Thirty minutes of lying with my eyes squeezed shut convinces me that sleep isn't happening. At least not anytime soon, so I decide to get up and get ready.
I'm on my way to the bathroom to shower when I hear Lara's voice outside.
Since Jackson left, there's been no other car or truck engine near the house. Frowning, I wander over to the window to figure out who she's shouting at.
At first, I assume it's some wild animal because she's screaming about not wanting any of its filth anywhere near her.
When she demands to know why he's carrying sweats in his mouth, I realize who it is.
Riley.
I forget about my shower and sprint for the door, yanking it open and hurtling down the stairs.
Lara's standing on the porch, still in the lace nightdress she was wearing before, but that's all I see until I burst out of the door and see the sweatpants I gave Riley lying abandoned on the edge of the forest. It isn't hard to work out what happened.
I erupt furiously, "Why did you do that!"
"Do what? Get rid of a filthy lone wolf?" she sneers.
I stalk toward her. "You seem to have a real problem with lone wolves. Which I have to admit, comes as a surprise considering how you've been throwing yourself at Jackson since the moment you got here. Or does his being packless not matter now that he's rich?"
Her jaw hardens, and she straightens. "Mine and Jack's relationship is nothing to do with you. And back off, you're not even close to being dominant enough to take me on."
I keep on coming. "You see, that's where you're wrong. I'm plenty dominant enough to take you on, and I would argue that Jackson is everything to do with me. You threw him away. You hurt him for no other reason than he wasn't good enough for you. Well, he's good enough for me."
Lara blinks, and her emerald-green eyes shift to gold as her wolf makes an appearance. "Back off. Or I'll make you."
It's my turn to give her a glimpse of my wolf as my vision sharpens and my eyes lighten from their usual hazel with a touch of green to pure green, a shade darker than Lara's emerald.
While my wolf side is usually fairly chill, I'm no pushover. After what Glynn Merrick did to Talis, I would've happily gutted him. I let Lara see there is nothing the least bit submissive about me. "You don't have a hope and a prayer of making me do a damn thing."
Because I'm staring right into her eyes, I catch the flicker of confusion. I understand why. As a beta, she's dominant enough that her wolf would take one look at me, and know that because I'm no alpha or beta, she could intimidate me.
Ordinarily, she'd be right. But as an omega, it wouldn't matter if it was an alpha staring me down. If I don't want to look away, I won't.
As I keep marching toward her, she backs up. "I don't understand. You're not… my wolf is more dominant than you. How can you outstare me?"
I walk her to the edge of the porch, and when she's hovering on the edge. I do what I should've done the moment she turned up. I shove her off it.
"What I am, is an omega. After the way you've treated Jackson and my friend Riley, you can take your toy suitcase and you can get the hell out of Dawley while you still can. You and your pack can fight your own damn battles without Jackson. He doesn't need you. He never has."
Lara doesn't move from her sprawl among the flowerbed, and after a firm nod, I turn and head for the porch steps.
I have no idea how far Riley went, but all I can do is hope that he didn't get too far that I can't stop him and convince him to come back.
I run for a good twenty minutes before I realize three things.
First, I'm still wearing my nightshirt and nothing else.
Second, Jackson explicitly warned me to stay out of the forest because of all the trouble at the building site.
Third, I should've stumbled into Riley by now because I haven't exactly been running slow. I've been sprinting at close to shifter speed, which means I've crossed into the Dawley-Stone Forest.
All of which means Jackson is probably going to kick my ass if he finds out what I've done. No. There's no probably about it. He's going to kill me, and that's before he finds out about me shoving his mate off the porch like that. Who knows how he'll react to that?
I stop and take a second to catch my breath, while I consider my next course of action.
As it's still early morning, I realize that the smartest thing to do, the thing that's going to attract the least amount of attention, is for me to shift and run back as a wolf.
That way, I don't have to worry about explaining to any tourists I bump into why I'm out for a run in a t-shirt, and also, I'll make the journey back sooner, which means there's less chance of Jackson returning to the rental and finding me gone.
After spending a good couple of minutes listening to make sure there isn't anyone close by, I tug my shirt over my head and drop to my hands and knees as I ready myself to shift.
Since I'm no alpha to be shifting in seconds on the run, I need to quiet my mind and be still to let the change sweep over me.
Usually, it only takes a few minutes, though it can take longer if I'm stressed or unfocused. Then, it can take up to ten minutes, but that's so rare it almost never happens.
I take a couple of deep breaths, as I always do, with my eyes closed, and press my hands more firmly into the soft earth to ground me. I don't know why or how it helps me to do it, but my shifts always come faster and seem easier when I'm on rich soil than when I'm not.
I feel my wolf's presence first on my skin. Her fur brushes against me like a gentle welcome, a subtle knock on the door. She's not loud or dominating the way I see with alphas, and especially with Talis, where she and her wolf battled for dominance for years. Sometimes, they still fight. I see it in her suddenly changing eyes, though she's never tried to attack any of the pack the way she did Savannah.
No, mine and my wolf's relationship, like the relationship between each shifter, is different-individual to them and them alone. My wolf is a mostly quiet presence inside me until someone threatens me or awakens my anger.
My nails are lengthening into claws as fur slowly takes the place of naked skin when I suddenly freeze, even as my eyes snap open.
Someone is there. Not just one someone, but two someones. Wolves.
One carries a familiar scent and I snarl at the memory of that mangy wolf who broke my ankle.
The other smells like a wild wolf, but I have my doubts he is. I've met too many wolves in and around the Dawley-Stone Forest to assume this one is a natural cousin. Which again begs the question, just what the hell are they doing here. What do they want?
Riley wants food, but he's connected to them. He has to be.
Now, I have a problem because I'm nowhere near finished shifting. But with the speed that the two wolves are approaching, there's no way I'll be done before they're on me.
While I don't know what the other wolf's intention is, Mangy Wolf has already proven himself to be a threat. So, there's no way I want him to be catching me mid-shift when I'm in no position to protect myself.
I won't have the benefit of thick fur or claws to defend myself, but I have a brain and I'm not easy to scare, so I'll have to hope that's enough.
Breaking my concentration, I rise from the ground, feeling my fur sink back into my skin and my nails shorten. I grab my shirt and ease it over my head as I prepare to face the wolves.
I don't have long to wait, because two seconds later, the same mangy wolf with the dark scruffy fur and too thin body bursts out through the trees. He doesn't hesitate before charging me, a vicious snarl twisting his face.
Prepared for his aggression after our last confrontation, I dart out of the way. As I whip around, I realize the other wolf is holding back. They must've split up, which is a bad sign. It means they're serious about hunting me, and they're being intelligent about it.
Since there's no way I'd be able to outrun two wolves, my best plan would be to slow them down with a couple of well-placed kicks or blows, and head for the building site as it's closer than trying to make it back to the rental.
Sure, I'll have some explaining to do when I burst out of the forest wearing nothing but a t-shirt. But I'd rather deal with human contractors than wolves that can rip out my throat if they want to, and right now, my instincts are screaming at me that this mangy one wants to.
I dodge another lunge. I'm mid-turn because I can feel something coming up behind me when a solid weight lands on my back and takes me down hard. This wolf does not feel like it's malnourished or mangy.
The weight shifts from my back, and I immediately push myself up. But before I can get to my feet, a hard blow at the back of my head sends me crashing back down again.
I'm out cold before I hit the ground.