Chapter Eight
Ashley ached. She hadn’t slept well, having tossed and turned all night after returning to her apartment.
Not that Erik and Liam had wanted her to go back. In fact, both had offered to join her if she insisted on returning to her own lonely bed.
And the temptation had been strong. She’d wanted to say yes, to curl up beside their strong forms, to fall asleep with her head clouded by their scents.
Except Torrin’s rejection stuck with her.
And it had been rejection. If it had happened at the start, she’d have dealt with it. If he’d walked out from the first moment the other two had touched her, she’d have accepted it. Instead, he’d not just waited, not just stayed—he’d participated. His rumbled demands had coursed through her body. When she’d looked at him afterward, when everything she’d used before as protection had been chipped away by the alphas, when she was truly entirely and naked, he’d left as though she meant nothing.
Don’t be a fool. Of course you mean nothing.
She slammed closed the scheduling book, frustration eating away at her. Why had she given in? Why be stupid enough to think there was even a chance for her?
She’d gone to work, because what other option was there? She had nothing to her name and nowhere to go.
At least if she kept working, she could save up money, create a nest egg. She could leave afterward.
Pain lanced her chest at the thought of leaving, Liam’s charming smirks and Erik’s ghost of a smile haunting her.
She’d seen none of them today. Already life had turned routine, with the security in the building recognizing her, with people smiling and talking to her as though she were important, as though she were a coworker they cherished.
The doorman had held the door for her when she’d left, had called her Miss Ashley, and the car and driver had sat parked and ready for her, since the alphas had already left. They usually left for work first and stayed later than her.
She could scarcely believe this was her life now.
Then Torrin’s cold eyes came back to her and she wanted to throw it all away.
Her computer chimed, and she expected an email from a client.
Torrin’s name mocked her in the ‘from’ line before she opened the email.
Ashley,
I am sorry for last night. It was a mistake.
Torrin
The words were so straightforward that she could almost hear him in her head, that flat, uncaring tone he liked to use.
She deleted it.
Of course he was sorry. Of course it had been as mistake. Not that he’d rejected her, but that he’d been there at all.
Another chime.
Perhaps we could speak over lunch?
Again, she sent it to the trash.
Maybe ignoring her boss—one of the alphas who were responsible for her having a place to live—was a bad idea.
Still, sitting through lunch with him while he explained he didn’t want her sounded like as much fun as pulling out her fingernails.
Her cell phone rang, and when she lifted it, she found Torrin’s name across the front.
The man has no patience, does he?
She knew damned well that if she didn’t answer, his next step would be walking to her office, and while she felt tough a few floors away, she knew she’d crumble if she faced him.
It prompted her to answer, trying for her best I don’t care that you rejected me and made me feel like shit voice. “Hello.”
“You are ignoring my emails.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You should stop trying to lie, dove, because you are horrible at it. Our email servers tell me when you’ve opened one and when you’ve deleted it. Are you avoiding me now?”
“You were the one who seemed to want to avoid me.”
They both went silent at that. She didn’t normally call people out, but the wound still felt too fresh.
His sigh was low and drawn out. “About last night—”
“Please, don’t. You don’t need to explain.”
“If I didn’t need to, you wouldn’t be so angry.”
“I’m not angry.”
“Angry seemed a kinder word than hurt.”
That shut her up. It wasn’t fair that he could read her so easily, that he knew how much his reaction mattered to her.
“It’s fine,” she said, her voice having lost the edge. What was the point in being defensive if he saw right through it? “I really don’t want to have lunch with you, though. Please don’t push it.”
He hesitated before answering. “Then talk to me on the phone, at least. You said once it was easier than face to face.”
“What do you want from me?” She hated that her voice sounded pleading, but that didn’t change that it was true.
He didn’t want her, but he seemed drawn in. He tempted her then rejected her. He drew closer then fled. She had no idea how to deal with any of it.
Worse? He was so connected to Erik and Liam, she had no idea how to form something with the two of them and not with him in his half-in-half-out thing.
“I want you safe and taken care of and happy. That hasn’t changed.”
“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I don’t understand you.”
He didn’t respond at first, and for so long a time, she feared he’d hung up. Finally, he answered, voice even flatter than usual. “I can’t have you, Ashley, no matter how much I may want that.”
“Why not?”
“My life is dangerous. I…” Another sigh drifted across the phone line. “I lost someone once because I wasn’t careful enough. People who wanted to hurt me hurt her. I can’t risk that. I can’t risk you.”
“And you don’t think that could happen anyway?”
“If I never touch you, if I never carry your scent and you never carry mine, no one would think to use you to get to me.”
“What if that isn’t enough for me?”
“Come to dinner tonight, please. We’ll discuss it.” She knew by his words that ‘discuss’ meant ‘explain it to her so she agreed, so she understood his reasoning’. “Please, dove.”
The nickname crumbled her resolve. Besides, what other choice did she have? Yet again, she was backed into a corner.
“Okay,” she whispered.
They hung up quickly, probably because Torrin was afraid she’d change her mind.
Her phone rang again, and she put it to her ear without looking. “I said I’ll be there.”
“Hello, Ashley.” Gregory’s voice snatched the breath from her lungs.
It only took those two words for her to feel as though the floor had disappeared and she were choking in the vastness of space.
He found me.
“Breathe, love. You have always frightened so easily.”
She hated herself for it, but she pulled in a breath at his order. Or perhaps her body had simply demanded it. “How did you find me?”
“I told you before, you can’t hide from me. Your old employer was helpful, and once she mentioned a driver and handed over her security videos, it wasn’t hard.”
Carla turned me over? Even after I gave her all my money, she still betrayed me?
“Just leave me alone,” Ashley whispered. “Let me go.”
“You know I can’t do that. You are my mate.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He spoke with absolute certainty, with the sort of fanatical belief that had always terrified Ashley. “Have they sullied you, love?”
Those words reached into her like icy tendrils to grasp her heart. They. He knew about the alphas? “What do you mean?”
“Those alphas who think you’re theirs. Have they taken your innocence?”
His insanity dripped through the line. He hadn’t ever pushed her for anything physical, even before she’d run, always accepting that she wasn’t ready. The one kiss he’d tried for had turned her stomach, and he’d backed off. Small wonders, she supposed, to be spared that.
“No,” she said, afraid to upset him and frustrated by her own cowardice.
“So they have, then? I can hear it in your voice. Don’t worry, love, I don’t blame you. It isn’t your fault.”
“They haven’t,” she swore, afraid now not of them but for them. “I haven’t…” Even still, she couldn’t say it.
“You are saying you are still untouched?”
She chose to decide that meant sex, made sure to believe it as she spoke because, as had been pointed out to her many times, she was a terrible liar. “That’s right.”
He let out a soft sound, that almost-purr that he did as if it should calm her, as if she should trust it and relax because of it. “I’m glad. I would hate to have our first time soiled, whenever you’re ready for it.”
Her stomach twisted and churned, and despite not having eaten anything, she wanted to vomit at the thought of his hands on her, of him touching her. It was almost worse that he spoke to her with such softness.
It was what had frightened her so much. Gregory had seemed perfect. Rich, sweet, well-spoken. He’d seemed to be exactly what she was supposed to want, despite that passion and lust never occurring in her.
Her fathers hadn’t liked him, but teenage rebellion only meant that made her surer Gregory must have been the right choice.
Then things had changed, slowly at first, with him calling more, wanting to know where she was all the time. She’d found people following her, and when she’d reached out to him, frightened, he’d assured her they were for her protection.
Except they hadn’t felt like protection. They’d felt like a chain he’d placed around her neck.
The more she’d pulled, the more he’d pulled. Never with any meanness, never by yelling or calling names. Instead, he’d spoken calmly, as though she were the hysterical one, the foolish one. He’d speak to her as if she were a child who needed lessons.
She’d questioned her sanity at times, wondered if he wasn’t right, if it wasn’t all in her head.
“You get lost in thought so easily,” he said. “I’ve set up a place here in town. I thought perhaps we could stay for a while if you like it so much. From what I’ve seen, you have created a name here, gotten a proper job..”
Ashley gripped the phone, her heart pounding. “I’m afraid.”
“I know, love, but you are always afraid. I’ll see you later.”
The line went dead, and the phone clattered to the desk when it slipped from her grasp.
She remembered every other time she’d run, each time she’d had nothing, when she’d left because he’d gotten too close or threatened something.
She thought about what he could do to Torrin, to Liam or to Erik.
She only had one choice.
She had to run.
* * * *
Erik tapped his fingers against the railing as he stared out over the city. Liam was inside talking to the chef about dinner plans, and Torrin had retreated to the balcony for some quiet.
That was the exact reason Erik stood out there, with his cousin seated in the place he knew smelled of Ashley, the one she’d fallen asleep in.
How could someone so obvious be so oblivious to the truth?
“You’ll have to give in,” Erik said to break the silence.
Torrin answered without hesitation, as though he’d expected the statement and had prepared for it. “I can’t give in. Why can none of you see that?”
“Because it’s bullshit.”
“Gilly—”
“We were young, still learning. You can’t let her be the reason you hide forever.”
“You don’t understand. You’ve never lost anyone like that. Think, for just a moment, how you would feel to walk into Ashley’s apartment, to see her carved to pieces, to know it happened because of you, that if she’d never met you, she would have lived a long, happy life.”
A shooting pain ricocheted through Erik’s skull, as though his mind objected to the very notion of such a thing.
He shook his head. “I get it, I do, but we have to deal with things from where we are, and where we are is with an omega you are clearly bonding to. Even if she doesn’t carry your scent yet, she’s still your mate.”
He waited for a denial, for Torrin to say Erik was seeing things that were not there.
Instead, Torrin leaned forward and carded his fingers through his hair, looking more disheveled than he had before. “I know she is, damnit. Don’t you think I feel it? It is torture to keep a distance, but what other choice do I have? As a mate to you and Liam, she’ll be protected. As mine, she’d only be in danger.”
“So how do you see this going? Because you being some sort of weird voyeur each time isn’t going to work—not if her reaction last night means a thing.”
Torrin turned his gaze to the dark skyline, the shadows making him look even older than he was. He’d always been older, not much by years, but by responsibility? Always.
“I’m going to move out.”
“What?” Erik sat straighter, a rare panic going through him. After almost forty years of them all living together, he couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t involve his cousin. Of all the things he’d expected Torrin to say, that had been the last.
Torrin didn’t turn back to him, didn’t acknowledge Erik’s reaction. “Not far. I thought Ashley and I would switch residences. She would move in here and I would take the apartment. Business would then go on as usual. I would have space, would be able to give you privacy, and Ashley would be safe.”
“You can’t be serious. That is the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“It isn’t. You simply dislike change. It’s the best outcome for everyone. You and Liam have your mate, Ashley is safe and content, and I am near enough to still watch out for you all but not so near as to be tempted or to put her in danger.”
Erik twisted away, gripping the railing with his hands, staring out into the same vast sky that Torrin was watching.
They’d always loved the sky, all three of them. Maybe it was because of their upbringing, because it always felt free.
“I think about that night,” Erik whispered into the darkness.
“I believe we all do.”
What did it say that it could only mean one night? That a single evening had shaped their lives so dramatically, that they both knew of what he spoke.
Erik wanted to shut his eyes, but that wouldn’t stop the memories. “I’ve always wondered why. Why that night? What changed?”
Torrin sighed and the seat creaked as though he moved. “People sometimes believe things happen all of a sudden, that they snap and give way. That isn’t true, though, at least not most of the time. It’s never just one thing. Anger grows like sand in an hourglass. It goes just one piece at a time, growing heavier, but each only a speck. That night it grew too large.”
There was more to it. There always was with Torrin. “So tell me the speck, that last one that pushed you over.”
“I was sitting awake the night before, listening from the darkness of the backyard. Your father was drunk to the point of nearly toppling out of the chair. Our mothers were seated at that rickety old table, playing cards. I’d already put you and Liam to bed, had snuck you both what little food I’d found.”
The memory of how hunger had gnawed at his sunken stomach made Erik wince. It was likely why he and the other alphas always went overboard with food now. They knew what it was like to have none.
Still, Torrin’s voice pulled him forward in a story he was no longer sure he wanted to hear. “I watched them because I couldn’t sleep, and because get-togethers always riled up your father. The night went on, they all got drunker, got higher, until near two a.m. your father wanted more meth. The problem was, he lacked the funds. His dealer wouldn’t give anything more, so he laughed and said ‘I have a couple of brats who could work it off.’”
A chill went up Erik’s spine, especially when he considered Liam and himself at that age. They’d grown into strong, powerful alphas, but back then? At seven? They’d hardly been capable of protecting themselves.
Torrin had been fourteen, not even close to an adult yet still somehow responsible for all of them.
Erik couldn’t bring himself to say a word about it, about the horror that had never happened, all because Torrin had acted.
Still, Torrin continued. “Our mothers laughed, this thin, ugly, hollow laugh, and I knew it was only a matter of time. They all passed out shortly after, and the next night, I made sure that would never happen.”
Erik tried to consider making that choice, doing the things Torrin had at that age.
It reminded him of Torrin’s limp, of that pain he endured and never spoke of, the one no one knew exactly how he’d gotten. The night they spoke of, Torrin had woken them, taken them outside and sent them off with a friend of his. They hadn’t seen him for two months, though word of a fire that had consumed their old hovel of a house—and their parents—had come the next day. When Torrin had returned, limping, they’d never asked.
Now, he wondered.
“Your leg.”
“I think that’s enough story time for one night, don’t you?” The set of Torrin’s tone said he wouldn’t offer more.
Fair. Where Erik had flashing memories of that life, Torrin had to live with it all. He could keep a few pieces to himself if he wanted.
The slider opened and Liam came out, his expression missing the normal humor.
“What happened?” Erik asked.
“Ashley’s late.”
Erik brought his wrist up to find the time. Sure enough, she’d missed dinner by thirty minutes. “Maybe she was caught up.”
Liam crossed his arms, a tic in his jaw. “No. Her driver just called. She asked to stop at a store on her way back to pick up some wine to go with dinner, except she went out of the back door of the store, and she isn’t answering her phone.”
Erik pressed his lips into a thin line at the idea that she’d bolted. Sure, she’d been annoyed with Torrin, but that didn’t excuse her trying to run off.
“Well,” Torrin said as he rose, dusting off his pants as though they had a speck of anything on them. “It seems dinner will have to wait. We have an omega to catch.”
And by the time they were finished with her, she’d be far too exhausted to run anywhere.
* * * *
Ashley leaned forward in her seat at the bus station, the chill of the air made worse by something she couldn’t shake.
Not fear. Well, she was afraid, but she’d grown used to that. Instead, it was a dreadful sense of isolation.
She’d been isolated before, but it had been something she’d known, accepted. Now that she’d felt something different, now that she’d had a moment of having more, of that isolation being driven out by the warmth of bodies she missed horribly, she struggled with its presence.
It was like always being sleep-deprived, then going on vacation and sleeping twelve hours a night. Going back to real life, back to the nights where she couldn’t sleep, was a hard transition.
One she hated to make.
But she had to. Not only for herself, but for the alphas.
Whereas before she hadn’t said anything because she was afraid they’d turn her over, that they’d sell her out, she now feared for them.
Gregory didn’t anger easily, but the undercurrent of it in his tone as he’d asked about them had terrified her. He’d kill without a second thought, and it would forever be her fault.
It was what had gotten her to run the first time, that fear for her fathers. It was what was getting her to run this time, too.
She couldn’t have them die just because she wanted what she should have known she could never have.
Her phone rang again. The alphas had called a number of times, but she’d ignored each one. She’d need to ditch the phone. They’d be able to track her calls, so it wasn’t safe, but she didn’t want to cut that one last tie.
She figured she’d leave it on the bench when her bus got there. She’d bought her ticket with the money from the driver. It was all the money she had, but she’d started over with nothing before.
How did she always end up like this? Broke, homeless, alone.
Her eyes burned, but she refused to be that girl crying at a bus station.
The phone rang again, and she twisted it to find not the alphas, but a restricted number. Gregory.
She answered, the same terror he always sparked in her forcing her to.
He didn’t wait for her to speak. “My darling one, why do you play games I always win? You run and I find you. I’ve offered you a life here, a life wherever you would want. Stop running. Just sit there and wait and I will come to collect you.”
The future he offered overcame her. She’d have the finest things and no freedom. He offered to live wherever she wanted because it didn’t matter where they lived—it would always be a prison. She’d be his. Nothing but his little trophy, the thing he owned.
She’d die every day with him until nothing but an empty shell remained.
After so long on her own, the thought of giving in, of doing what he wanted, of admitting failure, made her chest tighten until drawing breath was difficult.
Though at least she wouldn’t have to run anymore. She’d be settled, wouldn’t have to live in fear.
Sometimes she felt like her life was avoiding something that would eventually happen. She lived in that fear before a strike. If she just let the hit happen, maybe it would be better than avoiding it.
Except then she remembered how Liam had kissed her, his soft lips, the heat that grew inside her from it. She recalled Erik’s strong hands, the way he offered her that almost-smile that felt rare and precious. She even thought about Torrin, about how no matter what happened, she felt safe beside him, how when he told her to do something she could relax into the command and let things go.
The idea of giving that all up was too much. For the first time in so long, she’d glimpsed a future worth not giving up.
Sure, she might not get that future, but it was worth at least trying for.
* * * *
Liam couldn’t stop the soft growl as they entered the bus station. Tracking Ashley’s cell phone wasn’t something they’d do normally, but these weren’t normal circumstances.
He wasn’t controlling.
Bullshit.
So maybe he wanted to be controlling. A fear inside him wanted to know where she was at all times, and yes, it was easier because with all the security in place, they had a good idea where she was much of the time. However, he had no problem with her having privacy, either.
He’d have never tracked her phone if he hadn’t known damned well she’d run off.
Worse, since they hadn’t set up any of the financials yet, she didn’t have more than the hundred the driver had given her from their discretionary fund.
If she really wanted to leave, she needed to do it right. They’d help her get set up wherever she wanted, but she wouldn’t end up in another roach-infested apartment building. That was not about to happen again.
They entered the bus station, with Torrin in the center and Erik on the other side.
Her being ready to get on a bus and expecting to just disappear without a word had his temper sharp. The tension running through Erik and Torrin said they shared the sentiment.
“I will turn her ass so red,” Erik snarled, the same threat he’d made before.
“Please. You’re too soft-hearted,” Liam said.
Erik snorted softly. “I am when she doesn’t take off like this. The girl deserves a reminder that we aren’t so easy to throw.”
They passed the ticket area, since a call placed on their way had let them know she’d purchased her ticket.
Las Vegas. That was where she’d been headed, probably because the price of the ticket was about what she had in cash.
The thought of her stuck out in Vegas without anything had Liam’s hands drawing into fists, his knuckles aching.
On the back bench, something caught the light of the overhead florescent bulbs. Her cell phone.
He picked it up, frowning at her leaving it behind.
Had she realized they’d been tracking her?
The bus she’d gotten the ticket for hadn’t left yet, especially since Torrin had made sure it would be delayed.
Had she figured out the delay was due to them?
Where the hell is she?
A security guard stood at the back corner, so Liam headed his way.
“I’m looking for a young woman. Long brown hair, blue eyes. She was wearing…” Damn it, what was she wearing?
Torrin spoke up. “Black slacks and a white blouse.”
The guard nodded. “I remember her. She was sitting back there”—he pointed at the bench where the phone had been—“but she left about ten minutes ago.”
“Do you know where she went?”
The guard hiked a thumb toward the left. “She went out the back exit. It lets out into the parking garage.”
Liam thanked the guard then took off toward the back. However, he slowed his steps when he was reminded by the click of Torrin’s cane against the floor that he couldn’t keep up as well.
Normally he didn’t forget Torrin’s limitations. They were simply a part of life.
It seemed he was more thrown off by Ashley’s behavior than he’d realized.
They went through the back door that opened into the large, multi-level parking structure.
“She could have gone anywhere,” Erik said.
Liam closed his eyes and inhaled, catching a trace of her scent. Not enough to follow—he wasn’t a fucking bloodhound—but it at least eased him. If I was trying to run, where would I go?
“She’s out of money and has no phone. She can’t call a rideshare. She has no friends to call. She must have gone toward the street,” Liam said.
Torrin pointed away from the exit, toward the back. “She wouldn’t take the street, because she knows we’d come looking. It’s why she wouldn’t have gone out the front door. There’s an alleyway that way, but no exit for cars.”
Liam side-eyed Torrin, again reminded that while he might pretend he wasn’t involved, he knew the omega well.
He paid more attention than he liked to let on.
Torrin’s idea made the most sense, so they took off that way. Through the back there was a door, right where Torrin had claimed. Through there sat a quiet alleyway, only a single car wide, with the parking structure on one side and what looked like a warehouse on the other.
And down the path, sitting on a half wall with her head in her hands, was one wayward omega.
Misery clung to her, and when her back shuddered, his anger melted away.
Damn, that girl would be able to get away with anything if she could steal his anger this easily.
“Hey there, sweet.”
Ashley wasn’t shocked to hear Liam’s voice, and worse? It made her feel better.
She’d gotten about a block away from the bus station before her feet had frozen and she’d realized…she had no idea where she was headed.
What was she supposed to do? Where was she supposed to go?
It had all become too much, and she’d sat down, just crumbled onto the low half-wall beside an empty lot and dropped her head into her hands.
She didn’t acknowledge Liam, or Erik and Torrin, who she could smell even if she didn’t lift her head to see them.
Warmth pressed against her side as Liam took a spot beside her. “You make it hard to be mad at you when you look so miserable.”
“So I know how to get out of trouble?” Her joke fell flat the moment she said it.
“If you don’t want to be in trouble, how about you explain why you ran off.” Erik sounded dramatically less friendly than Liam, but that didn’t shock her.
She sure as hell wasn’t going to look up, though. She’d meet Torrin’s gaze and she was sure that was pure ice.
It had been too trying a night to be faced with that.
“Come back,” Liam said. “Come home and we’ll figure it out. We’ll deal with whatever the problem is.”
Home. The word made her want to cry again.
Even if she hadn’t made it far—since when had her plans ever really worked out?—she still couldn’t stay.
They didn’t know.
“You need to let me go,” she said.
“I don’t see that happening,” Erik answered. “Talk to us and we’ll resolve whatever the issues are, but if you think we’ll accept you simply walking out, you clearly don’t know us very well.”
“I figured I’d be gone before we had to worry about it.”
“So why’d you stop?” Liam bumped her arm with his.
She peered down the alleyway, still avoiding where Torrin stood. “It just seemed too far all of a sudden.” And isn’t that the truth?
“Come on, dove. Let’s get you home.” Torrin’s voice held no room for argument, and it made her eyes burn more with a desire to listen.
She wanted to fall against him, to look into his face and trust that he’d take care of it all.
Sure enough, she rose to her feet, and the heat of his body was so close, it chased the chill from the front of hers. His shoes, black and without scuffs, were in her line of sight along with the end of his cane.
His strong fingers caught her chin and forced her gaze up, the caress sizzling through her, the first time he’d actually broken that touch barrier.
Everything else drifted away as she met those dark eyes—all the hurt, all the reasons she had to go, couldn’t stand against the absolute certainty there.
What would it feel like to have that sort of certainty? To feel that sort of control?
She wanted to borrow it, to wrap herself up in it and trust in it.
“Why did you run?”
“It’s too dangerous,” she whispered back.
Her words came a heartbeat before something shattered the quiet moment, when her stomach sank and her heart froze.
First one bullet, then another, then a grunt and a body hitting hers.
A heavy weight knocked her to the ground as everything she feared came crashing down around her.