“Amalea, wake up.” I open my eyes to Jackson standing over me. “Good morning, sunshine,” he says cheerfully. I brought you some fresh clothes and things. “Alpha wants to see you.” I sit up groggily. “Is James back?” “No,” he answers, handing me an outfit, some wet wipes, a hand mirror, and a brush, “but it’s good news, I think. The Alpha says this will all be settled finally.” I don’t share his optimism. “Settled” could mean a lot of things, and it worries me James isn’t here. My kids aren’t in Green River. They’d never go to Green River. They are in the cave. I know it, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him, to trust him. What worries me more is that he said he had a reliable source. This smells like trouble. The Alpha wanted James gone for some reason, out of the way. He has already interrogated me numerous times, ordering me not to tell James successfully, so that’s not it unless he plans to take things further. Each time he’s tried thus far, he’s forced his command on me, and
Pulled into the afternoon sun, I can't help but smile despite my circumstances as I feel its warmth on my skin. All I've had is a tiny dungeon window for weeks. I can handle the cold, the rats, and the stench, but the loss of the light, that was something else.Looking around, I see the Blood Moon men are all packed up and ready to go. I seem to be the last of their luggage, or at least that's how Chad treats me. He ushers me to a van at the back of the convoy and opens the rear doors.Five familiar faces look out at me, blinking from the sudden change in light. Chad shoves me inside roughly before slamming me into an open seat at the end of the left bench nearest the door before slapping chains around my wrists and securing me in place.I try to take in my surroundings while I still can. It reminds me of a prison transport van from a movie. There are bench-style seats against each side with chains welded to the floor. There's no access to the cab from the back beyond a small window w
I jerk awake as the van suddenly stops, and I hear movement around us. The doors open, letting the dusky light of evening filter in. We’d driven all day. I’m happy to see Chad nowhere in sight as a tall, sandy-haired man unlocks our chains and leads us towards an open grassy area where the men are setting up tents. Too many of us for a hotel, I gather. I scan my surroundings to form the beginnings of a plan. I’d gained little insight on the trip here so far beyond there would be few stops, and I had to get us all out of here. Plus, the further we get from home, the harder it will be to make our way back to the cave. The area is unfamiliar. It looks like a campground of sorts, maybe, but not a heavily used one. The road in is little more than a trail, and there are no established fire pits. It may be private land. Another stop on the way to the front, like my home was. The trees are different, but some of the herbs and plants I recognize. One, in particular, catches my eye. Luck of t
“It’s a bit like an arranged marriage. Anthony has his playtime. Why shouldn’t I have mine?” Alicia purrs, stepping closer and running a hand down my chest. All I can smell is her perfume. Fucking sick compared to her natural scent before she rejected me. Fitting, a scent as fake as she is. I step away from her. “I’d like to talk to the men who saw the children.” “There’s plenty of time for that,” she replies, moving toward me again, closing the distance between us. She pulls her body tight against mine. “It’s just you,” she whispers in my ear, nipping at the lobe, “and me right now.” I feel her hand slip down further, moving to undo my pants. There’s a time when I would have died for this, but now? I have no interest in this treacherous bitch. I grab her wrist and pull her hand off me and push it back at her. “You think you can reject me?” She laughs. “You’re a beta, James, and not even a very good one. I’m above you. If I want you, I’ll have you.” I feel her aura rising. Is she fu
I took a 45-minute shower, and I can still smell her on me. I throw the shirt she gave me and my ripped pants in the trash and start to pack up my things to head back to Dark Wood. Not that I brought much. Most of it was for the kids: coloring books, road snacks, and some stupid handheld gaming systems. What the fuck was I thinking? I’d just take a leisurely drive down to Green River, pick up my mate’s kids who I’ve never met, and have some new daddy bonding on the drive home? They’re hiding, running for their lives. Even if I could find them, why would they trust me? I’m an idiot. I head down the stairs with my things just as Anthony comes through the front door. “James, leaving already? I thought you were looking for some missing kids?” “They aren’t here. Bad intel,” I say, trying to keep my head down. Can he smell her on me too? “At least join us for dinner and training later. My warriors could use the challenge. I bet you could teach them a thing or two.” He hangs up his jacket
I barely slept. Kind of hard to do when you’re chained standing up. Plus, Chad’s threat haunted my thoughts. I waited for him to come back to finish what he started. I expected him to come back, to send someone else. I braced for it, but he didn’t come, and neither did anyone else. I didn’t see him until just before breakfast. “Miss me?” He calls to me. I don’t answer. I couldn’t if I wanted to. I tried to ask one of the girls gathering wood to start fires for breakfast for water earlier, and no words came out. I stand on my toes as much as I can bear, but the chains inevitably have done a number on my neck—better the chains than Chad I guess. He saunters up grinning wide as his favorite girl from my ruined escape dinner follows him towards me, her face still showing faint signs of healing wounds. “Sorry I didn’t make our date. I found something sweeter.” He throws an arm around the girl’s shoulders before pushing her away, slapping her ass, and sending her to help cook. “You see t
The warrior is gone when I wake up, but the camp is still quiet. I should have asked his name. I have a feeling I’ll need all the allies I can get. I’m left alone to my thoughts for some time, listening to the camp slowly coming to life. My morning goes much like yesterday—chained in a dark room, breakfast clean-up, scraps for me, and it’s back to the dark van. The day is warm, and the bodies are starting to smell. I wonder if I’m the only one that notices when Liza finally breaks the silence, “They stink.” I guess that answers that question. I hear her kick her foot at the tarp. “Don’t be disrespectful,” Mary chimes. Liza mimics her in a mocking tone. I feel like I should apologize to them again, but would it matter? Would they just go quiet again? “Do you know who the warrior is with the hazel eyes? He’s younger, about your age? Dark shoulder-length hair?” I ask instead. “That’s Adam,” Liza answers. “You got him on your first night? Lucky. He’s a gentleman.” There’s a hint of jeal
The rattling of the door startles me awake. I’m not sure how long I slept, but my spider friend finished her work. I think I’ll name her Charlotte. I trace the network of intricate lines she’s spun with my eyes wondering where she hides when her work is done as the door finally opens. “Breakfast,” a woman says handing me a bread roll and cup of water before scurrying back out the door. 9 am then. Their stupid routine will offer me some semblance of a clock. That might keep me semi-sane. I pace my cell while trying to eat my bread. It’s more a dinner roll really, and a stale one at that. I hoped to find something in this cell of use, but it’s just four six-by-eight thick stone walls. The door is the only opening, and the hinges are on the outside. Worse, the door itself is way too thick for me to have any hope of breaking even shifted. This is not going to be easy, especially half-starved and exhausted. I’m not sure I even could shift. My only chance is when people come and go, whic
“You can stay in my room!” Anna chirps as we come to a stop in front of a neon pink door. She swings it open to reveal an equally pink room. “I decorated it myself! It was one of the first spells Laumae taught me. She says I have an artist’s heart,” she continues proudly.“My room is next door, and Thomas is across the hall. There’s an empty room next to his for you. I wouldn’t stay in here if I were you. It looks like a pink elephant puked up Pepto,” Eric adds laughing. Anna gives him a death glare. “It does not! You’re just jealous you couldn’t figure out how to change your room!”He goes quiet and kicks a stuffed animal at his feet. Anna continues to show me all her treasures and triumphs oblivious to the nerve she’s struck in her brother. He continues to sulk for a bit before Anna mentions the training grounds, and he perks back up, tales of his newfound prowess with the bow and arrow pouring out of him.I soak up every word they say. Every expression they make. The way the light
Showered and in dry, clean clothes I feel much more like myself, albeit a far weaker version of myself. How long will it take to regain my strength I wonder? If I regain it. You certainly don’t hear tales of great rogue alphas in our histories. Is that because there are none, or because rogues don’t write history books? Time will tell.I eye the bed in the corner of the room. It’s strange to feel tired. Sleep has always been more of an optional pleasure for me than a necessity, but right about now, I feel as if I could sleep for a century. That would be one way to pass the time.Making my way over to the bed, I collapse really more than lie down, relieved to be off my feet, but just as I settle in and close my eyes, the door opens. Becca leans against the door frame with her hip. She doesn’t say anything at first, just watches me with her head cocked to the side. I sit up.“What?” I ask, trying not to let my annoyance show. I am her guest after all.“Just debating joining you in bed
The cold collision of my skin against rock jars me back into consciousness as the council guards walk away from me, leaving me in the mud with nothing but the echoes of their laughter. I knew this could happen. I just never believed it would.I push up out of the muck, trying to get a sense of where they’ve dumped me. Even that’s a struggle. I’ve never felt so weak, even when I was transitioning. Death hurt less than this. It’s as if a piece of every cell in my body has been violently ripped from me. It’s so quiet, startlingly alone, after feeling so many connections for so long.It’s no wonder there are so few rogue alphas. The few that survive the pack bonds breaking likely end things themselves just to escape the isolation. That won’t be me. I’m stronger than this. I can come back from this.The terrain is rocky here, and there’s a chill on the breeze, but no sounds of civilization. I’m not near a town. Mountain peaks peek over the trees around me. The road the guards brought me he
“Wait! Slow down!” I call out breathlessly to my strange guide as I struggle through the brush after him. I don’t know how far we’ve gone, but it feels like miles. Whatever I was dosed with may have worn off, but my body still feels foreign, like it belongs to someone else. Someone weak and slow. It doesn’t help that I have no shoes, and I’m constantly struggling to keep the cloak my guide gave me tied around me, but it is better than being naked.I nearly topple backward when he doubles back and pops up beside me—he certainly isn’t slow. “Have you seen others like me come from the mountain? Werewolves I mean? Two boys and a girl?” I ask, trying to distract myself from the creeping realization that I’ve now followed a fae creature deep into their wood. I’ve followed the enemy.He answers without hesitation—with an elvish stream of gibberish. I can’t understand him. His tone seems friendly at least. The confused look on my face as I try to puzzle out what he means must be clear because
My visit to the capital has gone a little differently this round. No luxury cars and comfortable accommodations, that’s for sure. Just cold dark walls and distrust. Worse, they’ve given me a cellmate this time—fucking Darius. Two days now, and he hasn’t said a word. He just sits there brooding. He’s plotting, I’m sure. That bastard is always plotting. His plotting got us into this. At least the council seems to view this matter with slightly more urgency than Alicia’s dramatic performance. We’re set to stand before them today. I still don’t know how I’m going to get out of this. Fuck, I still don’t understand what happened. All I know is it’s Darius’ doing somehow, and he’s got to pay. Thankfully, I’m not doomed to spend another awkward afternoon stuck in my cell. An omega gives us our daily bread and Darius gets his blood bag before a council agent escorts us to the meeting chamber. No one is working this time. All eyes are on us, and the looks we are getting are more than disappro
I can’t sense her anymore, but she can’t be dead. I felt her through the blood bond, followed our love all the way to a huge oak tree in the Dark Wood, but I couldn’t find her, and as dawn broke, I felt her move away before I lost her completely. I don’t understand any of this. Having fae blood explains her ability to shift into other animals, but not why I can’t feel her now. I can smell she was here. There’s an itch in my mind—something I used to know. Something familiar about her abilities. What have I been forced to forget, and what does it have to do with Amalea? It would take a powerful witch to cast an enchantment like this. To erase something from reality? That’s not child’s play. It’s not something that would be done on a whim or could be done by just anyone. It would have a price. Clouds gather overhead, casting a gloom over the forest as it begins to rain. I don’t want to, but I need to leave. I won’t figure out anything just sitting under this tree. I’ve been here for ho
It’s soft. Where—where am I? I should be dead. I try to open my eyes, but they feel heavy. I feel heavy, sleepy, distant from myself, like—I can’t think straight. My thoughts run from me, confuse me. Why is it soft? I can feel it all around me, against my skin, cradling me. Naked—I’m naked. Why? They hung me.I should be dead. It smells like soil, like earth, like home. Am I dead? Am I home? I have to open my eyes. Open. It takes all my strength, but slowly the world fades into view. Moss. The moss is soft. I’m below a tree, an oak tree.The realization sends a shot of sobering adrenaline through me, and my mind emerges from the haze—it’s not just any oak tree. It’s our oak tree! I’m laying at the tunnel entrance, but how did I get here? Who brought me here? Why am I naked? Why can’t I move?I try to wiggle my fingers, but they won’t budge, and my eyes flutter closed from the effort. My tears fall anyway. Who cares how I got here? I’m alive, and I’m home. I just need to sleep whatever
I can’t even look at her. I know if I do, I won’t be able to go through with this. Even if this isn’t a real execution. Fuck, even if she really does hate me—wants that asshole instead—she shouldn’t have to go through this. I can feel every step she takes. Her anger, confusion, hurt, fear, and now calm. She’s letting go. I just hope that I can bring her back.“The bag,” I manage, trying to keep my voice steady as I glance up at her—and that’s when I know. I feel it. A surge of defiance. I should have known her calm was just the eye of the storm. A smile plays across her perfect lips as she jumps off the platform before Jackson can put the bag over her head.She seems to fall in slow motion as I watch my world end. The council member will know. He’ll know she isn’t dead. He’ll know I tried to defy the council’s orders. They’ll kill her anyway, and me too maybe, if they don’t expel the pack from the alliance or both.I hear her bones snap, breaking me from my trance, but not at the end
I’ve had a lot of time to think—too much maybe. I wish that I had more time for so many things, but thinking isn’t one of them. The more I think about how I got here, about all the things that have been done to me, the angrier I get. Angry that I won’t get to do all the things I wanted in my life. That I won’t ever get to see my children again, to know if they’re alright, to see the people they’ll grow to be, to say goodbye. I’m angry that my own people put me here. That the leaders we chose to protect us built a system that uses us as fuel to create power for a few, for them. That I can’t do anything to change it, make it a better place for my children, for Liza, for everyone I love. That I’m letting them all down.“You didn’t eat your breakfast,” James muses beside me. I don’t need the mate bond to know he’s worried about me and that makes me even angrier. I hate him for putting his mark on me, for forcing fate on me, for being here right now instead of Darius.“I’m ready,” I repea