Chapter Seventeen
“Destiny.”
Destiny frowned and stretched. “Hmm?”
“Wake up.”
She pushed up onto her locked arm in Dodger’s bed. “What’s wrong?”
“Not a thing in the world. I want to show you something.”
“Mmm, okay,” she said, reaching for the button of his jeans.
He chuckled and she hesitated. “Wait, why are you dressed?” Last she remembered, he’d been curled around her in bed in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.
“What time is it?” She poked the screen of her phone on the bedside table.
It was six in the morning, and through the window, it still looked pitch dark outside. “Is everything okay?”
His eyes were soft in the glow from the hallway light. “Get dressed in your warm clothes.”
A trill of excitement woke her up even more. It was the wolf. She was going to get to meet the wolf.
Dodger pulled her out from under the covers and gathered her in his lap, then just held her for a full minute. Best alarm clock ever.
When he released her and stood, he patted her leg and murmured, “I’m going to warm the truck up.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.”
“Gloves and beanie too,” he told her with a wink, and then disappeared out of the bedroom and into the hallway.
She stretched again and then slid out of bed and padded across the hallway to the bathroom, got ready for the day and got dressed as quickly as she could, and then met Dodger outside.
He had a handheld metal lunchbox in the back seat, and two cups of coffee with lids sitting in the cupholders of his pickup truck.
It was nice and warm inside when she crawled up inside and shut the door.
“Where to?” she asked as he eased the truck down the winding road that led out of Rogue Pack territory.
He slid his hand around hers and kissed her knuckles. “To my favorite place.”
The drive was about twenty-five minutes, and then he pulled onto a one-lane dirt road and guided the truck through the snow like he could see the road she couldn’t.
There was a foot of snow over everything up here, and she couldn’t make out anything, but he seemed to know this place like the back of his hand.
“When I first came here, I kept exploring outside of the territory while I was Changed. My wolf wanted to see everything. I found this spot three months in, and it’s where I came every time I needed to clear my head.”
“Do you need to clear your head now?” she asked.
“No. My head is clear. Something happens though when you pick a favorite place. You get to know yourself in the quiet there. You understand the parts of you that are stomped out when it’s too loud in the outside world.
So, the place that I used to go to for solace became somewhere I felt happy.
Last night I was thinking about how I would show you the wolf, and the plan was just to take you out after I fucked you, Change, and have it done with.
You’re stuck with me though, and you have one first introduction to the wolf, and I want it to be memorable. Not to me, but for you.”
It was the sweetest thing—him thinking about her and making plans in this way, just to give her a special moment.
She squeezed his hand as he pulled to a stop near a snowbank.
“We have to walk from here,” he said. “Zip up your jacket and grab your coffee.”
Outside of his truck, with the door open, she dressed in the rest of her layers, gloves and beanie included, and with her hand on her warm coffee, she shut the door and caught up to where Dodger stood at the back of the truck with a folded blanket in his arm, and the lunchbox dangling from his hand.
He looked so handsome here in the gray dawn light that preceded the oncoming sunrise.
He wore simple jeans and a charcoal gray long sleeved thermal.
No gloves, no beanie for him this morning.
He offered his arm so she could hold onto it as they hiked up the slippery, uneven slope.
By the time they reached a scenic view, dawn was near.
She could see across the snowy ravine to the mountains beyond. The view stole her breath away.
There was a rockface on the edge of a drop-off, and he quietly guided her to it, and scooped snow off the slick boulder with the palm of his hand.
He unfolded the blanket and set it down, then waited for her to sit on it, while he pulled breakfast out of the metal lunchbox. He’d packed breakfast sandwiches, bagels with cream cheese, and strawberries.
He pulled her in and aimed his phone at them, took a selfie, then set it to his lock screen and showed it to her. Destiny was touched. He seemed so proud to be here with her, and she understood. She felt the same about him.
As the sky turned from gray to soft pink, they ate breakfast, and talked softly, so as not to disturb the peace from the quiet woods.
Every time she looked up at Dodger, he was watching her with this soft look in his eyes.
“You like me, don’t you?” she asked, wanting to hear it.
“Very much.”
A smile confiscated her lips as he leaned down and sipped at her. Destiny slipped her arms around his shoulders and leaned into him, reveling in the feel of his warmth enveloping her.
He angled his head the other way, and deepened the kiss, and she let off a happy sigh.
The snap of the twig behind them was so out of place here. It echoed through her mind.
How strange that a sound could bring her slamming back down to earth.
In her arms, Dodger froze. His body was tight as a drum, and he eased back, stood slowly, scanning the woods. He scented the breeze, and his eyes lightened by the moment.
“Destiny,” he said carefully.
Something was wrong. She stood and looked around the woods, but she didn’t see anything.
“What is it?”
His face was angled toward the right, and his eyes were on something in the trees. “Do you have your gun?”
“Yes,” she whispered, unzipping her jacket automatically.
“How many bullets,” he whispered so softly, she almost missed it.
“I have a full clip.”
“Just one?”
“I have an extra clip in my purse. In the truck.”
“Fuck,” he gritted out.
“Owooooooooo.” The howl pierced the air and Destiny startled hard. It sounded so close.
“Is it your Pack?” she whispered.
“No.” Dodger was already peeling his shirt off.
When the second wolf howled from farther away, the roaring in her ears settled.
This was it. It was here—the moment her dad had trained her for.
She looked at Dodger and witnessed the solemn fury on his face.
They were outnumbering them. Hunting them.
Why? They were here for Dodger, to teach the Rogue Pack a lesson.
To hunt from the outside in. To take them one at a time, but they were also here for her.
Destroying females and dens hurt a Pack the most, and she’d felt it last night… the Rogue Pack had accepted her.
She hated these wolves in the woods. Hated that they would draw blood from the man she loved. Hated that they couldn’t just leave them alone. They’d gone after Nory, bled the Rogue Pack, burned Liam’s den, and now this? And all because of the Elders and their unwarranted vengeance.
This moment of clarity felt so big.
It settled the shaking inside Destiny’s body.
Gritting her teeth, she pulled her Glock and angled it down, finger resting beside the trigger. Next, she pulled her phone from her pocket and opened a text to her dad.
“My dad has my location,” she murmured. She texted her dad the word he’d told her to since she was a little kid. The word that was every bit as important as ‘help.’
Heel. Send.
Yep, she was going to drag Behren Young’s wolf to her. It was the best thing she could do for Dodger if he was up against a Pack. All she had to do was buy him time.
A snarl vibrated the air. Destiny slowly looked up from the glowing screen of her phone. Through the trees, a jet black, enormous wolf stalked out from behind a large boulder.
“Get to the truck,” Dodger snarled in a voice she didn’t recognize.
“But—”
He angled his face toward her, eyes trained on the wolf. “Get to the truck and get out of here. Don’t turn around. Just run.” The last word was a snarl in a voice that wasn’t Dodger’s. It belonged to the wolf. He clapped his keys into her hand. He held her gaze for a moment, blue fire in his eyes.
Dodger turned and pitched forward onto the snow.
His face was strained as his bones broke with an echoing sound that would be burned into her memory for always.
She stood there over him as his body snapped and contorted.
As the black wolf bolted for them, she lifted her Glock and aimed.
Dodger’s throat would be vulnerable until he could finish his Change.
She squeezed her left eye closed, settled her finger on the trigger, and blew out a breath to steady herself, held the air in her lungs, and…boom!
A sharp yelp escaped the charging wolf, and it stumbled, skidding in the snow. It ran into Dodger, but he was Changed and latched onto him immediately. The fight that followed filled the woods with a heavy power she could feel.
She couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, and the wolf’s hip hit her as Dodger slung him to the side by his throat.
She flew backward and landed hard against a tree. Her breath whooshed out of her lungs, and she crumpled onto the snow, gasping. She couldn’t breathe!
Movement caught her eye, but it wasn’t from the fight. Two dark gray wolves were charging out of the trees toward them.
“Run!” Dodger roared in a monstrous voice.
He’d finished off the first wolf and jumped in between her and the wolves.
Where was her gun! She searched frantically and saw it there, in the snow.
She bolted for it, picked it up and ran, gasping as her lungs dragged her first deep breath of frigid air in.
“Move,” she whispered to herself in a shaking voice. She could see the footsteps of the trail she and Dodger had made coming up here. They were faint, but she could see them!