Chapter 10
Nicky
Once I’m finally dressed and the power struggle with Fescue is over for the moment, I get to see my friends again, and that makes me happier than I can say.
I am worried about the pack we are still missing, but I am hoping that being in the very heart of Rex’s reserve we might be able to find out some information.
This is all connected, I’m sure of it. How could it not be?
The boys and Laura are also happy, especially when they realize we’ve all got matching vintage tracksuits. The moment I saw the one I have on, I knew we were going to use them as inspiration for our fashion line. People will not be able to resist these. They’re so cool. So retro.
“Why don’t we make some videos in the forest,” Laura suggests. “There’s so many cool places and I have so many ideas.”
“We have to do the baseball scene from Twilight, but with tracksuits,” Tom grins.
“Yes. How long have you been tracksuit?” Simon laughs at his own nonsense.
I am starting to feel like myself again, which is good. I was worried I was going to lose control completely and shift against my will when Rex mated me, but if anything the desire has actually calmed down. His cock has magic properties, maybe. I won’t be telling him that.
Before we get turned loose on the reserve, we have to be given an orientation tour.
A nice young she-wolf from Rex’s pack shows us around the various buildings.
There’s the alpha’s abode, which is where I was last night, and where the others were bunked down below with his guard.
Then there are more buildings spaced out among the trees.
Some of them are occupied by the Regent pack, others are large guest accommodations for visiting pack contingents.
Some of them can sleep up to a hundred wolves, so I’m told.
We traipse about after Rachel, that’s her name, like a small group of well-behaved tourists.
If she knows who I am in the context of the alpha’s bedchamber, she doesn’t let on.
She’s smiley, bouncy, and very pleasant.
Simon and Tom are both making eyes at her, which she entertains with good grace while flashing the signet ring on her right middle finger that marks her as claimed, if not yet married.
“You two are making such fools of yourselves,” I grin when she finally leaves us to our own devices.
“She’s cute!” Simon defends himself.
“She is,” I agree. “You guys would make cute pups.”
“She’s claimed,” Cal points out. He already has a girl back home, and I know he isn’t looking to get into trouble here. Ellie, his girlfriend, is short, vivacious, and absolutely feral if anybody so much as looks at any of the six feet something of her blond hunk of a man.
“Yeah, claimed isn’t the same as married,” Simon says.
“Don’t start shit,” Laura says. “We’re here to… uhm, make sure the boss stays sane and maybe find our other guys. What if they’ve been brought here too? There’s so much space for them.”
She has a really fucking good point. All the hair on the back of my neck stands up as I consider that might be true. Rex Regent might very well have had our pack members taken here to use as leverage. He said he didn’t, but how am I supposed to know that is the truth?
We walk through the woods, formulating a plan. I won’t be able to do much of the searching. My role is going to be keeping Rex distracted. The others, though, they can check out all the other buildings. Big and small. They can be shooting content and sneaking around at the same time.
“Quiet,” I say as we hear voices coming toward us. It’s important we are not overheard. We have to keep our wits about us.
Another small band of wolves is coming down the trail. There are four of them, all tall, all blond. We know instantly we are dealing with a Minnesota pack.
There are three guys and one girl. She’s petite, cute, and the only one who smiles.
The three males regard all of us with suspicion as they deliberately block the path, forcing us all into a social interaction.
They are wearing crisp white shirts and pants with colored ball caps.
Looks like they’re on some kind of… I don’t know, conference thing? Hard to tell.
“Nice tracksuits,” the tallest one with the longest hair says. I swear to god I had no idea how many sassy fashion wolves were out here in the wild. I’m starting to think I couldn’t throw a Chapstick without hitting one.
“What did you say to us?” Simon steps forward. His dark hair falls into his eyes and he tosses it out. Cal moves up behind me. Sam snugs closer to Laura and me. These men know how to protect their own, and they know that we are facing hostile entities.
“We said you look like Euro Trash,” the same blond says.
“We’re American Trash,” Sam says, bristling. “And you’re no better.”
“Dressed like a pack of whiteboard markers,” I comment.
That makes the guys, and Laura, all laugh. Even a couple of the other pack crack smiles because it’s funny.
Not all of them are laughing though. The tall guy with the long hair and an incredible allegiance to his goofy clothing over our goofy clothing takes a swing at Simon.
In seconds, a full-blown fight has broken out. We’re still in human form, but there’s a fray afoot. Everyone’s getting hit. I’m trying not to use my broken hand, but I’m getting pushed under a scrum of furious young wolves each eager to prove themselves in combat.
“Excuse me,” a calm voice floats to us all through the arbor of trees. “If I may…”
A hand slides into the fray, grips me by the collar, and pulls me free. I expect to see Rex Regent on the other end of that hand, but it isn’t him.
“Miss Love. The alpha requests the pleasure of his mate,” Fescue says mildly.
The fight stops as soon as it started. The way the Minnesota wolves’ faces pales when Fescue frees me and declares me the alpha’s mate is so priceless it’s almost worth all the hassle I have been through.
“It is generally regarded as a matter of protocol that it is best that an alpha’s mate does not skirmish with the guests,” he says as he leads me away. My guys are with me, of course.
“It wasn’t her fault!” Laura pipes up. “They started with us first.”
“And they will be handled,” Fescue says. “If the rest of you would like to go and get ready for whatever it is you’re planning on doing next, I need the alpha’s mate for a dress fitting.”
I go with him because why not, he did just kind of save my ass. I was getting crushed under that pile-on, and I was worried my tracksuit was going to get ripped. It seems, so far, like no real damage was done though.
“Lunch, perhaps first. I know how fighting stimulates the appetite. I am sure the alpha will be pleased to see you. I know he’s taken a break from negotiations.”
As we enter the dining room, a space set aside for the alpha, and alpha adjacent people, I see that Rex is being chatted with by several people. He is looking hot as hell in his expensive, bespoke business suit.
“Can I truly not prevail on you to get changed? You look…” Fescue pauses for impact. “Scuffed.”
I pause for a moment, but I know damn well that I could roll into lunch with Rex wearing a decrepit potato sack and he’d still be hard for me.
I realize, in a flash, that I feel wanted in a way that has never happened before.
There’s no insecurity in me, wondering if he’s really into me, wondering if he really wants me.
He has made it abundantly clear and he is showing no signs of changing his mind.
I am being referred to as his mate publicly in passing.
This is big. Really big.
I start to feel a bit sick.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I tell Fescue, who is pleased because he thinks this means I am going to freshen up.
Safely in the bathroom, I lock the door and look at myself in the mirror.
“You can do this,” I tell myself. “You can’t do this.”
I splash some water on my face with my good hand and close my eyes.
It’s dusty.
Not the bathroom, but the place where my memories take me. It’s the side of a road, next to a gas station where nobody has been left alive. My father is getting back into his clothes, wiping off the streaks of blood that stayed on his body through the shift.
I am fourteen years old now. I am too old to sleep through these murders. It is too hard for me to block my ears and not hear the cries. He kills quickly, most of the time, but when there’s this many people, it’s never quickly enough.
He tosses a bag of meat into the back of the car. “Get in, Nicola,” he says.
I shake my head. I don’t want to be in that vehicle with him. I don’t want to ride smelling the blood and the flesh, and knowing that those people weren’t the first and won’t be the last.
He looks at me. “What’s the matter? You want to get yourself a candy bar? Go on. Run in then. Make it quick. I think one of them had a cell phone.”
He wants me to run past the bodies, over some of them, and get a handful of candy out of the stands that it’s stacked in.
I used to do that, when I was younger. I used to hold out the hem of my t-shirt and make a basket with it, scoop all the candy in, and then run to the car.
He and I would laugh and have sugar highs all the way to the next kill site.
But something’s different now. My conscience came online when I heard a woman begging for her life when she was losing it.
In the distance, the thin sound of a siren starts to wail.
Someone is coming. They’re coming way too late.
They won’t be able to save anybody. They’ll call this a wild animal attack, because that is what it is.
They’ll go out on a hunt and probably kill something innocent because they’re too stupid to see what’s in front of them.
My father has been doing this my whole life, driving us from state to state, striking in apparently random small towns where the police force is a couple of cops who both used to be QBs at the local high school. Sometimes it gets chalked up to animals. Sometimes, the supernatural.
Nothing ever gets investigated.