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Restless, he wiped his hands on his pants, rubbing and rubbing at the thick denim as if he could wash the blood from his hands. Too late. It was too late to save his family, too late to salvage his Pack, too late to hide this shameful secret from her. “There was a bridge.” Voice choking, he paused to clear his throat. “The Pack was going on a trading trip, like the Morris Hill Alphas, and Pa put me in charge of scouting the route to make sure it was safe. I did. I checked it out and double-checked… but there was a bridge.”
Everything around him ceased to exist. Della, the creek, the fish fighting against the net, the woods, the breeze, the sky. Nothing touched him. Nothing warmed that desolate place inside him, where all he could do was stare at that fucking bridge. Rusted metal and chipped concrete, like everything else in the AfterEnd, it told the story of the decay of a civilization. All those impressive monuments to engineering were laid to waste, left to taunt the people who pecked out a life among the ruins like chickens scratching a dirt yard for worms.
“It crossed a river that flooded occasionally.” He heard himself talking, his voice faraway and sad. His chest hurt like he’d never take a full breath again. “I don’t know how many times over the years the bridge had been submerged. There’s no way to know, but I scoped it out. I rode over it with my horse several times. It wasn’t pretty, but I thought it was safe enough.” Chin tucked against his chest, and his shoulders heaved in a shame-filled sigh. “And it was safe, for one Alpha and a horse. Not safe for an entire caravan with loaded wagons and livestock.”
A petite, feminine gasp lanced through his turmoil, and he glanced up. She stood motionless, compassion shining in her eyes that only twisted the knife. He’d meant what he’d said earlier that Della was a blessing he did not deserve. Because of this, because of what he’d done to his family, his blood, his Pack.
“There was no warning.” Cal’s voice barely rose above the bubbling water, but he pressed on, unable to stop the story now that he’d begun. “One snap of a beam, and then everything dropped. Those that weren’t crushed outright drowned before we could get to them. Everyone on that bridge died. My Pa, my sister… Ten adults,”—he paused to choke back another mouthful of bile—“two children.”
It was an accident. A simple, stupid accident that could’ve happened to anyone, but it didn’t matter. The pain ate at his soul like the myth of Prometheus and the vulture. An inexhaustible supply of guilt for his conscience to gnaw on for the rest of his life.
“They blamed you? Your Pack?” Della asked, her voice soft with concern.
He jerked a nod, his body stiff but moving again. “My sister’s mate, my brother-in-law, he was angry, furious, and desperate. They had pups... my nieces and nephew... and I killed their mama. And my ma, she wasn’t much better with Pa being dead. Everyone lost someone; it destroyed the Pack.” This part of the story came easier. The part where they banded together against him and decided on a punishment that would change his life as neatly as he’d changed so many others’. “No one knew what to do.Ididn’t know what to do, how to bring everyone together. Pa had intended for me to take over as Alpha when he passed, but my brother-in-law challenged me an... well... I couldn’t even muster up a real fight.” He lifted a shoulder. “He took all his anger and hurt out on me, and I was happy to let him. When it was over, he was Alpha of Alphas, and I was banished.”
He’d lost everything he’d held dear: his home, his family, his future, and in their place, guilt and regret took up a perverse vigil to keep him company at night. Unable to look at her, unable to risk the reflection of his shame on her face, Cal turned to his task. With a few rough tugs, he unfastened the net and chucked it out of the water in a sodden tangle, like this was any other fishing trip and he hadn’t laid his most traumatic history at her feet.
Eyes downcast, Cal splashed through the water on unfeeling feet, dread pummeling his insides. He needed to look at her, to face the consequences, and get it over with. Hiding in his head was a chickenshit Beta thing to do. At the edge, he stepped onto the pebbled shore when the force of a small body almost knocked him back on his ass. Della hurled herself into his arms and, high on her tiptoes, hugged his wooden body as if she could make up for all his years of solitude in one single embrace. He encircled his arms around her narrow back, knowing he didn’t deserve this comfort but needed it all the same.
“Della,” he whispered, an anguished plea to withhold her proffered comfort, which only made her cinch tighter. Her soft curves molded to his body, as tight as any sexual embrace they’d yet accomplished, but all the sweeter for it having absolutely nothing to do with her Heat. His heart swelled in his chest, not with guilt but with the sneaking realization that, for the first time, she was willingly and enthusiastically comfortinghim.
“It was an accident,” she hissed in his ear. “Youhaveto know that. It wasn’t your fault.”
Overcome, Cal buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her sweet black currant scent. If he didn’t ground himself in something tangible, he feared he would fly apart completely. The whispered words trickled into his blood, pumping to every inch of his body with every gallopingda-dumof his heart.
It’s not. Your fault. It’s not. Your fault.
He wasn’t sure he believed it. Wasn’t sure he ever could believe it, but for Della to believe it, to say it out loud in solace for his aching soul, it was enough. More than enough.
She pulled back, every line of her face set in seriousness. “What they did to you was hurtful andwrong. But you punished yourself more, wandering for decades, never settling down with a new Pack. Haven’t you?” A shaky sigh rattled out of him, all the confirmation he could manage to this final unmasking. “Until you met Hunt and came to Morris Hill. What changed? Why join a Pack now?”
She rasped her knuckles over his beard scruff, and he captured her little fist, bringing it to his lips with a rueful flick of his tongue. “I got tired.”
She paused, her mouth pulled to one side, an unconvinced twitch of her cheek. “So why fight with Silas? Why steal me so you can never go back? I don’t understand.”
A sudden lightness washed over him, like the bucketload of badness he carried inside him got dumped out on the ground. He sighed in resignation, not even feeling any resurgence of anger at the mention of that asshole Silas. “Silas, being a lazy fucker, refused to do the full patrol route we were assigned that day. He and I had words about it, which resulted in my kicking his ass to persuade him to finish it. Once we got back, he tried to make it look like I attacked him to cover up his laziness.”
“But...” Della’s face contorted into the look she got when she geared up to pursue something bothering her, a look he now knew very well. What he also recognized, however, were the faint drops of perspiration collecting at her hairline and the growing pink cast to her pale cheeks. Another burst of sexual hunger hovered on the threshold, and he needed to get her home. “But you could’ve stayed and talked to Hunt... Why steal me and make things worse?”
Cal scanned every inch of her pensive, flushed face, drinking it up like parched earth absorbed a gentle rain, filled with the same desperate, grateful wonderment. He raised his rough hands and cupped her delicate, soft cheeks. “That Pack didn’t mean a goddamn thing to me except that it led me to you.”
She locked her hands around his wrists. “Cal...”
Leaning forward, he pressed a kiss to her feverish forehead. “I could lead a long, lonely, unnatural life—a lone Alpha without a Pack—and somehow make the best of it.” Thumbs stroking her cheekbones, he looked deep into his Omega’s eyes, a deep and powerful feeling strumming in his veins, “But I knew I couldn’t bear to live a single fucking day without you, Della.”
Reclaiming her lips, he hugged her to him, letting all his angst and passion flow freely, letting it season the taste of their kiss in all its messy complexity. Yeah, he’d left his friends behind and abandoned his Pack for a second time. Sure, he’d claimed an irascible Omega who’d fight him every step of the way. And, yes, he’d brought her to this place with only the clothes on her back and the solemn promise that he’d care for and protect her with every fiber of his being. It wasn’t perfect nor even ideal, but it was everything he wanted and exactly where he needed to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cal
Della stretched her arms above her head like a lazy cat in a patch of sunshine. The soft smile she aimed at him morphed into a massive yawn, making him chuckle as he arranged kindling to start a fire. She’d snoozed in bed till almost noon, and he’d done his best to be quiet and let her sleep.
After another late night working off a surge of Heat lust, she needed her rest. And while he couldn’t believe this would ever be the case, he needed some too. Not that he didn’t enjoy fucking Della into a noddle-limbed puddle several times a day, but he didn’t know how much more he could take before claiming her once and for all.
Each time they came together got better and hotter and more explosive, and the urge to sink his teeth into her flesh grew stronger and stronger. The compulsion roared in his blood, and he labored under the competing demands to keep himself in check while also attending to Della’s needs. Honestly, he skirted the edge of his control every single time. Last night, he’d gnashed his teeth and torn through the blanket tucked under her shoulder, shredding the fabric like a teething puppy.
Five days had passed since she’d held the dull knife to his throat, and they hadn’t spoken about a claiming bite since. Selfishly, he wanted to hear it from her lips (preferably begging for it between breathless moans as he sunk his knot deep and tight in her cunt). He’d coaxed plenty of desperate pleas from his Omega over the course of her Heat. With the proper inducement, the little queen would beg like the lowliest guttersnipe.
