Jolie Farris was pretty much a walking stereotype when it came to what an omega was supposed to be. She didn’t like blood, didn’t often change into her wolf shape, and because of those first two facts, it meant she didn’t like hunting either. The lack of practice made her pretty bad at it, as a matter of fact.

Something her stupid mate, Liam O’Connell, took absolutely no pity on her for. Which she hated him for. She loved him, but she hated him.

The enormous gray wolf stalking next to her was shockingly silent, despite his heavy paws.

Jolie was much smaller, smaller than even a natural wolf, and yet every step she took forward, putting her paws down onto the earth, seemed to crunch every dry leaf and twig possible.

The rabbit she hunted lifted its small brown head, ears tense, eyes alert.

Liam wouldn’t let her hunt a moose or a deer. He’d growled that she was going to learn how to hunt if it was the last thing he did, but it seemed he was dead set against letting her near any animals that could potentially kill her if she spooked them.

They’d learned that the hard way the first time Liam brought them out.

Liam’s ears flicked. He lowered himself down, as though getting ready to spring. His position reminded her more of a cat in that moment than a wolf, but he was better than she was at this by a long shot, so she didn’t question it too much.

She just did as he did, rolling her shoulders, waiting for the fat rabbit over there to lower its guard. Why the hell did rabbits have to be so nervous all the time? It made it next to impossible to go after them when they were constantly a hair’s-breadth from bolting.

Liam’s tail smacked her on her butt, the signal she needed to get a move on.

She lunged. The shrubs she’d been hiding behind smacked her hard across her nose, scratching her and blinding her a little as she made her chase to catch her dinner.

That split second of no sight because she’d closed her eyes to keep the leaves and twigs out of them was more than enough for her dinner to scurry as if there was a small fire lit under it’s fluffy ass. It wasn’t beneath her claws when she landed, that was for damned sure.

Jolie lifted her snout, smelling the direction it bounced off into before she actually saw it, and she gave chase.

The damned thing bolted between trees, changing directions at lightning fast speed. Jolie circled around several large pines as it did. At one point, it even scurried over Liam’s claws, apparently not noticing the larger wolf was just sitting there.

Jolie growled at Liam as she passed him by, and she could swear that even in his wolf shape, he was smiling at her.

He thought her failure was funny, huh? Well, she’d show him.

Jolie thought she didn’t have any more bursts of speed to give, but she did. She pumped legs with a ferocity she didn’t know she had. She was catching up! Its furry rump got ever closer and she opened her mouth and—

Pain and white exploded across the front of her head, just above and between her eyes. Right in the worst possible place. A wolf cry escaped her throat as she went down hard, her body sliding beneath the log she hadn’t seen coming, the one the damned rabbit had raced beneath to get away from her.

If its little trick had been on purpose, then she should congratulate it for its cleverness. The cunning scheme worked.

She shifted, changing back into her human shape, almost against her will, as if the wolf side of her brain was desperate to hide away from the pain she’d just inflicted on the both of them.

“Oh God,” she moaned, bringing her hands up to her forehead. She felt something warm and wet there.

Don’t be blood. Don’t be blood. Don’t be blood.

She brought her hands back down, and of course it was blood. Honestly, what did she think it was going to be?

“Jolie?”

Liam’s voice was a blessing and a total curse because the sound of it was enough to make her brain throb harder than before.

She closed her eyes as he ducked beneath the heavy log, his hands reaching out for her. He didn’t move her, but he touched her wrists, his hands sliding up her arms and to her shoulders. He was like that. He seemed to check on her with his hands instead of his eyes whenever he thought something was wrong.

“Are you all right?”

“Head hurts,” she moaned, and it was an honest to God fight to keep her eyes from burning too much. She wanted to cry from the pain, but if she started shedding tears in front of Liam, he might change his mind about wanting her to hunt.

She hadn’t wanted to learn how to hunt necessarily, but if this was going to stop, then at the very least she wanted it to be on her own damned terms. Not because Liam suddenly thought she couldn’t handle it.

“You’re bleeding. I need to get you out of here.”

“Where the hell did that stupid tree come from?” she grumbled, managing to get her eyes open and stare at the offending thing above her.

“I imagine it’s been here for a while now,” Liam said.

When her vision stopped trembling, Jolie could see the moss growing on it, the way the termites had eaten away at much of the bottom, and there were a few spiders frantically scrambling back to their crevices and webs, away from the commotion.

It was big enough that it was as if there was a roof two feet above her head. She wouldn’t have run into it if the earth hadn’t dipped the way it did.

She and Liam were actually fairly hidden here.

“I’m going to move you,” he said, his hands coming beneath her back and legs. “Try not to tense up.”

“Ugh.” Easier said than done. It was as if the second his hands touched her, the flaring pain in her head woke up a monster even worse.

Despite the limited space Liam had to work with, he managed to pull her out from beneath the fallen log fairly quickly, but then Jolie covered her eyes with her hand because the limited light, even through the canopy above her head, was doing its best to stab her right in the retinas.

“I’ll take you back to the motel. Don’t worry.”

“You can’t run around like this.”

She was dressed, but Liam didn’t like to wear clothes when he knew he was going to make a shift. To him, it didn’t seem to matter if the clothes changed with his body, he complained that it didn’t feel right.

Which meant that if anyone happened to see them, they wouldn’t see an oversized wolf with a smaller wolf running next to it, they would see a naked man carting off a bleeding woman in the woods. It might invoke some sort of horror story images in anyone who happened to come across that.

But as Liam started to run with her in his arms, it was the last thing she was suddenly concerned with as every step he made brought the hammer down harder on her skull.

“Oh God, stop running so fast.”

“I’m barely jogging,” he said, but he did slow down. She supposed he was walking now, but even then, the pain in her front temple was the absolute worst. She grit her teeth against it, but it didn’t seem to be enough to hold back the pain.

Suddenly, she didn’t care who saw them like this, so long as it wasn’t Dempsey, Renzo, or anyone else from the pack who wanted to take her back, then she could handle it. She’d make up some lie about what they’d been doing out here, just so long as she got some bandages and ibuprofen.

Jolie spent most of the journey back gritting her teeth and clutching her head, both to hold back the pain and to keep too much more blood from spilling, so she didn’t notice when they made it back to the motel they were staying at along the highway.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do it,” she said softly as Liam walked across the parking lot to their door.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you something to eat later on tonight. Do you have the key?”

Jolie fished through her pockets, had a near panic attack when she couldn’t find the key right away, and sighed when her fingers finally touched the metal. She pulled it out and handed it to him. “Make sure you get dressed,” she said, smiling when she opened the door for them.

He answered her with a gruff snorting noise. She was pretty sure that was a no. He wouldn’t be getting dressed for her just then.

Liam set her on the bed with gentle care, but he could have dropped her on it for all it mattered with the way her brain matter screamed out, as if it was about to burst inside her skull. When he pulled his hands away from her, the room spun, as if she was lying in a small boat in a body of water.

Liam went into the bathroom, still not dressed. When he came out with a small first aid kit, she was impressed the motel would even have one of those.

He set it onto the bed. The supplies he pulled out were ho-hum exciting, mostly small bandages and the tiniest bottle of peroxide she’d ever seen in her life. He’d brought a clean rag from the bathroom with him, wet it with the peroxide, and then began dabbing at her temple.

“Is it bad?” she asked.

“Not sure. You’re not spurting blood, so that’s good news.”

She smiled up at him. “Renzo always said I have a thick skull.”

“He did?”

“Not in those words, but I’ll say that he did because it fits nicely into the story.” Jolie hissed as his next gentle dab got her harder than needed.

“Sorry,” Liam said, his voice gentle. “You might have a concussion. I don’t know how to treat that.”

“Are my ears out?”

“Yes. Your tail, too.”

Jolie cursed. There was no way she was going to a hospital like that.

“Can you put them away?”

She tried. “Are they gone?”

“No, and your tail is thumping the bed now.”

He sounded somewhat amused to say that. Jolie wasn’t amused. She was frustrated. She wanted to be able to do more than just lie here, injured and helpless. Helpless meant their chances of staying on the run if Renzo came after them took a nose dive. Helpless meant that Liam had to do more work than he already needed to do.

Helpless meant he was in even more danger than he already was. She knew he would leap over her body to protect her if she couldn’t protect herself.

That was mostly already true. She was an omega, and fairly weak even by omega standards, but she did know how to run.

Running was how she’d found Liam again.

“I’ll hunt you something to eat,” he said.

“Or I could order Chinese food,” Jolie suggested.

Liam shook his head. “No, save your funds for your shelter and medicine. Those things are more important.”

Jolie wanted to argue, but she knew he was right. She just hated that he was.

“Never should have told you how much cash I have.”

He smiled at her, something that looked almost mischievous. “Too late for that now. You’re providing all of this,” he said, looking around the motel room they were in as if it was a magical palace. “I will provide your protein so you can eat.”

Jolie tried to smile for him, but she got the feeling the smile looked more like a grimace. “I promise I didn’t do that on purpose,” she said. It seemed important that he know this. “I don’t like hunting, but I wouldn’t give myself a concussion to get out of it.”

She was also smart enough to know that he’d wanted her to learn just in case he couldn’t do it for her. In case she had to keep running without him. She couldn’t think of any situation in which that would have been necessary, any situation in which she would leave him behind, but she’d appreciated the thought he’d put into her care.

Getting her head thwacked while chasing after Bugs Bunny had definitely not been part of the plan.

“Don’t worry about it, just get better.”

Liam shocked her when he leaned down, pressing his mouth to her lips. The kiss itself didn’t shock her. The gentle sweetness of it did.

Usually, whenever he kissed her, there was a fire in his mouth, a passion and energy put into it, as if he couldn’t bring himself to keep his mouth parted from hers for any longer.

Gentle kisses were…uncommon. That much was enough.

“I’ll go get you something,” he said, then sighed. “I’ll have to get dressed for it.”

She lifted her brows. “You’re going to order the food?”

“No, but I’ll need to keep the door locked when I leave. I’ll have to keep the key in my pocket.”

It was funny the way he sounded miserable about that, as if that was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.

It hurt like hell, but Jolie couldn’t help but laugh at him.

Except for when the door banged open, and an enormous red wolf burst into room.

To Be Continued.......

I meant to get this uploaded on Friday, not Saturday at 2AM, sorry about that! But I really hope you're enjoying this story so far :)

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