by Ana Raine
As I passed him, my snout low to the ground so as to remain reverent of the Alpha, Langdon reached out to stroke my fur.
His touch, however fleeting, was not okay with the fire wolf. He darted back and if Langdon hadn’t had the sense to move his arm, I was afraid he would have lost it.
The wolf’s responding growl, followed by his nose in my side pushing me along, made the message very clear. For unknown reasons, he’d claimed me as his. And it didn’t matter what Langdon wanted me to do. What I wanted to do. I was going with this wolf.
The irony of escaping one cage to another wasn’t lost on me. But at the very least, I knew I’d rather serve an Alpha over a hunter.
My mind battled the possibilities, struggling to find why this wolf hadn’t ripped out my throat. I was strong, sure, but all an Alpha had to do was order me to bare my throat and that was the end.
After a few moments, Langdon’s cries vanished and there was only the sound of our heartbeats as we padded through the woods, leaving large bloody prints in our wake.
I had always hoped I’d be part of a pack again, that they’d understand I was broken and wouldn’t work quite right. But I knew that even though I wanted this wolf to accept me, he wouldn’t. I had taken away his mate. And perhaps, he was just luring me away so he could take his time destroying me. Or, more realistically, he wanted my help getting her back.
Either option only resulted in disappointment. If ordered to go back, I would, but the hunters would shoot me on sight. That was if Langdon didn’t want to have his way with me first. If the wolf wanted to destroy me, at least it would be a quick bite to my jugular. Wolves carried revenge in their hearts, but only for so long. It was in our nature to forgive, to believe in innate goodness so we could continue surviving in a world where everyone hated or feared us in equal measure.
In the meantime, I allowed myself to inhale deeply. He smelled like the boy from so long ago. Wind and safety and love.
Chapter 2
I followed him silently, not that there was much of a chance to use words in our wolf form. I was beyond surprised I still drew breath, but I wasn’t going to let him in on that.
He was an Alpha. He was born to be a leader the way all Alphas were. Strong, fierce and with a natural desire to protect. As soon as he’d sniffed me, he’d let out a low growl that had me belly-up on the ground. His nose nudged my neck in acceptance, and then he headed toward the woods with nothing more than his Alpha voice in my head telling me to follow.
I knew he could talk to me with more than just basic commands. At least, he could if he were so inclined. I’d always wondered how powerful the boy who should have been my mate would have been had he been given a chance.
The hunters were behind us, but I knew at least a few would stay with Langdon. Langdon Sr. wouldn’t, though. He would want to come after me and bury a bullet in my brain himself.
Until there was blood, my blood, this wouldn’t be over. I whined and pawed the ground and drank more water than I needed in my effort to get the Alpha to release me. A faint thought popped into my mind that if I crawled back and begged for mercy, Langdon wanted me enough to stop my death. Then we’d go live whatever fairy tale he’d drawn up.
At least it was a life where I knew the outcome. This one with the Alpha just reminded me how out of touch I was with my kind. And with myself. Each step I took without feeling a whip against my flesh was a reminder I no longer remembered what it was to be free.
We ran part of the way, farther and farther from the female wolf who had to have been his mate. The little bit of her blood I tasted on my paw from when I brought her down smelled just like him. Why he was bothering to lead me so far away, I had no idea.
Eventually, the darkness overtook even our wolf eyesight, forcing us to retreat to a mostly empty stable. There was an old horse covered in a wool blanket and chewing some hay lazily.
She either had a death wish or wasn’t fazed by creatures of the night seeking shelter in her barn because she barely batted an eye before going back to her dinner.
An entire side of the barn was empty and had enough closure to keep us warm against the chill. I almost expected him to bark at me to go back outside to keep watch while he slept. Even though Alphas were supposed to act in the best interest of their pack, it didn’t always work out that way. And I wasn’t his pack, not really anyway.
I saw his body twist and contort as the sound of bone snapping and muscle stretching filled the silence of the barn. Fur receded as his skin became visible. With a barking cough that morphed from beast to man in a moment, there was now a man standing in front of me. He had his back to me, obviously not worried I would attack him from behind.
I saw his beautiful pale skin had been marred by a Hunter’s blade. I’d been cut enough myself to know how the scars looked when they faded. It had been years since his flesh had found the end of a blade, but it was there, just visible enough in the moonlight.
He was tall, so much taller than me, and I found myself staring at his legs, the curve of his ass. I longed for him to turn around so I could stare at what I was sure would be the most beautiful wolf I’d ever met since my mate was taken from me.
Hair as red as fire was loose around his shoulders, the same color he’d been as a wolf. I found myself feeling utterly insufficient to even be in his presence. My hair, blond and boring in comparison to his fire.
Just as I was thinking of backing out of the stable to give him space, his command stopped me. “Phase to a human.”
And oh, how I wanted to immediately do what he asked. To phase and to converse with him, but there was more than fear that I’d come across as stupid. There was also the fear I wasn’t enough. And I wanted to be.
Because even though I’d seen my mate perish before my eyes, this wolf was such a close second it was as though the spirits themselves wanted to give me a second chance. And by bringing down his true mate, I’d spit in the spirits’ faces.
My shift was slow and painful. I did it so infrequently when I’d been with the hunters, usually only shifting fast when fear was consuming me. Now there was only gentle but persistent insistence. I found it difficult to call my humanity back to the surface.
My body ached and shivered in a cold sweat as I forced myself to continue, even when I wanted to open my mouth and plead not to. I wasn’t this weak -- couldn’t be, not if I ever wanted to atone for what I’d done.
Several moments later, I wasn’t even sure how long, I’d phased back. The hay beneath my feet was cold, but clean. There were blankets stacked on top of a chair just outside the stall we’d entered. I reached for one, but not for myself.
He turned to face me and I nearly fell to my knees.
Any illusion I had about this Alpha somehow being my mate dissipated. He had a strong jaw with a thick, trimmed beard. His lips were full and my tongue twitched with want to lick them.
But for all his beauty, his eyes were all wrong. His eyes were a profound crimson, but I didn’t feel passion like I did when I gazed at his hair. I felt only his thirst for blood.
I looked at his feet, which was a mistake, because on my way down his body I couldn’t ignore his shapely, thick cock heavy between his legs.
“What’s your name?” he asked me, his tone gentle. Even with eyes filled with blood, he was tender enough to know I was frightened of him. “Tell me.”
“I --” Words were hard, too hard. I offered him the blanket with more urgency this time.
I needed him to take it from me, to be pleased with something I did. And he seemed to get that because his eyes softened, and he took the blanket from my shaking hands. Instead of using it on himself, he wrapped it around my shoulders.
With a little warmth, I felt like I could at least give him an answer. “I don’t remember.”
He frowned, his hand lingering on my shoulder through the blanket. “What did the hunters call you?”
“Wolf,” I said simply.
“And did you want to stay with them?�
� I looked up at him like he was insane. He must’ve gotten the message, because he bit his lower lip and nodded. “I assumed as much.”
He grabbed another blanket from the chair and wrapped it around his shoulders as he treaded back to the single window in the stall. “Hunters are getting worse. They used to try and kidnap a few wolves here and there. Now they’re all but clearing whole packs. Pretty soon, there won’t be packs. Only wolves too afraid to stay in one place too long or with too many of their kind.” His voice was heavy and filled with a deep sadness.
I understood that. “Why aren’t you with your pack?” My question surprised him.
“Mine was destroyed when I was young. I rebuilt it in another place, with others who’d survived.”
He hadn’t answered my question, so I waited. But he stared at the moon for such a long time, I wondered if he was going to.
Then he turned to face me. “Among the wolves taken, one of them was my mate, and I need to find him. I believed him to be dead, but a hunter I killed a couple months back revealed he wasn’t. See, for years, I’ve been hunting down the hunters who destroyed my pack, getting my revenge. You can’t imagine how happy I was to realize my mate lived. Happy and livid with myself for not knowing sooner.”
I frowned. “The female wolf isn’t your mate?”
“My sister.”
Jealousy of her was replaced with a nameless, faceless male wolf instead. He was probably built the same way as the Alpha, with strong muscles and a penchant for winning. I imagined the beautiful male who stood beside him was just as much a force of reckoning as he was. It made me sick to even think of myself in comparison.
A tear slid from my eye before I could stop it because my feelings of inferiority ran so deep I found myself longing for the bullet Langdon Sr. was saving for me.
The Alpha wasn’t having any of my self-pity. In a matter of a few strides, he’d crossed the stable and cupped my face with his hands. I could barely breathe as I waited in anticipation for whatever he had in store for me. The female hadn’t been his mate, but with so many pack members taken away, losing his sister probably cut deep.
“I need to get my sister back,” he vowed, wiping my tears away with the pad of his thumb. “But I won’t put you in danger if I can help it.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I whispered as I reached up to smack his hands away. Instead, my hands curled around his wrists and held tight. “Just kill me already.”
I wanted it. I needed it. Please, Spirits, just let me die.
“No, no, no,” he chanted softly. “You’re not dying, not before me.”
He pressed his forehead to mine and inhaled sharply, bending to make up for the height disparity between us. “It’s me. Jamie. Danny, I’ve finally found you. Oh, honey, please tell me you remember me. Please tell me you still want me.”
There were tears shed. So many I wasn’t sure which belonged to him and which came from me. He held me close as I sobbed, my head cradled against his chest as I drew in shaky breaths whenever I felt like I was stable enough to not break.
The horse whinnied from the stall across from ours, probably thinking we’d lost our damn minds. I wasn’t sure I hadn’t.
Maybe when I’d thought Langdon was reaching for my cock, he’d actually throttled me instead. And this was an afterlife, my heaven where I had my mate again.
Jamie -- his name instantly reduced me to tears again -- took the leash off me as gently as he could. “We’ll have to wait for the right tools to get this collar off, though,” he said in frustration. “Can’t hurt you.”
I didn’t mind, though. Collar or no collar, I was his. “I’m sorry, so sorry about your sister.”
Jamie hushed me with a finger to my lips. “You’ve been a captive for ten years. It’s a wonder you can even speak in this state. I’ve seen wolves who’d kill their own mates. That’s really the end right there.”
“Never.” And I meant it. Even though my mind hadn’t caught up, I’d been powerless to fight Jamie even on Langdon’s order.
“Danica is strong,” he told me. “We’ll find her as soon as I get a plan together. And she’ll be okay in the meantime. Sleep now.”
And I did, although I wasn’t sure if it was the pure exhaustion I felt or the utter finality ringing in the command of his voice.
When I felt lucid enough to pry my eyes open, there was a thin stream of sunlight filtering from the window. A warm blanket was tucked around my body, another blanket under my head like a pillow. But all I felt was the thin sting of dread when I realized I was alone.
My fingers flew to my throat as I traced the collar. My legs felt paralyzed with the intensity of my fear. Jamie wasn’t here and I wondered, had he ever been? What if he’d decided he needed to go and find his sister and had left without me? If I hurried I could catch up to him, but there was a different type of fear that overtook me. What if he wanted to be away from me because, after seeing just how pitiful I was, he couldn’t take it? What did I really have to offer after all?
I shook the blankets off me and stood in front of the stall door, staring at the horse as if she could give me the answers I needed. She just stared and stared, waiting for me to come to my own resolve. I wasn’t even sure what that was anymore.
“Danny, where are you going, honey?” My lower lip quivered just at the sight of him. He was wearing a pair of jeans low on his hips, but they didn’t carry his scent. Probably stolen. In his hand he held a fat dead rabbit by the ears, its lifeless eyes staring at me.
There was only one thing I could bring myself to do without falling apart. So I fell to my knees in front of him and stared at the bare instep of his foot.
He was on his knees in front of me within seconds, his stoop so much more graceful than my own. With a finger under my chin, he lifted my face until my eyes met his. “Danny, love, I’m so sorry.”
I squinted at him, but words fell short.
“You didn’t deserve this. Any of this. No wolf should go through what you went through, but especially not you.” He reached behind me and took the blanket before wrapping it around my torso.
“The sun,” I whispered. “We should leave.”
“The farmers aren’t here,” he told me as he pulled the rabbit closer. Its neck had been broken with a swift bite to its jugular. “For my mate,” he offered simply as he pushed it toward me. “I get it’s not the most appetizing, but whoever lived here didn’t have any food, if you can believe that.”
I could. Times were sometimes hard, and I’d spent more than a few days with a belly emptier than my thoughts.
Wolves didn’t mind raw meat, in their wolf or human forms. And it would have been incredibly rude to turn away his offering. The thought he’d gotten up before me and went in search of food for his mate touched me greatly. At least until the guilt consumed me.
“Eat,” he ordered, sitting down beside me. He reached to pull me closer but stopped and instead rested his arm on the ground just inches behind me.
My Jamie was the most considerate wolf alive. Most Alphas took what they wanted, but he hadn’t demanded any of the things he knew he could have from me.
As I nibbled at the rabbit, my stomach gratefully flooding with warmth, I talked to him. “I thought you were dead.”
He ran a hand through his fiery strands. “By all rights, I should be. After I was knocked down, all I remember is the hunters putting you in a cage in the back of a van.”
A memory from so long ago had no right to be as vivid as it was. I felt the cold snap of steel around me, my voice raw from howling in anguish.
“Danica got to me and dragged me into the woods. A few others survived and were hiding. The Hunters had thought we were all dead, which had to have been their aim.” He stopped for a moment. “But why they took you, I couldn’t figure it out. Liam told me it was so they could save you for later.”
“Liam survived?” I was surprised to learn our childhood friend had remained unscathed.
“Yes. A
s well as your Aunt Fiona, a handful of kids and a few females. Almost all of the males were wiped out,” he told me as he clenched his fist until his knuckles turned white. “Those fucking bastards. I vowed to take what was left of my -- our -- pack and then hunt them all down myself.”
I swallowed, “And that’s how you found out I was alive?”
“Yes. Bastard heard of a rogue Alpha hunting down humans and destroying them, so when I showed up in his house, he begged for his life. Told me there were several wolves believed to be dead who had been sold instead.” Jamie’s laugh was the epitome of hollow. “Told him to tell me where Langdon and his crew were. That’s when he said Langdon was keeping a wolf from ten years ago as his assistant. A hell of an effective one too. Jesus, Danny, I had no idea you were so strong.”
Fear was a strong motivator. “How did you know it was me?”
“I didn’t,” he confessed as he traced circles on my knee, sending a spiral of heat winding right up my leg to my groin. “But I knew it had to be. Had to be a reason I wasn’t completely feral after all. I tried to save the other wolves that lost their mates, I really did, but it was too late. I couldn’t do anything.”
“You served your pack the best you could,” I reassured him, swallowing the last of the edible part of the rabbit. I pushed the carcass away and took his hand so I could press my lips to his palm. My voice was muffled when I spoke. “I can’t believe you’ve been looking for me.”
“Of course.” His voice was strained, his arousal evident. “You’re mine, Danny. Do you really think I would ever let you go?”
No, because it was his right to take whatever he wanted from me. I closed my eyes, frantically ignoring the images of Langdon Jr. as he tried to invade my mind.
“Danny, look at me.”
It was difficult, one of the most difficult things I ever had to do, but eventually I met his gaze. The deep red of his eyes cornered me until I felt as though I would slip off a ledge and fall into oblivion. How was it possible to love a being with such intensity that the very thought of being left alone was enough to destroy all will to live?
