Page 90 of The Pack Next Door
“It’s taken until now for me to understand the pack that rejected me,” she said, pulling the car door open in a circumspect way that made my heart ache. “They didn’t want to hurt me, but they couldn’t work out a way to do that, so they just let things happen.”
The sound of the car engine starting had me staring at the bonnet, then her, unable to put two and two together.
Not wanting to.
“That’s me now. I knew there was no future for us, but I let myself get close anyway. I shouldn’t have, and for that I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. We—” I said.
“Agreed whatever… this is, it was only temporary, until I left town,” she said as the window was wound down. “Well, I’m going…” My mate looked around her as if seeing the house she was born in for the first time. “I’m going home, alone.” She stared into my eyes then, meaningfully, as if trying to ensure I understood. “Your place is here and mine is in the city. Have a nice life, Maddox.”
My birth name hit me like a slap to the face, and perhaps that’s why I stumbled backwards. Just in time to see her back her car out of the driveway, leaving me staring after her, unable to work out how the hell I got here.
But I knew.
Turning on my heel, I stormed back to the house to find the bullshit was still raging.
“Running after an omega,” Mum tutted. “Gods, Maddox, I thought I taught you?—”
“Don’t you think you’ve said enough?”
Yelling at my mother wasn’t exactly my proudest moment, but if there was any other way to stop the torrent of bullshit, I would’ve taken it. It wasn’t my mother’s fault that my omega had just taken off like her arse was on fire; it was mine. I was the one that acted like a damn savage on the field. My hand rubbed at my forehead, remembering every hit, every body slam. I was the one that showed Briar exactly who I was trained to be.
But not who I really was.
I’d fought my family every damn day and finally being vindicated wasn’t the amazing moment I thought it would be. Scanning the deck, I realised that this, all of this, wasn’t important. Just Briar. The wolf settled then, no longer pushing hard to take control, because we were in complete accord. With a shake of my head, I clicked my fingers.
“Keys,” I demanded, staring at Gideon. “Keys, now.”
“You’re going after her?” Jace looked too pale as he stared down the road. “I’m in.”
Finally, my pack was starting to get it.
“What?” And there was Mum, going spouting off again. “But the last alpha trial is in a few days!”
“Don’t care,” I growled. My wolf was one hundred percent done. Staying in this pack was something I had to fight him about every damn day. He didn’t understand the dynamic, the way everything was said, and yet none of it was honestly how people felt. Being in this pack was killing him. Well, that ended now. “Give me the fucking keys, Gideon, or I swear?—”
“You’ll do what?” My brother was spoiling for a fight, which just had me smiling bitterly. Usually that was me, but he never rose to the bait. “Beat the shit out of me?”
Well, if he was going to co-opt my role in the pack, I’d take his. Don’t engage, just focus on what was important, and that was Briar.
“I’m going, Gideon.” Gods, it felt so good to say that. “I’ll run all the way to the city in fur and rock up to Briar’s place stark naked, if that’s what it takes.” Jace’s snort of shock had me smiling. “But I’d rather not be arrested for public indecency, so gimme the fucking keys. Better yet.” My head tilted to one side. “Come with us.”
“Gideon.” Mum grabbed at my brother’s arm, clinging like a vine, and wasn’t that familiar. I’d come across a clip talking about emotional incest and sometimes I wondered what the fuck was going on between the two of them. “You can’t go. Who’ll protect me if you leave?”
“Your mates.” I thought I said that, but Jace did in a voice as flat and dead as my own. “There’s three of them sleeping off their beers inside, but you’re hardly likely to get assaulted in Moon River.”
“He’ll send me back to Glen Hallow.” Mum didn’t say a word to either of us, focussed entirely on Gideon. “That… Omega Hart. He never could handle competition. It’s why he blocked our attempts to move town all these years. If I go back…” Gideon went milk pale, swallowing hard, and it was then I worked out what the fuck was going on. “You know what will happen to me.”
He looked down at her hand, and I was pretty sure I knew what he was seeing. A ring of black bruises around her wrist, turning purple, then a sickly green as they healed. I knew that because I never forgot that moment either.
“I do.” The look my mother gave me then, it was as if her mask slipped and something fucking ugly peeked past it. “This is how you’ve kept him in line all this time?”
Gideon was bigger and stronger than me, than almost every other alpha I knew, so we deferred to him more often than not, but apparently he had an Achilles heel the competitors in the trials could never exploit. I grinned, the air playing over my fangs as I turned back to my brother.
“Nothing is what’s going to happen to Mum if she goes back to Glen Hallow. The ruling pack fucking sucks. It’s no place to be vulnerable, to need help.” I blinked, a memory coming back unbidden. “But they aren’t arseholes enough to hurt a damn omega.”
“What?”
