by J. L. Wilder
“I just wanted to be with my sister,” Cam said quietly.
Sophie looked at him. She didn’t want to make a big deal out of the fact that he had finally spoken, but she wanted to encourage him to keep doing so. “I guess the two of you are close?” she asked.
“We were always each other’s only friend,” Cam said.
Sophie nodded. “I can’t imagine feeling very good in a pack with that kind of dynamic,” she said. “That’s kind of how it was for me in my old pack. I was subject to the alpha’s rule, but at the same time, nobody was my friend. It wasn’t anything like it is here.”
“Do you think of us as friends?” Petra asked.
“I think if you decide to stay, you will be,” Sophie said. “There’s no way you could join this pack without becoming essential to it. We’re all too tightly knit together.” She grinned. “I was the second person to join, you know. I was here before Marco or Burton. It was just Ryker and me at first.”
“And did it feel incomplete then?” Petra asked. “Back when it was just the two of you?”
“It didn’t,” Sophie said. “But looking back on it now, it’s kind of hard to see why. We just didn’t know what we were missing. And it could be the same way with you two. The complete pack, the real pack, could be one that includes all of us, and we just don’t know it yet.”
Cam held up his basket for Sophie’s inspection.
She took it from him and checked it over. “This is really good,” she said. “You said you’ve never done this before?”
He shook his head.
“Well, you’re a natural,” she said. “The next step is to line it with mud, which we can get from the river bed, but we’ll wait and go down there after Robby gets back from whatever he’s doing. We shouldn’t leave the cave without letting somebody know where we are.”
“Is that a rule?” Petra asked warily. “I’m not a big fan of rules telling me what I can and can’t do. That’s part of the reason I went off on my own in the first place.”
“It’s not a rule,” Sophie said. “Just a courtesy. The alphas worry if they don’t know where everyone is. They consider it their responsibility to look out for us, and they can’t do that if they don’t know where we are. That freaks them out.” She looked at Cam. “Chrissy would probably get upset if she didn’t know where you were, right?”
Cam nodded.
“Same thing,” Sophie said.
“What kind of rules have they made?” Petra asked.
“None, really,” Sophie said. “Ryker doesn’t like to give orders. It makes him feel weak to have to use his alpha power to control a situation. He says only alphas who aren’t strong enough to find another way to get what they want resort to those kinds of tactics. So he asks us not to do things like going out after dark, but as long as he believes we’re going to cooperate, he won’t make it an order.”
“What about the others?” Petra asked.
“Marco is a diplomat,” Sophie said. “He’s not afraid to give an order, but his first step will always be to ask the other people involved what they think, or what they want. If people’s interests align, there’s no need for an order, and if they don’t, Marco is just as willing to consider changing his mind before forcing the situation.”
Petra looked impressed. “That’s decent of him.”
“Yeah, it is,” Sophie said. “As for Burton, he likes to give orders, but he’s playful about it. He’s bossy in a fun way.”
“You mean sexually?” Petra asked.
Cam burst out laughing.
Sophie blushed. “Not exclusively that, no.”
“Okay, but I get the idea,” Petra said. “None of them are likely to go around giving orders to people against their will. Is that it?”
“Right,” Sophie said. “They want you to want to be here. They want you to feel like this is your pack, like you belong. If that’s not how you feel, they’re not going to try to bully you into staying. You’d be free to leave any time you wanted to.”
“I’m kind of liking it here,” Petra said. “I can’t speak for the others, of course. But...I’ll probably end up staying. At least for a while, to try it out.”
Sophie smiled. “I’m glad,” she said. “It’ll be nice to have some other women around.”
“One, at least,” Petra said. “Chrissy’s going to be a harder sell than me. Do you know which way she’s leaning on it, Cam?”
Cam shook his head. “But I want to stay,” he said.
That was a surprise. “You do?” Sophie asked.
“I like the idea of belonging to a pack,” Cam said. “And if it doesn’t have to be toxic and dangerous, like our old pack was, I think it could be a good thing. I like you. I like the alphas.”
Sophie grinned. “We like you too, Cam,” she said. Already, she was beginning to think of him as a younger brother.
They heard footsteps outside the cave and broke off the conversation. “The alphas wouldn’t be back already, would they?” Petra asked, frowning.
“I doubt it,” Sophie said. “Not unless they got really lucky on the hunt. It’s probably Robby coming back from the river. Maybe he’s got fish for our lunch.” She glanced guiltily at the fire, which they had allowed to die down. “We should build that back up.”
But Petra held up a hand. Her eyes were wide, and Sophie realized suddenly that she was afraid.
“Two sets of footsteps,” she breathed.
Cam was on his feet in an instant, a handful of dirt in this hand, scattering it over the remains of the fire, stifling the flames. Sophie stared. She opened her mouth to ask him what in the world he was doing, but Petra’s hand covered her lips.
“Shhh,” Petra whispered.
She removed her hand slowly, Sophie frowned. “What’s the problem?” she whispered.
“Strangers,” Petra said.
“It’s probably just the alphas—”
But a voice spoke up then, and it wasn’t one Sophie recognized. “Here,” the voice said. “The scent is concentrated here.”
It was a woman’s voice, and there was something familiar about it.
Sophie didn’t know why, but fear flooded her. She shrank back into the cave, hoping to conceal herself in the shadows. Hoping not to be seen.
But there was never a chance.
“They’re in here,” the woman said, her voice heavy with amusement. “It’s just three of them. Shit. We were too worried, Harv. I thought this was going to be a big group. I probably could have handled this alone.”
“Don’t get cocky, Dina,” a man’s voice rumbled from behind her.
The two of them stepped into the cave. The light was behind them, so Sophie couldn’t quite make out their features, but she could see enough to cause her distress.
They were huge. Both of them. And the woman’s close-cropped hair...
“I know you,” the woman said, narrowing her eyes. “You’re that girl I took the rabbit from, aren’t you? What was your name?” She grinned. “I remember. Sophie.”
“Who are you?” Petra asked, stepping in front of Sophie and putting her fists up. “What do you want?”
“Petra, don’t,” Sophie said. It was true that, of the three of them, Petra was probably the best fighter. But none of them were fighters. If it came to blows, if anybody shifted, the wolves wouldn’t have a chance. “They’re bears.”
“You know them?”
“I’ve met her.” She looked at Dina. “What do you want?” she asked, trying her hardest to sound more courageous than she felt.
“We talked about what I wanted already, remember?” Dina said. “I wanted you to get off my land. And yet, here you are.”
“What makes it your land?” Petra asked. “This is where our pack lives.”
Harv snorted. “Pack,” he said. “This isn’t a pack. This is a band of refugees.”
“We’re together,” Sophie said, speaking quickly before either Petra or Cam could give anything away. The only thing they had going for t
hem right now was that these bears didn’t know about the alphas or Robby. The only chance they had of getting out of this was for the others to come home and catch the bears by surprise.
They had to stall for time.
“We didn’t know this land was yours,” Sophie said. “We had no way of knowing how far your territory extended.”
“Everything north of the sixty-sixth is ours,” Dina said.
“The entire Arctic Circle belongs to the bears?” Petra scoffed. “You can’t be serious.”
“Do you want me to kill this one?” Harv asked Dina. “She’s got a lot to say. It’s annoying.”
“Don’t,” Sophie said. “We’re going to cooperate.” She looked at Petra, silently begging her new friend to keep her mouth shut.
Cam was trembling. He edged closer to the mouth of the cave.
Sophie thought she could see what he was trying to do. If he could make it to the cave’s mouth, he would be able to run. He would be able to shift, and then he would be faster than the bears. Maybe he could lure them away, or maybe he would go and find help. Get the others. Bring them back.
Or maybe not. Cam hadn’t been with them that long. Sophie liked him, but could she trust him with her life? Maybe he was just trying to save himself.
If he is, I can’t begrudge him that.
No matter what he was doing, the best strategy was to keep the bears’ attention on her. She was the omega. She was the most valuable person here. She was the one they were going to want.
“The Arctic Circle is ours,” Dina said. “Bears were here before wolves were. And we don’t want to share. When wolves started coming north, we tried guarding the border, running you back south to the lands that ought to be yours. But you kept coming back. You eluded us. You’re fast, and much as I hate to admit it, a lot of you aren’t stupid.”
Sophie remained quiet, doing her best not to track Cam with her eyes.
“We haven’t done anything to bother you,” Petra said. “We’re just trying to live our lives.”
“You’re competition for resources,” Dina said. “We’ve seen the snares and the fish traps. I suppose you haven’t noticed the decline in fresh game. Maybe you haven’t been here long enough.”
“There’s no way we’re eating enough to cause changes in the rabbit population,” Petra said.
Sophie knew that Petra was right. She also knew that it didn’t matter. Whatever had brought these bears here, whatever they were angry about, the wolves’ hunting practices were just a cover story.
“Get the omega,” Dina said to Harv.
Petra took another step forward. “What do you want me for?” she demanded.
Sophie could have cried. She and Petra had known each other for such a short time, and even so, Petra was stepping forward to protect her. She knew that Sophie was the target the bears wanted, and she was putting herself in harm’s way when she didn’t have to.
Sophie couldn’t let her do it.
“She’s not the omega,” she said quietly. “I am.”
“Shut up, Sophie!” Petra said, her voice trembling.
Harv just laughed. “That’s obvious,” he said. “No omega could act like this one is. Besides—” He inhaled deeply, “there’s no mistaking that scent.”
Sophie’s skin crawled, but she said nothing.
“If they’re trying to get a pack together, an omega will facilitate that,” Dina said. “Without her, they don’t have anything. They’re just a handful of betas, and they’ll fracture. But with an omega among them, they can pull in an alpha. Then the north becomes no different from the south—full of wolf packs. And there will be nowhere left for us to go.”
Harv stepped forward and took Sophie by the arm.
There was no breaking his grip. It was insanely powerful. He was stronger than any of Sophie’s own alphas, and she realized with a wave of despair that even if one of them were here with her, they wouldn’t be able to stop what was going to happen next.
“Please,” she said. “Please let me go. I’ll go south. I’ll go below the sixty-sixth, and you’ll never see me again.”
Dina shook her head. “She had her chance to run,” she said to Harv as if Sophie wasn’t even there. “She had her chance to go back to the wolves. She decided to stay here. There’s no reason to trust now that she would go away if we gave her another opportunity. Take her.”
“Cam, run!” Sophie cried.
The bears whirled around in time to see Cam shift and go sprinting off into the woods.
“Let him go,” Dina snarled. “He doesn’t matter.”
Harv picked Sophie up and tossed her over his shoulder as if she were nothing more than a duffel bag.
“No!” Petra cried. “Sophie!”
But the bears ignored her as thoroughly as they had ignored Cam. Dina led the way out of the cave, and Harv followed, carrying Sophie. They set off running into the woods.
Sophie didn’t even struggle. Harv’s strength was beyond anything she had ever felt, and she knew it would do her no good. There was no chance of escaping.
Chapter Sixteen
RYKER
Ryker and Burton caught up to Marco and Chrissy quickly. The race to return to the cave took longer.
The whole way back, Ryker imagined he could hear footsteps behind him. He longed to tell Burton to just go ahead and shift so that they could run at full speed, but he had to acknowledge that it made sense to let someone stay in human form. There were things humans could do that wolves couldn’t. It was true that, as a wolf, Ryker’s senses were sharper, his reactions quicker. But Burton would be capable of a type of reasoning that Ryker wouldn’t be able to manage right now. He would be able to make logical leaps that would elude Ryker.
As it turned out, though, none of that mattered.
Ryker froze at the sound of someone crashing through the woods. His first thought was that the bears had come after them, that they had been caught after all, but Burton was looking ahead. “It’s coming from that way.”
Then a small wolf burst into the clearing, shifting as he leaped, and Cam landed on the ground before them.
Chrissy cried out and ran to her brother. “Cam! What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Cam said, accepting the shirt that Burton stripped off and tossed to him. “But they found us. The bears. You have to come now. You have to get back to the cave.”
Ryker didn’t wait for any further information. He took off at a dead sprint for home, leaving the others behind.
He wasn’t on his own for long. Marco appeared at his left flank. A hair’s breadth of a second later, Burton appeared on his right.
A part of Ryker registered the fact that this meant Chrissy and Cam were alone now in bear-infested woods. But they would find their way back. He couldn’t think of anything now except Sophie.
She had been in the cave.
He had deluded himself into thinking that she was safe because she wasn’t alone. But that was ridiculous. What had he thought the likes of Cam and Petra would do in the face of an attack? Of course they wouldn’t be able to protect her.
If she’s dead, he thought, I’ll never forgive myself.
If she was dead, the glue that held this pack together would dissolve. There would be nothing left to tie him to the rest of these people. He would spend the remainder of his days hunting down and killing as many bears as he could until they took him out.
He came up on the cave all too quickly. For a moment, his footsteps faltered. He was almost afraid to go in. Until he had seen what was inside, he could believe that she might still be okay. Once he had gone in, though, there was no returning to the time before he had known the truth.
As usual, Burton made the first move. He barely slowed down at all, striding into the cave. Ryker followed closely on his heels.
Petra was alone inside, on her knees, her arms wrapped around herself. She was crying.
Marco resumed human form, grabbed his shorts, dressed quickly, and dropped
to his knees beside her. “Petra,” he said, his hands on her shoulders. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
She shook her head, and Ryker saw that she was trembling. “I’m fine,” she said. “They didn’t hurt me. They didn’t care about me at all.”
“Bears?”
She nodded. “Two of them. A man and a woman.” She looked over at Ryker. “They took Sophie,” she said.
Ryker’s vision seemed to turn red. At that moment, he thought he could kill something. He forced himself to back away from his packmates, to keep them out of the reach of his claws.
“Took her where?” Marco asked urgently.
“They didn’t say,” Petra said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Marco. I tried to stop them.”
“There was nothing you could have done,” Marco said. “You couldn’t have fought off two bears. Nobody could expect that of you.”
She should have, Ryker thought. She should have fought them off.
He knew he was being unreasonable. He was being insane. But he couldn’t keep the thought at bay. She should have done something. How could she just have allowed the bears to leave with Sophie? How could she not have done something?
And Cam! He should have stood and fought! If he had, maybe they would have stood a chance. But he had run instead.
As if summoned by Ryker’s thoughts, Cam and Chrissy appeared in the mouth of the cave. Robby was with them. They must have crossed paths with him on the way back.
If he had been here—if he had been with them—it would have been an even fight.
He couldn’t deal with it. He couldn’t accept any of this. The mistakes that had been made were too vast and too painful to be borne.
He shifted and grabbed a handful of his clothes, not looking to see what he had. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t planning on remaining human for very long. But right now, he just needed to get away from his pack before he took his aggression out on them. He needed to be by himself.
“Ryker,” Marco said as he turned to go.
“Stay here.” Ryker jogged out into the fresh air, pulling on clothes as he went.
