Chapter Fifteen
Liam sank down onto the porch of Nate’s empty home, and a feeling of utter emptiness consumed him.
He watched the back of Nate and Delta’s moving van as it moved slowly to the mouth of the trees. The red brake lights would be burned into his memories forever.
He wrapped his arms around his middle, like that would help. Nothing could save him now.
No one had told him about this—the hollowness that swallowed up an Alpha when he lost his Pack. Had it been like this for Oren? Fuck that. Oren deserved it.
Liam rubbed his hands over his face. Who was he kidding? He deserved this too.
He’d had all these grand plans to bring the Coeur d’Alene Lake Pack back to its former glory, and he’d lost it in record time instead.
Now, they were all Rogues, and for the life of him, he couldn’t find the meaning in any of this.
Dodger, Vic, Tabian, and Bridger had already left. He’d helped them pack up their homes and it had gutted him to do it. Each goodbye was a lash on his soul that would never heal.
He’d had good intentions, and now?
He glanced over at the men hanging by their truck on the edge of the woods. The Elders had sent enforcers to make sure they left.
Liam hadn’t packed anything. Liam didn’t have anything to pack.
His home was in ashes.
He had no clue what the next Pack would do about that.
They were down a home, and Liam had already pulled his name off the insurance claim.
The next Pack would have to deal with the rebuild of that temporary housing.
He’d lived there for seven years, and now he wouldn’t be here to see it rebuilt. There was tragedy in that.
The wind picked up, and gooseflesh raised on his bare forearms. He never got cold, but this week, nothing worked as it should. Including him.
He had nothing to offer Nory.
No home, no Pack, no stability.
It had been torture not responding to her texts, but he just needed to get through this week. He couldn’t talk to her when he was broken. Not like this, when he had nothing.
This lack of purpose was inconceivable for a man like him. For a wolf like him. For an Alpha like him.
He hadn’t even thought about where he would go. He’d been so focused on making sure the boys had support as they drifted to the four winds.
The week had been almost silent.
He would never admit it aloud, but he was going to miss them terribly. They weren’t friends. They’d fought like wild animals in every important moment. They’d rejected peace in the Pack for years. They’d lived separate lives, and didn’t share anything personal.
They didn’t know each other. Not really.
But…that night Nate had been waiting for him to go after Jackson had changed something in Liam’s heart. Seeing Vic, and Tabian, and Dodger come out of those woods dragging the man he was hunting…seeing Bridger’s wolf defending Nory and Delta when he’d come back home to find the Elders here?
It had, for the first time ever, felt like the beginnings of a real Pack.
They had been on the cusp of figuring it out, but now?
Emptiness.
Already he could feel the bonds to his people stretching thin as they left him here.
He hated the Elders. He hated how far they had fallen. He hated that Aro had used his daughter’s power-grab Arrangement to eradicate the wolves here.
But most of all, he hated that they had taken the life he could’ve given Nory before he’d even had a chance to build with her.
The only way it could’ve ever worked with her was if he had a Pack to form a circle of protection around her.
She was human. Fragile. At risk with this destructive life.
Her ankle would bear the scars of the first meeting with his Pack.
The marks on her neck from where Aro dug his too sharp claws into would always serve as a reminder that she didn’t belong with Liam… but she could have.
He’d imagined it when he’d watched her and Delta laughing and working together in the kitchen. When she conversed with the males of his Pack.
“We should kill them,” a voice said from the corner of the empty house.
Liam jerked his attention to Bridger, who stood there leaned on the home, staring with glowing eyes at the two enforcers on the tree line.
“What could they do to us as punishment?” Bridger asked. “Kill us? They kind of already did that.”
“We aren’t dead yet,” Liam murmured.
Bridger said, “This was my last chance at a Pack, and we both know it.”
Fuck. Liam knew he was right. Bridger didn’t have a steady wolf who worked well with others. He’d bounced around, from the snippets Bridger had let slip over the years.
“I thought you’d left already,” Liam said, giving the enforcers his attention again.
“I was paired once.”
Liam frowned. Bridger was putting him on. “No, you weren’t.”
“I was. Married five years.” A faraway look took his eyes. “She was a spitfire like your Nory.”
“Nory’s submissive—”
“Nory’s an Omega and you know it. Why you don’t want her knowing that information is beyond me. She would be fine in a Pack.”
“Like your mate? Where is she now?”
“Six feet under,” Brighter said in an empty tone. “Humans can be sickly creatures.” He pushed off the house and disappeared around the corner, heading for the back yard.
Wait. Liam stood, his mind racing. Bridger had been paired with a human mate? Liam jogged to catch up with him, and by the time he got around to the side of the house, Bridger was halfway to the trees.
“A human?” he asked, running to catch up. “Bridger, wait!”
Bridger tensed and turned, halted, waited for Liam. His eyes were nearly white, and there was an emotion there Liam had never witnessed before.
Bridger swallowed hard. “I hate thinking of her. I regretted it with every fiber of my being when I lost her. I wished every day that I had never met her, because then I wouldn’t be…” He gestured to himself. “This.”
“Fuck, man,” Liam whispered, heart tearing in two. He couldn’t even imagine the pain. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Nory cooked for us, and settled us, and calmed the wolves for a little while, and it’s what my Maggie would’ve done.” Fuck, the deep emotion in Bridger’s voice.
Liam swallowed a lump in his throat. “I didn’t know.”
Bridger shrugged up one shoulder. “You’ll only know how it feels to sever a bond like that if you keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Convincing yourself Nory is better off without you.” Bridger gestured to the woods around them. “Convincing yourself this isn’t a life for her.”
“What can I do? I have nothing to offer a woman like her.”
Bridger cocked his head, and his eyes softened. “In my experience, women like her are interested in the man, not the stuff he can give her.”
Liam scoffed. “I’m not a man.”
“Yes you are. Everyone makes females seem so complicated, but they aren’t.
They have basic needs. They want to feel seen by their person.
They want to feel safe physically and also safe to have real conversations without backlash.
They want a partner. They want to build with a man, not just stumble onto a system that’s already in place.
Where’s the bond in that?” Bridger stepped closer.
“But most of all? A woman like Nory is going to want to help. If you take that away from her, she feels as little purpose as you do right now.” Bridger’s gaze darted to something over Liam’s shoulder, and he nodded once.
Liam caught her scent before he saw her. Dog shampoo, coconut conditioner, and cherry hand lotion.
Nory.
He turned slowly, and she was here. She was really here.
Nory wore leggings and an oversized sweater, and thick-soled boots. Her brunette hair lifted in the breeze, and her pretty green eyes were swimming with emotion. She looked uncertain, but hopeful all at once.
“Nory?” he murmured.
“H-hi,” she stammered, huffing a breath, like she’d been holding it.
Relief flooded him. He wasn’t imagining her.
He hadn’t realized how much he missed her until he scooped her up in his arms and crushed her against him. He hadn’t realized how much he needed her.
Fuck.
This feeling in his chest. This feeling…
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “It’s not safe for you to drive here alone.”
“You weren’t answering my texts or calls. Bridger told me you were still here.”
“My phone…” He frowned, trying to remember where his phone even was. His truck, maybe? “You can’t come here alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
“Nory—”
“I have something to say,” she choked out, pushing him away. “And I want to say it before I lose my nerve, or before you get angrier with me, or tell me what I should and shouldn’t do.”
He approached to hold her again, but she held her hand out. “I have been angry with myself,” she said, her pretty eyes filling with tears, and her voice thick.
She pulled a folded piece of paper from her back pocket and fidgeted with the edge as she dropped her gaze.
“Just let me talk. I have practiced this speech so many times in my head, and now I’m here and I’m with you, and all of my words just…
” She shook her head, and exhaled a long, shaking breath.
“I know I made things impossible for you. and you got hurt.”
“That’s not on you—”
“Liam. Please.”
He hated this. Hated the tear that fell to her cheek because she was thinking any of this was her fault. It wasn’t. None of it was. She’d just come in on a system that took the weight of one piece of straw to break it completely.
“I had a pity party all week, and then I started thinking about a solution.”
“There’s no fixing—”
“Liam.” The sternness in her voice quieted him. He could feel the pain leaking from her body, and it made him feel sick to his stomach. He wanted her to be happy. He needed it.
When he went still, she stepped forward and handed him the piece of paper.