Dustin sat on the concrete, right in the middle of what would hopefully someday be their living room, and pulled her down between his legs. It wasn't often Dustin got quiet, and she would have worried except he was still touching her. He was still showing her affection, and the glowing in his eyes had faded with each passing minute.
Emma relaxed her shoulder blades against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her and settled his cheek against hers. "I got you something," he said against her ear.
"A present?"
One nod. "I had all these plans for when I said ‘I love you' for the first time, but earlier, it just felt like the right time."
"It was," she said. "It was perfect. I'll never forget it."
Dustin was quiet for a minute before he said, "Do you know what werewolves say about home?"
Emma shook her head.
"Home is where you rest your bones. It's not a specific place, or person, or even somewhere permanent. Wolves roam. Packs roam. Settling territories is hard because no one wants us near their towns. And rightly so. We tend to ruin things. When I was growing up, we moved every year from rental home to rental home. I hated that the pack was always on the move, and my parents had to take us wherever the alpha decided. It's not like with crews, you understand? There's no working together unless we are hunting. There is the alpha's law, and you just hope to get into a pack with a good alpha who will keep you alive longer. Pack is for survival, not for a happy life. There aren't a lot of mated pairs for werewolves. What woman is going to put up with our shit? Most of the girls in the pack I grew up in were turned against their will and had nowhere else to go. They were always scared. Skittish. It's how I thought women were supposed to be. My mom was one of them. Weak around my dad, strong for me and my brother. She understood the need for her sons to be dominant in the pack so we could be safe, and when I came along … " Dustin swallowed hard. "She wasn't disappointed in me. She was disappointed that my life would be stunted. She could see my future. So could my dad, so could my brother, so could I. So she made sure I had the best shot possible to survive into adulthood. She pushed me in school where she didn't with my dominant brother. It was hard because we were moving around so much, but she devoted herself to making sure I got the best education. Good schools, college-she was relentless. At the time, I didn't understand why until Axton chose me for the pack he was building. Me, a submissive, and Axton was one of the most dominant wolves in the world at the time."
"Why did he pick you?"
"Because I built a business that could support his pack."
Emma turned her back on the sunset and settled between his legs facing him. "You funded your pack?"
Dustin nodded. "That's what has kept me alive this long. I built teams of marketers, elite teams, and sold their services to huge corporations. That's how I started out. It was beneficial to the teams because I could negotiate more money for them, and beneficial for me because I made huge commissions on each team I successfully sold to these companies. So if one of the pack lost a job, or had a hard time paying bills, or fuck, just didn't want to work, I took care of them."
Whoa, this was unexpected. Dustin was thoroughly educated and a clever businessman. All of his perverted jokes and lack of seriousness had thrown her way off track. "That's how you afford your car."
He huffed a laugh and rested his elbows on her bent knees, linked his hands behind her back. "That's the one splurge I ever did for just me. Axton was pissed that I wasted pack money, but I didn't care on this one. I earned all that money and fed it into the pack as an investment on my survival, but I wanted a fast car. I wanted somewhere I could just cruise when shit got too heavy. I wanted a place to sleep when we were moving around and fighting like fucking … well … werewolves."
"Axton moved you around a lot?"
"Yeah, his reputation preceded him wherever we went to claim territory. He is a bulldozer and a killer. He's killed a dozen of our own kind just to get to where he is, but that's what alphas do."
"Kane didn't do that."
"Kane's not a werewolf. The culture is different, Emma. We're separate from other shifters."
Emma ran her knuckles along the short scruff on his jawline and rested her cheek against his arm. "Home is where you rest your bones. Sounds like a sad life to never understand what a real home is."
Dustin stared off into the woods and shook his head. "I never knew what I was missing, and I never cared until I met you. Until I came here and saw how a crew could work. How it could be under Kane."
"You want that now?"
He dipped his chin once. "When I was a kid, my mom, she planted flowers everywhere at every rental house we moved into. We would stay there a year tops, so she would never get to see her gardens in full bloom, and it was kind of tragic, you know? She was so sad with my dad, but she was all smiles when we would work in her gardens. I think she was bright before my dad put a wolf in her. One of those naturally happy people, like you and Winter and Rowan. So, growing up, each house we would move to, I would make a wish for my mom. Every time the clock turned to the number 11:11 or 10:10, I would put my finger on the numbers, close my eyes, and wish we could stay in a house long enough for my mom to see her garden in bloom."
Emma's eyes prickled with tears at the imaginings of Dustin as a sweet child, making wishes for his momma. "Did it ever work?"
Dustin's lips pursed into a thin line, the expression at odds with his naturally smiling face. He shook his head. "Not in time. She stopped gardening when I was in college. She just … quit. Stopped smiling, stopped laughing. And anyway, my parents' pack is still on the move. It's the way the alpha likes to operate, so they do what he says. I asked her once what her favorite flower was. I remember we were in this rental house up in Portland, and it rained a lot while we were there, but that day, it was sunny. I was weeding. God, I was always weeding with her because it was mindless work and she was nice to me. She didn't shame me for being submissive, so I was squatted down in the dirt, maybe ten years old, and I asked her, ‘Mom, what's your favorite flower?' She was standing beside me, the sun behind her like a halo, making her look beautiful, like an angel, and she smiled so big. It had been a bad week with Dad, and I'd missed her smile. She pointed to this green vine with these little purple flowers that looked like trumpets. Morning Glories, she called them. She said they were her favorite because they only opened up during the day when the sun was out. At night, the flowers closed up so they could keep the darkness away."
Dustin reached into his back pocket and handed her a packet of Morning Glory seeds. "Last night I wished on 10:10 and 11:11 that I could plant you a garden here, and that I would live long enough to watch it bloom with you." When his eyes filled with deep emotion, he blinked hard, then stood. "I'm going to grab a beer. Do you want anything?" His voice cracked on the last word.
Emma didn't understand what was happening. "Dustin, you will live long enough, you silly wolf. Your wish will come true."
"You don't understand," he gritted out. He angled his face away from her, and his teeth were clenched now. "Those wishes never come true." He dipped his blazing gaze to the packet of seeds in her hand, then turned and strode for the trailer without looking back.
And now Emma was left with this hollow feeling, as if he'd given her all of his secrets and none of them, all at once.
Chapter Thirteen
Pocket buzzing incessantly, Dustin's phone went off again. Only the Valdoro pack and the Blackwing Crew had this number, and he'd just spent all evening with the Blackwings, so it wasn't them calling. He couldn't put this off any longer.
He'd avoided Axton and Jace's calls like the plague over the last few days, ever since they'd seen him and Emma in the woods. Ever since they'd called him, howling, drawing his wolf back. If Emma hadn't been there distracting him, Axton would've succeeded. He would've dragged Dustin right back to him, and hurt Emma. Jace would have hurt her too, if Axton commanded it. They didn't care about hurting women. They didn't care about anything.
And once upon a time, Dustin had convinced himself he was the same as them. As if he was exactly like all the other psychotic werewolves in the world-normal for a wolf, even if he'd always been on the fringe. But over the past couple of weeks, such a strong desire to protect not only Emma, but the other Blackwings, had presented inside of him. He really was a broken wolf.