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There was only one person I could call. Well, three people really, but they may as well count as one. My former best friends.
I hadn’t spoken to them in years—not since they’d left me behind—but the very active grapevine in my hometown, Last Chance, said that they’d moved home and taken over the Downtown Bar and Grill.
I pulled up William’s name on my phone. Sucking in a deep breath, I pressed call. Talking to them was better than dying of exposure.
“‘Lo?”
“Will?”
“Zaley?” He seemed shocked, and I could understand why. I hadn’t spoken to him in four years. There was loud music playing in the background and a load of voices, so I’d probably called during the lunch rush at the Downtown.
“Will, I need your help.” I swallowed down the emotion that threatened to choke me. “Can you come and get me?”
I heard him move somewhere quieter. “Where are you?”
This time I couldn’t hold back the strangled sob. “I don’t know. In the woods somewhere. I’m almost out of battery.”
“In the woods? What the fuck?” I sobbed again, and Will swore. “It’ll be okay, Za-Za. We’ll come and get you. I’m going to hang up now and call Victor to track your phone. Don’t take any photos or wear down your battery any more.”
I huffed an angry sound. “I’m lost, not an idiot, Will.” I paused. “I’ll explain everything. I just need you guys.”
Just like that, I was transported back to tiny Zaley, following around the triplets next door. Last Chance’s golden sons.
“We’re coming.”
Then he hung up, and I turned off the phone screen to conserve the battery. I didn’t have enough reception for any kind of GPS out here, so had no idea how Victor would trace my phone, but I had to believe he would. Despite the years and silence between us, I relaxed a little knowing that they would find me. Nothing got in the way of the Yale brothers once they set their minds to something. Not even me.
The wind picked up, chilling my skin. With a sigh, I crawled back into my Omega den, growling at the stupid cat. “You’re not even meant to be up here, asshole. If I was a hunter, you’d be a feral cat fur hat. So get over it.”
I curled up into a ball, waiting to be saved like the damsel I swore I’d never be again.
CHAPTERTWO
An hour later—andwith two percent battery remaining—there was a single message from Victor. “We’ve got your location. We’re coming. Don’t move.”
Well, I wasn’t about to go streaking through the fucking woods, my untrimmed bush making people think I was a wild woman rather than just someone who hadn’t gotten laid in a while. I didn’t have time to date college boys. I had exams and internships.
Not that it mattered now. It was all going down the drain like a sewer rat. The sun had peaked, and part of me was terrified that I was going to have to spend the night out here. It got incredibly cold once the sun set, and it was only because it was the height of summer that I hadn’t already died of hypothermia. That, and the fact that I’d dug a damn good hole in my Omega fugue, if I did say so myself.
I was fucking losing it. Den digging wasn’t something to be proud of.
I distracted myself by thinking about the Yale Triplets. That was how everyone had always referred to them, like they were a single entity rather than three different boys, with separate hopes and dreams, and entirely different personalities.
I’d been fostered with Ma and Pa, and had been a shy, lost little orphan. The time before Ma and Pa had been… not good. As a female child, I’d been snapped up for adoption, like a half-price sale on purebred Shih Tzus. Life had been good.
Until my adoptive father started putting out feelers for possible husbands for when I turned sixteen, and the amount these men were willing to pay for the privilege. I didn’t find that out until I was a teenager and Ma showed me my files. Those people, my original adoptive parents, hadn’t been bad to me. I’d had the best of everything, and for a time, blissfully ignorant seven-year-old me had been happy and doted on.
A federal sting operation had gotten me removed from their care, adoption proceedings were quickly canceled, and the government decided that I was best shipped off to the very distant relations of distant relations. Honestly, they would have had to climb to the top of the family tree to find Ma and Pa, who lived in the boonies and were so old that I could have been their great-grandchild.
But Ma and Pa… They’d loved the timid, confused little girl in their care, giving me affection and stability until I was no longer convinced that the world was about to come along and rip the rug out from under me one more time.
Ha, apparently the world was just biding its time.
The Yale Triplets had lived next door, and Will Yale had made it his personal mission to take that damaged little girl and turn her into a fierce tomboy. I’d followed him around like a puppy, living for his sunshine smiles that made my stomach fill with butterflies.
Everyone loved Will. He was happiness personified.
Xander was grumpy, and when I say he hated people, he really did. There were very few people he tolerated, and for a short time, I’d been one of them. For the people he loved, he was a fierce protector, and he’d been in one too many fights protecting me, or his brothers. It was Xander who’d taught me how to throw a punch when I was eleven.
