Miles looked over his menu. “I’m going to have…” He trailed off and let out a low growl. His eyes sparked with anger.
“What is it?” Dakota asked, and then she followed his gaze out the picture window.
Fifteen male wolves walked in, and Dakota heard Sarah suck in her breath. Dakota didn’t recognize most of them, although she saw Fargo lurking at the back. She had a feeling the rest of them were the wolves who’d arrived on the bus and gone into the eastern territory the day before.
“Leave, now,” Sarah said in a low voice to Dakota. “Go out the back door. Quickly.”
“What? Why? I’m not going to leave you guys – it looks like there might be trouble.”
The apparent leader of the group was a tall, burly shifter with salt-and-pepper hair and a scarred, sunburned face. He radiated the power of an Alpha Prime. His arms were criss-crossed with scars too, and a beer belly hung over the waistband of his stained, ripped blue jeans.
He stalked towards them, and the rest of the group trailed behind him. Sarah sucked in her breath and stared down at the table, and Miles and Baldwin jumped up and blocked the man from getting any closer.
Bryant and several wolf shifters from other local packs joined up with Miles and Baldwin.
“You picked the wrong place to start trouble,” Miles growled.
“And you picked the wrong pack to mess with. I am Ludwik Torville, Alpha Prime of the Montenegro Pack, and Sarah is my property, to do with as I please. We’ve moved up here, and we’re taking over the eastern territory. We’ve heard your ridiculous rules, and we reject them. We’ll come into town any time we fucking please. You can hand the girl over to us now, or we can have a pack war,” Ludwik announced, his voice booming through the café.
“It’s been heading that way anyway,” Miles said with a casual shrug.
“Tomorrow morning, then. We’ll meet up with you and anybody who’s not too fucking scared to face us.” His men all chortled, letting out forced laughs that gave Dakota a pretty good idea of what would happen if they didn’t pretend he was hilarious – and what life was like in his pack.
“Sarah, get over here now and I’ll only whip you ’til you bleed. You disobey me and I’m gonna whip you and cut off body parts,” Ludwik growled. “Don’t care if it lowers your bride price. Nobody disobeys me.”
“Talk to her like that again and you die right here – I won’t wait for the packs to meet. Kids, go to the back of the restaurant with your aunt and stay there,” Miles called.
Dakota stood up quickly, in front of the kids.
“Why are you calling her their aunt?” For a moment Ludwik looked more confused than threatening.
“Jamie Roberts? Because she’s their aunt. She’s the one who drew the short straw and had to come up here.”
“No she isn’t.” Ludwik scowled. “I’ve met Jamie, and this woman looks nothing like her.”
“Jamie?” Naomi looked at her in confusion. “He’s lying…right?”
Dakota’s heart sank. Son of a bitch. Now, of all times… She’d been planning on telling Miles tonight, and praying he wouldn’t be too mad.
“I told you to get out of here,” Sarah muttered.
Miles looked at her, his expression unreadable. She felt waves of anger and hurt rolling off him.
Dakota went pale. “Kids, come with me,” she said, and dragged them to the back of the restaurant, near the back door.
Ludwik smirked at Miles. “Any special inscription you want on your headstone? That’s where my pack members are going to line up to piss. I’m thinking, ‘Here lies a pussy loser’. And that fat bitch who’s pretending to be Jamie? After my pack members finish taking turns with her, we’ll bury her right next to you.”
In answer, Miles sent a wave of fury at them so intense that Ludwik staggered back a step. Ludwik responded with his own wave of fury, and the two men glared at each other as everyone else around them staggered back, grimacing in pain. Most of the other shifters ran from the restaurant. Bryant stayed put, but even he was swaying, looking as if he might crumple to the ground. Baldwin fell to his knees, doubled over and clutching at his stomach, and Naomi hurled herself on top of him, crying.
After what felt like forever, Ludwik doubled over and vomited on the ground. Miles was white-faced, staggering. Sweat poured down his face, and he looked as if he could barely stand.
“Death challenge. Right here, right now,” Miles wheezed.
“No.” Ludwik spat on the ground and staggered to his feet. “Pack war. Tomorrow morning.”
Miles smiled, lips curling up. “Because you know you’d lose.” But his voice was hoarse.
Ludwik scrambled to his feet, staggering. “Whatever. Either way, you’re going to die.” He stormed out of the restaurant to rejoin his men, who’d rushed outside. He’d just been publicly humiliated, and he knew it.
At the back of the restaurant, Dakota looked at Sarah. “How long have you known that I wasn’t Jamie?”
“I always knew,” Sarah said. “I met her once when I was little. I mean, our two packs aren’t close, but we did see each other sometimes.”
“Why did you cover for me? Why didn’t you say anything?”
Sarah shrugged. “What difference did it make? At first I thought we were going to run away anyway. And if you tried to do anything bad to us, I’d just stab you in your sleep. You see what my family’s like, so how could you possibly be any worse?”
Dakota took a deep breath, then nodded, hot tears welling in her eyes. It was ending. Her wonderful, beautiful life up here was over now. She really felt like she was the kid’s aunt – she loved them like family. She loved her friends, and she loved Miles. And that was why she had to leave them – because there was one last chance that she could save them. And it meant leaving Granite Flats forever.
“You need to go stay with Naomi and Baldwin right now. They’ll take care of you.”
Sarah started to argue, but Dakota shook her head.
“You have to stay safe for your family’s sake. They’ve got nobody else, you said it yourself. I am one wolf. I can’t keep you safe against an entire pack.”
Sarah nodded, eyes filling with tears, and hugged Dakota hard.
“Wait, why can’t she come with us?” John wailed. “I hate her least of anyone, except Naomi and Baldwin! I don’t care if she’s not really Jamie, she’s ours!”
“I love you all.” Dakota choked on a sob. “Be good for Naomi and Baldwin, don’t fight with each other, and do your homework. I mean it.”
Bursting into tears, she ran out the back door and dashed over to the general store.
She needed to leave before Miles said anything to her that would make her change her mind.
This time, instead of calling Tina’s cell phone, she called her father directly. She got his voicemail.
She swallowed hard and wiped at the tears that streamed down her face.
“Father, I am in the Greenlands territory, in the town of Granite Flats. A pack war is going to happen tomorrow morning, and I need your help. I need you to join forces with the Fenris Pack and fight by their side. If you do that, I will marry anybody you want. I will even marry Roy. And I will be the best mate I can possibly be, and I will not complain about anything he does to me, ever. I give you my word as a Sheffield. I have been mated to the Alpha Prime of the Fenris Pack up here, but I will leave him and accept a new mate. And if you decide that my punishment for disrespecting your pack must be death, then I will respect that too – if you join with the Fenris Pack in the war. I will be at the meeting house tomorrow morning at six a.m.”
She hung up the phone and walked out, then ran out of the town square and into the woods.
Would it work? It had to work. She’d just played her last card.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Dakota had no idea where to go or where to stay, so she spent the night curled up under a tree in the woods near the town center. She had no idea what Miles would do if he saw her. Would he cu
rse at her and reject her, or would he beg her to stay? Either would break her heart.
She had one chance to save him, and the territory – and that was her father. Miles and his allies, up against everyone from the east…it was too close to call. Ludwik was powerful – he’d almost knocked Miles down – and there was no telling if Miles would go feral again.
As the sun rose, she walked towards the town center. She was exhausted. She had barely slept, and her clothes were rumpled and dirty. She glanced at her watch. It was 5:30 a.m.
A car that was driving by slowed down, and a familiar voice called out to her. “Dakota! Wait!” It was Tina.
She hurried over to the car. Bizarrely, Tina’s mother Maureen was there too, sitting in the front passenger seat, so Dakota climbed in the back. “Tina? What are you guys doing here?” she asked, shutting the door.
“I came to save you from yourself,” Tina said, sounding exasperated. “What part of ‘your dad is crazy’ did you not understand? Your father and most of your pack are here. He chartered a plane and flew us all to the nearest airport after you left him that message. We got here like an hour ago, and I came looking for you.” Tina shook her head as she headed down the road. “He will rip your throat out with his teeth, Dakota.”
“Your only hope is to kill him first,” Maureen added, twisting around to look at her. “We brought a silver-coated knife. Get in first and stab him.” Dakota couldn’t help but notice that even in a crisis, Maureen was perfectly made up like a 1980s soap opera star, and her silky blond hair was permed, every wave in place.
“I can’t kill my own father,” Dakota protested. Her stomach lurched at the thought. “I’m going to beg for his help. I will stand there and look him in the eye, and if he can still kill me…well, I have no other way out.”
“Fine. I’ll stand with you, then,” Tina said. “I’m taking you to him now.”
“You shouldn’t,” Dakota said tiredly. “This isn’t your fight. It’s okay. He may come around when he sees me.”
“Why don’t you want to kill him?” Tina demanded, her voice rising to a shrill whine. “You’re willing to forgive him after he tried to force you to marry a gross pig like Roy? Even after you saw him naked in bed with scratches all over his body?”
Dakota went still.
“How did you know about the scratches?”
Tina snorted in annoyance.
“You told me about them. Wouldn’t shut up about them.”
She stepped on the gas, whipping around the curvy mountain roads.
“Whoa, watch it,” Dakota yelled. “And no, I didn’t. I absolutely never told you about them.”
“After everything I’ve done for you, risking my life to help you escape, you’re calling me a liar?” Tina wailed.
“Figures,” Maureen said bitterly. “Ingrate.”
Dakota stifled a flare of anger and scowled at the back of Tina’s head. “If you’re claiming that I told you about the scratches, then yes, you’re a liar.”
Tina pulled onto a straight stretch of road and sped up even more. “Then you showed me the picture. I don’t know, that was weeks ago.”
“I never showed you the picture or told you,” Dakota protested. “And why are you in such a hurry? Where are we even going? Slow down!”
Tina didn’t answer her.
“Where did you get a car from so quickly?” Dakota asked. That should have occurred to her before she climbed in.
Tina and Maureen just stared ahead, silent now.
“You were the one who took the picture,” Dakota said as they sped down the road. “You had sex with my fiancé and sent me the picture. That’s why you wanted me to leave town. Because you wanted Roy for yourself.”
“For all the good it did me,” Tina snarled. “I figured he’d come to his senses after you left town, but he’s already sniffing after some other rich bitch. I guess I was good enough to screw but not good enough to marry. All he wanted was to marry somebody else with money.”
“You idiot, I could have told you that,” Dakota said furiously.
Then light dawned on her. “You knew that Jamie Roberts was coming up here to death-challenge the Alpha Prime, didn’t you? You sent me up here thinking I’d be killed.”
Tina let out a harsh, braying laugh. “Jamie actually came to me and asked me to help her escape. Hilarious, isn’t it?”
Her mother joined her in laughter.
“You should have been a standup comedienne,” Dakota said coldly. “Where is Jamie Roberts now?”
“Six feet under. Where you’ll be soon.”
Tina came to a curve in the road and stopped.
“Ludwik’s going to marry me,” she bragged. “All I had to do was promise to deliver you to him. I’ll finally be with the kind of man I deserve. An Alpha Prime.”
Dakota scrambled out of the car. Tina and Maureen climbed out too.
“When did you even meet him?” Dakota asked, stalling for time, trying to figure out what to do next.
“When you called your dad yesterday, I found out about it and called Ludwik. We had a nice little chat. Your dad flew me out here with the rest of the pack; he didn’t know I’d be the death of you. And now I’m going to be an Alpha Prime’s mate.”
“He’s hideous, did you know that?” Dakota’s stomach lurched at the thought of anyone being with Ludwik.
“You stupid bitch. Who cares?” Tina shrieked. “I’ll be rich! And powerful! I’ll hunt down everybody who ever made fun of me for having holes in my clothes, and my mate will tear their throats out while I watch!” Tina’s eyes gleamed with madness. Maureen grinned, a hideous rictus, and nodded eagerly. Tina truly was her mother’s daughter.
Dakota could smell dozens of shifters, and they were closing in on them fast, racing through the trees. Her heart hammered in her chest. She would shift and fight to the death. She wouldn’t run; she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
“After all these years,” Maureen said, her tone gloating. “After everything we’ve sacrificed. Your daddy’s going to be sorry he didn’t marry me when he had the chance, because we’re going to make him watch you die before we kill him.”
“My father, marry you? Why the hell would he ever have married you?” Dakota stared at Maureen in bewilderment.
“Because I got your mother out of the way with that ‘car accident’.” Maureen made air quotes as she said it. “And then I let him know I was available to him. And he turned me down, again and again, because he was soooo sad his bitch wife was dead, even though I’m a million times prettier than that fat whore ever was.”
Rage descended over Dakota in a red haze. She lunged through the air, shifting, and slammed into Maureen, who’d already gone wolf. Before she could tear Maureen’s throat out, her head exploded with pain.
Ludwik was there.
She felt as if a bomb had gone off in her head as she fell over and lost consciousness.
* * * * *
Anders paced next to Miles, keeping a wary eye on his Alpha Prime.
Miles was wild with rage. One of the shifters from the east had just abandoned his own pack and come to deliver the news – Jamie, or whatever her real name was, had been taken from him. Ludwik had her.
Anders was afraid that the news had sent Miles over the edge. Normally Miles would be making plans, rallying the troops, telling them where to go and what to do, but now he was half hairy, fangs descended, and growling incoherently. This was not good. They needed their leader to be clear-headed.
The downtown area was swarming with shifters now, ready to move on the eastern territory.
“The newcomers,” Baldwin was saying urgently. “Their Alpha Prime needs to talk to you.”
“My mate,” Miles growled, swatting at him impatiently. “We need to get to her, now.” Miles seemed incapable of listening to reason.
Baldwin and Anders exchanged glances of alarm.
Baldwin put his hand on Miles’ arm. “Sir, the Alpha Prime who just arrived really —�
��
Miles exploded with rage, shoving Baldwin so hard that he slammed into a wall. Other shifters around them looked at Miles in shock.
Anders struggled not to panic. They were on the verge of losing Miles – and if they lost him, they lost everything. The other shifters wouldn’t follow a crazed feral into battle – they needed a leader they could trust.
“Hey!” An enormous, burly Alpha Prime barreled through the crowd and stepped right in front of Miles. “You know where my daughter is. Dakota. You’re her mate?”
“We need to get her now!” Miles tried to push past the Alpha Prime, who grabbed him.
Miles spun around to face him and sent out a wave of rage that knocked everyone close to him to their knees, and Anders’ heart sank. They were surely doomed.
But the Alpha Prime responded with an answering wave of dominance. He withheld his rage, and forced back Miles’ fury. Another shifter stood beside him, white-faced and shaking, and Anders realized that he was an Omega and he was helping the older man calm Miles down.
Baldwin, groaning, crawled over and joined in. He absorbed Miles’s rage and madness, sucking it into himself, and finally the two Omegas together managed to achieve their goal. Miles stepped back, panting for breath. Both Omegas looked sick and shaken.
“I’m sorry, Baldwin,” he choked out.
“No fucking time for apologies,” the older Alpha growled. His eyes were blazing with rage, and tufts of fur sprouted on his face and hands. His claws were out, and the bones under his skin were shifting, making cracking noises as his wolf fought for freedom. “I’m Brandon Sheffield. I’m going to get my daughter back and kill the people who took her. Are you with me or against me?”
“With you,” Miles said.
“Then wolf up, quit acting batshit crazy, and let’s go. I hear you claimed her.”
“Yes.” Miles nodded. “She’s mine.”
“We’ll see about that,” Brandon said. “But right now, let’s bring her home.”
Shiftily Ever After: A BBW Paranormal Romance (Alpha Prime) Page 14
