Authors: Olivia Arran
Images of Eric, and his twisted games, flowed through my mind. The mental torture he loved to subject me to. At first he used to insist that we were meant to be together, be super charming and sweet. Everything I had ever wanted in a man. Promises of love and family, a secure home complete with fun and laughter. Then he had started to twist his promises, threading them with ultimatums I would have to meet — how I should behave, what I should wear, even what I should talk about and to who! The worst, and the one that broke through the web of deceit he had spun, was when he told me he was going to take other women to bed — whenever he wanted and whomever he wanted. He had no plans of settling for me. And why should he, he had said, when I was an orphan with unknown lineage, and he was the future Alpha. I should be grateful he was willing to mate with me. He had informed me of all this while trying to force me to the ground, pushing and tearing at my clothes, pawing at my body. At that point I had known I couldn’t live this way.
“Kara?”
Snapped out of my nightmare recollections, I shuddered. No way was I being taken for a fool again. “You don’t know everything, Lisa.”
“I know enough, and I’ve guessed some,” she replied, sitting next to me on the bed and patting my hand. “We all have bits of our past that we don’t like to remember. That scare or haunt us in our present. They have helped form who we are, but they don’t define us. We can choose who we want to be. To act with courage or to hide scared.” Her face was flushed and she avoided meeting my eyes as she continued. “When we met in the spring you were still hiding, still avoiding looking at the truth. You were a shadow of who you are now, and you’ve only just begun to believe in yourself. Imagine what it would be like if you trusted your judgment and gave life a real whirl? Allowed it to take you on a roller coaster ride filled with excitement, happiness, and possibly true love? Then imagine what it would be like to avoid all that.” She squeezed my hands tight.
“I’ve been running for too long,” I said, remembering the long, lonely winter roaming the mountains alone. Scared of being found by Eric, but also scared of being alone and losing myself to my wolf. Too much time running in our fur coats could damage the human part of our souls. But I couldn’t have survived in the wild without losing my human inhibitions, and giving myself over to the beast that shared my soul. Lisa had found me in the spring, when I had been alone and wild for months already.
Recognizing the human within, she had followed me, shifting to her cat to stare me down relentlessly, until I had shifted, too. I almost hadn’t remembered how, but she had talked me through it, reminding me how to take a human shape. She had made a simple campfire meal and talked to me for hours about nonsense, allowing my fragmented human mind to start to heal, and when the memories had started to come back of what Eric had done, she had wrapped her arms around me, holding me, while I alternately wretched and sobbed, never questioning the reason why.
“That’s why I went to James,” I said. “I need to be human again, to stay human, and that means facing Eric again.”
“James is a proper Alpha. I mean, he just
is
an Alpha without having to do anything silly to prove it. No power games, pissing contests, or trophies for James —
that’s
why he’s different from Eric,” Lisa explained. “I know Eric had you fooled—”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’ve grown up around a lot of powerful Alpha’s, sweetie. I’ve also met some Alphas who are twisted by that power, and the results aren’t pretty. They usually have to be put-down because when their souls are tainted by the madness, there is no coming back for them.” A look of pure anguish flashed across her face.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wrapping my arms around her smaller frame and hugging her tight. “You can talk to me, you know?”
“I know, sugar, thanks. Maybe one day…but not now. Now, are you going to go get your man?” Leaping to her feet, she pulled me to standing and gave me a little shove toward the door. “You’ll never know unless you try, and if you don’t try then you’ll end up regretting it! Trust in the Mother, trust in the bond that you felt.”
Laughing at the overwhelming enthusiasm that was typical Lisa, her curls bobbing crazily around her head as she bounced on the balls of her feet, I hugged her to me.
“Okay, okay! I’m going!”
Kara
I
ntent on finding James
, I headed down the hallway, following the sounds of the party, which seemed to still be in full swing. I was going to give it a go. If we were true mates, then we were meant to be together, were right for each other. He made me feel safe — which was a first for the males I knew — and yet I still felt deliciously on edge around him. Like my hormones were standing up and dancing a jig whenever he looked at me, all male and rugged and a little bit growly, — yum! My stomach flip flopped at the thought of him towering over me, making me feel all feminine and desirable. Rounding yet another corner, the music grew louder. Going the right way then, thank the Mother, this house was like a rabbit warren — all twists and turns.
“Got you!” a voice growled in my ear as arms grabbed around my waist, yanking me down a dark side corridor. A sweaty, moist palm clamped over my mouth, stifling my shrieks and rendering me mute. A stale, musky smell surrounded me - Eric! Frantically, I jabbed my elbows against hard muscle. Wriggling, I tried to escape the iron grip of his arms.
“My sweet, little Kara,” Eric said, his words a sing-song whine. “Why do you always test me? You play these little games, making me chase you — wanting me to catch you.” Grunting, he nuzzled my neck, licking along my cheek.
Shuddering, I swallowed back the rising bile, and bit down hard on his fleshy palm, until the metallic taste of blood flooded my mouth.
“Mother-fucking-bitch!” he hissed, tugging his hand away.
Quickly I spat on the floor, wishing for mouthwash or, even better, vodka to disinfect my mouth. “Let me go, you bastard!” I shouted.
Snap!
My head flew back from the force of the blow, and I would have fallen to my knees but for the iron grip he still had on me. Blackness threatened to swallow me as the thundering rush of blood echoed in my ears. Needles jabbed relentlessly into my skull, shattering all cohesive thought, and the threat of vomiting reared its head again.
“You
will
be quiet and listen to me! I grow tired of these games. Your time is up, you have been outplayed, and it is time to submit to your master.”
He pulled me back tighter against his hard, steroid-muscled body and, with every word, I could feel his excitement growing, pressing against my behind.
“And you
will
submit, Kara. Deliciously unwilling—” he ground his cock against me, “—I can’t wait. You may not enjoy it at first, or the second or third times, but you will eventually. Then, when you are broken, when you will do everything I ask you — just to make it stop — and you are carrying my child, I will let my lieutenants play with you.” He laughed, a sickeningly hollow sound. “You will
not
enjoy that, I promise.”
The words were not new, the vile threats and repeated promises the same as those he had whispered to me during my last year with his pack, but they hit me like a freshly delivered punch to the stomach. I had not escaped. All that time, alone in the wild, had it been for
nothing
? Fighting my heaving stomach, I steeled myself. Show him no weakness, not now, not when I had come so far.
“You can’t make me,” I hissed, twisting around to look him in the eye.
A blankness stared back — cold and hollow. An edge of madness swirled in his eyes.
A cold, triumphant smirk twisted his face, and a coldness threaded through my heart — what now? He whistled — a long, low sound — and snapped his fingers. Moving silently, like the predators they were, his goons slid from the shadows.
They leered at me, with matching sickening expressions. The one on the right licked his lips, revealing stained and crooked teeth. It was a slow and deliberate movement, one he punctuated by grabbing his crotch. Rubbing himself slowly, he jerked his groin at me, growling. “I can’t wait to have our turn to play,” he said, his eyes promising pain and humiliation.
“Never!”
“Oh, sweet, Kara, don’t be so hasty to deny my friends,” Eric said, sounding like the cat with the cream, or maybe the wolf who had caught the rabbit — to be a little more species specific. “See what they have brought you? Or rather, what they have brought me?”
My gaze swung from Goon 1, as I had named him, to Goon 2. He clutched at something lumped haphazardly over his shoulder. I strained my eyes, peering into the shadows at the unmoving lump. Pulling away from Eric, I fought his grasp, straining to look around Goon 2, to see what he was holding. My heart hammered in my chest — I knew the answer, I just didn’t want to
see
.
A long, slender arm hung lifeless down his back, the hand tipped with nails the color of pink cotton candy. Corkscrew curls bounced as he shifted her carelessly on his shoulder.
With renewed fervor, I shoved at Eric, scratching and hitting any part I could reach, as he struggled to clamp my arms to my sides. “Lisa!” I screamed. “No. No! Lisa!”
No response, no movement.
A keening sound clawed its way from my throat as my legs gave way. I hung in Eric’s grasp, all the fight drained from me, my eyes locked on Lisa. He had her. He had hurt her. Was she—?
Goon 2 quirked an eyebrow, his teeth set in a vicious approximation of a smile. “She’s not dead” —his meaty hand smacked Lisa hard on her behind— “
yet
. Gonna have lots of fun with her first,” he said, while groping and fondling Lisa’s motionless body.
That was it. I heaved the contents of my stomach onto the floor.
“You have no choice, Kara.” Eric’s voice cut through the sound of my retching. “You will deny James and choose me in front of the Council. I will not have anyone contesting my claim to you again. Choose me, and Lisa will live. She will be set free — eventually — but she will live, and you will have saved her. Choose James, and Lisa will die, after being enjoyed lavishly and brutally of course. Or maybe during? That would be a difficult decision…”
I swallowed to clear my throat. “I choose you and she gets to go free? Not harmed?”
“Now, I didn’t say not
harmed
. I will agree to not maimed or permanently scarred.”
“No, I want her not harmed. Not touched. Not tortured.”
“So, you are coming round to my way of thinking? Good.” He reached forward and gently brushed the hair from my face, before grabbing my jaw in a bruising grip, holding me, as he lowered his mouth to mine. “But remember — you do not have the bargaining power here — I do!” His breath whispered across my lips before he mashed his mouth across mine, his teeth cutting and tearing, tongue forcing and invading.
He pulled away with a wrench. “Shit, you taste like crap! Why’d you have to throw up and ruin it?” he whined.
I looked at Lisa, my best friend. She would do it for me, in a heartbeat. My chest wrenched, the pain of the choice excruciating.
James
. I never got to tell him that I wanted to try. I never got to try to be
me
with him. To see if it would work. To take that leap of faith. And now it was over, already. There was no choice, only one choice — Lisa.
I turned to Eric, not trying to hide my revulsion, letting it show on my face. “Not harmed. Not touched. Not tortured. Those are my terms, and
my
bargaining power is my willingness.”
Eyeing me like a wolf eyes a doe, he slowly nodded, his lips smirking in satisfaction. “Agreed, but if you break the terms, then so shall we.”
My wolf howled in protest of the agreement, wanting its mate, and wanting to rip the throat out of the one who stood in her way. I pushed her deep down inside, building a cage around the heartbreak and anguish we both felt. Numbness encased my heart as I nodded.
“Agreed.”
Eric nodded once at his goons, who merged silently with the shadows, taking their precious package with them.
He turned to follow.
“Eric—”
Stopping, he looked at me, his eyes visually stripping me bare, holding a glint of promise. “Yes, my mate?”
“If she is hurt — in any way — I will destroy you. I promise you
that.”
Walking away, he tossed his answer over his shoulder, his words fading and merging with the thump of music.
“
Promises, promises, Kara. I’m looking forward to our reunion. I’ll make sure it’s one you don’t forget in a hurry.”
He was gone.
A chill crept over me, a numbness swallowed me. My future was destroyed. My heart shattered. I slid to the floor, curling my arms around my knees and hugged them to my chest for warmth.
I had never felt so cold.
James
M
y wolf twitched awake
, the mating bond that had been started with Kara tugged at my soul. She was in pain, so much pain! For me to feel it now, with the bond barely formed…
“Where’s Kara?”
Sean, who stood off to the side of the room, both observing the crowd and drinking with a single-minded purpose, snapped alert at my urgent tone.
Striding over to my side he answered, “She went upstairs to find Lisa, about an hour ago. Why? What is it?”
“Have you
felt
anything from Lisa?”
Sean sighed heavily, staring into his drink.
“There is nothing to
feel
. We have not started a bond. I’m not even sure—”
Frustrated, I shoved away Sean’s confusion and misery that I could feel through the Alpha bond. “I don’t have time for this now, I need to find Kara. Something has happened.”
Turning, I pushed my way through the crowd to the stairs, and started up them, two at a time. Sean followed close behind. The tug on the bond grew stronger as I reached the top, and I pulled at it, trying to figure out which way she had gone.
“This way.” Lengthening my stride, I turned right down the corridor, and then left.
After a few wrong turns, and a couple more corridors, I slammed to a halt. I sniffed the air. Kara’s warm spicy-jasmine scent was strong, but underneath it was the musky-sour scent of—
“Eric,” I growled, my wolf hurtling to the surface and clawing at my skin, desperate to protect it’s mate.
“Lisa…” Sean whispered, after sniffing the air. He started to run, his large, muscular frame barreling down the corridor, knocking paintings askew and sending drapes flying.
At a flat run, I followed.
Here,
my wolf whispered.
Stop!
There, on the floor curled into a small ball of arms and legs, was Kara. She was rocking a little, but apart from that, there was no movement. No sound.
Dropping to my knees, I scooped her up in my arms and cradled her softly to my chest. Her arms snaked around my neck and clung tight, pulling my face down into her soft, jasmine-scented hair. Jasmine and tear scented, I realized, breathing deeply.
My wolf yipped its joy at having our mate in our arms. Her soft, beautifully curvy frame pressed close, and her scent surrounded us.
“Where is Lisa?” Sean demanded, his voice a low growl.
Lifting my head from Kara’s cloud of hair, I looked over at him. His muscles rippled, stretching across his frame, as he resisted the change. Fists, the size of small boulders tipped with claws, were clasped at his sides while his eyes darted around the corridor, searching.
Searching for Eric.
“Where is she!” Sean roared.
Kara’s head snapped up, her eye’s cloudy with shock, and bloodshot with tears.
“He took her,” she said, her voice a small whisper.
Sean flinched, as though struck. Then, in a flash of movement he was beside Kara.
“
Where
did he take her?
How
did he take her?
Why
did he take her?”
With every word Kara flinched, shrinking into herself, shaking.
“Sean…” I growled, a warning from his Alpha.
I started to rise, still holding Kara easily, but she struggled and pulled herself to her feet.
Wobbly and unsteady, she faced Sean. Her face was ravaged with grief, but she stood strong and laid her small hand on his arm, an arm that could snap her in two.
Amazing,
said my wolf, and I agreed. She was amazing, and beautiful, even in her grief.
“She was taken because of me.” She held up a hand to indicate she wasn’t finished. Taking a deep breath she continued. “Eric is sick. He wants me — I don’t know why, maybe because I won’t surrender — so he took Lisa as insurance.”
Her head fell on her last words and she missed the stricken look in Sean’s eyes. “He will give her back, unharmed, if I give myself to him in front of the Council.”
Her words hit me like blows, squarely in the chest, robbing me of the ability to breathe.
She continued, apparently oblivious to my pain. “He wants to win, of course. And he will do anything to win.”
Sean fell back against the wall, his spine curled and his shoulders slumped in dejection and pain. “It’s my fault,” he muttered, seemingly to himself. “I rejected her. I lied to myself, thinking if I didn’t acknowledge the fact…then it wouldn’t be true. That I could find someone else. Fucking idiot! Why? She’s not good enough? You’re not good enough for her, more like!” He punched the wall, his voice rising in anger. Through the Alpha bond I could feel his pain and suffering, his confusion, and then his resolve.
“I will get her back—” Kara and Sean both spoke at once.
Kara looked at me, then fixed her gaze on Sean. “I
will
get her back, I agreed to his terms.”
A death blow.
Sean shook his head. “No. I will go. I will get her back. You have my word.” Sean looked over at me, his eyes burning bright with resolve. “
I
will get her back, and I will not return until I have.” With a curt nod, he pushed himself off the wall and set off down the corridor, not looking back.
Kara’s eyes followed his departure, grief and pain pulling her features taut.
“I have to, James. You know that, right? I don’t have a choice…”
“You do! Choose me, choose us!” I said, moving toward her, wanting to pull her into my arms again, to feel her nestled close to my heart. “I’ll fix this. Figure something out. Sean will find her—”
“In time?”
“He’s our best tracker. If anyone can find her — he can. And he will.”
She held up her hands, stopping me in my tracks. Strong, yet fragile. All I wanted in a mate. I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off with a firm shake of her head.
“I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. Allowed a lot of people to control me — make my decisions for me. This time I know what to do. She is my best friend and I won’t allow her to suffer for me. I escaped once, I can do it again. After.”
“
After
? After he has taken you, destroyed you, degraded you? I won’t allow it!”
“
You
don’t have a choice. The choice is mine!”
“You are my true mate! Of course I have a choice!”
“I might be your true mate—”
“You admit it, then? That we are destined to be together?” Elation filled me at her acknowledgment, followed swiftly by anger at her stubbornness. I grabbed her, tugging her into my arms.
“It doesn’t matter, no matter what I had decided or thought, it doesn’t matter!” she shrieked, her words muffled by my shirt. Beating her fists against my chest, her body shook with sobs of despair.
Suddenly, she pushed away, pinning me with her vivid-green gaze.
“I am going to save Lisa. I would not be the person I want to be if I didn’t. I
can’t
choose you, or choose us. I’m sorry. If you respect me at all — prove it, and don’t follow me!”
With a ripple of muscle under her skin, she shifted, her bones sliding and reforming, giving way to her wolf. Honey-brown, standing as high as my chest, she stared at me with Kara’s teal-green eyes. Eyes like a glowing emerald. She was gorgeous, her head regally shaped, her body lithe and muscular. My wolf howled at the sight of its mate, and pawed to be let out, to run with her.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered.
With a shake of her head she turned and ran, her claws skating on the wooden floor.
Running after her I watched her leap over the balcony, land gracefully in the middle of the party-goers — who didn’t bat an eyelid, not an unusual sight after all — and race out of the doors, into the night and the forest beyond.
I fought the urge to shift, to chase and catch my mate. My wolf battled within, fighting to be set free. It wanted to run through the night, stalking and hunting, to catch and take its prize. The lust of the mating urge filled me, a throb pulsating through my veins, and tightening my cock to the point of pain. Throwing my head back, I let my wolf howl its displeasure from my human throat.
I clamped my mouth shut. The eerie and unnatural sound, filled with my frustration and pain, was cut short. I was determined to be the man Kara wanted, to prove to her that I did respect her.
Meeting everyone’s upturned eyes, the party having fallen silent at my outburst, I raised my voice. “Tomorrow, I fight! To put a stop to the evil that has befallen the Smithrock Pack, and to claim my
true mate
! My true mate, Kara, who will lead as Alpha by my side. Your Alpha!”
Slowly, the crowd blinked, as if one, then a resounding cheer echoed through the night air. Whooping and hollering echoed through the large wooden house, as the pack anticipated the challenge and celebration to come.
Tension thrumming through my body, my nerves stretched tight like elastic bands. I turned away from the reveling crowd to find Amanda elegantly sprawled in one of the occasional chairs that were dotted around the house.
“Not now, Amanda,” I said, waving her off.
“I’m not here for what you think, James,” she replied, coming to her feet in a graceful roll. “I heard what had happened to Lisa—” she picked at her impeccably manicured fingernails, a very ‘un-Amanda’ like gesture, “—she doesn’t deserve that, no-one does! And I heard what Kara has done, what she decided.” She looked up from her nails and misery colored her eyes, turning them a dull, murky blue. “She has shown that she has what it takes to be an Alpha. She put her pack first — Lisa — with no thought for herself. That’s what it takes, that’s what you need from your mate.”
“Amanda…” I had never felt the Alpha bond as strongly with Amanda as some of the rest of the pack. Probably because she was a strong, independent she-wolf, with Alpha tendencies herself. But I could feel her pain through the bond now.
“I’d like to help, any way I can. I didn’t know it was the Smithrock Pack. I just wanted to tell you that I won’t cause anymore trouble…you know…between you and Kara.”
Thoroughly confused by her change of heart, I sent a questing probe through the Alpha-bond, trying to figure her out.
“Stop that!” she growled, baring her teeth. “I’m said I’m sorry — not puppy-whipped! As I said before, you’ll never be my actual Alpha. I follow you because I want to — not because I have to. I don’t
need
no stinkin’ Alpha,” she muttered, stalking off down the stairs.
Shaking my head, bemused as always, by Amanda and her inexplicable idiosyncrasies, I followed her down to find my lieutenants. After all, I had a battle to prepare for and a girl to win.