One
Elisha
Hot. So hot. In my fevered state, the room was blurry and spinning. My clawed fingertips scraped at the sweat-soaked sheet before breaking the fabric of the goose down mattress topper.
I spat out a mouthful of the erupting feathers, falling like snow. Sneezing, my eyes grew more watery. How many times had I told Horace I was allergic to it?
A memory best left forgotten flashed through my mind. Oh, yeah. I only told him once. After the beating I received for not appreciating the lifestyle my alpha provided me, I hadn't dared mention it again.
Naturally, once I had enough clarity to remember the hated allergen I slept over every night, barely separated by a few layers of fabric, my rash started to itch.
Itchy. Groaning, I started to scratch my ass where the worst of the small red bumps covering my body clustered, only to scream in agony when my claws scored deep lines across my ass.
Whimpering now, my eyes swelled as I buried my face in the bedding and tried to ignore the burn. The salty sweat seeping into the fresh cuts was almost painful enough for me to forget how badly I still itched.
I needed to get out of this bed before it killed me. Ha. Like I wasn't about to die anyway. Jared had tried to downplay my fate, but it wasn't necessary. I knew the score.
The moment Horace bit the nape of my neck with his laniary teeth and injected the aconite in his mating bite, my life was linked to his. I wanted to live. Even more, I wanted my pup to live. But Horace was no longer breathing, and I couldn't quite summon any sadness.
My baby bump rubbed against the mattress when I tried to crawl away from the feathers. As bad as I hurt—actually ached with the pain searing from the very marrow of my bones—I would spend every moment I had left fighting to survive.
Jared had promised to try. He said he had a Hail Mary move, one I'd never expect and would not simply save my life but make it better. Whimpering, I was curled in a ball now, my body shaking with an unearthly chill signaling the beginning of my demise. The beta probably had no idea whether or not I'd heard him.
But I had. Every word of hope was burned into my brain. During these dwindling moments of clarity, I summoned them to remind myself to fight. Even now, Jared's soft voice repeated over the pulsing heartbeat pounding in my ears.
"My friend Matthias can save you. He should've been the alpha after his father died anyway. I have his number, and I will do all I can to beg him to step in." I hadn't understood why another alpha would possibly matter until he'd spoken a final thought before leaving me to my misery. "Isaac assured me—another alpha's bite is all it takes to end aconite poisoning."
I would live happily the rest of my life without ever being claimed by another alpha—if remaining alive was possible at all. Since fate had never been so kind to omegas, I'd long ago resigned myself to the necessity.
Maybe this next one, this Matthias, would be kinder. Maybe he wouldn't hit as hard. I didn't mind a few injuries. Broken bones mended after a shift, and a good herbal remedy would fix anything lingering. But not always being in pain would be nice. Not always being on the mend from yet another injury. Especially if he let me keep my pup. I would need my full strength to care for the baby.
Stretching, I managed to grab the iron rungs on the headboard. Gritting my teeth, I tried to pull myself away from the worst of the feathers. I didn't have enough strength to get off the bed, but if I could just heave myself toward the side, maybe I could roll off onto the floor.
A fresh searing pain took my breath away when my shoulder dislocated as I pulled. Either my muscles were too weak, or my body really was made of lead now. That's what it felt like.
No. Not lead. Lava.
Yes. Heavy, molten heat flooding through my body and turning it to stone.
Panting, I cleared another inch as I pushed toward my goal. How I would manage to sit up, I couldn't say yet. If I could keep myself awake long enough to get away from the feathers, I might find a little relief.
Relief from what? The room began to spin, and I forgot what I was worried about as the pain surged, and I felt myself drifting away.
Focus. You need to focus.
My wolf was alert, nagging me to pay attention to… something. Was it the boys? Did my little brothers need help?
"Noah? Saul? Where are you? I can't help you if you hide…" I barely recognized the raspy sound of my own voice. Something was wrong.
Agh! A shock of pain made my muscles spasm, and I somehow ended up on my knees with my face smashed into the pillows. Flinging myself to the right, I flopped back onto my side and curled into a ball, resting my hands over my small baby bump as I tried to ignore the loud, keening cry surrounding me.
As my vision began to fade, my wolf nudged me awake enough to realize two things. Death wasn't far away… and the awful wailing was coming from me.
Two
Matt
After a hard day's ride down the California coast, parking my bike and standing on solid ground again felt good. I had no guarantees of it staying this way. A scruffy honkytonk on the outskirts of Los Angeles was iffy on its best day. Not to mention the very real possibility of an earthquake.
Right now, I wasn't worried about either of those things. My wolf would sense if a quake was on the way, and the human bikers hanging around this joint wouldn’t mess with us. While they'd never let us see them sweat, not even the toughest man in this place wanted to come up against me and my boys.
When five alpha wolves pulled up with matching cuts—complete with our own ‘WCW’ emblem proudly emblazoned across the back, letters arched over a snarling wolf—people tended to stay out of our way. Not because we were assholes or anything. Or because they had a clue shifters even existed. No, it was all in the vibe. While we might not have looked anything other than human, something about us made people nervous on a visceral level.
The little voice in the back of a person's head alerting them of danger or the gut feeling saying not to walk down a certain dark alley made sure the baddest sumbitches knew not to screw with us. Despite what people might have thought given our height and large muscles, none of us were bad guys. We were honestly pretty easygoing as a rule, unless we saw someone in need of protection.
Lacking a full home pack to defend didn't mean shit. Our wolves were wired to be protectors. Unfortunately, not all alphas were as sweet as we were. Wolf shifters were just like anyone, with free choice and individual personalities, and some alphas were real dicks. God only knew I'd met more than a few of them in the decade since I'd struck out on my own.
Plain luck brought the West Coast Wolves together. To a man, all five of us were ruled by a code of honor, making us look out for the weak and kick any and all bullies in the teeth. We rode together, we fought together, we bled together. We were the West Coast Wolves.
None of us was the leader. We worked together democratically, and we all liked it that way. I’d met the guys during my travels, after I’d abandoned my birthright as alpha heir to my home pack. My father was one of those dick alphas, and I hadn't liked the way he ran the pack with an iron fist. Or his home with a bloodier one.
Until I turned eighteen, my only claiming mark had been the scarred X over my heart where my father marked me at birth. As with all pups, it made me pack until I became an adult. At maturity, I got to choose. I could bend the knee and accept his claiming bite on the soft skin of my inner left wrist. To join the pack and prepare for the day I would become alpha. Otherwise, I could leave and never return. Hmm… his mark or my freedom. Turned out it wasn't as tough a choice as one might think. The beat-down my father gave me the night before my birthday, with the warning I'd ‘better not fuck this up,’ had been all the reminder I needed. I'd be better on my own.