by Renee Rose
I’m sure I look ridiculous in the flowing robe. Tears sting my eyes. I fly at him, wrapping my arms and legs around him. The force of my hug drives my huge big brother to take a step back.
As soon as Garrett’s arms close around me, I know everything’s going to be all right. He’s bigger and stronger than any of the fuckers who took me captive. The only exception might be Carlos, but I can’t think about him right now.
“It’s okay,” Garrett murmurs. I press my face into his shoulder, clutching him. His muscles flex around me, big, protective. “No one’s gonna hurt you. Never again.”
“Sedona,” a deep voice makes me raise my head. My dad stands beside us, lips pressed tight together—a look I’m all too familiar with. For once I’m glad to see it.
“Dad.” I turn to him and give him a heartfelt, if stiffer hug. It’s only when I draw back and study the deep lines etched on my father’s brow that I realize his stern look isn’t one of disapproval. It’s worry—and now deep relief.
“I’m sorry,” my voice cracks.
“It’s all right,” Garrett soothes, at the same time my father says, “We’ll talk about it later.”
I lean into my big brother’s side, unable to look my father in the eyes. Garrett gives me a squeeze—another signal I’m familiar with from the times I’ve gotten in trouble. You and me, sis. Dad’s gonna be a hardass, but we’ll get through it—together. Even though he’s eight years older, and as alpha and protective as our dad, Garrett has always stuck by me.
I don’t think my big brother can fix this. We’re in some godforsaken mountain in Mexico, facing off with an unfamiliar pack, deep in hostile territory. My dad might be dealing with the political ramifications of this for the next thirty years.
It’s my fault. I’m the alpha’s daughter. It’s my responsibility to follow the rules—for the good of the pack. Me and my stupid idea to live it up on spring break.
“How do we get in? I’m going to kill every last motherfucking—” Garrett’s cracking his knuckles when I cut in.
“No.” I still don’t know what in the hell is going on here. Carlos must have sent Juanito to set me free. But where is Carlos? I look back where Juanito stands, looking uncertain. Is Carlos coming? He can’t. My heart fills with lead. If he did, my father and Garrett would kill him. No, I need to get out of here before any wolves—on either side—get hurt. I couldn’t stand having blood on my head. “Take me out of here. I don’t want a fight. I just want to go home. Let’s go.”
My dad shakes his head. “No one steals my daughter and lives.”
“They didn’t steal me, they bought me. You’re welcome to kill the fuckers who stole me, but they’re not here. I just want to leave. No bloodshed. Please.” I catch Garrett’s eye and hold his gaze, silently pleading.
He grabs my dad’s arm and they walk around the back of the van to confer in private.
Of course, because I have shifter hearing, I don’t miss any of the conversation.
“Dad, don’t you think Sedona’s been through enough? She’s been mated.”
My eyes fill with tears. Hunching, I cover the already healed wound on my shoulder. In a few days it would be nothing more than a slight scar, but I will carry Carlos’ scent, a trace of his essence, with me until I die.
Garrett continues in a low voice, “She might have conflicted feelings toward the guy. The last thing she needs is more trauma. If she says no bloodshed here, I think we have to honor her wishes.”
“We don’t kill them and we send the message we’re weak.”
They argue some more, but when they come back around, my father clips, “Everyone back in the vehicles.”
Garrett shoos me into his van and climbs in the back seat beside me, throwing his strong arm around my shoulders.
As the van takes off down the mountain, I try to pull it together, but my emotions are all over the place. I hate being the victim, rescued by the males in her family. It’s pathetic and I know if I dip into that, even for a second, I could tumble into a pool of self-pity so deep I could let this experience scar me for the rest of my life.
Poor Sedona, they would whisper about me. She’s never been the same since her abduction and rape.
Fuck that. I was a victim, yes. But it wasn’t rape. I begged him for it. And I’m not weak, I’m an alpha female. I can turn this into a win, not a loss.
But what did I win?
I had my V-card punched, in the most incredible, satisfying way. It’s hard to imagine it gets much better than what we shared. But I also walked away marked. I’m not even sure of the ramifications of carrying a male’s scent when I didn’t choose him as a mate.
Carlos let me go.
Fates, thinking of him sends a searing pain right through the middle of my chest. Will I ever see him again? Do I want to? It’s a fucked up kind of complicated, isn’t it?
I still don’t even know if he was as innocent in my imprisonment as he insisted. What if he orchestrated the whole damn thing?
But no, why let me go, then? And I’m sure it was Carlos who sent Juanito to shuttle me out to my family. Whether it was to save his own pack or for my benefit, I can’t be sure. Because I know one thing—my family’s packs would have brought it.
So logically, it seems like I should count Carlos releasing me as a win. Why, then, does it seem like my heart is beating outside my chest? Like it stayed back on that mountain and the further we drive away, the more anxious I become at leaving it behind?
But please. Did I want him to claim me? To keep me?
Fuck no.
I would never stay on that godforsaken mountain with that crazy pack. They’re the most backwards, insane bunch I’ve ever seen, and my father has hosted a lot of pack mingles over the years.
Even if they were the most charming wolves on Earth, I wouldn’t want to stay. I’m twenty-one years old. I haven’t even finished college. I only just started having fun. Fates, my spring break vacation in San Carlos seems so long ago. So far away. What did my friends think when I disappeared from the beach?
“How did you find me?” I ask Garrett, speaking for the first time in what must have been a couple hours. I applaud him for not grilling me the whole way, but Garrett is perceptive. I’m glad I didn’t ride in my father’s van.
“My mate found you.”
Wait... what? Garrett doesn’t have a mate. He’s been playing Mr. Bachelor for years with his pack of young males. “Your mate?”
Garrett touches my fresh mark. “Looks like we both mated this moon.”
Garrett sounds so happy. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess his mating was nothing like mine. He wasn’t locked naked in a room with her and forced to mate. He chose a female. The way I always thought I’d get to choose a mate.
And now I’m wallowing in self-pity—the swamp I didn’t want to swim in. “Tell me about her?” I need distraction.
“Her name is Amber. She’s a human psychic and an attorney. And my next door neighbor. When you went missing, I volun-told her we needed her help, and we brought her along to Mexico. She helped us follow your trail to Mexico City, where we found your original captors.”
I scowl, remembering the cage and the warehouse.
“They’re already dead,” Garrett assures me.
“A human?” Garrett mated a human? It’s unheard of for an alpha wolf to take a human mate. I hope this doesn’t mean he’ll lose his position as alpha. His pack is as loyal as they come, but you never know. Some wolf may challenge him for it. The most likely contender would be Tank, his beta, except that Tank is from our father’s pack originally and his loyalty there would prevent it.
“My wolf picked her.” Garrett shrugs but his goofy grin says he’s hopelessly in love.
Is that what happened with me and Carlos? Our wolves picked even though our human selves never would have?
What about all that stuff Carlos said just before we were drugged? About not being sorry he’d mated me? Was that the truth? Or just the effect of
the full moon and a happy inner wolf?
“You sure you don’t want me to go back there and kill the entire Montelobo pack? Because I won’t hesitate if you give the word.”
“No.” I twist and grab Garrett’s shoulders before I realize what I’m doing. “You can’t do that.”
Garrett falls silent, searching my face. My grip tightens. “You can’t. Promise me.” What if Carlos were hurt? Or someone he cared about, like his mother or Juanito?
“You sure, kiddo?” His voice is mild, but for a second I glimpse the cold-hearted predator lurking behind the human facade. The wolf would kill first and ask questions never, leaving a trail of bodies behind.
“I’m sure. Don’t let dad go back, either. Promise me.”
“All right, sis. Calm down. I promise.” I can tell he wants to ask me more, so I turn in his arms, tucking myself into his side. I hold him tight until my racing heart slows down.
Our van rolls through a sprawling city, which Garrett tells me is the country’s capital, Mexico City. We stop at a skyrise hotel and Garrett shifts in his seat, his eyes fixed on a high story window. His mate must be inside.
Ugh. I rub my nose. What would it be like to be happily mated instead of leaving the most fucked up of matings possible? “So where’s Amber, now?” I try for enthusiasm. I’m going to have a sister for the first time. With Garrett so much older, I’m more like an only child. “When can I meet her?”
“She’s in our suite. Come on. You can meet her now.”
Garrett leads me into the hotel and up an elevator, but when he enters his room, I know something’s wrong. There’s no scent of a female present—human or otherwise.
Garrett picks up a note and reads it, then roars, smashing his fist into a wall.
Well, crap.
I guess I’m not the only one whose mating is a mess.
5
Carlos
I walk along the outside perimeter of our citadel. The buzzing in my ears makes my head pound, but I keep pushing on. I’m going to walk the entirety of our pack territory every day until I know who lives in which hut, the names of their family members, what they do for us. Even as I vow it, though, the landscape goes by without my seeing a thing.
All I see is Sedona, chained naked to that bed. My terrible, wonderful prize.
Watching her leave was like allowing someone to steal away with a vital organ from my body. I stood there, numb, not understanding how I still lived, still breathed without her here. It took all my willpower not to shift and chase after her pack’s vans like a common dog. Not to howl.
But somehow I managed to stay on the terrace and watch, keeping my pack out of danger.
The council couldn’t believe I let her go. When they saw her standing out there, her white filmy wrap threading around her legs in the breeze, their pompous airs dropped.
“Why is your female out of her room?” Santiago demanded.
“I set her free,” I said calmly.
“Are you mad?” Mateo asked. “She’s your mate.”
Yes, mine, my wolf howled.
But it doesn’t matter. I wasn’t going to show my teeth to her pack, to her family. It was wrong to keep her this way. Wrong to have bought her in the first place. Everything we’d done to her had been wrong.
“Go and fight for your female. Or are you too much of a coward?” Don Santiago challenged.
I punched him in the face. I would never do something like that to an elderly human, but an old shifter can take it. The pack surged around me—I didn’t know whether they meant to stop me if I continued, but no one touched me.
“Crazy, like his mother,” Don Jose proclaimed.
“I’m not keeping a female against her will,” I snarled. “Not even one I’ve marked. And if any of you here believe such a thing is acceptable, you are the reason this pack is falling to ruin.” I turned in a circle, meeting every male’s eyes, forcing their gaze to drop in the face of my dominance. A small victory, but it satisfied my wolf.
Don Santiago rubbed his jaw and climbed to his feet. “So, what? You’re not going to fight to win her love? Her affection? I daresay you already had it.”
My heart squeezed painfully, then, and it’s still squeezing. I want to believe that much is true. But it could’ve been simple biology. The council knew exactly what they were doing putting a fertile she-wolf naked in a cell with a virile male over the full moon. And the adversity brought us together. Holding her to anything based on what we shared in there wouldn’t be fair. She had no choice but to accept me. It doesn’t mean she wants me as her mate. If she did, she wouldn’t have been so quick to jump in that van and disappear.
But even if she never wants to see me again, I will still avenge her. I gave the council one week to produce the traffickers who kidnapped her. When they hedged, I made it clear. “I will have blood for what was done to my female. Either it’s yours, or theirs.”
They’d better deliver.
I walk on the edge of a small coffee grove. The front of Monte Lobo is covered in trees, but small farm plots make up the entire back side of the mountain, forming a patchwork quilt of color and texture. This extinct volcano we call Monte Lobo doesn’t provide the best climate for coffee—not like the coastal states like Chiapas—but our pack has always been able to grow enough for our own use. It’s actually impressive the variety and quantity of crops our pack produces simply for our own subsistence.
Centuries ago, when our Spanish ancestors settled peacefully with the indigenous people who lived here, they set up a wonderful system for sustainable living in isolation. They frightened the indigenous people off, not through violence, but by inciting their superstitions. Men who change into wolf form at the full moon won the awe and respect of the tribe, which moved to the base of the mountain and guarded it from outside visitors. It allowed our pack to shut themselves away.
“Buenas tardes, Don Carlos.” An elderly wolf in dirty, worn clothing and a wide-brimmed hat stops what he’s doing to greet me. Despite the greeting, he looks wary, or suspicious of me.
I stop and lift my hand in greeting. Judging by the way he scrutinizes me, he already knows what happened today. Or was he there? It’s sad that I’m not even sure. I don’t even know this wolf’s name. I’ve been a piss-poor leader of this pack. I don’t deserve the position of alpha.
I force myself to stay, even though I’d rather walk on, immersed in my thoughts about Sedona. “How’s it going?” Yeah, it’s lame, but I don’t really know how else to shoot the shit with the guy.
He nods his head. “It’s going. Almost finished with harvesting this year’s crop. Then moving onto the cacao.”
“Good.” That’s all I can think of to say, but I’m thankful when his name comes to me—Paco.
A woman comes out of the hut and shades her eyes as she looks in our direction. She walks up the hill and stands beside the old man. Must be his mate.
“Alpha,” the old woman inclines her head. “Is it true?” She’s wearing a dress that looks straight out of the 1950s. It probably is, actually. Some secondhand find shipped over as a donation from the United States. I look over at their hut, where a curl of smoke comes from the chimney. The hacienda has every luxury imaginable and these people don’t even have electricity. I knew things were bad, but this makes me sick. What sort of alpha leaves his pack in poverty?
“Hush, Marisol,” Paco admonishes.
“Is what true?” I brace myself for whatever is being said about me. That I’m mad or that I let my mate go.
“You hit Don Santiago?”
Oh that. Yeah. I shove my hands in my pockets. “It’s true. The council and I are in disagreement about some actions they took.” Right. I doubt I’m projecting the confidence I mean to, but it’s the best I can muster when my mate is on a van driving miles away from me.
“Be careful, Don Carlos.” Marisol’s voice wavers, but I can’t figure out why. Is it out of fear? Or ire? Is my pack ready to mutiny against me?
I growl. N
ot to scare her, but my pack needs to know I won’t be cowed.
She takes a step back and her husband grasps her elbow to steady her.
“The council has overstepped.” Ice infuses my tone. “They will not insult me or my mate without retribution.”
Marisol and her mate both wear unreadable expressions. They probably think I’m the enemy, allowing them to live in poverty while I travel and attend the best universities. I don’t blame them. That’s exactly what I did. I don’t deserve to be their leader.
No one speaks for a beat, so I nod curtly and walk on.
“May the fates accompany you.” Paco’s benediction makes me stop and look back. He and his wife lift their palms in a wave.
I return it.
I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but things have to change around here. Clearing this cesspool feels urgent. I’m sure that reason has something to do with Sedona, but I don’t even dare admit what my heart is pattering on about.
Fix it for her.
That’s mad. Sedona’s not going to come back here. Not in a million years. To entertain the fantasy is pure lunacy.
~.~
Sedona
I lean my head against the airplane window and stare down at the fluffy clouds below us. Garrett, followed by most of our pack bum-rushed the airport last night in time for him to find Amber, his mate. In front of all of us, he declared his love and his intention to make up for his mistakes with her and she allowed herself to be reclaimed.
Now, they sit in the seats beside me, fingers intertwined, her blonde head on his shoulder. If it were up to me, I would’ve given them some privacy—have them sit next to a stranger so they can wrap into themselves, but Garrett insisted his pack member, Trey, book me a seat beside him. I guess so he can send me concerned glances every so often.
“Stop it,” I snap when he does it again.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me as if I’m broken.”
Garrett grimaces. “I guess I just don’t know what to do to help. Short of going back and tearing throats out.”
