"I mean that Sloan didn't go back home and round up his friends just to spend a few days picking fights in a bar a couple hundred miles away."
Cade's expression darkened. "You really think another alpha is going to come on my land?"
Think it? No. "Why do you think he wouldn't?"
"Because every alpha knows that land is sacred."
"Nothing is sacred to Sloan. Nothing."
"Maybe not," Cade said, a trifle less certainly. "But he knows the law. He has to know what would happen to him if he trespassed. He knows that he would be liable for any damage done."
Emily had to resist a bitter laugh. "Sloan doesn't care about laws or rules. As far as he's concerned, none of that applies to him. Do you remember what I told you about the night when he grabbed me?"
Cade's eyes narrowed. "Yes."
"What I didn't say was that I wasn't even over the boundary line." She waited for this to sink in, taking no satisfaction from Cade's look of shock and anger. "None of us were. We stayed a few feet back. They were the ones that crossed it—Sloan and the other alphas. They grabbed us and pulled us over the line."
"And if he'd cross that line," Cade said, biting off the words, "you're saying he'll cross into my land to get to you."
"All I know is that Sloan doesn't play by the same set of rules that you do," Emily said. "But even if he did, it wouldn't matter. What would you do if someone stole your omega from you?"
"You're not his," Cade responded instantly. "You never gave him your claiming bite, so he could never mark you. Hell, you didn't even fight when I took you away, that's how little you bonded."
"You think he cares about any of that? Sloan hates me. When we left his house, he told me he would kill me if the trip down here didn't whip me into shape."
"Then why would he fight so hard to get you back?"
"Because this isn't about me. I'm just a possession to him, and he doesn't want someone stealing his stuff."
"So what does he want me to do?" Sloan said with obvious disgust. "Pay him off? What's the value of an omega these days?"
Emily shook her head. She only wished it were that easy. "It's the insult he can't stand, the blow to his pride. The way he'll see it, the only thing worse than another alpha taking me would be you and me being happy together—because that would be proof that I wasn't the broken one. That he was. And he would never let that stand. So…there's nothing you can do."
"'Nothing I can do?'" Cade echoed. "The hell there isn't. I can tear every last one of those bastards to shreds. Let him bring an entire fucking army—I can make it so they can never hurt you again."
An odd thing happened. As Cade finally started to believe her and his anger grew, Emily's own receded.
He was so sweet in his own way—hell, even those omegas outside knew it, obviously not intimidated by him at all. It was clear to her now that all he wanted to do—all he'd ever wanted from the start—was to protect her.
But that didn't mean it was going to work.
"Cade," she said softly. "You can't take on a whole pack of alphas."
"Watch me," he snarled, the tendons standing out in his neck.
But Emily could be just as stubborn as an alpha. "If you try, you'll be forcing me to watch you die. What do you think that would do to me?"
"I won't die," he said, but he seemed less sure of himself, some of his anger replaced by fear—not for himself, but for her.
Emily pressed her advantage. "There's no way you can win this fight. The only thing you can do is disappear for a couple days. Once Sloan has come for me, and this whole thing has blown over, you can come back. It's better this way."
Before her eyes, Cade seemed to transform, his fists clenching and every muscle in his body going rigid as he howled with rage. Emily had never seen anything like it—not even from Sloan—and she couldn't help but cringe in the presence of this inferno, fearing the storm that would certainly be unleashed by the power of his anger.
But it didn't come. No objects were hurled through the air, no fists crashed through walls, no furious words deafened her.
Instead, Emily heard a woman's voice.
"You're wrong."
She turned to see the very pregnant omega standing in the doorway, hands resting on her huge belly, looking serene despite the scene she'd walked into.
"There is a way we can win this fight," she said, addressing them both calmly, as if Cade hadn't just shaken the ground with his roar. "You just need a little help."
"It's not enough to trespass on my land," Cade thundered, "you have to invite yourself into my fucking house, Hope?"
"You're both being loud enough for everyone in the Boundarylands to hear," Hope said, tossing her hair. "So what difference does it make if we listen to you inside or out?"
Something about her flippant comment reminded Emily of someone. It took her a few seconds to realize that person was herself—only a few months ago, back before she'd lost her freedom. Before she'd given up trusting, she'd been every bit as sassy and confident as Hope.
Maybe it was time for that old Emily to make her return.
She faced the other omega, taking a deep breath.
"Hope, you say you can help us. I'm willing to listen."
Hope nodded. "The way I see it, if you have a pack of alphas coming to harm you, then you need another pack ready to fight them off."
"Where would we get a pack?"
"Our alphas," Darcy said, walking in the house, Jocelyn following right behind.
"Great," Cade said. "Why don't you just invite everyone? Do you want me to make tea, too?"
"Thank you, but we don't have time for tea," Jocelyn said crisply. "We need to strategize."
Cade gave a bitter laugh. "Listen, you three, there's no way in hell your mates would help me with anything."
"You're probably right," Darcy said. "Zeke wouldn't, not even if you asked. I doubt Aric or Maddox would, either."
"You can be a real asshole, Cade," Hope agreed.
Emily watched the exchange with a mixture of surprise and an urge to defend her alpha. He didn't seem to be insulted, but how could they think that of him?
"That's why you're not going to ask them," Darcy told Emily. "The three of us are. And trust me, we know all the ways to get an alpha to say yes."
Emily blinked, at a loss. "You'd do that for me?...But why?"
"Because that's what we do around here," Hope said, slipping her arm through Emily's. "We omegas help each other out. No matter who we have the misfortune of falling in love with."
Chapter Fifteen
No matter who we have the misfortune of falling in love with.
Emily stood on the porch watching the omegas' truck head back down Cade's drive toward the Central Road, kicking up a dust cloud in their wake, Hope's words ringing in her ears.
Love.
Even the word made Emily uncomfortable. It seemed like another lifetime in which she had dated what seemed like an endless stream of interchangeable men. They'd all been fine, and she remembered some of them fondly enough, but none of them had made her feel the butterflies in her stomach that she'd heard her friends talk about.