"Where you going?"
I barely had my shoes on the floor before she was awake. She squinted up at me, that frown present on her face again. I ran the back of my fingers over her cheek. "Work. If you need anything, Gabe and Xav will be here. And if you're very good, I'll bring you something special. How is that?"
"The only thing I want is for you to stay here."
In truth, I think the words took her by surprise as much as they did me. The animal inside me perked his ears up and a flutter of something hopeful worked its way through my chest. I didn't bother to shut it down that time. It felt good, and it'd been so long since I'd had it.
Without thinking about it, I bent over her and kissed her forehead. Instincts kicking in, she lifted her head at the last moment to expose her throat. Our lips brushed, her tasting like almonds and ice cream, my favorite flavor from decades ago. I paused, but she froze. We stayed like that for a few seconds before I drew away and cleared my throat.
"Like I said. Stay here, I'll bring you something back."
And with that, I absolutely did not flee that room before she said anything in response. I merely left.
Chapter 7
Sadie
When Hudson left, it felt like the stars all went out in the sky. I was left in an endless, mysterious void that didn't quite work for me no matter what I did. Everything was different, alive, but constantly changing.
Gabe brought me a ham and swiss sandwich half an hour later. I stared up at him as he approached, my instincts telling me that he wanted to reach out and hold me. Yet, I felt as though I barely knew the man. It was madness to feel like I belonged with these men, with Tommy, but I did. No matter what rationality I tried to apply to it, I felt as though I'd known them for decades.
"Where's Tommy's mom?" I asked, taking the plate.
Gabe hesitated, his fingers tightening on the dish. "What did Hudson say when you asked him?"
Something sensitive, then. I shrugged and picked up the sandwich instead, taking a bite of it. Gabe would break for me in a moment or two, I had no doubt. He was too interested in what I wanted, in keeping me happy. I could practically smell it on him, even with my lacking human nose.
"I don't know if it's my place," he said.
I finished the sandwich in two bites, starving. No wonder the wolves at the zoo paced, always looking for food, if they were as hollow as I was. "Did she leave him or something?"
"She died when Tommy was only a few months old," Gabe said, sitting down on the bed beside me.
Oh, no. "I'm so sorry."
"You didn't know," he said. "Becca was all sunshine and rainbows, but when she had her paws under her it was a different story. She and Hudson had gotten a taste for lamb, fresh and raw, during her pregnancy. It was a stupid thing, absolutely reckless. But their blood was up and she was in heat, and alphas will do anything for an omega in heat."
I frowned at him. "In heat. You're serious."
"You'll come into heat, too. Probably next moon cycle. Most omegas do, and that's something we all need to talk about. Because if you're out running around by yourself, you're likely to end up with some strange alpha trying to breed you. We can help prevent that."
The thought of some random wolf trying to do that to me was horrible. I shook my head at the idea of it, but Gabe smirked. "They all deny it when they're human, but a wolf in heat has only a few motivations. And they all do it."
"And you're any better? What do you... alphas, right?" I asked.
"Right."
I nodded. "You alphas, you're any better than us? You just said that Hudson did reckless, stupid things for this Becca because she was in heat."
"It wasn't just because of that. They'd been together for a few years and he was a party animal around her. It didn't matter what it was, if she got it into her head, he was all for it. And when lamb from the store wasn't doing it for her anymore, we bought the property out in the sticks and started hunting."
I frowned, some memory tugging at my mind. "This wasn't about five years back, was it?"
"Yeah. It was. And the sheep farm thing was about three years ago."
Though I'd helped to clean up my neighbor's farm after the slaughter of six market lambs in a night, I hadn't thought anything of it. The livestock guardian dog had been getting on in years and no one had blamed him for missing a few lambs in a pen when he was out with the rest of the flock, half a mile away.
But I'd been the one to say that the paw prints had been awfully big, that the destruction to the lambs had been almost surgical. It had been like the wolves; and they'd had to be wolves, the county agricultural board agreed with me, had known exactly where to strike to make the kills as painless as possible.
"It was you guys," I said, baffled.
Gabe shrugged. "We're predators, Sadie. They're soft prey animals without the defenses of the wild ones. Once we started, it was hard to stop. And if Becca hadn’t been shot, I don't know that we ever would have."
"She was shot?" I breathed, my head turning toward Tommy's room.
He
