Fighting My Way Back

Oliver

“You gotta stop pacing, man,” Trevor huffed. “Your stress is stressing me out.”

“Yeah, well, I might just snap if I don’t do something,” I quipped. “If you haven’t noticed, Lya isn’t back yet, and my sister in law has been in labor too long.”

“We know where Lya is though, we have someone keeping an eye on her, and human labors are longer than wolf labors,” Trevor sighed. “If you need to get out some pent up rage, go train or something. Stop wearing a hole in the hospital floor.”

I turned on my heel without saying a word and stalked out of the hospital. I had been doing my best to heed my grandmother’s advice, but I was still out for blood. Knowing Lya’s location was the only good news I had gotten in the past four days, but Cody and Gregory were insisting on stalling until making the next move.

The main goal here was to decimate as much of the Marsan contingency as possible. Pulling her out too soon would only make them angry, and put a target on our heads. The person we had on the inside feeding us information wasn’t getting much, though. He had joined their ranks only a couple weeks ago, and had been kept widely out of the loop. He had, however, been able to share a few locations we could send teams out to which we corroborated with the social media and cyber stalking Lya had suggested. Most seemed to be flocking to the new location outside of Cheyenne, which confirmed our suspicion that their reasoning for needing Lya had something to do with using her to infiltrate packs from the inside.

I had to hand it to my girl. She had devised a good plan.

The training grounds were looking sparse. Our ranks were not small - about a thousand of our pack members were part of the security contingent - but those were dispersed throughout four towns. Right now, we had a group of trackers out around Lya’s location, and had sent some teams to the locations we had a lead on, too, leaving few at the home base.

I marched across the pitch, not offering any greetings to any of the folks there, and straight into Cody’s office. He had been steering clear of me unless he brought an update, which was a good move on his part, but I was quickly losing hold on my restraint.

“Let’s go,” I snapped, gesturing for Cody to leave his office.

He glanced up at me. “What?”

“Let’s go,” I repeated. “Training field, now.”

The second my feet hit the grass, I whirled around and landed a punch to his jaw. I didn’t relent, landing blows wherever I could. Cody, for the most part, was remaining on the defensive, only blocking and trying not to lose ground. I could tell a crowd was forming, but I didn’t change my tune. Cody had blood streaming from his nose, and my knuckles had broken open. I wasn’t holding back.

Finally, he shifted his stance.

This was the fight I had been needing.

I wasn’t really thinking about the fight. I just wanted to pulverize him, not kill him. I wasn’t an alpha training, I was a heartbroken man begging for physical pain to manifest how my heart felt. That’s probably how he got the upper hand, pinning me to the ground. I stared up at him, my resolve crumbling. Lya was my weakness. I understood why some alphas refused to accept their fated mates.

Cody stood up, offering me a hand to pull me off the ground. “Let’s go grab a beer.”

I laid there for a moment, just looking up at him. The tension in the air was still thick.

“Yeah,” I finally agreed, letting him pull me up and walking with him to his truck.

The drive was silent. I hadn’t had much to say to him, for fear of losing my cool, but this couldn’t go on forever.

We trudged in, taking up our normal table, both ignoring the looks people tried to hide. The alpha and gamma, walking in for a beer all bruised and bloody. Of course everyone would be nervous.

“How’s Maggie?” Cody asked once we had drinks in front of us.

“Still in labor,” I shrugged. “It’s been rough.”

Cody’s face twisted a bit. Part bred births were hard for humans. With how long it had been going on, everyone was worried.

“So can ya give me an update?” I asked, needing something to calm my mind.

Cody took a swig and started in. “Teams got sent out yesterday to check out the other locations we were told they have. If there are few enough around, they’ll neutralize ‘em. Scouts up in Cheyenne have reported more hunters coming in by the day as well as them taking some rogue hostages, which supports the idea that they probably wanted to get their hands on Lya to try and put on their own sting operations within packs.”

I sat back and nodded. “So how long do you think until we can move forward realistically?”

“Realistically?” Cody paused. “We know there are about one hundred to one hundred fifty in their little hunter club.”

“We took out seven the other night,” I reminded him.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “and another five in Kennebec. I wanna see these next few ambushes go well, and we need to get someone to interrogate out of it.”

I nodded slowly. “So right now we sit and wait.”

“Unless you feel like heading up the team I’m sending out tomorrow,” he laughed dryly.

“No,” I snapped. “I’m staying so I can leave for Cheyenne the second it’s time.”

“Ollie!” a shrill voice called behind me.

I put my head in my hands. “Oh, goddess,” I muttered. “Yes, Lucy?”

Lucy sauntered up, taking up one of the spare seats at our table. “I heard about your breakup, and I just wanted to say I’m so sorry.” Her voice dripped with insincerity, and I had to stop myself from clenching my fists.

“There was no breakup,” I insisted.

“Oh!” She flashed her sickly sweet smile I had done a good job of avoiding the past year or so. “Well then no judgment if you were just having some fun with that Lya girl.”

I turned to her, narrowing my eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“That girl that you had living at the packhouse?” Lucy clarified. “Rumor has it she just ghosted you.”

I glared at her, gritting my teeth. I couldn’t lose it on a pack member, no matter how much they made my skin crawl.

“Fuck off, Lucy,” Cody grunted.

The bartender appeared at our table with another round for Cody and I. Spotting Lucy, he asked, “Can I get you something, too?”

“Yeah, I-”

“She’s not joining us,” I quickly cut in. “Lucy was just on her way.”

Lucy’s eyes flashed back to me, a small bit of hurt visible, but I didn’t care. She slunk away, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Lucy still up your ass?” Brandon asked, slipping into the spot she had previously occupied.

“Apparently,” I huffed.

“You could always just show off the mark,” he joked. “Where is my dear cousin, by the way?”

I flagged the bartender down, getting a beer for Brandon as well. “At the hospital still. I got kicked out.”

Brandon took a second to assess the damage between Cody and I, but must have decided not to press the topic further. “Have things calmed down between Trevor and Anna yet?”

I shrugged. “Lya disappearing was a little sobering for both of them, I guess.” I smiled to myself, thinking of Lya giving Anna a piece of her mind regarding the disconnect between them.

I hadn’t pegged Lya as the one to defend the mate bond, especially when she seemed so opposed to it at first, but she respected it at the very least.

I had walked out onto the patio in search of Lya. It was over a week or so after Anna had discovered she and Trevor were mates, so I was certain they had worked through their
disagreements about how Trevor handled it. But, in true Anna fashion, she wasn’t letting it go when she felt she was right.

I quickly determined it wasn’t the sort of conversation I wanted to intrude on. Hell, some of Anna’s anger was directed at me for not forcing Trevor to come clean. I stayed at the door, though, wanting to hear what Lya’s input was.

“Look, Anna, you’re one of my closest friends here,” Lya sighed, “but if you don’t move on from this, I am going to stop talking to you.”

The look on Anna’s face was priceless. I truly don’t think anyone had ever pointed out to her how annoying her constant ranting could be. Being the Beta’s daughter had gotten her some protections from that.

Rose shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Rose and Anna had been friends since they were young, and it warmed my heart how they both took Lya under their wing. “She’s right, Anna… It’s getting a bit redundant.”

Lya swirled the ice cubes around in her spiked lemonade. “Constantly dwelling on the past is only going to impact your future,” she mused. “So either reject him and move on, or accept him and move on.”

“Sorry,” Anna mumbled.

That had been the last anyone heard of the disagreements between the two, but it was still obvious they were getting into it behind closed doors. But then Lya ran off with the hunters. My personal opinion was that it made it apparent to Anna just how quickly the good things can be taken away, causing her to really think about if the anger was still worth it.

Trevor pulling out a chair and joining us pulled me from my memories and back to the present.

“Baby yet?” I asked.

Trevor shook his head. “They were about to start a c-section. Thom asked everyone but Marjorie to leave.”

“It’s a good thing they came to the pack hospital,” I mumbled.