“But you won't know unless you try.” She paused. “But he marked you, and though he might not understand what he did, some part of him did. A part of him chose you. Give him a chance to choose you again.”
I avoided telling her Weston and the scientist were the same person because I didn’t want to hear her opinion. If that made me a coward, so be it. I’d wear the label as long as I got to spend my life with Weston.
When I made it back to Bramble Woods, it was getting dark. The B&B was quiet when I let myself in, and Bobby had a pencil tucked behind his ear when he looked up from his desk.
“Hi, Asher. You left early today.”
I told him I’d had errands to run and asked him if Weston was around.
“No, he headed out a while ago. You might find him at Mike’s.” He added that Weston said the wifi was better at the restaurant than the B&B. He chuckled. “Not that it’s great anywhere in Bramble Woods.”
I headed back out before Bobby could ask me any more questions.
Mike’s was busier than it had been last night, and I scanned the room, looking for dark hair and a beard, but didn't see him. But there was a man sitting alone at the bar, nursing a beer.
Memories rushed into my head as though someone had fast-forwarded a film. I recognized that face. It was a lot older than when I’d last seen him at six years old, and his hair was streaked with gray.
I dredged his name from my memory. Zach. And he’d been kind to me as a kid.
“Zach?”
He looked up, and his expression was blank, but then his eyes widened. “Do I know you?”
“You did.” I put my head close to his. “My name’s Asher, and I’m the den Alpha's son, or I was.”
The color drained from his face. “But Asher disappeared, and they never found the body.”
I pulled back my collar and showed the scar that ran across my shoulder from Kipp’s boot, not the fresh one from Weston's teeth. I summarized the details about my stepfather and being rescued by the pack.
“You have your omega father’s eyes,” he said. “I always thought something was wrong about that day. Kipp came back alone and said you'd wandered off and that he couldn't find you.”
My stepfather was savvy enough to have tracked me if that was what really happened.
“I left after you disappeared.” He got a faraway look in his eyes. “I couldn't stay in the den, not when Kipp played the grieving stepparent. Your father was never the same afterward, though.”
“You couldn't have known, and I survived. I'm okay.”
Zach slid off the stool and hugged me. “You are the rightful heir to the den.”
But my mind was on Weston, not if I would ever take my place as den Alpha.
8
WESTON
I woke up but kept my eyes shut, trying to recapture my dream and be back with my polar bear. But I was cold, so cold, sleep was going to be impossible. I rolled over, expecting to find Asher there. Instead, the bed was empty.
I was alone.
In rom-coms, there were always notes left on the pillows or the side tables, or the main character would sit up in a panic, only to discover that their partner had stepped into the bathroom for a second or was walking back in with coffee and cinnamon rolls. But this wasn’t a rom-com. This was reality. He was gone.
To him, I’d been nothing more than a one-night stand.
Silly me, I thought maybe we could at least keep things going while I was here. Maybe I wasn’t good enough in bed and he didn’t want a repeat performance. Maybe he had someone else. Maybe staying as long as he did was longer than he had planned and he was a come-and-go kind of guy. Whatever the reason was, it sucked.
I pulled the blankets over my head and squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe this was the dream. Wouldn’t that be nice? If the next time I opened them, there he was… only he wasn’t going to be. The scent of him was on the blanket that draped over my face, and the idea of staying here like this until it dissipated crossed my mind.
In hindsight, I should’ve known better than to take someone home two seconds after I met them and do all the things we did together. I’d never even done that with someone I was in a relationship with, if you could even call going out for a month or two a relationship. Why did I think doing so with a stranger was a good idea? Only despite all that happened, if I had to do it over again, I would. What did that say about me?
