Page 43 of Wolf Found

“Because their packs were hopelessly backward and didn’t deserve them.” Graham made a point of looking over at Joseph, and then, disrespectfully right back into the alpha’s eyes. “Just like this pack is backward and doesn’t even deserve me, let alone Ash.”

“Think a lot of yourself, do you?” the alpha asked, his tone gone cold.

Graham shook his head. “That’s the funny thing. I really don’t. I just think this pack is so broken that I don’t know if it can be saved. I’m not sure the Martingale pack deserves anyone.”

“Doesn’t much matter what you think, omega. This pack owns you.” The alpha stared Graham down, and while he was uncomfortable, Graham didn’t flinch again.

The alpha took on his alpha voice, something the Kismet wolves hardly ever used, and usually then by accident. They didn’t like taking away people’s free will.

“You belong to the Martingale pack,” he told Graham, voice resonating with power. Graham didn’t look away, didn’t flinch, not even when he knew what was coming—that the alpha was planning to take Ash away from him. “You are a member of no pack but mine.”

Graham braced himself and waited. Waited for the golden warmth that connected him with Ash to die away, replaced with a cold nothingness. Worse, to be replaced by tethers to people like the two standing before him.

And he waited.

All he felt was Ash, Ash, Ash. Ash’s fear, Ash’s growing anger, Ash’s focus.

Graham stared at the Martingale alpha, and his shoulder slumped in relief. “I am a member of the Kismet pack. Unless they renounce me, I will always be a member of the Kismet pack. They want me, they respect me, and they treat me like an equal.”

He pushed off the bed and stood before the alpha, head tipped up so he could continue looking the man in the eye. “They deserve me.”

He saw the alpha’s hand coming, but nothing could brace him against the man’s bull-like strength. He was thrown onto the bed with the force of the slap, his teeth cutting into the inside of his cheek even as the alpha’s ring tore a gash along the outside.

Joseph gasped and leapt forward, only to have the alpha grab him by the arm and haul him toward the door.

“A few days to think about how he’s acting will do our unruly little omega a world of good.” He shoved Joseph into the hallway, looking at Graham the whole time. “You’ll be a member of the Martingale pack, back in the kitchen where you belong, or you won’t be a member of anyone’s pack. Think hard, omega.”

He locked the door, leaving Graham alone with his thoughts and the pain in his face.

24

I Drove All Night

Ash stopped at a truck stop just over the California state line and bought two cans of pepper spray. The cashier gave him an odd look, then looked down at the rest of him and seemed to dismiss it.

“Gotta keep the girlfriend safe, huh?” the guy said.

He was in no mood to cater to human society’s taboos, so he nodded. “Boyfriend. But yes.”

The man gave a nod and didn’t say anything inappropriate. Ash was almost disappointed, and that was when he realized he was so angry he was spoiling for a fight with the first person he found willing to oblige. He took a deep breath, then another.

“Somebody must be being awfully shitty to him,” the guy said. “You look like you’re about to blow.”

Ash smiled at that, trying hard to remind himself that some people, in fact, were not shitty. “It’s not good. It was easier back in the army. The bad guys were the ones shooting at you.”

“Tell me about it,” the guy agreed, bagging up the pepper spray. “Well, you kick their asses, whoever they are.”

Ash inclined his head. Something about the exchange had calmed him. Not everyone was out to get him and the people he loved. Just a few assholes. A few assholes called Martingale.

He’d never been so tempted to change his last name. He’d offer to take Graham’s when they got married, but it was just another Martingale pack name. Allen, Martingale, Pritchard—all just different flavors of the same rancid sandwich. Maybe they’d both change their last names to something else. Something new, that they chose for themselves.

He pulled up a back road outside the pack compound around dusk. He hadn’t slept, but he didn’t feel like he could even if he tried. How could he possibly sleep when someone was holding Graham prisoner?

He was surprised that Ezekiel hadn’t broken Graham’s new pack bonds yet, but the pull toward Graham hadn’t weakened for so much as a second. If nothing else, Ash should hurry to save Graham the pain of having pack bonds he actually wanted torn away from him.

When he’d told Ezekiel in no uncertain terms that he was leaving and not coming back, the man had done that to Ash, and it had been one of the most painful experiences of his life. Worse than being shot four times and almost bleeding to death. He had literally collapsed and thrown up on the floor.

An old legend about how the only bond an alpha couldn’t break was the one between mates drifted through his mind, but that was silly. Mates were a fairy tale, like love at first sight. Surely, the alpha had just been asleep when they arrived. He hadn’t tried to break the bonds yet. That was all.

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