She had believed her father and brother wholeheartedly. They had painted Bryson as the bad guy and told her that she was protecting her family and her pack by stealing the documents from Bryson.
They knew exactly how to pull her strings. Believing their lie and eager to prove herself, she had volunteered for this disastrous mission.
This was pure madness and foolishness. Lisa knew that now. She hadn’t even tried to verify their version of events with any of the other lieutenants.
She had been played like a fiddle and set up by her Alpha and Beta.
“Why?” Lisa hissed, blinking away her scalding tears. “Why would they do this to me?”
Lisa ran harder. She didn’t know if she was really running away from Bryson, or running away from the awful, harsh truth.
CHAPTER NINE
“I’m going home, I’m going home...” Lisa chanted as she ran blindly down the streets of Shadow Point.
She had to get away. Away from Bryson. Away from Shadow Point.
But where could she go?
Home.
That word suddenly sounded so empty and meaningless to her. Home was supposed to be a place that was filled with love and warmth, where she could feel protected and safe.
But...the thought of going home filled Lisa with dread and foreboding.
She knew that she would not be welcomed home with open arms. She had failed in her mission, and she would have to face the anger and disapproval of her Alpha and Beta.
She would be shamed, demeaned and humiliated in front of the whole pack. Again.
Lisa had never felt loved, protected or safe in the Arrow pack. Instead, she was always walking on eggshells and looking over her shoulder, wondering where the next insult, taunt and verbal attack would come from.
That was no way to live.
But that had been her life for as long as she could remember.
Feeling all her energy drain from her, Lisa stopped running and leaned against a tree to catch her breath.
Nervously, she glanced back and saw that Bryson hadn’t followed her.
She had felt his eyes on her as she fled from his house. But he had let her go.
Bryson had every right to call the cops and have her arrested.
Instead, he allowed her to escape.
A loud sob erupted from her, and Lisa pressed her fist to her mouth and ducked into an alley.
She slumped against the wall and swiped at her eyes.
“I’m doing this for my pack,” she whispered. “My Alpha and Beta wouldn’t scheme to destroy me. Bryson...got it wrong...”
Shaking her head, Lisa listened to the echo of her own words and cried harder. She had to stop lying to herself.
Bryson had told her the truth. But she just didn’t want to acknowledge that everything she’d believed and clung on to was a lie.
Some facts had been hidden from her on purpose, and Lisa finally realized that she had been looking at a skewed, distorted picture for a long time.
But...that distorted picture had been her reality for twenty-two years. What should she do? Where could she go?
Pushing herself off the wall, Lisa looked around and gulped. She was alone in Shadow Point, far away from her pack.
“I should get home,” she said automatically.
Lisa tried to take a step forward but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Her wolf stubbornly dug her claws in and refused to leave Shadow Point.
Stay, her wolf growled. Stay here. Home.
“No,” Lisa answered, wincing. “Shadow Point isn’t...”
She stopped, unable to complete her sentence. The small town of Shadow Point wasn’t at all like Moonvale, her hometown. Moonvale was a town full of wolf shifters, and shifter politics was dirty and complicated. The fights were often vicious and savage, and even within the pack, there was dirty dealing and backstabbing.
The town of Moonvale was deeply divided, and there was no sense of unity and kinship among the townspeople.
Shadow Point was entirely different. The residents of Shadow Point were warm and caring, and she detected no seething jealousy and rivalry between any of the shifter packs and families in Shadow Point.
Instead, the townsfolk genuinely cared and looked out for one another. The whole town felt like one big happy family.
Lisa had been in Shadow Point for just three weeks, yet she felt more comfortable in this quaint little town than she had ever felt back home.
She hated to admit it, but Shadow Point did feel like home.
And the most insane and inexplicable part was, she didn’t want to leave Bryson. She could remember his hands and lips on her and how good he had made her feel.
Breathing hard, Lisa pressed her hands to her flaming cheeks and shook her head.
“No, no, no,” she whispered. She had to stop thinking about Bryson.
He was the bad guy, the despicable, conscienceless stooge of the Arrow pack’s rivals. He had to be the bad guy! Her family, her pack couldn’t, just couldn’t be as cruel and vile as Bryson had made them out to be.
Bryson had been paid handsomely to tamper with the accounts and destroy her pack. She would keep telling herself that.
He was the enemy.
She should stay the hell away from him. Why did she let him kiss her? She was out of her mind!
It was her damn libido that was scrambling all her common sense and self control.
“He seduced me!” she said angrily. “He seduced me to throw me off course!”
Bryson Grant was a charming, gorgeous, sinfully sexy man, and she was sure he had successfully and effortlessly seduced many females into his bed.
She had been in his bedroom, and she knew that if he had tumbled her into his bed, she would happily have let him fuck her senseless.
Her wolf had wanted to claw off his clothes and lick every inch of his powerful, muscular body.
“Stop thinking about him!” she snapped at herself. “You’re in enough trouble already as it is!”
CHAPTER TEN
Sucking in a deep breath, Lisa marched resolutely out of the alley and went to retrieve her car. She had parked her car in front of the tiny apartment that she had rented.
She had rented the place through a property management company that specialized in short term leases. The rent was paid daily and all she had to do to terminate the lease was return the key to the drop box just outside their office.
Lisa got into her car and drove straight to the small office of Stars Property Management Company. The office was closed and so were all the surrounding shops.
Quickly, Lisa threw her key into the drop box and got back behind the wheel.
She stepped on the gas pedal and drove out of Shadow Point, ignoring the furious protest of her wolf and the sharp pang in her heart.
She was going back to Moonvale, where her pack was.
Philip and Gregg wouldn’t be pleased to hear that she had failed in her mission. But she would give them an honest report and face the consequences.
What could they do to her?
With a start, Lisa suddenly realized that she had no idea what Philip and Gregg were truly capable of. She had never really understood her father and brother.
She had seen and experienced their harsh disciplinary methods, and she always suspected that the rest of the pack feared, rather than respected, their Alpha and Beta.
Lisa wanted nothing more than to please her father and make him proud. But it seemed that nothing she did was right in Philip’s eyes.
She never had a real conversation with either Philip or Gregg. Her father and brother were just so different from her. They had absolutely nothing in common with her. She could never predict or understand their reactions.
Lisa always wished that she was more like her father and brother. She wanted to be able to talk to them and bond with them.
But...maybe being different wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
As Lisa drove further and further away from Shadow Point, she started to see
the glaring truth in Bryson’s words. Philip and Gregg hadn’t told her about all their fraudulent, criminal activities because they knew that she wasn’t like them at all. She didn’t think like them and she would never condone their illegal acts.
“Are they really guilty?” Lisa gulped.
Her thoughts and emotions were all over the place right now. Who should she believe? So many things had been hidden from her on purpose, and Lisa realized just how naive and ignorant she was.
She was twenty-two years old, and she had never traveled out of Moonvale on her own before.
“So why did they send me?” Lisa whispered, recalling Bryson’s question. “I’m not the most experienced, skillful, capable member of the pack. And they know that I’ve never even gone out of Moonvale by myself.”
She grimaced and gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“I walked right into their trap, didn’t I?” Lisa said numbly.
Her wolf growled.
Her wolf was always on edge when she was around Philip and Gregg. Her wolf could sense danger, but she had ignored her own survival and animal instincts to her detriment.
“No...” Lisa swallowed painfully. “I’m just tired and confused. I just have to get home and everything will be so much clearer.”
It was easier to tell herself that she was mistaken about her father and brother. That was what she had been trained to do.
Deny her pain, stay silent and defend the reputation of her pack at all costs.
Lisa kept trying to reconcile the two conflicting versions of the story. Philip and Gregg had insisted that Bryson Grant was the crook, but Bryson had told her that the Alpha, Beta and other leaders of the Arrow pack were all corrupt and unscrupulous.
Why would they lie to her?
“They’re my pack, my family,” Lisa repeated over and over to herself.
Maybe she would be able to get all the answers once she returned to her pack.
At this very moment, nothing made sense.
With a heavy heart, Lisa drove on, heading wearily back to Moonvale.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
As Lisa neared Moonvale, she eased her foot off the gas pedal and slowed down.
The sense of dread was like a stone in the pit of her stomach. She felt like throwing up, but she tamped down her nausea and drove on stoically.
Lisa truly dreaded returning to her pack but she knew that she had to give her Alpha and Beta the bad news.
She had screwed up, royally. The mission had been an utter and complete failure.
“I’m so stupid,” Lisa swore under her breath. “Stupid and useless!”
With a wince, she realized that she had used the very same words that her father and brother had been using on her almost all her life.
Stupid and useless.
That was what Gregg had been calling her ever since they were kids. And the label had stuck.
The rest of the pack didn’t dare call her stupid to her face since she was the Alpha’s daughter. But their pitying, dismissive looks and scornful snickers told Lisa exactly what they thought of her.
That was why Lisa kept trying to prove herself. She wanted to prove her worth and show everyone that she wasn’t stupid and useless.
Her desperation to earn the acceptance and affection of her Alpha, Beta and pack mates was what compelled her to eagerly and foolishly volunteer for this disastrous, dangerous mission.
With superhuman effort, Lisa wrestled down her shame, self-loathing and distress. She had to put on a brave front.
She had reached Arrow Street.
The Arrow pack was so influential in Moonvale that they even had a whole street named for them.
This was the territory of the Arrow pack. The whole pack lived on this street, and as Lisa drove down the wide, well-kept street, she saw that the gates to the mansion at the end of Arrow Street were wide open.
The mansion was the pack headquarters and the home of the Alpha and Beta of the pack. Since she was the Alpha’s daughter, she lived in the mansion too. But unlike Philip and Gregg, her bedroom wasn’t on the top floor. She had a tiny room at the back of the house on the ground floor near the kitchen.
There were cars lining the long driveway to the mansion. Lisa’s heart sank. All the pack members were here. They were having a pack meeting right now.
“Better to get it over with,” Lisa muttered as she parked at the end of the driveway and killed the engine.
She would just report her failure to the pack and face the music.
Gregg would mock her and insult her in front of everyone. And Philip would just stay silent and watch the charade.
Everyone thought that he was being patient and impartial. But as the Alpha, Philip’s silence spoke volumes.
He was showing the entire pack just how to treat Lisa.
Philip was her Alpha and her father, and if he didn’t speak up for Lisa, no one else should either.
For some time, Lisa had noticed a sadistic smirk on her father’s face every time she was publicly shamed and humiliated.
She should be used to it by now.
But…
Lisa felt a rising sense of rage. Her anger had been buried deep inside her heart, but it was now bubbling and boiling to the surface.
Steeling her nerves and fighting to quiet the scream in her head, Lisa marched up the driveway and walked stoically towards the mansion.
It felt as though she was walking towards the guillotine. Her head was on the chopping block, that was for sure.
As she entered the mansion, she wrapped her arms tightly around herself. The air felt so cold.
In fact, the whole place felt cold. She had lived in this grand, imposing mansion all her life, yet...this sprawling place with its gleaming marble floors and gilded ornaments had never been her home.
She had never felt at home here.
CHAPTER TWELVE
With heavy steps, Lisa approached the double doors of the conference room. Whenever there was a pack meeting, the servants would discreetly make themselves scarce. If anyone rang the bell, they would magically appear but other than that, there was no sign of the servants in the entire mansion. It was better to remain unseen and unheard when a tense, volatile pack meeting was taking place.
In fear and trepidation, Lisa pushed open the wide double doors and stepped into the conference room.
Philip was seated at the head of the long conference table and Gregg was beside him. Gregg was on his feet, giving a long rambling speech but he stopped abruptly when Lisa entered the room.
All heads turned to her and Lisa tried her best to force her grimace into a smile.
“You’re back, Lisa,” Gregg said, his eyes betraying his shock and displeasure.
“Yes. I’m back,” Lisa answered, keeping her voice level and her face impassive.
Gregg sat down slowly. The lieutenants were all seated according to rank at the table. The rest of the pack remained standing behind the lieutenants.
Lisa had no place at the table. She always stood with the low-ranking pack members.
“Well?” Gregg prompted impatiently when Lisa remained silent. “Where are the files, Lisa? You went to steal the files from Bryson Grant, didn’t you?”
Lisa gulped. “I...”
Everyone stared at her with curious, slightly baffled expressions, and Lisa realized that some of the lieutenants had no idea that she had been sent on this doomed mission.
Only Philip and Gregg wore snide, knowing smiles.
Lisa finally recognized the deadly daggers in their smiles. She saw their fangs and she read the sadistic, malicious intent in their eyes.
She had indeed been set up.
But the worst part was, she had walked right into their trap on her own. She had volunteered for this stupid mission. Philip and Gregg had so slyly and skilfully played on her emotions and insecurities.
They had led her to believe that she could finally prove that she was a useful, contributing member of the Arrow pack by stealing the incrimi
nating files from Bryson. It was the least she could do for her Alpha and Beta, after all they’d done for her!
Lisa clenched her fists as she tried to get her feelings under control. How could she not have seen their true motives? Craving the approval and acceptance of her father and brother, Lisa had allowed herself to be played like a fiddle!
“I tried to get the files, but...I got caught,” Lisa said at last.
Gregg leaned forward with a gleam in his eye. “Bryson caught you.”
Lisa gave a curt nod.
Gregg and Philip exchanged a look. “So...how come you’re here?” Gregg said, frowning.
Lisa canted her head quizzically at them.
Gregg huffed in frustration. “Bryson caught you trying to steal his files. He should have called the cops and you should have been arrested. Why are you back here when you should be in jail?”
Lisa sucked in a painful breath. “Bryson was right,” she whispered.
Her own father and brother had set her up. They had planned for her to get caught and arrested.
“Why are you here? How did you escape? Why the hell did you come back?” Gregg asked, looking increasingly perplexed and annoyed.
Lisa stared at Philip and Gregg, keeping her mouth tightly shut.
In the past, she would have answered every single one of their questions without hesitation. But she now saw that her honest, sincere answers worked against her.
Philip and Gregg used her answers as ammunition against her. They would cleverly twist her words to maneuver and manipulate her into a corner.
Gregg continued to spit his questions out, but Lisa was no longer listening. She observed Philip, Gregg, all the lieutenants and members of her pack with a strange, detached air.
She no longer cared about what they thought of her.
Because she now knew without a doubt that they never cared for her.
Slowly, Lisa swiveled her eyes back to Gregg.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BEARly Bitten (Bear Bites Book 2) Page 3