Legenda Kaisar Naga

(Angelique)

Five years ago, I ran away from my mate.

I was pregnant, terrified, and convinced leaving was the only way to protect my child.

Now I'm twenty-six years old, living in a rundown trailer in a human town that doesn't know werewolves exist. I work double shifts at a diner, hide my scent with herbs, and spend every day trying to give my son the life I stole from him.

Most days, I can pretend we're doing fine.

Today, I can't.

Zack has been running a fever for two days.

He's only four years old, but he's already learned not to complain. He swallows his herb-laced apple juice with a whimper and a shudder, then smiles up at me, wan and trusting, when I tell him what a good boy he is.

My love for him is the only thing strong enough to get me out the door.

As I hold him against my chest, I find myself thinking about the father he'll never know.

The mate I left behind.

For years, I've refused to regret my choice. Regret doesn't pay rent. It doesn't keep food on the table. It doesn't protect a child.

But watching Zack burn up in my arms, I wonder if I was wrong.

My wolf certainly thinks so.

She's been angry ever since I took us away from our pack. Angry that I denied her a mate. Angry that our son is growing up without one. Then I made it worse, never once letting her out to run.

We need our pack. Take us home. Take the pup home.

I ignore her the same way I have for five years.

Home isn't an option.

Not anymore.

I leave Zack with my neighbor Mrs. Acheson, who smells like menthol cigarettes and would lie to the cops for me. I don’t know what I’d do without her help.

I kiss Zack’s hot forehead and tell him to be good. I don't let myself cry until I'm behind the wheel of my beat-up little Miata, where he can't see me break down.

I pull into the lot and see three fancy trucks I don't recognize, parked too close to the door, in that particular sprawl that says we'll move when we feel like it.

Bad feeling. Big one.

My wolf's gone silent, but every other instinct I've got is screaming at me to run.

But rent's due next week, Zack needs a real doctor, and I scraped the last of the herbs into his juice this morning.

We need more.

The dregs I rubbed on my gums won't stop another wolf from smelling what I am.

With any luck they'll stop one from knowing who I am.

Rent doesn't matter if you're dead, a little voice offers, unhelpfully.

Not my wolf, some darker part of my psyche.

The thought terrifies me.

What happens to Zack if I'm not around to protect him?

I sat there for a minute. Two. Weighing options I don't actually have.

I get out of the car and tell myself it'll be fine.

Linda's at the grill, shoulders up around her ears.

"Order for booth six is up. Maria ducked out. Best not to keep them waiting. But be careful, Angelique. There's something dangerous about them."

Fuck.

Linda's human.

She can't smell a werewolf across a room.

But she can feel a predator in one, the way prey always can, even when it can't put a name to the thing.

I tie the apron tighter and pick up the tray.

There are four men at booth six, and they're definitely wolves.

Suits cut to let a body shift inside them.

Pack tailoring.

Cufflinks that would cover my rent and groceries for a year and leave a little over for gas.

Hands that have done damage and slept fine after.

Two of them have their backs to me.

One of those is built like a doorway. The others aren't small, but he's huge.

The scent hits me three steps out and I almost lose the tray.

Their smells are all tangled together, and the collective power of it burns my nose.

Alpha and three Betas.

Under the expensive cologne is the thing wolves never quite manage to bury.

Aggression. Savagery. Primal impulse.

My wolf drops flat to her belly and whines in a way I can't read.

There's fear in it. But there's something else too.

I don't make eye contact as I set the plates down. My eyes stay glued to the table.

"Could I get you anything else?" I ask, topping up their water from the iced pitcher in the center.

"I can think of several things, sweetheart," the smallest of them murmurs smugly.

I refuse to react. Play deaf. Turn to go.

The one closest to me moves so fast I don't see it.

His hand's on my apron strings before my brain can form the word don't.

He yanks hard and I tumble sideways into his lap.

The tray hits the linoleum. His other arm comes around my waist like iron.

He buries his nose in the side of my throat and inhales.

Under his cologne is want.

Hot, ugly, hunting want, and his wolf is right at the surface where I can feel it.

My wolf is snarling and snapping now, done playing dead.

"Hello, little wolf."

I can't breathe.

His hand slides under my apron and skirt, up my thigh, slow, tracing over bare skin.

His fingers stop at the edge of my underwear and hover there. A promise.

The man across from him laughs low, watching with hungry eyes.

The third says, easy and amused, "Don't hog her, brother."

The biggest one, the Alpha, hasn't moved.

The wolf at my throat licks the place where my pulse is hammering.

"What's a pretty thing like you doing all the way out here by yourself?"

His mouth is at my ear now.

Even without his erection pressed against my ass, I'd be able to smell exactly what he's decided.

"No mate-scent on you. Nobody's coming to stop me. I could have you in the back of my truck in two minutes, sweetheart, and nobody in this room would do a damn thing about it. Would they?"

The urge to shift is overwhelming.

But shifting in front of humans is the one law of my old world that doesn't bend.

If he tries to drag me out the back, I'm going to have to break it anyway, because I won't let him-

"Let. Her. Go."

Three words, growled so low they hit like a boulder.

Every wolf at booth six stops breathing.

So do I.

Because I know that voice.

I know it better than my own.

It’s the voice I spent five years running from.

The voice I thought I'd buried the day I faked my death and disappeared, already pregnant with Zack.

But it isn't the same voice anymore.

It has weight in it now.

The kind of weight an Alpha doesn't carry unless something has broken him.

Something terrible.

Something I did.