All Chapters of The Tyrant alpha: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

“Go away!”Finally—finally—he slowly folds the jacket and places it in front of me on the ground.Then he digs in his front pocket and pulls out a white square. A cloth napkin. I recognize it. He sets it on top of the jacket.He reaches behind his back and takes out my slingshot, laying it carefully on top of the pile. It’s the one I lifted off Danny when he ate the cookies I’d hidden in the freezer. The one Cadoc nicked from me that day in the library.My tears stop from sheer surprise.He doesn’t know how you’re supposed to do it—maybe he doesn’t even know what he’s doing—but he’s giving me his markers.“I’m never going to leave you again,” he says as if that’s the final word, turns and walks back to the fire where he squats and pokes it with a stick.I realize my mouth is open. I shut it. The fever that came over me seeps into the cold ground and my sobs fade into hiccups. I rest my back against the Airstream step.Cadoc messes around with whatever he’s doing like I’m not over here

I head north. After a beat, Cadoc catches up and matches his pace to mine.I lead the way along a ridge which eventually descends into a ravine. We follow that until it veers east. I keep going north, picking my way up a steep, rocky incline. On the other side of the crest, there’s a wooded valley that I haven’t explored yet. I’ve marked it C4 on the grid. I’m kind of cheating—map-making as I search. I haven’t found anything good, yet, so switching between foraging and sketching makes the days slightly less tedious.“What are we looking for?” Cadoc asks when we pause at the top of the hill to catch our breath.“Ashbalm, dragon’s tongue, wolf’s bane,” I tick off the big three. I don’t want to make conversation, but it’s not the worst thing walking with him.No matter how slow I go, he stays by my side. If I stop, he stops. What’s really strange is that his company is somehow familiar, not that I know him—I don’t know him at all—but our steps somehow match.I bet my wolf recognized that

“Well, uh—” He jerks his head in the direction we came. “We should, uh—”I let him lead, and I don’t make a crack about the tent he’s got in his pants. I wonder if it was the word ‘tits’ or ‘naughty bits’ that did it. Or the idea of a towel bath.Was he picturing it?The bond flows a little faster, a little more sparkly.I feel my insides warming, and it makes me nervous, so I pick up the pace, push myself until the walking is work. Cadoc matches his stride to mine.I don’t want to get lulled into a false sense of security again, or whatever it’s called when you know you’re in for a world of hurt, but you forget to brace yourself.I can’t afford it.Cadoc casts a worried glance down at me.Again, it’s not any different from his default face, but the fact that he looks down—and the subtle shift in the bond’s flow—makes it read worried.I don’t see what he has to be concerned about. He’s out here finding himself or whatever, but I’m sure the minute he turns back up at Moon Lake, everyon

“Stew.”He spins it to check out the label. “Beef.”My stomach does the gurgle it does now when it’s not sure whether it’s hungry or queasy. It’s been a long day. I follow him into camp, and I don’t fuss when he lays out his jacket for me to sit on and applies himself to lighting the fire. He gets it quicker this time.“Do you have something I can heat this in?” he asks.“In the trailer.”He bops inside to get it like it’s nothing—like Nia or Bevan or Pritchard would. Like it’s his territory.He’s like that everywhere I’ve ever seen him, even on those solstices when he toured the Bogs with his parents. He strode the boards like they belonged to him, and I guess they do. Or did.He comes back out with my huge cast iron pot and sets himself to hacking open a can with a pocket knife and cussing under his breath.“So what are you now if you gave up being the heir apparent?”“Same as I always was. An alpha with no pack.” He doesn’t look up from his task. There seems to be a lot of stew dri

Cadoc’s lips compress, and he shoves his hands in his jean pockets. “According to my parents, Broderick Moore made the momentous decision that we would no longer live like animals, prey to the elements, threatened by human encroachment and discovery. He had the foresight to understand that to survive, we needed to be more human than human, or they’d wipe us off the face of the earth.”This all sounds vaguely familiar, like a lecture I daydreamed through in history class.“So that’s what happened?” Broderick Moore must have had a silver tongue. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave here. Even empty and cold, it feels like a nest. Well built. Right.“That’s what they say.” There’s a sharp note of cynicism in his voice.“It’s pretty awesome. It’s got a sunroof.” I smile up at him. I don’t know why, but I don’t like the hint of bitterness in the bond. He’s obviously questioning what he’s been told since birth—and Fate knows he’s been fed a steady diet of bullshit—so of course it’s gonna throw h