Broken

CHAPTER THREE

"That was...exhilarating!" I said, panting hard. My chest hurt with the effort of fighting and running, but my blood boiled with an excitement I couldn't explain.

"You could have been caught. You could have been killed." Alexander murmured behind me as he slowed the horse's gallop into a calming trot. I could sense the disapproval in his voice.

"At least we got out of there with our heads still on." I retorted in defense, my excitement reducing. "Things could have been worse."

"And things could have been better if you'd just stayed in that spot." He clapped back. "You sure are a feisty young wolf."

I smiled to myself: the adjective had pleased me more than it should have. "My dad called me that a few moments before he'd died." I said. "A feisty one."

There was a pause, before Alexander replied. "Did he now?"

"Yes." I swallowed hard, trying not to feel the pain of loss again as I thought about my dead family. I was still recovering from the shock of finding out that my father's older brother had killed off the entire royal family. So many life-changing things had happened in one confusing torrent, and it was hard trying not to give in to the despair.

Why had he done it? Why had he murdered his own brother's family and displaced his only niece?

I felt the alpha take a breath behind me, as though he was about to say something, and I quickly cut him off with a question of mine. "Why didn't you die?"

Alexander tensed behind me, before laughing. "That's a direct way to put it."

I turned to look at his face. "You should have died, shouldn't you?"

He looked down at me, his face inches from mine. "Why didn't you die either?" He countered, his breath tickling my face.

I turned and leaned against his chest again. "I didn't eat the food; it tasted and smelled terrible. All I had was a tiny bite of the steak."

"Mmm," he thought. "I think you were just able to pick out the scent of the poison better than others. Perhaps your senses are stronger?"

"Maybe." I replied. "Okay, your turn now. Why aren't you dead?"

There was a long pause from him, at which I turned to face him again. He wasn't meeting my eyes. "I just wasn't hungry." He murmured. "Besides, your father asked me to come by and meet you, perhaps you'd be interested in marrying me. He was insistent, I couldn't say no."

I pouted. "So you do want to marry me then."

"No, of course not." He replied sharply. Then his voice softened. "What I mean is, I can't."

"Why?" I asked. "Do you have a mate already?"

"Enough about my personal business, now." He said, his eyes still averted. I wondered what he was hiding from me.

The grassy plains began to change into a more civilised landscape. To my right, I could see a house on a hill, albeit dilapidated and unused. To my left, a couple of vegetable gardens side by side. I began to relax as we continued to trot along the countryside, feeling safe as Alexander's strong arms circled me. I could feel him on my back and my waist, his taut legs beside mine on the horse, and his warm breath tickling my neck, and my lower belly clenched deliciously.

I didn't want to feel what I was feeling, but it was almost inevitable.

"Are we close to your pack now?" I asked, trying to distract my mind.

"We're close, but not quite there now." Alexander answered.

There was a long pause between us, when thoughts of my uncle filtered into my mind again. The rage began to boil inside me again, and I instinctively gripped Alexander's legs and gritted my teeth.

"Elaine," he warned. "You're hurting me. What's on your mind?"

"Those men..." I started, swallowing past the lump of emotion in my throat. "They were sent by...my uncle."

Alexander stiffened behind me, and I watched as his grip on the horse's reins tightened. "What?"

"My uncle killed my family." I finished, and before I could hold back, the tears were flowing in a torrent down my face.

Alexander let go of one of the reins and reached up to pat my shoulder awkwardly. "How did you find out?" He asked.

I bit back the sob and angrily wiped the tears from my eyes. I never cried, and this was a surprising first for me. "I saw him," I replied with a tremulous voice. "When you went to get your horse. He was standing with the other murderers."

"I know you want to enact your revenge on him, but—" He started, but I cut him off.

"Oh, I do want to enact my revenge, and there's nothing you or anyone will do to stop me." I snapped. "I'm only following you right now because there's no other choice for me. I need to be alive to avenge my parents and the other people who died at that feast."

He chuckled. "You really are a feisty one."

"So I've been told." I muttered. After a few minutes of silence, I spoke again. "You don't look much older than I am. How come you sound so...middle-aged?"

At this he gave a sudden laughter which slightly startled me. "What?" I asked, but he didn't answer until he'd quietened down.

"I'm twenty years old." He replied, still shaking with mirth. "What made you think I was middle-aged?"

"The way you talk," I replied. "The way you acted at my Turning Feast."

We'll leave out the way he makes my insides clench with unbridled desire.

"Wow." He said, still smiling. "Wow. How old are you?"

"I'm eighteen." I replied.

"I should have known." He murmured, and I turned on the horse to look at him.

"What do you mean, you should have known?" I asked.

He looked down at me, and our eyes met. Our eyes had met several times in this very long night, but this time it was stronger, more synergic than other times. His electric blue eyes seemed to capture my stormy grey ones and hold on to it, and I could feel myself almost melting in his gaze.

I felt his arms stiffen around me as he pulled me closer, still not breaking eye contact. Something inside of me clenched, and it took me a few seconds to realise it was desire. The feeling was alien, yet welcome, something I'd never felt for anybody prior to now. Suddenly it felt as though I could see through his eyes and into his soul, felt as though we could share memories and thoughts and emotions. I could feel what he was feeling, hear what he was thinking, and joy sprang up in my chest at the thought.

I swallowed nervously and broke eye contact first—this was not the way to feel about him, or any man at all. Heck, I barely even recognized his existence until this night, and I'm sure I would have never known he existed if this night hadn't ended up the way it had.

Then I noticed that with Alexander's distraction, the white horse had stopped trotting. It whinnied and looked up at us, as though to urge us on. "Alex," I whispered. "The horse has stopped."

He gave a small start behind me. "Oh," he murmured. "I'm sorry." Then he reached down to the end of the saddle, his arm grazing my shoulder, and I smelled his skin for the first time that night. I felt all my resolutions fly out the window as I caught a whiff of a woody, earthy smell—the smell of pinecones in the fall, of wood chips in the summer and wet soil in the spring.

The smell of my mate.

The smell of home.

Wait, had I formed a mating bond with him without realising it?

Oh, Goddess.

I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down hard on my lip, trying to punish myself for how I felt at that moment. My father's death wish had finally come through—I had managed to get myself mated to a man.

I'd heard mates could also hear each other's thoughts. Was that why we could communicate through thoughts in that battle?

Alexander, oblivious to the thoughts fighting for dominance in my head, pulled up a leatherskin water bottle from the side of the saddle. "Are you thirsty?" He asked, then poured the water down his throat. He handed the bottle to me and I did the same, gulping from it. He appeared fidgety and nervous, and I knew the brief whatever-it-was between the both of us had affected him the same way it had affected me. Maybe I was better at hiding it than he was.

Or maybe he had more to hide than I did.

I handed the bottle back to him without meeting his eyes, but the Goddess had other plans for us. My fingers brushed his as he collected the bottle, and I felt a spark of desire move through my body from that single point of contact.

Right there and then, I wanted nothing more than to turn around on the horse and mark him as my mate.

"Look sharp, we're already home." Alexander said suddenly, startling me a bit. I pulled myself from my naughty thoughts and looked around: the grassy plains we'd been crossing was giving way to a settlement now. Houses sprang up along the dirt road we were crossing—small, homely houses with female wolves doing their washing at the back and little wolves playing at the front. Immediately Alexander's horse walked in, they all chanted: "Alpha! Alpha!"

I watched as Alexander waved to his people with a smile. I looked around, catching a few stares thrown my way. Some were curious, others were plain friendly, but most were hostile.

I cringed in the saddle that I sat in, feeling my confidence dwindle by a few degrees. My heart shriveled as I remembered the people that were massacred in my Turning Feast; I wondered how many people were left in my father's pack now. These people here definitely didn't like me. Perhaps they noticed the omen of death that was hanging over my head.

I wanted so desperately for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

For some reason, Alexander seemed to have picked up the change in my spirit. "What's wrong?" He leaned down to whisper in my ear.

"I'm fine," I replied.  How did I go about explaining that his people seemed to hate me?

We got to the end of the small settlement, where a large house stood. Alexander suddenly grabbed my waist and set me down from the horse gently, then he followed suit and came down.

"Welcome to the Moon Stone pack." Alexander murmured, his eyes on me, and I forced a smile.

I certainly didn't feel welcome.

A woman emerged from the pack house and walked towards us slowly. She was heavily pregnant, but that didn't lessen her beauty. She had the type of hair that I'd always admired and craved for: lush, blonde and thick, with bangs to go. She smiled, showing off deep dimples as she approached Alexander. Then he leaned down and planted a kiss on her cheek, and my heart shriveled up and died inside of me.

He had a wife.

The woman turned to me, her green eyes wide and friendly, and she nodded politely to me. Then she turned to her husband and asked:

"Who's she?"