Madison
A day and a half of camping, hiking, and walking, and I’m about ready to claw out Alyssa’s eyes. I don’t know what Bronx sees in her as a leader. To be honest, I’m not really sure what her role in the clan is. Jed is the beta, so what’s the point of having Alyssa around?
In her eyes, everything I do is wrong. Every step I take seems to irritate her. She’s always waiting for me to make a mistake so she can point it out, and by the end of the second day, I’m super fucking sick of it.
“You know, Madison, if you watch where you’re going, you’ll move a lot faster.”
I stop in my tracks.
I had been trying to push my way past a particularly dense area of brush. Apparently, I wasn’t moving quickly enough for Miss Perfect. I haven’t spoken to Alyssa at all during the trip. If Bronx thinks it’s weird that we girls haven’t spoken, he hasn’t said anything. He’s been busy chatting with Jed about the additions they want to make on the stone wall that surrounds their little pack city. Things were a little awkward between them yesterday, but everything seems to be fine now.
“Will you fucking quit?” I finally say, turning to Alyssa.
“Excuse me?” She says, standing up taller.
“You heard me,” I tell her firmly. “You’re seriously stressing me out. Yes, I’m not as fast as you or as fit as you or as lean as you. I get it. You don’t have to constantly tell me. I’m doing my best, okay? Let’s just leave it at that.”
I shake my head and turn away to walk past her, but Alyssa grabs my arm and leans in close. Jed and Bronx are ahead of us and don’t seem to notice what’s happening. Alyssa lowers her voice so they won’t be able to tell.
“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, princess, but don’t get too used to that fucking title. Alpha’s Mate my ass.” Then she drops my arm and pushes past me, hurrying up to Jed and Bronx. I stare at their backs as they continue walking in the forest, making their way to Storm Dawn.
Alyssa’s up to something.
Jed is in on it, whatever it is.
I know I’m not part of the pack yet, or whatever, but I’ve grown up around lots of different kinds of people, and I know when someone is dangerous.
Alyssa?
She’s dangerous, and whatever she’s planning is going to be big. I just hope Bronx is clever enough to see it coming.
*
That night, we pitch our tents. Alyssa makes some sort of fried meat over the fire and we all share it, eating quietly before we head to bed. I’m sleepier than usual. It’s been a long couple of days and I’m more than ready to meet up with Eva. How has my friend been faring in my absence?
When it comes to being apart from her, some days are harder than others. Today is definitely one of the hard days when I’m questioning my decision to leave her. Sometimes I think I should have stayed behind and just been with her. What if Bronx is wrong? What if she’s not really a shifter? What if she really does just love wolves?
What then?
All of this – my exciting adventure – will have been for naught.
I can’t think that way, though.
Bronx makes love to me quietly and gently in our tent. We whisper, but there’s no doubt that Alyssa and Jed know what we’re up to. Wolves and their noses. Despite loving Bronx’s touch, I’m so tired that I fall asleep as soon as we’re finished, and I drift off into a dreamless slumber.
When I wake up, I realize falling asleep was a mistake.
I can’t move.
I find myself once more tied up, only this time, there’s a problem.
Bronx isn’t the one who tied me up.
It’s Jed and Alyssa, and they don’t look pleased.
I stare at the silently as Bronx begins to stir. After a second, he realizes what’s happening. He’s tied up, and so am I, and we’re at their mercy. The two of us are laying side-by-side on the dirt outside of our tent. Sometime after we passed out, Jed and Alyssa pulled us, along with our bags, out of the tent.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Bronx glares at his beta. And Alyssa. Seriously, what is her official title?
“Something we should have done a long time ago,” Jed says, almost sadly. “You can’t be Alpha anymore, Bronx. You know better.” Bronx and I manage to shift ourselves to awkward sitting positions, and he looks at me for a minute, silently asking if I’m okay. I nod slightly. Then he turns his attention to Bronx.
“I’ve been your Alpha for a year,” he insists. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“That’s just it,” Alyssa says. “You’ve been the Alpha for one year. For one year, you’ve been a part of the Oasis Pack. You’ve hunted with us and you’ve lived with us, but you aren’t really one of us. You never will be.”
“That’s not true,” I spit. “Bronx is the best leader your pack has ever seen.
Alyssa laughs. “The opinion of a little girl,” she says. “Cute.” Then she rolls her eyes and turns back to Bronx, presumably to start bitching about him. Apparently, she’s not very happy with his leadership skills and choosing to mate a “dirty, filthy human” was the last straw. She and Jed have come up with some sort of shitty plan to force Bronx out of the pack.
Well, yeah, murder will do it.
Jed is watching Alyssa and Alyssa is watching Bronx and Bronx is zoning out while she talks because she’s fucking unbearable to listen to, but nobody is watching me. I look around, trying to see if I can find anything I can use as a weapon. I might be tied up again, but unlike when Bronx captured me, my arms aren’t behind my back. This time, they’re in front of me, and whoever tied me up did it awkwardly and loosely.
There are no sticks or knives nearby. There’s nothing I can throw. My backpack is just out of reach. If I could get to it, I could open one of the tranquilizer darts I had brought with me to capture a wolf. I could use them to knock out both Alyssa and Jed, and then Bronx and I could escape.
The bag is too far away, though, and even if I could reach it, there’s no way I’d be able to fumble around inside without drawing attention to myself.
“You’re both fucking losers,” Bronx’s voice draws my attention. “Let me see if I get this straight,” he says. “Because Alyssa, for dragon’s sake, you’re horrible to listen to. I don’t think I can take another minute of your incessant whining.”
Alyssa’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t move.
“You’re both tired of me. You don’t like that I’m Alpha because you’re a couple and you want to be Alpha and Mrs. Alpha. Did I get that right?”
“Yeah,” Jed snarls. “That’s right.”
“And instead of addressing this with me, you waited until I took a mate and you couldn’t hold off any longer.”
They’re both silent.
“Originally, you wanted me to mate Alyssa. It would be a natural pairing, of course. Once we’d been together awhile, you would then arrange a tragic accident for me. Alyssa would be very sad, of course, but Jed would be there to comfort her. Then it would seem natural when he became Alpha. How am I doing so far?”
“You’re a very good listener,” Alyssa says drily.
“But then I took a mate, ruining your plans, so this is your last hurrah. You’re going to kill us both, and then what? Tell the pack I ran off with my bride?”
“Something like that,” Alyssa says.
“That’s great. You just forgot one fucking thing.”
“We didn’t forget anything,” Jed sneers.
“No? I think you forgot that I’m a fucking wolf,” Bronx says, and he moves to shift.
Only…nothing happens.
He seems surprised, but he jerks his body forward once more, trying again.
Still, nothing.
Alyssa chuckles. “Oh, I’m sorry, Bronx, did I forget to tell you?” She motions to the rope around us. “Anti-shifter rope. Non-breakable. You don’t really think I’d use ordinary rope to tie you up, did you?”
Only something about the way Bronx’s face has fallen lets me know that yes, that’s exactly what he thought. He thought we had a chance. He thought we had hope. Now, though, he’s realizing that we’re out of luck, out of hope, out of chances.
This is how we die, then.
This is it.
At least, even if I wasn’t able to save Eva, even if I wasn’t able to save myself, I was able to fall in love. I was able to find someone who truly cares about me and who makes me feel like I’m on top of the world.
I’m a kid from a broken family. My parents were poor and struggled to get by. Tired from lengthy hours at work, they fought constantly. Every day felt like a new fight. Every day felt hard. When they died, I thought I’d never find a family again. Then Eva waltzed into my life, essentially adopted me as her own, and raised me. She took care of me. She protected me.
I still never thought I’d find a man who would love me that completely unconditionally.
I certainly didn’t think I’d find him in the Forbidden Forest.
“It’s over, Bronx,” Jed says. “You’re bound. There’s nothing you can do about it now.”
“You’re right,” Bronx says with a sigh. “I am tied up.”
Alyssa smiles.
“But they’re not.” Bronx jerks his head toward the woods around us, which is suddenly filled with bright, glowing eyes. In the moonlight, the eyes show up even brighter than they would in the daylight, and I know we’re surrounded by the Oasis Pack.
Bronx’s pack.
They came to save us.
“What…what’s happening?” Alyssa asks, looking around. “What are you doing here?” She looks like she’s about to make up some bullshit story about attacking us, but an older white wolf steps forward. She shifts into her human form. I can only guess this is Betty: the former Alpha’s mate.
“You don’t really think I’d let my Alpha go off unprotected into the forest with the likes of you, did you dear?” Betty says sweetly. “I might be a widow, but it’s my job to read pack members, and there was something in your eyes that spelled trouble.” She looks at me and Bronx and nods. “I’m glad I listened to my instincts,” she says. “Otherwise, you’d be dead.”
“You have my undying gratitude,” Bronx says.
“A new oven for my bakery would be nice,” Betty says simply.
“Done.”
Betty motions for the wolves to come forward and several of them do. They silently untie Bronx and me, and then they use the rope to tie up Jed and Alyssa. Bronx pulls aside Betty and a couple of the bigger shifters and talks to them. Then he comes back and stands by my side. Alyssa and Jed are led off.
“Where are they going?” I ask, but Bronx doesn’t say anything, and suddenly, I don’t think I want to know.
“They have to pay the penalty for their crime,” he says. “And we need to get some sleep. We should reach Storm Dawn tomorrow,” Bronx says. “If we’re fast.”
We climb silently into the tent and Bronx wraps his arms around me.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he says.
You know what the crazy thing is?
I believe him.