“No need. Here.” She pulled out some underwear and a matching sweatshirt and jogging pants, along with some socks and tennis shoes.
Never thought I’d be in someone else’s underwear, but desperate times.
“Get those on while I take care of things. Is someone after you?”
“Yes. My pack. They wanted to trade me to an old sicko alpha.”
“Enough said. Fucking bastards. We’ll be on the road in less than thirty minutes. Stay in the back. It’s darker, and no one will be able to see you if you crouch behind one of the seats.”
She dropped from the truck and entered the truck stop while I put on the clothes and waited, counting my breaths until I got out of here. My pack steered clear of humans and their places as much as they could. I doubted they would come here, even if it was over their hunt for me.
“Hurry up,” I murmured from behind the driver’s seat as the woman pumped gas. Shit. I hadn’t asked her name but she hadn’t asked mine either. Maybe that was by design. The less she knew, the more easily she would claim she didn’t see me.
Minutes later, the woman got into the truck and, after we were on the road, urged me to get into the passenger seat. She’d bought me not only breakfast but a small backpack and filled it with snacks. This woman was a saint. “Go on and sleep while I drive. It’s a long way and you look like you could use the rest. I’m Daria by the way.”
I didn’t argue, exhausted.
Daria had recently had her mating dissolved. Her husband didn’t work but complained about her being on the road so much. Then she found he was cheating on her, and it all was over. She claimed she would never mate again. Maybe she would find a human male and marry him.
We agreed that trusting men was hard.
Late that afternoon, she stopped in a city that looked like a perfect place for a new start. Lots of small businesses lining the clean streets, people walking along the sidewalk. “This is the end of the line. I’m about twenty minutes away from my drop. Here…” She pulled some cash from her pocket. “I didn’t think about getting out more from the ATM. This is all I have.” It was almost forty dollars. Not a lot but enough to feed me for a few meals. I hoped.
“Thank you, Darla. For everything.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more, kid. Take care of yourself. This world can be a bitch.”
Chapter Two
Aries
“Aries, I need you to sign off on some things before you make your rounds, please.”
My assistant, Benji, stopped me before I left my office. I loathed this part of owning a club. The paperwork, sitting at a desk answering emails, deliberating over issues, approving expenses. I had people who could do most of those things for me, but only the boss could sign off on a few things.
I chuckled to myself. If I had become the next alpha of my pack, then I would be buried in my office for twelve or more hours every day. My father had been. I couldn’t remember a day when he wasn’t in his office. Taking meetings. Solving pack disputes.
All that had come to an end the day I refused to kill my challenger, but this life was far better.
No pack laws. No statuses or hierarchy. Just me and my pack brothers being ourselves.
I couldn’t kill someone I grew up with just for a job—even if my family didn’t see it that way.
“What is it?” I said, remaining standing. My ass had gone numb a few minutes before and it wasn’t a nice feeling.
“Here.” He handed over a folder, heavy enough for me to hold in my hands and take the pressure of my pen against the paper.
I signed over ten documents, skimming the contents of each as I did, and handed it all back to him. Good thing I trusted him. “Anything else? I need to move my legs.”
“That’s it. And we’re packed tonight. We had to turn some away at the door just to have room to move.”
“Not a bad thing. Ever.”
We made our money on cover charges and alcohol mostly, but there was also a witch and fae bartender who raked in the tips for their fancy drinks. They had a glamour on them, since our club was a mix of humans and shifters, but people paid big money for Elise and Tara’s specialties.
“Not at all, boss. Have fun out there.”
I wore all black to the club. It was easier to blend into the shadows and move like one if I did. Everyone knew Carver, Diesel, and I were the owners, and sometimes that gave females the idea that we were eligible. Technically, we were but we’d decided as a pack, when we first formed one, that we would wait for our omega to come into our lives.
