Chapter Eleven
Sebastian
I was equal parts relieved and ashamed when Alrick pulled the large container of leftover venison hash from the bag he had carried when we left the house we'd been imprisoned in. I know it's stupid – really, I do - but I absolutely detest eating raw meat, no matter what form I’m in. I love to hunt, but you better believe that I’m roasting my prey before I eat. When he asked if I was hungry, I'd admitted I was only because I knew my body needed energy to continue recovering. I was so sappily grateful that he had brought cooked food that I'd eaten it from his hand before I thought better of it. Luckily, Alrick hadn't seemed to mind. In fact, during our entire ordeal, he had yet to lose patience with me even once.
He'd taken care of me when I was injured, catered to my comfort as I recovered, and even on the trail, he was continuing to be considerate and solicitous – he was everything I could want in an Alpha. I swallowed a sigh. He really was perfect, but I was just setting myself up for disappointment by focusing on all of the traits that would make Alrick a perfect mate. I shook my head, trying to clear it, and was surprised when Alrick circled around, drawing up alongside me and burying his nose in the ruff of fur around my neck, never breaking his stride.
I waited for him to tell me why, but instead, he just pulled slightly ahead again and continued to lead the way.
We ran on through the night, only stopping to dodge miniature icebergs in the rivers as we drank. Each time we resumed our travels, Alrick circled back to sniff me, sometimes rubbing his body against mine and making soft growling noises deep in his throat. His body language was relaxed – soft ears, a gently lolling tongue, his plush tail at a jaunty angle – so I knew he wasn't angry; still, I didn't know exactly what he was doing.
When dawn began to threaten, Alrick led me to a dense thicket of underbrush a few hundred feet away from a gently rolling brook. We fought our way into the opening in the center – a challenge as the pack my Alpha carried repeatedly caught on the thorns in the bushes – and, again, Alrick told me to stay as I was when he began to shift. Different, though from the night before, instead of a human form, his werewolf clawed its way out. I drew back a short distance and watched, but there was no difference in the gentleness he treated me with.
He wrapped in the wool blanket from the pack and wandered down to the creek to refill our travel bottle of water. Then he pulled out the hash container and coaxed me to his side, alternately feeding us bits from his twisted, sharp-clawed hands. When we were done, he packed everything away and his full wolf reappeared, snuggling against me as the sun continued to rise.
When I woke in the thicket, I was warmer than I expected. I started to stretch but the giant nearly white wolf who was curled over me, nuzzling into my fur and making light, almost purring noise, made that impossible. Alrick was rubbing his face through my fur, biting lightly on the folds of skin around my neck, as his body rocked rhythmically against me. My arousal skyrocketed as I realized what he was doing, my Omega instincts kicking in to prepare my body, to ease his entry with copious amounts of sweet smelling slick. I groaned under my breath as my dick rapidly hardened; this entire situation was…fucked up.
The change in my scent did nothing to calm the Alpha above me who, I finally realized was just as deeply asleep as I'd been a few nights earlier. He continued to hump against my flank, his impressive length both too close to -and too far from - where I desperately wanted it. I knew the moment that he woke up; his body froze and a ragged breath tore through him. I forced myself to breathe rhythmically, faking sleep, as he carefully pulled away from me and, rising silently, worked his way free from the thicket and headed deeper into the forest.
The sun had been just about to set when Alrick had left me and now, with the moon rising on the opposite skyline, he still hadn't returned. I wasn't worried, exactly. That is, I knew that he could take care of himself. The niggling fear in the back of my mind that he had tired of playing protector to a useless Omega and moved on, leaving me behind, however, was one that I couldn't quite escape. When he finally returned, he was panting hard, the snow melting instantly in paw prints as each overheated limb extended. Whatever had happened, there was no doubt that he'd been running hard for quite some distance. I stepped forward cautiously, my body lowered and my eyes on the ground, to nuzzle against his cheek and lick under his chin, offering my submission.
As he had many times in the previous hours, Alrick buried his face in my ruff, inhaling deeply without speaking. This time, though, I caught a deep growling groan that escaped as he scented me and there was an obvious flood of territorial pheromones overwhelming me. I stood passively as he rubbed against me, dragging our bodies against each other, marking me as he would a member of his own pack. Then, I had a thought. A very personal, very unwelcome thought. It had been over a week since my last dose of heat suppressants. If I was coming into season, so to speak, that would definitely explain why an Alpha who disliked me was treating me like a treasured mate. I swallowed the frustrated cry that tried to escape my lips and continued to stand still as Alrick scented and marked me repeatedly until he was satisfied with the results. Regardless of my personal views on the matter, I was hardly in a position to go tilting at windmills.
Once Alrick was satisfied with my scent, he quickly loaded up the backpack and we struck out into the night. We'd only been traveling for a few hours when the large wolf in front of me slowed from a lope to a trot and then to a walk. He finally came to a full stop in the shadows of an ancient, towering pine tree. Alrick took a few tense, stiff-legged steps forward, throwing a growl over his shoulder when I started to follow. Taking the hint, I melted back against the rough, sweet-smelling bark of the tree. Alrick disappeared from sight only to return several minutes later. His body language had relaxed slightly, but he was still noticeably tense. Silently, he herded me back the way we had come, stopping after a few hundred feet.
"Humans," his thought came clearly through my mind. "Lots of them. We need to shift and mingle; see if we can find out where we are."
I nodded my agreement and threw myself into my shift; I must have taken Alrick by surprise because it was the first time that I had finished first. He followed quickly, rummaging through the bag to pull out a set of clothing for me and then one for himself.
"No sense in leaving what we needed for the dead men," he explained, seeing my confused look. "They'll fit well enough."
He was right, of course, and, once we were dressed, he tossed the backpack over one shoulder, clasped our hands together, and led me out of the forest and into the village that we had stumbled on to.
I like humans; really, I do, but the stench of so many in such a small area was beyond overwhelming to our sensitive noses. Compounding that discomfort was the fact that every time another male got too close to me or – Gods help us, bumped me – as we worked our way through the crowd, Alrick began snarling. Something about the busy streets in the quaint village struck me as odd, but between the overwhelming chemical scents that always accompanied humans – bath gels and soaps, shampoos and conditioners, styling products and deodorants – and Alrick's unusual behavior, I wasn't able to immediately put my finger on it.
"What are we doing?" I asked quietly as Alrick hustled me toward what seemed to be the center of town. "Where are we going?"
He stopped in his tracks and turned toward me, but instead of answering, he dragged my body flush with his and bent to bury his face in my neck, huffing and snarling. A full-body shiver raced through me as his fangs scraped along the tender skin.
"Get a room, you two!" a mocking voice called out over the sounds of the evening street traffic, startling me back to awareness.
I pulled back and stared up at the Alpha. His breathing was ragged, there was a slight flush to his skin, and his body trembled ever so slightly as though with the effort of holding himself back from something.
"Alrick!" I hissed under my breath, forcing a smile to my lips for anyone watching. "What's wrong with you?"
There was no response; he just stood there and watched me with the predatory look that I remembered from the lake. Oh, hell! I was going to ease away, but I thought better of it, afraid it might trigger him to attack. I was standing dumbly in the center of the sidewalk, desperately trying to think of a way that we could get home with no money, no transportation, and now, no protection when a movement near the ground caught my attention. I glanced distractedly down at the large turkey that was pecking at my leg and looked back to Alrick before doing a double take. I..I knew that bird! What on earth was Vlad doing in this Podunk town in the middle of frozen nowhere?
I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head, the movement barely perceivable, and began to wander toward the edge of the woods, pecking at the ground every so often as he went. I grabbed Alrick's hand and wrapped his arm around my waist, hoping we looked like a couple heading out for a romantic walk, and followed a discreet distance behind. A hundred yards or so into the trees, Vlad's rotund human form was leaning against a small pine, its thin branches appearing to flail with the effort of supporting him.
"Vlad!" I rushed forward to hug him only to stop back when Alrick growled. "Alrick! He's a friend!"
"I don't think it was aimed at me, sugar," Vlad said calmly, studying Alrick curiously. "I think he picked up on Jackal's scent." He nodded off to the side. "Come on out, Cupcake!"
I felt my brows inching up as a Beta that I recognized from the Blood Valley pack stepped out from the shadows.
"Hey, Sebastian."
"Jackal? What are you doing here?" I stared in disbelief.
"We got married!" Vlad squealed before the Beta could answer, shoving his left hand in front of my face and wiggling the fourth finger, a thin band of silver catching one of the last rays of light.
"Congratulations," I said slowly, trying to wrap my brain around what had to be the most unlikely mating I'd ever heard of. Seriously. A turkey and a wolf? That made Harry and Spencer’s mating look almost traditional, and I caught myself fighting back a laugh as I wondered what Cian would have thought of that.
Jackal smiled indulgently as he rubbed circles on Vlad's back. "I think we better keep it down a bit, Pumpkin."
"Sorry," Vlad dipped his head to kiss the Beta's cheek. "I'm still so excited."
Jackal winked at him and then turned back to me. "We were taking the scenic route back home from Harry's place and thought we'd stop to check this place out." Jackal's brow furrowed. "We had just decided to get back on the road when Vlad caught sight of you and thought you might need help."
"Oh, we do," I agreed. I gave our friends a brief run down of how we'd ended up in the small town that Vlad said was called Cordova. It was, as Alrick had suspected, on the Alaskan side of the border, but barely.
"That's insane." Jackal whistled under his breath, sneaking a look at the still silent Alpha standing stiffly at my side. "Is he always this quiet?"
"Sort of," I said with a sigh. "But he's been acting really strange for about the last day." I looked at Alrick's stony face and shook my head. "Really, really strange."
"There's been a lot of strange here," Jackal said calmly. "So much strange, in fact, that we need to all get out of here as soon as possible." He sent a side look to the still silent Alpha and raised a brow my direction.
I nearly groaned at the nod to my loss of manners; more evidence that I wasn't the type of Omega that an Alpha would ever want.
"Alrick," I jostled him slightly, waiting until his smoldering eyes met mine. "I know you remember Vlad, right?" He gave a small nod, so I continued, "This is Jackal, his mate." The Alpha's eyes narrowed at the Beta, and I huffed in frustration. "Alrick, he's a member of Rafael's pack. You met his Alpha at Harry's party, remember?" No response. "He's a friend of Clint's."
That caught Alrick's attention – however briefly – and his expression cleared as he nodded to Jackal.
"I offer my service," Jackal said quietly, lowering his eyes in submission.
"I accept," Alrick returned, finally lucid. "A word?"
"Of course." Jackal followed him a short distance from where Vlad and I waited.
We stood and watched as they spoke; Alrick stood tall, projecting an Alpha presence, as Jackal dipped his head, knowing his place in any pack. When they returned, Alrick sought my eyes.
"I'm not…well," he ground out, the telltale shudders racking his body again. "I'm not sure how much longer I can hold things together." He drew in a deep breath. "To keep you safe," he inhaled deeply, "I'm handing you over to the representative from the Blood Valley pack. I need you to follow Jackal."
Vlad and I exchanged a worried look as Alrick slumped back against the tree behind him. Uncertain what to do, I turned to Jackal who stood at his side, a grim set to his mouth. Shaking his head, he helped the Alpha down until he was sitting against the tree, his forehead braced against his knees.
"There's a motel in town," Jackal said, his calm tone belying his stressed countenance. "Sebastian and I are going to go rent a room together," he said, shooting Vlad a hesitant look. "Once we have the key, we'll move Alrick." He turned his worried eyes on me. "You should be safe there until I can get help."