Emily returned to kicking at the window, knowing it was no use. But the sharp metallic click of the red-hot lighter popping out stopped her.
Sloan had heard it too.
"Now get over here, bitch." He yanked her by the arm over to his side, and she inhaled his filthy sweat and foul breath. She couldn't tear her eyes from the glowing red coils of the lighter in his hand. "You think that puny bite is a brand of ownership—I'll show you a real one."
Emily screamed as he moved the lighter slowly closer, a cruel grin creasing his face.
Someone hit the side of his truck with a fist.
"Sloan, buddy, this ain't a good time for a pitstop," one of his friends yelled. "We got company right behind us."
Sloan turned his head to glance out the back window, and Emily saw her opening. Leveraging all her weight, she pushed off the passenger door with her feet as hard as she could, smashing into Sloan's body. The force was enough to knock the lighter from his hand.
They both dove for it, but Emily had the advantage. She closed her hand around it a fraction of a second before Sloan's fist hit the floor of the cab. Without missing a beat, she jabbed the red hot rings deep into the center of Sloan's crotch.
Screaming—so much high-pitched, almost inhuman screaming echoing all around them, through the trees and into the valley. Emily had never heard a sound so satisfying in her whole life, or a view as welcome as Sloan scrabbling pitifully at his balls.
Another squeal of brakes. Emily was already on the move, throwing open the passenger door. She saw two more unfamiliar trucks and braced herself.
But the two alphas who got out of the trucks were familiar from the bar a few days before. Emily realized that these had to be the omegas' mates who she and Cade had been on their way to meet up with.
But any sense of relief she felt at their arrival was instantly overshadowed by grief. The alphas must have heard the crash and realized what happened—but they'd arrived too late to save Cade.
On the other side of Sloan's truck, his friends sized up the alphas who were storming toward them with vengeance in their eyes. Emily saw them glance at each other, realizing that they were outmatched.
"We didn't do nothing," one said, already backing away toward his truck.
"We ain't looking for trouble," the other one hollered.
Cade's alpha brothers didn't look impressed with their excuses.
"Then you shouldn't have come to our territory," the bigger one said. "And you for damn sure should never have tried to kidnap one of our own."
"B-but your friend took Sloan's woman first," one of the uplanders whined.
"She was never his."
Emily spun around in astonishment at the voice she would never forget, not even if she lived a thousand years. It couldn't be—but Cade was slowly pulling himself out of one of the trucks.
"She is mine." Cade's voice gained volume as he took two staggering steps toward the invaders.
His body was broken and bleeding, but the ferocity of his coiled strength and the rage in his eyes made him even more intimidating than his brothers.
Emily could barely contain her joy at seeing him alive. In that moment, she knew no force in the world could stop her alpha from getting to her.
And she wasn't the only one who knew it. Sloan's friends were nervously edging away.
"I ain't gonna fight you for her," one said, holding his hands up.
But it was too late for that. They'd already started the fight—and Cade and his brothers meant to finish it.
Aric, Maddox and Zeke dispatched Sloan's friends so quickly it was almost anticlimactic, dropping them unconscious in the middle of the road with a few well-placed blows.
But then it was Cade's turn.
The closer he got to Sloan's truck, his strength and vitality seemed to return. He stood tall as he threw the driver's side door open and pulled Sloan out onto the pavement. Sloan's screams had turned to wailing, and he cowered on the ground, clutching himself.
Emily came to stand next to her alpha. Without taking his eyes off Sloan, Cade grasped her hand, his touch conveying everything she already knew. She was his, and he would protect her always, and deliver brutal justice to anyone who dared harm her.
The other alphas shook their heads at the pathetic sight of Sloan, cradling his smoking junk, tears streaming from his eyes.
"What the hell did you do to him?" Cade asked.
Emily stared dispassionately at the waste of flesh on the ground. Sloan would never hurt her again—but he still needed to pay for what he'd done.
"Not enough," she said grimly.
Cade pulled Sloan to his feet. "Stand up, damn you."
Sloan barely seemed to register the alpha in front of him, his eyes glazed with pain. But as he realized who was standing in front of him, they came into focus.
"You," he gasped.
It was the only word he got out before Cade slammed his fist in his face, knocking him down again.
"You should have stayed gone," Cade growled.
Emily watched Sloan curl into a fetal position, blood rushing from his nose and mouth. The burns between his legs made it impossible for him to defend himself or crawl away.
The four alphas surrounded him, trapping him like a wounded animal.
But that wasn't quite right. Emily had learned enough about what alpha honor really meant to know that these four would never let an innocent animal suffer needlessly.
But Sloan wasn't an innocent.
"Go on," Sloan snarled through the pain in his voice. "Kill me already, goddamn you."
Cade shook his head as his brothers stepped back. "You're not getting off that easy. You took another alpha's claimed mate. And like my brother Zeke here says, it ain't gonna be pretty."
And then Cade rolled up his tattered sleeves and got ready to even the score.
By the time he was finished, the blood splattered up and down the road would serve as an acknowledgment that justice had been served.
Chapter Eighteen
"Oh my God, have you ever seen chubbier legs in your life?" Emily playfully wiggled the toes of the baby lying on the old quilt in front of her. "And these little fingers! I just have to eat them up. Yes, I do."
She pressed her lips to the infant's tiny hand, blowing a gentle raspberry, and he kicked and burbled with delight.
"He likes you," Hope said dreamily. She was propped up on her elbow next to Emily with the baby between them, lying on a quilt covering a patch of grass in the middle of a sprawling meadow that served as the vast front yard of an omega named Gail.
Emily had been coming to Gail's house every Tuesday afternoon for a while now, joining all the local omegas to socialize while their alphas went off to help out with whatever project Gail's mate Randall had come up with for them that week.
Emily gave the baby boy one more nuzzle before sitting up. "That's because this is the sweetest little guy I've ever seen in my life," she said. "Yes, you are."
"You'll think differently in just a few months when you get to meet your own little guy," Hope said, casting a pointed look at Emily's midsection.
Emily rested her palm over her belly, even though she wasn't far along enough to show yet. Sometimes she could swear that she could already feel the little flutters of new life sparking inside her.