was tying up the bouquet?”
“It’s fuckin’ stupid to make a grown man a bouquet!”
“I think it’s sweet!” Sadey said from the background.
“Same,” Maris uttered. “Hunter, I would love a beef jerky bouquet. It’s all I want for my birthday next week.”
“Okay! Oh, I’m supposed to remind you that it’s Maris’s birthday next week,” Hunter said. “She wants to go tubin’. With lots of beer.”
“And canned margaritas,” Maris chimed in.
“And matching sunglasses,” Sadey said.
“Wait, I gotta wear matching sunglasses?” Hunter asked. “Y’all wear them gaudy red ones, and red ain’t my color.”
“I’ll die before I wear red sunglasses,” Bryson assured them.
“I like yellow,” Hunter announced.
“Focus,” Bryson said.
“Oh, right. Anyways, I figured I would give you reasons to come back to the pack. One, I miss you. No one makes fun of me, and I ain’t been called a dick-nosed sphincter socket in two days. My self-esteem is soaring, and I don’t know what to do with all this confidence—”
“Hunter, just do the list,” Bryson muttered.
Wes chuckled softly. God, his pack meant the world to him.
“Two, Maris’s birthday on the river. Let’s get drunk, maybe snake-bit, and maybe catch some fish with our bare hands like that movie we watched ten times in a row when we were kids. Jungle to Jungle?”
Wes snorted. “We watched that ten times because we were poor as shit, and it was the only thing playing on the one TV station Dad managed to finagle with those metal rabbit ears he was always fuckin’ with.”
“Well, I liked it. Three, there’s a whole lot of calves to pull this season because we put that big-ass bull on them petite cows, and Bryson and I need help. Four…I miss you.”
Aw, hell. Wes rested his elbow on the window edge and gripped the steering wheel tighter with his other hand. “I got something I need to do, but I’ll be back soon.”
“Promise?”
Up ahead, through the rain, someone stood in the middle of the road. Wes squinted and eased off the gas. It wasn’t Sam this time.
It was Leif.
A rage trembled through Wes’s veins like an earthquake. At last he could set his eyes on the man who nearly took everything from him.
“Yeah, Hunter. I promise.”
He hung up the phone and slowed. There was a long crack in the asphalt that led straight to the tall man in the road. He was standing crooked, had lost weight since Wes had seen him last. He wore a white T-shirt that was soaked through, and the short sleeves exposed an arm that had been mangled.
Huh. Alphas with injuries like this didn’t last long in general. Not unless they had protection. Not unless they’d brainwashed someone strong, like Sam, into defending them from alpha challenges. Coward.
The rain drummed down harder in the beams of his truck lights, and on either side of the road were towering pine trees. Leif’s blond hair was slicked back, and his bright gold eyes shone like an animal’s in the headlights.
Wes reached out for Sam’s bond, but all he could feel was confusion and rage. He winced at the toxicity and slammed the door on the bond again. Focus.
The door to his rig creaked as he shoved it open. His boots splashed in a shallow puddle as he stepped onto the road, and Leif’s smile greeted Wes when he looked up.
“It’s been a long time,” his maker said.
Wes spat and studied the alpha of the Wichita Pack. He wasn’t much to look at, not much of a match in a fight, and not even that dominant. But what he lacked in dominance, he made up with in cunning and a brutality that didn’t exist in many creatures.
The air smelled like wolves. Like fur and dominance that didn’t belong to Leif, and when he glanced into the woods on either side of the road, he could see them—the eyes of the Wichita Pack, shining with bloodlust.
“I never understood why,” Wes said, leaning against the front of his truck and crossing his arms.
“Why I turned you?” Leif asked.
“Why you turned them.” Wes jerked his chin at the woods. “Me and my brothers? Oh, I understand that. We were all close. All brawlers. Big for humans and liked to fight. You wanted protection from the pack that was after you, and so you befriended us. Took your time, too. Earned our trust. Became our friend before you killed us. Ain’t much honor in what you did, but I can understand it because I know you. Selfish. That’s all you are. Whatever benefits