Chapter 11 #2
She found a clear surface and spread out what she had: her notebook, her phone, and a map.
If pack members were going to start arriving confused and anxious, she wanted something to show them.
Something concrete. A fire here, a response there, this is who went, this is what we know, this is what we’re waiting on.
People steadied faster when they had something to look at.
She kept one eye on the treeline and one hand on her phone. Rex hadn’t texted—no clothes, so no phone—but the bond was still there, still him, and she was learning to trust that.
It had been ten, maybe fifteen minutes, when the young man came out of the trees.
Part of the pack—she knew that. And he was dressed, which she was genuinely grateful for.
She didn’t know his name, but she remembered him from the last run: early twenties, though what that meant in werewolf years she still hadn’t worked out.
Quiet. A little aloof. Nothing unkind about him, just distant.
“Zoe?” He said her name carefully, like he wasn’t sure of his welcome.
She was ready for questions on what was going on—what's happening, where’s Rex, should we be worried—but that wasn’t what came.
“There’s a plant a little further in,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s the one we need. Would you come take a look?”
She blinked.
Odd was the first thing that came to mind.
He’d been at the last run; he knew what they were looking for as well as she did.
And there was a new, insistent, prickling sensation at the base of her neck.
.. Stop being dramatic, she scolded, giving herself a firm internal scoff.
Someone’s house was burning, Rex was gone, and she was left kind of in charge.
Of course everything felt slightly wrong. That was nerves, not instinct.
She made herself shrug. And followed him into the forest.
SOMETHING WAS WRONG.
Rex felt it more the closer he got to the fire. He saw the black smoke, smelled it in the air. A fire was always bad; even a small one could cause a lot of damage, without even thinking about the danger. But this was different.
This was deeper. Meaner.
He turned into the trees that surrounded the property, then crossed over them and into the open field that led to the house. A house untouched by flames. No, the smoke and the smell came from the dilapidated shed he knew no one ever used. It could have been great news.
Except five pack members waited in a line between him and the fire—all part of the pack he’d taken in. All those who’d been looking for a way to challenge him.
He shifted, stood his ground. “What’s this?”
Dante, the wanna-be leader, stepped up. “This,” he said, “is proof.”
“Of?”
“Proof that an Alpha who takes a human Omega can’t lead wolves.”
Rex looked at the shed, then back at him. Took his time doing it, as if his words weren’t worth much. “The pack loves her.”
“Oh, I know.” Dante’s mouth curved. “Which is exactly why we’re here. For you, and for them, to wake up. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. You want her? Give up the pack. You want the pack? Give her up.”
It was a non-choice, and they all knew it.
Once the bond was set, there was very little that would bring a wolf to sever it.
There was no giving her up. It was a loyalty, a commitment, stronger even than the one to the pack.
Every wolf understood that. But this was exactly how he’d feared it was going to play.
“And I assume,” Rex said, “you’d be claiming the pack? ”
“I’m the strongest.”
“Bullshit. Owen is, after me, and you know it. But I digress.” Rex chuckled, stepping forward. “It will be a great pleasure,” he said, “to make you bleed.”
“Will you now?”
Fear.
It sliced through him—brain, heart, soul, and kept going, down into the marrow, into the place where love for her lived. Not his fear. Hers. It hit the bond like a current hitting water, and there was nothing to brace against because it was coming from inside him, and it cut him cleanly in two.
The man tried to reason: it’s a tactic, stay on your feet, don’t give them this.
The wolf didn’t hear a word of it. The wolf knew only that its mate was somewhere, terrified, and he was standing in the wrong place, and it threw itself against every rational instinct he’d ever had.
The burned air, the smoke, Dante’s face: gone.
There was only the bond, and what was moving through it, and it was so thick with panic he could barely breathe around it.
His hands had gone to fists. His heartbeat had doubled.
His body was already turning, already orienting toward her, mindlessly.
Zoe.
Years as Alpha, and no one had ever once put him on his knees.
Ten seconds of Zoe’s terror, and the thinnest, most pathetic shell of what was left of his composure broke.
His knees hit the ground before he could do anything to avoid it.
The words that came out of his mouth were barely words at all. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Dante moved toward him, a wide grin splitting his face. “Yet. Of course, things can change at any moment.”
The terror on the other end of the bond didn’t let up.
It was pouring into him, and he couldn’t think through it, couldn’t reason, couldn’t do anything but feel it—her panic, her helplessness, raw and animal and real.
His vision narrowed. His body wanted to shift and run and find her, every rational thought dissolving under the pull of it.
Members of the pack had started arriving, those close enough to sense the disturbance and the direction of it. They gathered at the edges of the field, and Rex knew, even in his state, what they were seeing: their Alpha on his knees. Unraveling. Dante, standing over him like a foregone conclusion.
He did the only thing he could think of.
He locked onto Owen—the tighter, older bond, the one that didn’t shake, and told him to go to her. Then he locked him out.
He closed the one with Zoe, too. Slammed it shut.
Then he shifted. And attacked.
THE WOLF HOLDING ZOE hadn’t touched her beyond zip-tieing her wrists behind her back, tight enough to hurt. That was the only thing keeping her breathing. He stood between her and the truck, arms crossed, expression bored, like he knew how this would all play out.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
He looked at her as if genuinely surprised by the question.
“Why? Because you have no right to be our Omega. A human can never understand what wolves are, what the role means.” Something hardened in his face.
“The Omega holds the heart’s pack together.
You can’t cheapen it by handing it to someone who will never be one of us. ”
It hurt, but she wasn’t going to show him how much. “So what?” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “You’re going to kill me?”
“No.” And he almost sounded offended, like that was crazy. “May hurt you a little, if needed. The point is that right now, your mate is feeling everything you feel, and that makes him weak. Weak enough that he’ll lose.”
So that’s what this was. Demonstrating to everyone that she was, after all, his weakness.
That her very presence put the pack in danger because if the Omega couldn’t protect herself, then the Alpha would forget anything, even his safety, even the pack, to protect her.
She was not the one in danger. Rex was. She reached for the bond, just brushed it the way she’d learned to, testing it like pressing a bruise, and found only her own fear reflected back at her.
Nothing from Rex. Not warmth, not steadiness, not even anger.
Just a wall, smooth and impenetrable. He’d shut her out, she guessed. To protect himself; to protect her.
These bastards had dared come between them. They made Rex block her, her, out of their bond. Oh, that was so not going to fly, not if she had anything to say. Heat flushed through her body, her heart pounded like a hammer—but not for fear anymore. For fury, simmering just under her skin.
Zoe took a breath. Let it out slowly. Alright, you son of a bitch.
She could not outfight this wolf. She had approximately zero illusions about that.
But she hadn’t survived thirty-one years, six years spent on the opposite freaking coast in freaking New York City, and becoming the freaking mate of a freaking Alpha wolf by being the kind of woman who would wait to be rescued.
She could outsmart him. She just had to figure out how.
Trees in every direction. No walls, no doors, no single chokepoint, which meant geometry was actually in her favor, if she could get him looking the wrong way for ten freaking seconds.
Think.
It wasn’t hard to let her breathing go ragged and bend her shoulders a little, making her voice as small as she could manage. “I need to use the bathroom.”
He looked at her.
“I’m serious.” She let her chin wobble, just slightly. She gestured vaguely, miserably, at the trees. “I just need a minute. I’ll go right there, I won’t—where would I even run to? You’d be on me before I got ten feet.” Maybe.
His stare was flat and unmoved, so she let her eyes fill—still not hard at all, as she really was deluding herself about not being terrified. But he would smell that, which played in her favor, so she didn’t hold back. “Please,” she said quietly and a little broken. “I just need a minute.”
His sigh was irritated more than anything else.
He looked away from her, as if the very sight of her whiny form was enough to make him wish for death, and jerked his head toward the trees to her left.
Right in line with the truck. Idiot. “Stay close. I can be on you before you can think, and I promise you, it will not be funny.”