Love at First Gear Ch. 12

Note: I'm sorry to return with a non-spicy chapter, but the chapter I will upload next week will be spicy! This chapter skips around a little bit. I know some of you really don't like that, so just as a refresher in the last chapter we met the former soldier John and his bar, The Growler. We've also previously met Walker, who has been tracking Mack and Ashleigh and visited their abandoned camp site to recover their phones. Normally I would give these sections chapter numbers instead of having the story "skip", but if I uploaded chapters that short I think we would all be disappointed.

I have finished writing LAFG and started working on the next book, but I am currently facing some pretty serious health struggles and am not sure when I will be uploading the rest of anything. If you are interested in reading the last chapters of this story and giving feedback, send me feedback through this site!

This chapter is not a sexy-time chapter. If you're looking for that, try chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, and the next chapter (coming soon). - Ava

TWELVE

"I did my best not to mess up your ink."

Mack woke in an unfamiliar clinical setting, a recessed light shining dimly on him from above his bed. Blinking and rubbing his eyes he looked around the room, his eyes falling on a young man in scrubs.

"Did I wreck?"

The doctor twitched one eyebrow upward before rising from his stool and walking toward Mack. "Alright," he said, pulling a flashlight out of his pocket and pointing it in Mack's eyes, first one, then the other. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I uh," Mack frowned. He'd been pre-tripping a truck, hadn't he? Then...

The events of the day flashed through his head like lightning. "Ashleigh," he gasped, groaning as he rose from the bed. He half expected the doctor to push him down, but instead he put a hand on his back and helped him up. "She's here, right there," the doctor told him, gesturing at a bed a little distance from Mack's.

"Did they shoot her?" Mack's tone was dark.

"No, nothing like that. Took her for a ride, but she got away."

I failed her. I dragged her out into the open and then I fucking failed her. Mack looked down at his arm now and took in the sling holding up his right arm.

"My shifting hand," he grumbled, "of course."

The doctor chuckled. "I'm Brandon, by the way," he said finally introducing himself. "You had a pretty serious injury but alphas heal quick. You should be able to drive in a week, I'd think."

"I better be," Mack groused. "My new truck gets here next week and I need to get her back out on the road." He tilted his head at Ashleigh to indicate the "her" he meant was not the truck. I can't stand another week at the compound, he realized. "What, uh," he started, wondering how the doctor knew he was an alpha in the first place. He hadn't even told Travis what he suspected. Brandon seemed to sense his confusion and hurried to clear it up.

"I'm a lycan, too," he told Mack, smiling when he felt Mack relax a little bit. "I went into plastic surgery so I could start my own surgery center and work on wolves at night."

Mack had never met a lycan in medicine. Half-bloods like Reg, sure, but never anyone like Brandon. He nodded at him. "That's a smart idea." His head had spun a bit when he first sat up but gradually he felt himself return to his usual sturdiness. He couldn't take his eyes off Ashleigh. She was bruised everywhere he could see, dust caked in her hair and blood under her fingernails. Brandon had left her in her street clothes, which were saturated with dried blood. How much of that is hers? "What did she do?" He had to figure out what happened after the gunshot.

"I guess she shifted, right? I wasn't there, but Travis and Jana were. That first shift is always rough without having to kill somebody, or a bunch of somebodys, like in her case."

Shifted? It's not even the full moon. Even if she were a lycan she couldn't shift unless...

"Luckily for us Miss Marlow is made of pretty tough stuff. Just a mild concussion..."

Mack didn't hear what else the doctor said.

Marlow. Not that Marlow, right? She doesn't even smell like a lycan. She smells like...

"Oh fuck," Mack blurted out causing the doctor, who had left him to check Ashleigh's vitals again, to turn and look at him inquisitively. "Travis is gonna kill me," he said aloud, unable to stop the panic washing over him. I can't believe the Marlows are real and not just one of Travis' bullshit stories. Shit! How did I get so lucky to end up with one in my bed? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Brandon misunderstood him and looked relieved. "Oh, no, everyone's going to be okay. I'm sure he understands--"

Mack wasn't listening. He was spiraling.

Jesus Christ, Mack, what have you done? Did you just realize you don't know her last name? You've been fucking her and telling her to have your babies! Your babies, you lovesick dipshit! You moved her into your truck and the compound and you didn't even know--

It doesn't matter, the wolf answered his panic with fierce resolve, as always. If Travis has an issue we'll leave the pack and start our own. Who cares about him? He's not our mate--

"I've just got her lightly sedated, mostly I was worried about her getting a little shocky after the day she had, fluids for the dehydration and gave her a painkiller for all the bumps and bruises. But she should heal fast, that alpha blood is something else." Brandon grinned at Mack as he spoke, completely oblivious to the turmoil boiling over inside the other wolf. "How do you make two alphas in a relationship work, anyway? I've always heard they're just as aggressive."

"She's not," Mack blurted out as he frantically tried to parse everything the doctor was saying and everything going on inside his mind. "She's uh, you can't tell anybody about her. I appreciate your help a lot but if you tell anyone about her--"

"Relax," Brandon told him, holding up his hands. "Travis already let me know how many different counties they'd find my guts in if I ever told anyone about you two. Besides, I'm a doctor. All I do is keep people's secrets."

"Travis knows?"

The eyebrow shot up again. "Did you bring her into the pack without telling Travis she was an alpha?"

"To be honest I just kinda found out myself."

The doctor lifted his head a little, giving Mack a knowing look. "I get it," he said quietly. "I kind of lose it around women, too. I've managed not to bring any home to my parents, though." He chuckled lightly. "What a surprise for you then, I guess."

"Fuck," Mack muttered, rubbing his face with the one hand he could use.

"Come here," Brandon gestured toward a well-lit bathroom attached to the small hospital room. "I want to see what you think. Reg did a quick job, dealt with the nicked artery and got the fragments out, but you were still kind of a mess," Brandon laughed as he explained Mack's injuries to him as if they were someone else's. "Fractured clavicle but that'll heal fast on you. Most people would be looking at six-to-twelve weeks. I can probably take your stitches out in a couple days but you really can't drive for a week. You had some muscle damage and the bone will take a while to heal. Even after a few weeks you might have residual nerve damage, neck pain, we'll see, I guess. Might need physical therapy," the doctor rattled off a bunch of stuff that Mack really didn't want to hear. I'll be fine, he told himself, I'm always fine.

He looked in the mirror at his shoulder, watching Brandon lift the bandage before using his finger to indicate a line he could barely see against the black and gray tattoo beneath. The bullet had hit him in a good spot, as far as the tattoo was concerned. Any lower and instead of being in the stars and clouds that covered his collarbones and shoulders it would have been in the detailed wolves running across his chest beneath them. He couldn't see his bicep inside the sling, where the clouds and silhouettes of trees faded into a complicated array of gears, skulls hidden in the shadows between the gears.

"They didn't hit me anywhere else, I take it?"

Brandon shook his head. "Thankfully, no. You lost a lot of blood but I don't think you lost any ink. Still might need a touch-up, though. If I'd left it how Reg had it you'd end up with a big ugly scar, but once I saw that masterpiece I couldn't leave it like that."

Mack smirked. "Thanks, man." He turned and offered his left hand for an awkward handshake.

"There's a small wound on your shoulder where one of the fragments came through. Maybe you should think about extending that piece eventually. Or come back and I'll help you get rid of the scar."

Mack wasn't really a vain man. A scar wouldn't bother him, especially where he would almost never see it. But it would be a good excuse to splash out a few thousand more on what he called "therapy." Ashleigh had never commented on his tattoos even though they covered his arms to his first knuckles and descended over his abdomen to his thighs. Now he found himself more concerned with whether she would like him to have more tattoos or not than he did with the prospect of having a scar. She must like them, he thought as he recalled the first few times he took her in his human form. She'd had no complaints and had run her hands all over him, that is, when he let her have her hands.

"You got really lucky," Brandon said, a little more somber than before. "A little lower and we wouldn't be talking right now, or ever."

"I reckon I owe you a beer or a hundred," Mack said, Brandon laughing and shaking his head. "Nah, you owe Reg though. He got the bleeding stopped a long time before I ever saw you. No drinking while you're on those painkillers, though," he said, suddenly all business again, "I'll get you a prescription--"

With a wave of his hand Mack cut him off. "I don't take that stuff, ever. I'd rather be in pain than not have my mind working right, or get in an accident and have any trace of it in my system." Mack had visions of running into a school bus and being sued for ten million dollars or sitting in jail for the rest of his life anytime the topic of pharmaceuticals came up. For the same reason he rarely ever drank, never touched drugs, and restricted his vices to whatever he could get from women. From Ashleigh, he thought. His lifestyle choices ensured he wasn't the most popular pack member by a long shot, an honor probably reserved for River or Everett, both sociable drunks. Brandon nodded. "You can take Tylenol and Ibuprofen together for a few days, then. After that we need to talk if you're still hurting."

The rest of the night passed quietly. Wolves came and went, collecting medicine and receiving minor treatments, meanwhile Mack sat in a chair and watched Ashleigh's chest rise and fall. What am I going to do with you? He thought about all the time they'd spent together so far. Had there been any warning signs? What an interesting turn of events, he thought. I was worried she'd be afraid of me and now maybe I'm afraid of her. What will happen if we have kids? Travis had told him years ago about Marlow and his weird fae-wolf kids. What if he wasn't full of shit? What if Ashleigh is like that? Can I handle this?

Who else is going to handle her? Let me out, I'll take care of her.

The wolf's tone chilled him and reminded him of why he'd taken off in the first place. It's not a competition. She submits and doesn't challenge us. You don't get to bite her or abuse her, asshole, he thought at the wolf as aggressively as he could.

He shook his head to clear it, catching Brandon's eye as the doctor locked the door behind his last lycan customer. "Wolf-brain?" he asked, an eyebrow sliding up his forehead once again. Mack scowled at him. "How'd you know?"

"Oh, I have it, too."

"I only know one other guy that has it, but his is self-destructive--"

"Mine tells me to fuck everything that walks, and kill everything I can't fuck," Brandon interrupted him bluntly.

"It's awful, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but at least you have a mate."

"You're single? How? You're a young good-looking lycan with doctor money, every wolf in town should be throwing his daughters at you."

Brandon just laughed and shook his head before excusing himself. "I'll just be down the hall if you need me. I'm going to get a little rest before the humans start turning up," he told Mack. Mack nodded and waved him away, turning his full attention back to Ashleigh. Now that he'd stopped spiraling over the discovery of what she was, he began spiraling over the fact that he'd let her down in such a colossal fashion. I can't believe I did this to you, he thought over and over as he watched her sleep. I have to get myself together before I get one or both of us killed. Gradually sleep washed over him again, momentarily taking his shame away with his consciousness.

Slowly Ashleigh realized she was in a truck again. Again? It was different, though. Instead of the bunks it had one larger mattress. Is this the new truck, she wondered. Where was that man? The beautiful black-haired one with all the tattoos? Gradually she realized she was naked, warm, and almost sick to her stomach. The man appeared, offering her ginger ale through a straw and a handful of gingersnap cookies. She took them gratefully, sipping from the cup while he knelt beside the bed holding it up for her. He did this every day, didn't he? His other hand, now empty of cookies, rested on her belly. Her enormous belly. She glanced down and her heart skipped a beat. My baby, she thought, our baby.

The ginger ale was gone, and the man with it. What was his name? She couldn't remember. Before she'd rested in the bright white light of a winter morning, but now it was dark, the cab illuminated only by the LED bunk lights. Snowflakes fell in the yellow light of the trailer's marker lights outside the window. She knelt on the floor beside the bed, her head and arms resting on the mattress. Now the man was behind her, rubbing her hips and telling her it would be okay.

"I can't do it," she heard her own voice, "I need help," she sobbed, his rough hands rubbing her back and shoulders. "You can do it," he told her, "just relax." Suddenly her body was pushing whether she wanted to or not. He exclaimed when the head emerged, Ashleigh whimpering in short-lived relief. Another urge to push seized her, another round of burning pain, then more whimpering and relieved sobbing when the pressure was finally gone.

"She's perfect," he was crying when he thrusted the baby against her chest, then lifted them both into the bed. She rubbed the baby's back and it cried, her heart soaring when she heard it. The dream faded into warm nonsense before reforming. Now the truck was in motion, Ashleigh and the baby resting peacefully in the bed, the baby suckling and growing in her arms, her belly swelling again before the dream faded and formed once more, this time arising in a swell of panic.

A man demonstrated something at the front of a classroom. Everyone was staring at him except Ashleigh. She couldn't stop looking for her babies. Where had they gone? They were just there a minute ago. Why couldn't she remember how many? A girl, two boys, twins? One boy? Where is that man? Fear roiled inside of her. Why was she back here? She didn't want to be here, she wanted to be in the truck with the blue-eyed trucker. The more frantically she searched the more people turned and laughed at her, bringing her attention to her nudity. The professor turned and yelled something about Freud at her. He just kept yelling it over and over. It didn't make sense, it wasn't something Freud had ever said, she knew that much. Running out of the classroom she spotted the truck and ran to the passenger door. Thank God I'm home, she thought as she climbed into the cab. The big man was in the driver's seat waiting for her. Not the beautiful one, but the traitor-wolf she'd dug her hands into.

"Where are my babies?" she screamed at him, but he turned his ruined face to her and laughed. Her belly was swelling again, but now seeing it filled her with a sense of violation and dread. It wasn't the beautiful man's baby now, it was someone else's.

A monster.

I'm a monster, she thought, gradually waking in the plastic surgery center's dim nighttime lighting. There was the trucker again. He was worried, standing beside her and stroking her hair. "Ashleigh," he said over and over, caressing her cheeks and trying to wake her. How does he know my name, she wondered, then gasped as fear surged through her again.

"Where is my baby?" she whimpered at him. "I lost them, where are they?" Her voice rose, becoming more demanding while Mack stood in stunned silence. Despite what the wolf had chanted at him day and night for days on end now, Ashleigh's proclamation that she had babies really freaked him out. Brandon had warned Mack before he left that her sedative would likely wear off soon. If anything was wrong he was supposed to wake Brandon. Mack wondered if phantom baby fell into that category.

"Where is she?" she pleaded. "Jana?" Mack asked, confused. She frowned. Who the fuck is Jana, she wondered, and he could read her mind from the look on her face. "I think I need to get the doctor," he told her, but she wailed at him, clawing at his good arm and shrieking, "how could you lose our baby?"

"Our baby," he repeated, stunned.

"You caught her in your own hands, don't you remember? In the truck? How could you lose her?"

Mack's eyes darted around the room as he searched for some way to make sense of all this. Brandon, awoken by her wailing, quickly entered the room and went to work trying to calm Ashleigh down.

"Sometimes vivid dreams are a side effect," he calmly explained. That didn't seem to help. She was certain she'd had a baby only moments before and wouldn't let it go.

"It's okay," he kept trying, "tell me, what day is it?"

She froze. "I don't know," she answered quietly.

"That's okay. What year do you think it is?"

Her answer was wrong. Mack began panicking for more reasons than how nervous her statements about the imaginary baby had made him.

"Let's try easier stuff," Brandon offered calmly. "What's your name?"

"Ashleigh Nicole Marlow," she answered, her voice still quiet. Well, that was easy, Mack thought. No idea why I didn't think to just ask her what her fucking name was.

"Good, good. And what's this guy's name?" He jerked a thumb at Mack.

She stared at him.

And stared at him.

She forgot me, Mack realized, putting a hand up as if he were rubbing his chin when he was really trying to hold back the emotion that threatened to erupt now. I should just let her go, let her get back to school and get away from me, he thought. This is a second chance, I should give it to her.

"Mack," Ashleigh answered, hesitantly. Brandon exhaled sharply.

"Good, that's good. Do you know where you are?"

"New Mexico?" Ashleigh replied, uncertain. He nodded.

"Drug-induced amnesia," he explained to Mack. "Happens to some people on certain sedatives. She might be a little off for a few days while it leaves her system."

Mack nodded, trying to look relieved. I want off this fucking rollercoaster, he thought grimly, his guts untwisting and re-twisting as Ashleigh's baby comments played over and over in his head.

I might not want kids after all, he realized.

Yes you do, pansy, the wolf snarled at him. What do you think your job is? Make more alphas and quit whining.

"Now that she's awake I need to get you two out of here," Brandon told him, snapping his thoughts back to the present situation. Mack nodded. "I'll call Jana, see if we can get a ride," Mack told him, excusing himself to use the phone. Outside of the hospital room he stepped into a bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He felt sick to his stomach. What if she'd had a brain injury, he thought, and all you could think was good for her, she gets a second chance? What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you love her or not? He wanted to punch his own reflection in the mirror but thought better of it, managing to convince himself to find the phone and get out of the kind doctor's way without committing any property damage.

It's not that I don't love her, he thought darkly as he finally found his way to the front desk. It's that I hate myself.

When he found the phone he was surprised to find the keys to Travis' Land Rover on the desk next to the phone. How the fuck are we supposed to drive ourselves home, he wondered, me with my broken shoulder and her high on drugs and hallucinating babies? Lucky it's an automatic and I can drive it one-handed, I guess.

At that hour of the morning he figured there was little traffic on the road and little risk, even if the doctor didn't want him to drive. Despite his and Brandon's concerns about driving he was glad to see the surgery center in the rear view, and his heart warmed to see Ashleigh back in the passenger seat where she belonged. But as she regained her awareness he couldn't help but notice the chill that settled between them. After a few miles he pulled off the freeway, following signs for a scenic overlook.

"Let's watch the sunrise," he told her, but she said nothing and wouldn't even look at him. The parking area was empty, so he parked angled for the best view of the sunrise, ignoring the white lines on the pavement. He killed the engine and stared at her, waiting for Ashleigh to say something.

"Why did you leave me?" she finally asked, still not making eye contact and with a tone so acidic he flinched. Mack chewed on his lower lip for a while before he finally, quietly, answered her. "I was afraid I was going to hurt you. I thought I'd leave for a while, get my shit together, knock off a few hunters--"

"Why wouldn't you take me with you?" she snapped, finally glaring directly at him. Mack frowned at her. "Don't look at me like I'm stupid," she snapped again.

"Well, I didn't exactly know you were a fucking werewolf, did I?" he snapped right back, suddenly angry at her dishonesty, his drawl slipping out with his anger. "If I'd have known you were a violent little thing I wouldn't have worried about it so much. You've got no one to blame but yourself, darlin'--"

"I didn't know, either," she yelled, ignoring how her voice filled the car, "or I didn't remember. Something like that. Fuck you, anyway." She fixed her gaze on the horizon and crossed her arms over her chest. "I thought you loved me, but you're just like everyone else. You just left me behind, didn't even care if anything happened to me. 'Bonded' my ass." He watched as big, angry tears trickled down her cheeks, cutting a track of clean skin through the blood and grime that covered her from head to toe.

Mack thought about Ashleigh's dad and found himself growing angry that she would compare him to her dad, then annoyed with himself that he hadn't seen that consequence coming when he took off. "I'm not like your dad," he started, but Ashleigh made a noise of annoyance.

"My mom, my dad, you."

"I didn't leave you, not like they did," Mack blurted out before what she'd said had fully sunk in. "What happened to your mom?"

Ashleigh shrugged. "Took off as soon as I was born. I guess she saw what everyone else would eventually figure out."

Mack snorted angrily. "That's not fair to me or to you. I didn't leave because of you. I left because I was afraid I would hurt you. I left you with friends, somewhere safe, because I do love you even if you lied to me--"

"I didn't lie to you!" she shouted at him, her eyes flashing icy gray. "Nobody told me I was a monster, okay?"

Clicking his tongue in annoyance Mack rolled his eyes at her, "you're not a monster. Stop being so dramatic." That was the wrong thing to say, he thought as she angrily exited the vehicle and began walking back toward the freeway. "Where are you going?" he called out after her, hurrying out of the vehicle and following her. "I only have one arm but I can still throw your ass back in that car," he warned, quickly catching up to her and clamping his hand on her shoulder.

"You wanted to go," she shouted as she spun around to face him, "so just leave. I'll obviously be fine on my own."

Her words stung more than Mack wanted to admit. Even the wolf hissed inside of him, her assertion that she didn't need his protection a deep injury to his pride. And she was right; because of him she'd ended up in danger, and he'd been unable to help her. She'd gotten herself out of it without anyone's help at all. Stunned, he realized he was blinking back his own tears at the revelation that she had little need for him after all.

"I was watching you sleep, and I didn't know how I got there," he told her quietly. Ashleigh looked confused.

"At the surgery center?" she asked, but Mack shook his head and swallowed hard.

"No, at the compound. I was really upset with Travis, then the next thing I knew I was standing over you, wanting to bite you, and other things..."

"I gave you permission," she started, but Mack shook his head.

"It wasn't like that. It was all him, and he thought it was a game. I couldn't stay and see how far it went. I thought if I bit you it would turn you, I didn't know."

As soon as her expression changed Mack realized he had screwed up again. "I thought you said only alphas can change humans," her eyes narrowed as she watched his reaction.

Swallowing hard again, he grimaced and finally said, "yeah, about that."

"Oh, so you lied to me?" she blurted out sarcastically, slapping her fist into her palm.

He watched the gesture, then frowned. "That's not a very therapist-y thing to do," he muttered.

"Yeah, I'm thinking that's probably not my calling after all," she admitted.

Enough of this. Put her in her place, the wolf snarled inside his head.

Mack took a deep, steadying breath and squared his shoulders. "I wasn't an alpha before, but something changed. Somebody must have died and no one told me because I don't talk to my family. So you and I are on the same page, princess. Ain't it funny how that worked out? I didn't want to rip your throat out, so I left for your own good. I know you want babies but I can't give you that until I know that the hunters are either out of the picture or too terrified to even look in your direction. And I can't give you a family until I figure out how to get him under control."

"You assume I even want to have a family with you after that stunt," Ashleigh snapped at him. "How would I know for sure that you wouldn't just leave us?"

"I would never do that!" Mack yelled at her despite the fact that it went against every bit of his Southern upbringing to yell at a lady, then fought to get himself under control. "You know we're fated to each other. You know I love you, even if I am a mess. You can accept my apology and my explanation or not, but eventually you're going to be underneath me again begging me to fuck a baby into you and we both know it. So, do you want to keep fighting or do you want to help me clean up this mess so I can make good on my promise, buy you a house, and give you that baby? Either way, Travis is throwing us back in a truck as soon as I'm out of this sling and it's up to you if we get in it as lovers or enemies. So, what will it be?"

Her confidence had melted away as he dressed her down and it took all of his resolve to still look like he was pissed off at her while her lip trembled and a fresh supply of tears slid down her dirty cheeks. I hate this, he thought, but the wolf was right there to encourage him. She is traumatized, she doesn't understand what you did was for her. Mack tried not to let his surprise show outwardly, but it was rare the wolf had anything insightful to share with him. If she tries, I'll try, it growled, then vanished, leaving a rare sense of peace in its wake. All of this is your fault, anyway, Mack thought, but it didn't bother to return.

The sky turned gray, then faintly pink behind them while they stood in the overlook, locked in their stand-off. "I saw your face when I woke up," she spoke so quietly Mack had to strain to hear her. "You don't want a family, and you can't lie and give me one and then be miserable about it forever. Even if you did, I don't want to stay in a house, I want to be in the truck with you."

He couldn't help but growl at that. Her waking words had caught him off-guard after a very, very long day. "That's not fair," he pointed out. "I was worried about you and then you woke up and started professing we had a bunch of babies that we don't have. You didn't even know what year it was or who I was at first! And yeah, it kind of fucked me up for a minute, what guy wouldn't shit his pants over that? But don't make me out to be like your dad or anyone else. I'm a lot of things but not a coward, Ashleigh. If I ran away from you it would be to keep you safe, and I would make sure you were taken care of." He paused for a moment to watch the sun crest over the distant mountains. "And one more thing," he began, "I don't want any babies in the truck. It's dangerous to be in a truck at all, I'll get a different job or something. Drive local or, God, I don't know, but I won't have you pregnant or a bunch of squishy babies in the truck. Ever. Those are the rules, take it or leave it."

Mack watched her expression change for a long moment, then turned and walked back to the Defender. He didn't care for the look of defiance that briefly flitted across her features when he told her no babies in the truck and wondered if that would be the deal-breaker out of everything that had been said and done. He sat in the driver's seat of the Defender and slammed the door, his mouth twisting into a pained frown as he waited for Ashleigh to make up her mind. What if she doesn't come back to me, he thought briefly before the passenger door softly opened and Ashleigh hesitantly climbed back into the car. Both of them stared at the rising sun for a while, several minutes of silence passing while they sat alone with their thoughts.

"What do you mean by 'clean up this mess'?" she asked as icy snowflakes began to fall in the harsh rays of morning light.

"I mean, let's hit the road and kill hunters. We both want a family, right?"

Ashleigh stared at him for a moment, then nodded.

"I can't do that to you until I know you're safe. I just can't," he muttered as she reached across him to grab his good hand, surprising him with the sudden contact. "I didn't know you were a killin' machine," he joked, "but now that I know that we might as well team up."

"I don't want anything else to change between us," she whispered. "This doesn't change anything else about our... arrangement."

"What does that mean?" Mack grinned at her as she blushed. "You still want to be my submissive little slut even though you could probably kill me if you changed your mind?" Her blush deepened but she nodded. "Let's get you back to the compound, get you cleaned up," he murmured, pushing some blood-and-dirt-caked hair out of her face while he studied her reaction.

The sun disappeared behind a bank of clouds as he started the engine, snowflakes growing larger in size and number as he guided the car back to the freeway. By the time they arrived at the compound the snow shower had turned into a blizzard and the garage doors rattled as they struggled against the wind to close. "I didn't know that was coming," Mack said aloud, thinking he hadn't seen a lot of things coming lately. He turned to open the double-doors into the common room of the compound but Ashleigh grabbed his shirt and tugged until he stopped and looked at her.

"I love you, Mack," she whispered.

"I love you, too. Let's figure out this alpha thing together, alright?"

Mack had anticipated drama on their return to the compound, but he was pleasantly surprised when he pushed the door open and found Yosef and Travis quietly preparing breakfast in the kitchen. He braced himself as Travis wiped his hands on a towel and approached. The scent of beer was heavy around the pack leader, increasing Mack's unease. This is when he kicks us both out of the pack, he thought, but when Travis made a beeline for Ashleigh and gathered her up in a hug he breathed a sigh of relief. "That first shift is always the worst," Travis told her, squeezing her a little too hard before releasing her and flashing her a sympathetic smile.

"It wasn't the first one," Ashleigh said quietly, "but I didn't want to remember the first one."

Travis nodded. He and Mack both wondered, though unaware that they were having the same thought, if it had something to do with her past work as a cop. "Well, don't let me keep you," Travis told them. "Breakfast will be ready soon, but I'm sure you both want to clean up and rest. If you want food it'll be up here whenever you're hungry."

In the communal shower Mack desperately wanted to touch Ashleigh, but whatever Brandon had given him at the surgery center had worn off and Mack was acutely aware he'd been shot less than 24 hours before. He settled for leaning against the wall and watching her wash herself, grinning every time she turned and caught his eye. "You're such a perv," she jokingly admonished him, but he shrugged and made no effort to hide his interest. "Just 'cause I can't get up to any trouble doesn't mean I can't think about it," he groused playfully, splashing her with water, then dodging the loofa she threw at him. In his anger he'd lost control of his accent when they'd argued at the overlook and now he didn't bother trying to hide it. He'd noticed that she always grinned when it slipped out and after the dumb things he'd done the day before he would do anything to get back into her good graces, including embrace the accent he'd tried to bury for ten years.

"I feel like we should rest, but I also feel like I just had the best nap of my life," he admitted as they dried off. "I feel fuzzy, almost buzzed," Ashleigh complained, "like I could sleep but it probably wouldn't be restful. And then what if I have more crazy dreams, or I don't remember where I am again?" Mack nodded. He wasn't sure how it would go over with the pack if she woke up screaming about babies in the compound. "So, are you saying you want to go eat breakfast?" Her stomach growled in answer and they hurried to dress and get to the table while the food was still hot. He allowed himself a few lingering touches, a caress or two, but that was all the trouble he felt like causing that morning.

The meal was great - every meal at the compound was - and once it was over Jana had whisked Ashleigh away for the romcom and snacks she'd promised her the day before. From one nightmare to another, Mack thought bitterly as he stared at the stack of paper Travis had presented him with almost the instant Ashleigh had left the table. Mack cast a glance through the open doorway into the living room. Jana and Ashleigh sat on the sectional sofa, snuggled together under a fleece blanket. He thought about how strange it was that Ashleigh had forgotten Jana just a little while ago and now she was nearly asleep, her head resting in Jana's lap, Jana gently playing with her damp hair.

"What do we do? Just keep them here at the compound like prisoners?" He whispered but he knew if they wanted to, they could both hear him. I can't believe how fast everything changed, he thought as the realization that Ashleigh might have wolf-hearing hit him.

"I mean, it's not unlike how it was in my parents' day," Travis whispered, "and the women didn't seem to mind, really. The men provided and the women did their thing and were safe." Mack grimaced a little. He knew that by "their thing" Travis meant they stayed at home and had babies, and neither Ashleigh nor Jana were the type to want nothing more than babies. Not to mention Mack couldn't imagine himself with more than two or three kids. When he thought about Everett and his tiny-but-growing pack of feral children his guts roiled.

"Travis said we can go in trucks and move around a lot, but look at them. I don't think they would like it." Yosef nodded toward the sectional sofa where all of the pack's women, including the little ones, were resting, reading, knitting, or watching the vapid movie in their pajamas. The two little ones crunched on snacks and held dollies, their game temporarily paused while the movie was interesting. They were so oblivious to everything, how they should be, Mack thought. How they should all be.

"We'll have to go eventually," Mack said, "it's how I earn my living, but maybe Travis can put me on as a regional driver so we can come back every weekend. God, I don't know." So many gears were spinning in Mack's head he was having trouble keeping track of his own thoughts. Travis had expected him to totally lose it when he saw the pictures of Ashleigh and had been impressed when Mack held it together, but he had no idea how close Mack really was to losing it. Mack could feel the wolf pacing back and forth in its cage, snarling to be let out to kill someone. Every time he looked at the pictures of Ashleigh in the laundromat it tore through him again. What do I do? Take her on the road and never let her out of the truck? That's no way to live.

"I can't stand this," he said finally, pushing the papers away angrily. "What do we do? We don't even know who is offering all this money."

"John's working on it. You know if anyone will figure it out, it'll be John."

Mack didn't share Travis' certainty where it came to John. John had caused the pack a lot of trouble in the past, though everyone seemed to excuse it and just get over it for reasons Mack never understood. He was never quite able to move on from his initial impression of John, that he was a troublemaker and unstable. While he pondered he stared across the room at the strange Bavarian clock that Travis prized. The morning was quickly slipping away into afternoon, the wolves along the bottom of the clock poised to "howl" when the next hour struck. Maybe John can help us, but who knows if he'll stay on track by himself?

"What are you thinking about?" Travis asked him.

"Going to The Growler, seeing if John needs a bouncer for the night."

Travis laughed at that. "You almost died yesterday and just had surgery. You're still in a sling. You're not bouncing shit."

"No," Yosef interjected, "but I could bounce. What is bounce in this context?"

"Kick people out of the bar, like security," Mack told him before Travis could pooh-pooh the idea. Yosef was big, not as big as Mack, but big enough to make most men think twice. He seemed soft and Mack didn't know him well but he suspected beneath the surface there was a viciousness to Yosef that was looking for an outlet.

"Guys," Travis started, but River had been eavesdropping while he stood behind the couch pretending to watch the romcom. Now he sat at the dining table with them and whispered, "I'm in."

"What's the point--" Travis began, but for once Mack's brain was firing on all cylinders, and none of them were wasted on the wolf and his snarling.

"That guy that Ashleigh..." he glanced at the couch. Ashleigh seemed to be asleep, but he lowered his voice even more just in case.

"Turned into ground chuck?" River supplied. Mack grimaced at him and nodded.

"He was a wolf, right? What do you think the odds are that he's been to The Growler? What do you think the odds are a regular is involved in this?"

"Aiden," Yosef said, dropping a bomb on the conversation.

Travis scowled at him.

"This sounds like that Aiden guy, yes? What John told me--"

"Let's not jump to any conclusions," Travis interrupted.

"No, I don't think he's wrong. He's always been obsessed with that Greek sex cult shit, why wouldn't he pay a bunch of money for a couple of female alphas for his sex cult?" Mack realized his fingernails were digging into the table as he spoke. Yosef looked positively murderous.

Travis bit his cheek, narrowing his eyes and contemplating Mack and Yosef's theory.

"I don't think you're wrong," he said finally, "but we have to know for sure before we act on anything. If it isn't him and we start a fight with him anyway we'll have twice as many problems as we do already."

"More," interrupted River.

"Okay," Travis relented, "everybody shit, shower, and shave. We're going to The Growler, the four of us, and the rest of the guys need to stay and make sure nothing interrupts that." He jerked his head at the little group of women gathered around the TV to punctuate his comment. The men nodded, then dispersed.

⏾⋆. ˚

It had been quite the trick to get out of The Growler and back to the hotel unnoticed. Ashleigh's phone was fully charged now and Walker looked doubtfully at the other phone before plugging it in. He would charge it, but it was smashed-up even worse than the girl's phone and given that he now knew for sure it had been Mack's, was probably locked-down tighter than Fort Knox. Mack clearly didn't care if these were tracked. He thought about the abandoned campsite and the tracks in the snow leading to it and away from it. I would have done things differently, but he did well-enough in the moment, Walker admitted to himself.

With his ear to the door that adjoined his suite and the suite shared by Prodigy and Vic he could hear the two grunting and moaning, one of them speaking complete filth to the other. I don't think they even noticed I was gone, he thought to himself as he smirked and stripped off his own clothing. Setting the alarm to give himself a little sleep, he slipped between the sheets and was quickly dreaming the same unwanted dreams he always had.

When the alarm went off it jarred him, but he was grateful to be awake again. His dreams were always unwelcome but he had work to focus on; getting her phone to work, then getting into it. He threw on a hotel bathrobe then sat at the room's dining table, the phone in one hand and a notebook and pen in the other. The rugged case was in pieces, and the phone inside not in much better shape. Still, he pulled the back of it loose and removed the SIM card. The back finished shattering as he attempted to put it back on, so he set it aside and held the battery in place with his fingers. "Let's see what she knows," he told himself as he pressed the phone's power button and prepared to be disappointed. His face scrunched in surprise when the phone started up. "You're lucky nobody else found this thing, baby girl," he murmured. The phone was slow, but operable for now, and he made a mental note to upgrade his own phone's case to one like it. Swiping the shattered screen instantly unlocked it and took him right to the phone's still-loading home screen.

"No password? That's weird for a wolf," he said to the empty room, then quickly thumbed-through the settings to disable anything that might lend to tracking it. Most wolves were paranoid about being found out, and the lack of a password had him second-guessing himself. "Maybe this is a burner phone," he wondered aloud, flipping through the apps and seeing nothing particularly interesting among them. "Or maybe she really thought she had nothing to hide." Leaving the phone momentarily he plugged in the room's clunky little coffee maker and started brewing a cup of bitter budget-brand coffee. Walker wasn't a fussy man or accustomed to particularly nice things, but one thing he couldn't stand was weak coffee. I bet this is gonna taste like shit, he told himself as he poured a cup of watered-down looking coffee. After adding all the cream and sugar in the room he took an experimental sip and winced. "Yep, shitty, but it'll do."

After making himself comfortable at the table again he picked the phone back up and opened the she-wolf's e-mail app. There were e-mails from a college, a few from people he quickly identified as classmates and professors, but absolutely nothing about pack-business. He threw a few names in the search bar and quickly ruled out that she had ever e-mailed anyone of interest.

Ruling out the e-mail he switched over to her phone book where his confusion only deepened. There were hardly any contacts in the phone. "Admissions, Counselor, Dad, Dean's Office, Kayla, Milo, and Tricia," he read aloud. "That's it? Seriously? Is this a spare phone or is this chick a fuckin' hermit?" He muttered to himself as he opened the e-mail account and searched for Kayla, Milo, and Tricia and quickly identified them as classmates that Ashleigh had studied with.

"So, no friends, and no family except dad." He scratched his chin and took another swig of the disappointing coffee, flinching a little as it washed over his tastebuds. "Well, this sure doesn't give me a lot to work with," he admitted. "Or," he mused aloud, "it gives me everything, and my list of suspects is small." It wasn't often Walker found himself stumped, and while he wasn't willing to give up yet, he was going to have to dig a little deeper than he normally did to figure out who was selling tips about this girl.

Digging through her internet search history revealed she'd only started searching for information about lycanthropy the day before the phone was tossed, when she met Mack, Walker realized. She really didn't know what she is, did she? Her text messages were equally mundane. There were a few to Kayla and Milo, and quite a few to Tricia. There were a few sent from a number not saved to her contacts and a reverse phone number look-up only revealed that it was a cell phone number. Those messages were about meeting up as well - probably another classmate, one she didn't like enough to save into her phone, but he couldn't dismiss it entirely. Most of the messages she sent were about study dates, but there were several more sent to Tricia about meeting up for pizza and beer. Correction, she has one friend, he told himself, then opened her messages to her father.

"This is where it gets juicy," he muttered into the coffee cup as a wall of text met his eyes. The beginning of their messaging history was nothing remarkable. A few messages back and forth about college, then about graduating and coming home. Next there were months of pictures they'd taken of each other on fishing trips and texts about dinner. "Who the Hell is step-mommy?" Walker opened the notebook finally and began taking notes. The tone of the messages had changed abruptly with the introduction of this new woman into her father's life. Most of the recent messages he'd sent Ashleigh were nags and guilt-trips about why she should clean the whole house and cook for them since she wasn't currently going to school. The tone gradually became more combative on both sides with her father criticizing her temper and making comparisons to her mother.

"How the Hell would I know what that even means?"

Ashleigh doesn't know her mother, Walker realized.

"Take my word for it then. Quit being a bitch to Beth."

"Tell her to stay away from me. I'm not her servant and I lived here first."

"You're a 25-year-old killer-cop, not a princess. You're lucky we let you stay with us after what a disappointment you've turned out to be."

"Where is this coming from? You never said this to me until Beth showed up. Maybe I could finish school faster and get out of your hair if you'd use any of your millions of dollars to help me pay for school."

"I told you to join the Army and get the GI Bill like I did. You're not getting anything more from me."

Walker leaned back in the rickety dining chair and licked his lips. The mug was empty and his mind was racing. Daddy has millions of dollars, step-mommy doesn't like her, and she doesn't know who her real mommy is? I wonder if Travis knows any of this. He rose to refill the mug, all the while wondering what possible motive her father could have for putting a bounty on her.

Could step-mom Beth have access to the bank account already? Walker glanced at the alarm clock and panicked. He'd lost track of the time while he sank into Ashleigh's drama and he found himself once again scrambling to get out of the hotel room on time. He slipped a note beneath the door for Prodigy and Vic. Whenever they woke up they'd find his excuse for his absence and probably resume what they were doing earlier without giving it a second thought. Cleaning up as fast as he could and pocketing the phone, he hurried out the door as his Uber arrived. It would be an expensive ride all the way out to The Growler but even he wasn't crazy enough to ride a motorcycle in a snowstorm.

⏾⋆. ˚

Everett was pissed when he found out Travis was leaving him behind to go to the bar. "You're a drunk and we're trying to gather information, not make a fuckin' scene," River snarled at him, putting him in his place. "You stay here and watch over the pack, get your head out of your ass."

Everett pursed his lips and nodded. "Yeah, you're right," he answered. "Who do I call if I need help?"

"Me. Ilia and Soren should be back from the shop any minute, and Ernesto is still here with Jax somewhere. You should be fine," Travis told him, "but in case anything happens, you know where the gun cabinet is. Don't be a fuckin' hero. Shoot 'em." Everett nodded, still a little sour about being left out of the evening's activities, even if he understood he was more of a liability than an asset.

During the ride to The Growler the men formulated a plan. Mack would stand around and look like Mack, Yosef would work behind the bar so John could keep digging, meanwhile Travis and River would mingle and see what they could overhear. It might not amount to anything more than John getting more digging done, but that was worth it.

When they arrived John was surprised to see them at the door. "I thought you two would still be sleeping it off," John told Yosef and Travis with a grin. Teaching Yosef the ropes was pretty easy - it wasn't much different than working at the counter-service restaurant Yosef's family had owned in Iraq since the only variety the bar actually had, despite the many neon signs in the window, was in the food. "I just buy whatever beer is cheapest that week," he told Yosef. "If anybody complains, tell 'em to take it up with Mack."

Mack overheard him and laughed while he perused the jukebox's selections. As the evening got underway Yosef found it was easy to keep up with John's bar and he enjoyed it more than he thought he would. He made conversation and some of the regulars, intrigued by the new face, gravitated to the bar when they would usually have sat elsewhere. River drank socially and Travis stuck to mocktails. "My liver thanks you," he whispered and raised his glass in a toast to Yosef. It was a bit of an exaggeration; he couldn't kill himself by drinking, but he could kill every beneficial relationship in his life if he kept it up. It was easier to make jokes than be honest about that. Mack stood near the door and watched the parking lot while he listened to the conversations around him. All of them looked for anyone taking pictures.

Despite the neon signs that promised "girls, girls, girls," there weren't any. What The Growler did have was an empty stage with a pole in the middle of it, and Yosef laughed as drunk lycans climbed up and showed off their best dance moves. Letting Travis think he was a prude was intentional. Yosef had spent many nights standing outside the windows in Hamburg's "red light district" watching the working girls pose and dance, but he suspected Travis would be even more reluctant to let him have Jana if he knew what Yosef was really like. Travis was finding out, anyway. Yosef wondered why John didn't employ any dancers, but he sensed that John's heart wasn't really in The Growler in the first place. Cheap beer, no girls, and cold snacks. If Yosef had a place like this there would definitely be good beer, hot food, and hotter girls, he told himself.

The lack of dancers didn't seem to put much of a damper on anything, he noted. The bathroom was always occupied and whenever he stepped into the kitchen to grab food he could hear moaning and other erotic sounds through the shared wall between the kitchen and bathroom. He wondered how long The Growler had been a werewolf bar and how many generations of lycans had been made in that bathroom. Chuckling to himself as he grabbed a charcuterie plate out of the walk-in he tried to pretend he couldn't overhear what was happening, and had been happening for a while. What a crazy life John has, he thought as he left the kitchen behind.

Occasionally Jana texted Yosef to check on him, and he was grateful to hear from her each time. It was a little reassurance for him that she was still okay. Once in a while Travis would drift by the bar and raise his eyebrows. "Anything?" he'd mouth at Yosef, who would shake his head. Travis would move on to Mack and River with the same question, and the answer was always no.

It was nearly ten when John reappeared. He didn't stop to check on Yosef and instead crossed the bar straight to Travis, tapping him on the shoulder and leaving back through the door next to the bar. Travis excused himself from his conversation and Yosef watched as he disappeared through the door after John. For some reason his heart started pounding and he missed a drink order. Apologizing and pouring it, he glanced at Mack, who was watching him intently. Wordless questions passed between them while Yosef shrugged and Mack chewed on his lip, turning back to watch the front door.

A few minutes later Travis exploded out of the storage room, followed closely by one furious John. "You son of a bitch," Travis snarled as he crossed the bar to one of the booths, reaching across and grabbing the man who had swung at Travis the night before. He pulled him by his jacket and yanked him out of the booth across the table, scattering plastic cups of beer everywhere. "Did you really think you could sit there and act like you're one of us while you sell us all down the river?"

"What are you talking about?" Francis yelled, and Mack instantly recognized him. He was also a trucker and a frequent flier at Travis' shop. He owned a few old Peterbilt trucks that were in constant need of repair due to their age, but he refused to drive anything more modern because of the onboard computer systems he despised. He was always grousing about electronic logging and artificial intelligence, the latter of which Mack didn't care for either, whenever Mack crossed paths with him in the shop. While Travis dragged him out of the booth John grabbed the man's phone from the table, presumably to look for some of those pictures of the she-wolves.

John nodded at Travis, enough of a signal that the entire pack understood and began moving into action. Mack moved to open the door to John's apartment while Travis hauled the man out of the bar. The conversation and music had died while the patrons sat around looking wild-eyed from one person to the next. A couple of men looked at each other, nodded at River, then got up and followed River and Mack into John's apartment. Yosef desperately wanted to go with them but knew he would just have to wait for an explanation. Instead, he watched as something unspoken moved through the collected lycans, some of the men making eye contact, then rising to guard the doors in Mack's stead.

Just as the new bouncers rose, another lycan stood. He looked nervous, drawing Yosef's attention right to him. The man looked from one bouncer to the other, then bolted past them towards the front door. Yosef was over the bar and after him, erupting out the front door and launching himself off the top step of the porch onto the man's back before he'd even had a single thought about it. The runner went down hard in the gravel, scrabbling for purchase and leverage to throw Yosef off of him.

Yosef had never really been in a fight before, unlike most lycans, but Yosef had spent years sparring for fun when he lived in Germany. Drawing on his martial arts training might have helped him now, but he forgot all of it under a tidal wave of rage and settled instead for dropping a heavy elbow in the back of the man's neck over and over until he went limp. If the men upstairs hadn't known something was going on downstairs, there was no way they didn't know now. Lycans poured out of the bar, shouting and pushing each other to see what was happening. The two who had volunteered for guard duty tried now to pull Yosef off the unconscious man, mostly out of concern that Yosef had killed him. He snarled at them and they backed away, watching while Yosef rolled him over and searched his pockets for a wallet. Or a phone.

It might have been luck that Travis got to him as Yosef used the unconscious man's fingerprint to open the camera roll and found more pictures of Jana, and photos of himself in The Growler the night before. He turned back toward the man, intent on destroying him completely, when he felt Travis' hands on his arms.

"I know," Travis yelled at him, digging his fingers in until Yosef made eye contact with him. The young wolf's eyes were smoldering, his dark liquid brown eyes now flashing amber and maroon. "I know," Travis told him again, shaking him a little until Yosef relaxed enough for Mack to get the phone from him. "We're gonna take care of it."