Bride to the Alpha (The Wolf's Pet Book Two) (4 page)

“Are you hurting?” he asked. His words were kind, but his tone was blank, expressionless.

I nodded. It wasn’t the Calling, then. It couldn’t be, not if he didn’t feel it. It was my imagination, trying to make this situation seem better than it was.

I had never felt so alone. Tears stung the backs of my eyes.

“Did Leah leave any salve here?” he asked.

I nodded and pointed at the small pot of salve, wiping a tear away. He noticed it and his face softened.

“Good,” he said. “Come here and turn around.”

I sat in front of him, my hands trembling as I held out the pot for him to take. He took it from my hands without touching my fingers. The pressure inside me ached. I needed his touch. Needed it! I hated myself for that need.

“I’m going to take this bandage off,” he said. “I don’t know if we have another new one for you to use, but it should be alright for another day.”

As he spoke, his fingers brushed the back of my neck. It was a shock of sensation, but I knew that only I felt it, and I sat very still, trying not to let him see how his touch affected me. Immediately, the pain on the back of my neck eased. He was putting salve on the blisters.

“Is the skin peeling?” I asked softly.

“No. Only red. It doesn’t look infected. You’ll be fine.”

Fine. I was a slave in a pack of shifters determined to invade my territory. Fine was the last word I would have used to describe my condition. And yet, as his strong fingers soothed my burn with salve, I felt better. More at ease.

I’d heard of prisoners who fell in love with their captives. Was that what was happening to me? I shook my head. Alekk was an enemy. If I could sacrifice myself to him so that my pack might live, I would do that.

“Why did you lie?” I asked.

“What?”

“Before. When we were in front of your sisters. Why did you lie to them?”

“I don’t remember lying,” Alekk said coldly. His hands plastered the bandage down over my brand. It hurt, but not nearly as much as before.

“You don’t want them to know that I can shift,” I said. “Isn’t that—”

“Listen to me,” Alekk said, coming around and kneeling on the ground in front of me. He gripped me by my shoulders. I cried out in shock, but the feeling of his hands on my skin warmed me immensely. I calmed down and looked up at his blazing blue eyes.

“Yes?” I asked.

“My sisters are very powerful in this pack,” he said.

“But… aren’t you the alpha?”

“It’s not that simple. They gained control over our Council after my father died. They are older than I am, and the Council leans on them to make decisions.”

“What about you?”

“I was not smart enough to build power when I was young. They had a head start. They’ve influenced just about everyone who holds sway in this pack. So they wield all the power.”

He stared at me for a moment more, then narrowed his eyes. His hands fell away from my shoulders.

“For now,” he added. “For now.”

My eyes dropped to his neck. I could see the beginning of the scar peeking up through his clothes. Were the rumors true? When he caught my eye, I looked away quickly. I didn’t want to talk about his scars. Not yet. I asked another question instead to fill the silence.

“Is that why you were the one sent as a messenger to our pack?”

“Very likely. They might have thought they’d get rid of me easily that way. But I wasn’t too afraid to go. I’d heard your pack was weak.”

"Why didn't you escape?"

"Escape?"

"When they sent you away. You could have just run away anywhere you wanted.”

“It’s my pack,” Alekk snapped at me. His blue eyes blazed with anger. “I won’t abandon them. As corrupt as the Council is, they are not the whole pack.”

“Your pack is immoral,” I said boldly. To my surprise, he didn’t disagree with me. Instead, he shook his head sadly.

“We used to be warriors,” he said. “Now we are brutes.”

“Because your sisters want it that way?”

“They are as traditionalist as my father was. And they go even further. I’d hoped to be able to change some things when my father died. And they changed, alright. Things changed for the worse. We began the branding. And the mutilation of criminals.” He swallowed hard. “One of my friends was exiled for being too easy on a group of prisoners. The Council will do anything it can to keep their version of order.”

It made sense, kind of. But there was still one thing I didn’t understand.

“Why us?”

“What do you mean, Princess?”

“Why are you invading our territory?”

Alekk hung his head.

“Despite appearances, our pack is fragile. We have too many wolves in one territory. Too many males. We need to expand our territory or the pack will break apart at the seams.”

“But why
us
?” My voice sounded desperate. I longed for ????

“Your pack is the weakest in this area. The Council thought you were a good target to begin with. That’s why my father attacked you, back before you were born, probably.”

“Your father…” My voice trailed off as I realized what he was saying. Of course. Why hadn’t I figured it out. “Your father was Trax.”

“Yes,” Alekk said. He looked into my eyes, and I saw what he was thinking. My own father had killed his. I swallowed hard.

“I know my father wasn’t a good man,” Alekk said, breaking his stare. “Neither am I. But my pack is fragile and weak. We’ll collapse in on each other unless we are able to spread.”

“And so you’re moving into our territory.”

“Yes,” he said. His hand tilted my chin up to his face, only inches from mine. “We’ll be there in another couple of days. Tell me, Kinaya, what will we find?”

I shook my head. I didn’t dare speak. Then he pushed me backwards and I yelped as I landed back on the bed of pelts.

“Tell me!”

Alekk was on top of me in an instant, leaning over. His hands pinned my shoulders back, and although the brand on the back of my neck was hurting, I barely noticed the pain. I could feel the warmth radiating off of his body, and I was ashamed at the burning arousal that flared instantly between my thighs.

“We will move into your territory,” he repeated slowly. “What will we find there?”

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. I longed to arch my back, to raise my hips to him. I wanted to pull him closer. I damned myself for my thoughts. I cursed my body for its lust. And yet, I could not stop the waves of desire that flowed through my veins.

“Nothing?”

He sounded like he didn’t believe me.

“Nothing,” I repeated. “I swear. They were leaving the territory when I came to see you. They planned to escape. I don’t know where to.”

He let me go, easing himself back up onto the bed of pelts. I ached to have him touch me again, but there was no way to tell him that. I would not beg him for his touch. I clenched my jaw and tried to ignore the burn between my legs.

“Good.”

“Good?” I stared at him dumbly.”

“Yes. Good. I would rather not fight, not if we can help it. A war would only weaken us.”

“You—you don’t want to go to war?” I asked. Confusion swirled in my mind.

“Of course not.”

He stared at me like I was the insane one.

“B—but…” I stammered. “But why don’t you just say that?”

“How exactly should I say that, Princess?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, frowning. “You’re the alpha.”

“That’s why it’s so hard to speak out. They’ve made it so that any proposal of mine looks like weakness.”

Alekk stood up and paced in the tent.

“You don’t think I haven’t pushed my sisters to do any of this? They laugh at it. To stop having slaves? Weakness. To stop this barbaric practice of branding? Weakness. An alpha must be
strong
.”

“You’re not a true alpha, then,” I said defiantly.

He glared down at me. I bit my lip and tried to explain.

“A true alpha does the right thing, regardless of what his pack thinks,” I said carefully. “Your pack will follow you, if you stand up for what you believe.”

“Let’s hope you are right,” Alekk said, a curious look on his face. “You’re not the soft girl I thought you were, Princess.”

If it was a compliment, it was a strange one. I didn’t know what to say in response, so I just waited.

“I’ll send Leah with some more normal clothes for you to wear. You must be ready to move soon.”

“Move?”

“Our pack moves towards your territory today and tomorrow. Do what I say and cleave close to me. Don’t try to escape, Princess. And if you try to ally with my sisters, know that they’ll be happy to cut your throat once they’ve finished with you.” He raised one finger in warning.

“And you won’t?”

It wasn’t a question to be answered, but Alekk leaned toward me anyway.

“This morning… in front of the guards,” he said. “You did well.”

Blood rushed to my face and I felt beads of sweat on my temple.

“I was tempted, and I couldn’t resist the temptation,” he said. “I will repay you the kindness sometime, I promise.”

My jaw dropped, and I couldn’t so much as put together a single word to respond to him. His eyes swept down my scantily clothed body, and I saw another flash of something—desire?—before he shut it away.

He stood up straight, his face turning blank.

“I’ve said too much already,” he said. “I’ll nap in my main tent.” He turned and opened the tent flap, throwing a single order back over his shoulder.

“Get ready to leave.”

Chapter Six

It was only a hour or so before Leah leaned in through the tent flaps and tossed an armful of clothes at my feet.

“Get dressed,” she said. “We’ll be traveling shortly and it will be colder in the wind.”

“Are you… will you shift?” I asked. “When you travel?”

“You’ll see, human,” she said.

“Wait!”

She stopped in the doorway of the tent. Her long black braids swayed between her breasts. She was beautiful, and I wondered if she was jealous that the prince had chosen me. For some reason, the thought gave me a measure of comfort.

“What is it?” she asked.

“How long will it take us to reach… to reach the other territory?” I had almost slipped and called it my territory. Well, she might think I was a slave there, anyway. But she did not answer my question.

“You’re too curious,” she said instead. “Stop thinking so much. That’s the job of the soldiers. It’s your job to please them, and you’ll do it in whichever territory we’re in.”

“But—”

“
I gave you a chance,
” she hissed, leaning into the tent. “I risked my life and gave you a chance. And you didn’t take it. So now you’ll follow orders. I don’t care what happens to you. You’ve brought it all on yourself.”

She turned on her heel and left without a goodbye.

“Thank you,” I murmured to nobody in particular, pulling the clothes toward me. There were leather moccasins, and a furred pelt sewn into a kind of baggy sack dress. It would cover me only a bit more than I was covered now, but it seemed as though that was all I would get to wear. The other women here—Leah, the sisters—could shift into wolf form to keep themselves warm.

Nevertheless, I pulled the clothes over my skimpy pelts. It felt warmer already.

A sound came from outside. It was a few short barks, and then a murmur rose.

When I opened up the tent to see what was going on, I was shocked to see that the rest of the camp had already been dismantled almost completely. There were only a few tents left standing, and those were being taken down quickly. Wolves were trotting through the camp with packs bundled to their backs. One of them growled at me until I stepped back out of his way.

From the sky, a sprinkling of snow fell. On the ground, wolf prints had already darkened the fallen snow with mud and leaves.

“Alekk?” I called out. I didn’t know if I would recognize him in wolf form. “Leah?”

Behind me, two soldiers were dismantling Alekk’s personal tent and packing it up. They ignored me as they worked. I suppose they thought that a human prisoner was nothing to worry about. I couldn’t outrun a wolf, after all, and we were in the middle of the forest.

Most of the supplies and tents had been packed up. I could see some wolves hitching themselves to sleds with supplies. A sprinkling of snow fell from above in the morning light, but the wolves paid no mind to it. They began to move, the sleds moving bumpily over the frosted ground. The sleds were narrow enough to go through the pine trees, and they moved reasonably well over the icy ground. They would have to leave their sleds behind once we got low enough in the mountains, I thought. Would it take them longer to reach the territory?

It doesn’t matter.

I bit back tears as I thought of my mom and dad packing up their things to go. It wouldn’t matter when we reached the territory, because they would be long gone by then. The wolves here thought that they were traveling to war, but I knew the truth. There would be no army there to meet them. There would be nothing there, an empty surrender of all our land and resources. The thought tasted bitter in my mouth.

Now, wolves were beginning to run around me, their packs piled high on their backs. Even though most of them were burdened down with a heavy load, they bounded quickly over the frozen ground in one direction.

Towards my pack.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t turn into a wolf to run with them, certainly. I took a hesitant step in the direction most of the wolves were headed. I would soon be left behind, and Alekk—

“Ahh!”

I cried out as a line of wolves raced past me. A strong hand grabbed me up and lifted me off of the ground. Even before I saw who it was, I could feel his hand gripping my arm and I recognized his touch.

Alekk.

He pulled me off of the ground and into the sled. I fell back against his body as the sled raced forward.

“Didn’t think I’d leave you, did you?” Alekk said.

We swept through the camp and quickly past the edge of the last wolves who were packing up. Before I could take another breath, the wolves pulling the sled leapt over a hillside and we were in the forest.