5

Andrea’s POV

I screamed my lungs out in a useless attempt to ease my immense heartache but it did me no good.

The ache inside my heart kept on intensifying, destroying every bit of me and pulling me down into a dark pit filled with nothing but agony.

I was on my hands and knees over the dark, freezing forest ground.

The second I threw myself into the portal, I knew I can never go back to my foster family and carry on where I left off.

I’d be putting them in danger because I knew I’m going to be hunted down now.

They weren’t very great to me during the years I lived with them but they weren’t so awful that I would put them in danger either. They gave me food, shelter, and a normal life to live and that’s everything I needed from them. They didn’t love me the way they loved their biological son; who was born a year after I came to live with them, but I was still grateful that they took me in and gave me a place to live in instead of giving me back to social services especially after they were able to conceive a child of their own.

I had a split second to think of a place to portal to when I jumped through and my mind chose a forest as far away from that family and as far away from the other rogues as well; whatever is left of them anyway.

The rogue alphas who joined hands with alpha victor won’t take lightly the fact that I not only failed to kill Alec, but ended up saving his damn life too.

I was sure whoever survived will make sure to relay what happened and I was positive they will hunt me down and kill me for my betrayal.

Thank goddess I didn’t officially join them with a submission ritual or things would have been more complicated.

If a rogue leaves the pack after submitting to its alpha, the sentence would be an immediate and gruesome death. You join a rogue pack, you’re in it for life. I learned that from my brother.

Not that now I won’t be killed after what I had done, but at least I don’t have any connection to them.

If the rogues won’t hunt me down, there is still another person who is going to do everything he can to find me.

Alec.

He won’t just let me be connected to him and leave me be.

He is either going to kill me or reject me to end the connection.

“Or he will accept us and forgive…” Clara started to say with a hopeful tone before I cut her off angrily “Stop giving yourself false hope! He won’t accept us okay? Not in a million years from now! Get it through your head, it’s not going to happen”

“You think the way you want! I am not going to give up on him and his wolf before I get to know them! I wasn’t there when you started hating him ten years ago! I’m not going to judge him solely based on that interaction you shared with him when you were eight years old! Maybe he’s changed. Maybe he truly had no power to stop his father’s order. Why won’t you give him the benefit of the doubt? Why didn’t you stick around enough to find out the truth instead of running away like this? Is this better? Us being all alone in this damn forest, scared and hurting when any second we could be captured by the rogues and killed? At least with Alec we would have been safe from them!” Clara snapped at me fiercely.

I was being lectured by my wolf, it was a first and it left me stunned to silence, unable to talk back.

I closed my eyes and fisted my hands tightly, trying to manage my emotions and clear my head enough to think about my survival.

I managed to push my own agony aside but I was left with Alec’s own anger and heartache. It was floating inside me, growing and festering in my chest. I could feel it quite vividly and it caused me to break down again and scream out my frustration until my voice was hoarse.

Clara could no longer withstand my mental breakdown and decided to shift to end my screaming.

I gave up my control to her, let her run off wherever she wanted as I shrunk back to that dark pit and decided to leave her be and let her take us wherever she wanted. I was tired mentally and physically, I just wanted someone else to lead the way for me and take control for a while.

A few hours later, Clara decided to speak with me again. She was giving me time to get over my own mourning and time for her own anger of me for running away from Alec to fade away.

She has been walking around in the huge forest for hours but she wasn’t tired at all. We were both restless, unable to sleep or stop moving for fear of the rogues finding us.

The sun was about to rise shortly and the atmosphere was about to get warmer. It was the middle of winter. The night was ice cold but because we were in our wolf form, our fur was able to keep us warm enough. I would never be able to survive the night naked.

“Do you even know where we are? How far are we from Alec’s pack” she asked me stiffly.

I imagined gritting my teeth and leveling her with a dark stare as I said tightly “We’re pretty far thank goddess. We already agreed that I’m not going to seek his help. It’s bad enough knowing he might find us any second now and do goddess knows what to me for what I did! We just have to keep hiding for a week or two until the heat dies down and both the rogues and Alec forget about me”

“You’re delusional honey and stupid as well” she snapped at me.

I couldn’t argue with that. I sighed internally and didn’t answer her. She was right. My own wolf is better at facing the reality I’m trying so hard to ignore. I’m only fooling myself here. I’m quite doomed.

“Fine! They won’t forget about us you happy? We’re dead either way. Alec won’t protect me. I’m sure of it” I told her emotionally as I tried hard to hold back my tears.

She groaned at me “Okay if we’re dead anyway, do you prefer getting killed by the rogues or by our mate? I prefer the mate option because he might not be so inclined to kill us like they are. So I say we go back to his pack and get this over with. There is no other way”

She continued lightly “Besides, weren’t you the one hoping it would be epic if he kills us so he could feel the pain of killing his own mate and give you some closure for ruining your life? It’s a win win”

I mulled it over in my head. She’s right. Goddess I shouldn’t have tried to run away through the portal. What the hell was I thinking? That’s right, I wasn’t. I was acting on basic instinct and my instinct at that moment was to flee rather than stay and fight; or in this case face Alec’s wrath along with his brother’s. Running away from them seemed like the right move to my confused head at the time.

I said in a brooding tone “We’re pretty far from his pack. Like a three day journey far. I don’t think we can make it Clara. I’m sorry”

She howled in anger. She knows it’s a long shot to make it to his pack too.

But despite that, there was a determination to not give up that easily. She started running again through the forest, but this time with a more focused purpose and a destination in her head.

“Which way should I go?” she asked me determinedly.

The forest we were in was one I visited with my foster family when I was fifteen. We were going on a road trip to visit some of their relatives for the holiday and we camped here for the night because their son wanted to experience camping in a tent for the first time.

Of course then, it wasn’t freezing cold and the ground wasn’t covered with snow. So it was a pretty enjoyable trip.

I was about to disclose the sad truth that I was pretty lost on the right direction when an intense smell invaded Clara’s nose.

A smell that made her fur stand up fully and a tremor that has nothing to do with the cold to run through her.

Rogues.

“Run!” I shouted at her in fear.

As she ran at her full speed as far away from the reeking smell as possible, I knew it was pointless.

We were going to be captured no matter how far we run.

I’m going to die.

Alec will be thrilled about that. For sure.