packs for half a decade before he disappeared into the ether.
Holy.
Shit.
Behren Young was a legend, and he was in Coeur d’Alene.
Dodger stood stiffly and saved the number under the name Behren.
Nothing had changed, and everything had changed.
If Behren was telling him to go get his daughter…if Dodger had the approval of the big bad wolf himself…what should he do?
Something was happening inside of him.
Something big, and unavoidable.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he was inside his house, pulling jeans on.
What? He closed his eyes again and he was brushing his teeth, his haunted face hollow in the mirror.
He blinked again, and he was in his truck, and the scent of his own cologne was heavy.
He cast a glance up at the rearview mirror, and he was wearing a charcoal gray beanie. When had he put that on?
A blink and he was suddenly taking a right on the main highway that would lead him to Coeur d’Alene.
That would lead him to Destiny.