“It took a lot of convincing to make Maia stay. She wanted to come after you with us, baby in tow,” Alarick spoke. His good-natured tone faded somewhat as he glanced at Brice and Everett. “Now someone please explain what the hell is going on here—why are you here with a pack of wolves, Violet? You stopped answering your phone, you weren’t there when I came to pick you up—”
The story could’ve gone on and on, but Violet cut him off, “Oh, these two, they kind of kidnapped me to try to save their sister.” When Alarick and Grimm started to get enraged again, she added quickly, “But it’s okay. It’s all good. Well, not all good, because there are still some women stuck at the house, but…”
Alarick waved a hand in the air, saying, “From the beginning, tell me everything.”
With a hesitant glance to both Everett and Brice, Violet opened her mouth and told them the whole story. Confusing her for Maia, realizing she wasn’t Maia when it was too late, being stuck in the house and of course Fletcher’s death at the hands of his mate. She did keep some things to herself; the day when Fletcher made her and Brice mate was one of them, which was probably smart, because both Alarick and Grimm looked like they wanted to rip off heads when Violet said their mark was Maia.
When she was finished, Alarick tossed a glare at both Brice and Everett. “You two are lucky you’re idiots.”
Ivy giggled. “See? I’m not the only one who thinks you guys are stupid.” Her remark earned her a supportive smile from Violet, and then she turned a bright shade of pink.
Now it was Violet’s turn to ask them questions. “How did you find me? There’s no way you tracked my scent all that way.”
“If you would’ve looked at your phone, you would know,” Alarick said. “I can’t believe you didn’t call when you got out—”
“I don’t have my phone,” she said. “I dropped it when these two nabbed me.”
Brice said, “And then we got rid of it at a gas station.” He saw Everett shrink a little, and he added, “At least we were supposed to. What the hell, Everett? Really? I told you to do one thing, and you couldn’t even do that? Tell me the phone’s not here.”
“If I said it wasn’t in the junk drawer in the kitchen,” Everett spoke slowly, staring hard at the floor to try to shrug off his brother’s glare, “I would be a liar.” In other words, it was sitting right on top in the junk drawer.
“It’s a damn good thing he didn’t get rid of it,” Alarick said, “because that’s how we found you. We had Roy do the find your phone thing. When I saw you were across the country, I knew we had to get you. Maia’s running herself ragged worrying about you.” Beside him, the tall, stoic one nodded in agreement.
“I can’t go back yet. We have to make sure those other women are okay,” Violet spoke. “I’ll only feel comfortable going back if I know those women are there because they want to be, not because they think they have to.”
Ivy muttered, “Me too.”
Alarick spoke directly to Violet, ignoring everyone else in the room, “And what about them? You smell like them, so I know you’re…close with them now. Would they come back with you?”
Watching Violet slowly turn her green gaze to Ivy, to Brice, and then finally to him, Everett knew in his gut they had to go with her. None of them could leave her, not now, not after being with her and caring for her. Not when each of their wolves wanted her. Violet didn’t say a word, the anxiety on her face evident. She was afraid to ask, scared to get an answer, because what if the answer was something she didn’t want to hear?
She needn’t have worried.
Everett said, “Provided she wants to keep us.” He didn’t have to look to his older brother or his baby sister for assurance because he knew they each felt the same.
“I think you should ask him,” Violet said, pointing to Alarick. “He’s the alpha.”
Alarick let out a low rumble in his wide chest, and he ran a hand through his dirty blonde hair. “I suppose, as long as you trust them, they can come…provided they never do anything stupid again.”
“Now that might be too tall an order, Mr. Alpha,” Everett said glibly, earning himself a glare from both his siblings and Violet. Oops. Probably not the best thing to have said, he supposed.
Grimm spoke for the first time ever, his voice a low, rough sound, “Great. Another Farkas.”
Everett instantly felt insulted. “I feel like I should take offense to that—” He stopped only when Violet moved beside him and ran her hand along his arm, shushing him with a single look. It was a similar look to the one she’d worn when she took control and tore off his clothes…okay, a bad thing to think about when surrounded by other wolves, including his siblings and two strangers.
Ignoring the smart-alecky remarks, Alarick looked to Brice and Ivy as he said, “We have someplace we can run, where we’re safe.”
Everett’s inner wolf perked up. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d shifted and run with wild abandon, felt the wind in his fur and the dirt below his pawed feet. He longed for it suddenly, needing to run soon.
“And if it really was Maia’s old alpha who paid that worthless Fletcher to get her…let him try again. We’ll be ready for him,” Alarick growled out, more a threat to someone who wasn’t even in the room than a warning to Everett and Brice. Everett still felt uncomfortable though, and his brother felt the same, given the way he quickly glanced to Violet.
“Then it’s settled,” Violet said. “We go to the compound and make sure the others are okay, then we go.”
No one argued. Not even the alpha or the silent tall one. It was clear they both cared for Violet in their own way, and even though he knew he shouldn’t be, Everett found himself a little jealous. They had known Violet for years; they knew more about her than he did.
Only time would change that, and if Everett had anything to say about it, he would never leave Violet’s side again. They’d have nothing but time.
Chapter Twenty-Five - Violet
The siblings wanted her to ride with them to the compound, but Violet chose to ride in the truck with Alarick and Grimm. Not to get away from Ivy, Brice, and Everett, but to spend time with some shifters she’d missed. And to get their opinions on her new shifter companions.
Or were they her partners? Her mates? Violet wasn’t a shifter, so she felt a little weird calling them that. She’d grown up totally human, unaware of the supernatural and somewhat magical beings that existed alongside them, and there were still some words that just didn’t mesh. Mate being one of them.
Alarick drove, following behind Brice’s car. Violet was tucked safely between him and Grimm in the middle seat of the truck. She’d forgotten how much she missed them, too busy ever since being kidnapped. She’d forgotten how they made her feel at home. They were like her family in a way, a strange, adoptive shifter family that had taken her in after Maria dumped her in the middle of nowhere.
Turned out, the middle of nowhere was exactly where Violet wanted to be.
“All this,” Alarick broke the silence of the truck as they drove through town, “because you were wearing Maia’s clothes?” He exhaled loudly, shaking his head. His jaw held more stubble than it ever had, and Violet hoped he hadn’t lost sleep while worrying for her. It made her feel good, wanted, but right now he had other things he should’ve been fretting about. Maia and Emma, for one. “Are you sure you want to be with those idiots? I can kick them around for you, you know.”
Violet chuckled. “They’re really not bad, the whole kidnapping thing aside.”
“I don’t like them,” Grimm muttered, staring out of the window. “Ivy seems okay, but the other two? They’ll be trouble.” He said it matter-of-factly, like he didn’t believe Everett or Brice would try to play nice once they left this mountainous, evergreen state.
“They’ll be my trouble,” she said. “You know how much I like trouble. I’ll keep them in line.”
“Where will you live?” Alarick asked, following Brice’s car as he made a left t
urn. “Your place isn’t really big enough for four people.” Logical. He was always the one to make sense even when everything else was chaos. It was why everyone back home respected him, even the humans. He just had a way with people, with shifters. Brice would come to respect him.
While Alarick was logical and all no-nonsense, Violet wasn’t. She liked to wing things, let the pieces fall wherever they may. She shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”
Alarick only chuckled.
They drove in silence for a while after that, and eventually they turned off the road and onto a dirt path. The dirt road went on for miles, away from civilization and into the mountainside, where Fletcher’s mansion was. Although it wasn't so far that he couldn’t get electricity and running water, but someone with money was always able to get whatever they wanted.
Again, it was Alarick who broke the silence, “I can’t believe places like this exist. I know there are packs out there that treat their females like shit, but to have an actual house where they’re locked up and sold for money? That just seems…”
“Wrong,” Grimm finished.
Violet only nodded. It was all wrong. Just because female shifters were rare didn’t make it okay for the men to keep them locked up, for them to use them only as breeders and make them pop out baby after baby. This was the twenty-first century; everyone should have the same rights. No one should be locked up or chained, used for their bodies, strictly because they were of a certain sex.
Not all shifters were like that. Some shifters were kind and nice, like Alarick, Grimm, and Farkas. Granted, they might have gone a little crazy when they first met Maia, but it wasn’t like they stole her and kept her against her will. She chose them. Her wolf chose theirs.
After an hour of off-roading, the familiar metal fence broke through the tree line, coming into view. Brice’s car slowly came to a halt before it, and the gate remained closed. Violet peered out, wondering if she should crawl over Grimm and get out, shout for Iris to have her guards open the gate—because she knew Iris hadn’t killed them all. Only the ones who wouldn’t sway to her side.
Just as she was about to say coming through and climb over Grimm, the gate slowly opened, creaking and making a lot of noise Violet didn’t remember it making before. Silly, because it hadn’t been that long since she’d been here. Things didn’t decay that fast.
Alarick’s truck slowly rolled through the gate, tailgating the shit out of Brice’s car as he pulled up before the house, where a pair of shifter guards stood, wearing all black and generally looking pretty menacing. When they got out of their vehicles, the guards only continued to glare. Their gazes surveyed the group, focusing on Alarick the longest.
Right. Because he was an alpha. Violet had an alpha on her side. Take that, Iris.
“Why are you here?” the guard on the left spoke. “Iris is not expecting you back.” The other guard nodded in agreement.
Violet stepped forward. “I miss her. What can I say? I’ve always had a thing for older women who aren’t afraid to take what they want. Let her know I’m here, will you? I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to see me.” It was almost funny how confident she was, mostly because she had no right to act so confident.
Everything Iris had done, she did it to gain Violet’s trust. She knew that; she’d seen movies before. Violet knew she was nothing to the shifter, but this was the only card she had in her hands, the only one she could think of to play. The question remained: would Iris take the bait?
One of the guards left, slipping inside the house, leaving the other to stare at them. Violet gave him a smile that she thought was charming, but apparently her smile only worked on the three white-haired shifters behind her. One of which still stared warily at Alarick, as if he couldn’t tell whether or not he was trustworthy. She’d have a word with Brice later.
Violet was about to make another snarky comment when the guard returned, holding the door open. “She’ll see you,” he said. When the entire group followed Violet, the guard added, “Only the human.”
Violet’s foot paused, hovering over the first marble step that led to the house. That didn’t sound ominous at all.
“Bullshit,” Brice swore, moving beside her. “You aren’t going in there alone, not after—”
“Fletcher is gone,” Violet cut in, looking up at him. His chiseled face wore a concerned expression—concern for her. It made her feel wanted in a way his hands and his mouth couldn’t. He was kind of a dick half the time, but deep down, he wasn’t so bad. She gave him a smile. “I’ll be okay.”
Ivy rubbed her arms, biting her bottom lip while Everett shook his head but kept quiet. Both looked like they wanted to agree with Brice, but they also knew Violet wouldn’t be swayed. She was as stubborn as they came.
It was Alarick who spoke next, “Violet, it’s not smart to go in there alone.” Behind him, Grimm crossed his arms and nodded.
“If something happens, I’ll scream, and then you all can barge in and save me,” Violet spoke with a shrug. “I mean, look at Grimm.” She pointed to the behemoth, talking loudly, “He could squish heads with those biceps. I think they’re smart enough to know they’d lose in a fight against him.”
The guard holding the door open suddenly looked a bit queasy, while the other one only frowned slightly. They knew she was right.
“And you’re an alpha,” she added. “These wolves haven’t had an alpha in years, I think.” Violet drew her gaze from Maia’s mates to her own, giving them all a smile she hoped was more comforting than the pitter-patter of her heart suggested. “I’ll be okay.”
Everyone wanted to further argue, but she wouldn’t stick around to listen. She spun on her heel and walked up the stone steps, brushing past the two guards as she entered the house. Immediately, she knew something was different, and it wasn’t the fact the guard had followed her in and told her to come along.
Deeper in the house, in the back of the first floor, where she’d had lunch with Fletcher, Violet heard…giggling. As in, women laughing and being carefree.
She knew the guard would take her to Iris, but she had to find out if the laughter was real, and why it sounded like such a genuine sound. Violet’s feet drew her through the front vestibule, down the elegant hall. She only stopped when she emerged in the dining room.
The long, mahogany table was full of half-eaten food, along with a dozen women sitting around, talking and laughing, though many of them trailed off when they spotted her. One of them got up, a beautiful Asian shifter with perfectly tanned skin and black hair cut to frame her angular face. Violet vaguely remembered her from the bath, but she definitely wasn’t expecting the woman to hug her.
“You came back,” she said. “Iris said you wouldn’t because you were human.”
This was…weird, wasn’t it?
“I’m not back,” Violet said, causing the woman to end the hug abruptly. Around the table, the other women had gotten to their feet, watching the exchange. “I came with some of my friends—”
The shifter before her cut in, “And your mates. I can smell them on you.” She frowned. “The ones who brought me here.” She frowned. “You mean you aren’t running away from them? You want to stay with them?” The thought of Violet staying with Brice and Everett was apparently too crazy to be real.
Defending Brice and Everett to these women would be pointless—and besides, Violet knew their actions were horrible, even if they were for Ivy—so she didn’t even try. She said, “I came here to see if Iris was treating you like Fletcher did.” As she said it, she knew how stupid it sounded. The women before her looked happy, anything but used and kept behind locks, only allowed out to bathe.
“No,” the one before her said. “We choose what we do.”
Violet wasn’t quite sure what the hell that meant, so she just gave the shifter a smile before turning around and meeting the guard in the hall. “Now you can take me to her,” she said, still feeling weird about this whole thing.
Up the staircase twic
e, to the third floor which Violet had never stepped foot on before, the guard led her to a grand bedroom, where a male and a female were finishing getting down and dirty. Iris and the bath guard. The one who’d brought her here left, leaving Violet alone in a bedroom that looked like it was taken out of some fantasy castle with all its draperies and expensive shit while two shifters went at it like animals in the large, king-sized bed.
Talk about awkward.
Violet turned her head to the floor, but before her eyes moved, she saw a bit more than she should’ve, even though most of it wasn’t new. She’d seen Iris without her clothes before, and just like then, Violet wanted to drool. Flawless skin, not a single scar anywhere on her body, meaning Fletcher never took the whip to her, never punished her—probably because she was intelligent enough to bide her time—not to mention large, perky tits that were…
Bad, bad Violet. You have three partners now, and they’re all way better looking than her.
She wandered to a chair near a small coffee table, plopping herself down while focusing squarely on the floor, doing her best to block out the sounds of love-making she was witness to. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long for them to finish.
Since Iris was on top, she slid off her shifter, moving to reach for a robe hanging nearby. She made sure to face Violet and give her a good, long view of everything before throwing it on and moving to the seat beside hers. The naked shifter in the bed simply got up and walked out, totally unashamed.
Shifters were weird, and no amount of time spent with them would convince Violet otherwise.
Violet slowly rose her stare to Iris, meeting her grey eyes. Instead of stormy, they looked…serene. Tranquil. Like an overcast day with no rain instead of two mini orbs of thunderstorm clouds. She’d never seen such an expression on the woman’s face.
Her Wolves: A Reverse Harem Romance Page 17