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“Yeah,” Hunter muttered. “We were wary of him at first. He and Maia didn’t have the best history, and he came in hot headed, wanting to take her away. His dominance had been an issue his entire life. Or the world made it an issue, anyway. He wasn’t good at leashing it, but he’s been getting better since he mated Lexie. He could still use some of your Zen. Damon, too. You seem really calm until you beast out. Then your bark hits everyone with a sucker punch out of nowhere. You don’t even make a sound. It’s kinda cool, but a little intimidating on the receiving end.”
I shook my head, bemused. “I don’t know about that, but if I can help either of them, I will. It seems to me they both need to get rid of their leashes entirely and trust their instincts.”
“Trusting our instincts isn’t something the world has ever encouraged us to do. But if it works for you, it’s worth a shot. I think we need to be on top of our game if Maven comes for us.”
How the hell was I the one giving advice on being a prime alpha when I’d been living in captivity?The world must be way more messed up than I’d thought. It made me wonder what my mates had faced that they hadn’t told me about yet.
We were sitting shoulder to shoulder under a tree, and the small contact was comforting. But I could feel the absence of my pack. I’d need to find one of them soon. Hunter didn’t have the same punch as my pack mates. It made me a little sad. I’d hoped a blood connection would feel the same as a pack one. Now knowing that it didn’t, I was willing to put in time to build a relationship. I wanted him in my life. Sam too.
I kept glancing surreptitiously at Hunter, trying to trace any family resemblance. His bright red hair was very different from mine. I only had hints of red in a certain light. My face was also a lot more angular than his. He had our father’s looks, and I assumed I had more of our mother’s, or maybe someone else in her family. I’d never met her, though, or even seen a picture of her.
“Do I look more like our mother?” I blurted out suddenly. He looked up at me, his eyes wide. While he was a tall guy, I had another foot on him, at least. I think I startled him.
“Not really,” he said, as he searched my face under all my hair. I felt suddenly self conscious about my wild appearance, which was a new feeling. I briefly wondered if it bothered Ava or Cary, but got distracted when Hunter started talking again. “You actually look a lot like her brother, our uncle Harry. I only met him a few times when I was young. They didn’t get along. Harry actually seemed to be a nice guy. He tried to get to know me and brought me presents, but she banished him at our father’s insistence. He was big and gruff, like you. Highly dominant, too. Lived in the mountains somewhere and dressed like a lumberjack. It’s not hard to imagine why dear old dad didn’t want him around.”
Hunter ground to a halt and sat quietly for a moment. I had the feeling there was a serious question brewing, one he was unsure about asking. He was fidgeting with a twig, twisting it between his fingers in a repeating pattern.
“Just ask me,” I said, trying not to sound too gruff.
He glanced at me quickly and fumbled the twig. It dropped to the ground, and he hurriedly picked it up again to re-start the pattern.
“It’s kind of personal,” he answered, and winced slightly.
“Don’t care,” I grunted.
“I worried for a long time that Damon would end up feral. Sam seemed on that path when we met him, too,” he said. “That first night, I watched you rip a gun turret from a PMV. You seemed more beast than man.”
It was more an observation than a question, but I answered anyway. “I was.”
“A small part of me always worried it would mean Damon losing his humanity, that he’d attack anyone without provocation, potentially even us. That he’d lose himself. Yet the night we met, you still seemed highly protective and able to determine who was a threat and who wasn’t. You didn’t come after us when you broke free of the humvee. I guess my real question is, what does it feel like?”
I tilted my head back, resting it on the tree trunk behind us, as I looked up at the sky through the leaves. It wasn’t a simple question to answer, yet if I wanted him to really see me, I needed to find a way. I wasn’t interested in hiding who I had become.
“I don’t know a lot about humanity. It feels like a made up word for a division I’m not sure exists. We had a lot of wildlife around the remote manor I grew up in, wolves, mountain lions, even the occasional bear. I used to watch them out the windows. We call them beasts, yet they only attack to protect their pack or to feed. They have their own rules. They just aren’t the same as ours. At our core, I don’t really think we’re that different. I think the Crash has proved that. Strip away the modern conveniences everyone thinks make us so different, and we’ll fight to survive, too. I get that scares people, and they need rules to function. Every creature or pack does, even the ones who hunt alone. But maybe, sometimes, we need to strip everything away in order to grow.”
Hunter watched me carefully. I don’t think that was the answer he was expecting.
“As for how it feels, I don’t feel like my alpha is separate from me. It confuses me when people talk about their beasts as something different from them. I don’t have an alpha within me. I am an alpha. Maybe I missed something growing up, not having to fit into society, but I always trust and follow my instincts. I knew you weren’t a threat when I broke out of the humvee. It was in your body language, so why would I attack you? My memories got murky while I was in captivity, and I hadn’t talked in a long time. It took a while for things to come back when I got out, but I think that was more to do with captivity. My world was so small in that cage, as my dominance grew. It had nowhere to go. I became hyper-focused on my environment, watching the people who came and went in the lab and their mannerisms. Always looking for a weakness I could exploit. I changed, but I don’t think it was into a beast. It was just the most basic level of survival. I think my body switched off what it didn’t need.”
“Wow.” Hunter breathed out heavily, his brow creased, deep in thought. “How did you come back?”
“Contact with my pack brings me back to myself. As if it shocks me back into remembering. I focus on them, rather than my survival, and the world opens back up. Until someone threatens one of them.” I shrugged my shoulders ruefully, remembering this morning and the way I’d reacted when Damon had reached for Ava with all that coiled tension in his body. It was both as simple and as complicated as that. I wasn’t overthinking why. I was just grateful it was true. With time, I was hoping it would get easier. That the damage caused by my captivity wasn’t permanent. If not, I’d keep them close. It wouldn’t be a hardship.
“Huh,” was all he said for a moment, as he thought about my words. “I think Maven has spread a lot of lies over generations, far deeper than we know. I always knew Damon was different and my touch settled him. It worked when Leif and Max touched him, too. I worried for a long time that we wouldn’t be enough. It got harder as he got older, but he fought his beast more to fit in, and maybe that was why. He needed more prolonged contact to calm him down, and it wasn’t always enough. At least, not until we met Maia. Her touch can instantly pull him out of a spiral.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “It works best with Ava and Cary, too.”
“Ava and Cary?” he asked. “How’s that going to work?”
He wasn’t judging. He seemed genuinely curious.
I grinned and raised an eyebrow at him.
He laughed. “I don’t mean the sex, man. I mean, omegas are territorial and emotional. How will having two in the pack work?”
I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes at him. “Are Maia, Lexie, and Ava territorial with each other? Are the omegas living in a ballroom together territorial? Or overly emotional?”
“More lies?” he asked as realization dawned. I nodded. “Shit, there’s a lot we’re going to have to undo, isn’t there? They built our entire world on lies.”
