Alpha's Claim

by Amelia Hutchins

  On the fifth day of being on bed rest, Saint finally slipped out of the room to deal with a disturbance. It left me alone for the first time since he’d shown up here and ruined my plans. Slipping into the closet, I dressed into a soft pair of jeans and a cashmere top.

  I slid my feet into a pair of knee-high leather boots and stepped out of the bedroom, peering up at Xavier, who leaned against the wall with his phone in his hand. He pushed it into his pocket the moment he noticed me.

  “How are you feeling?” His kind, blue eyes met and held my stare.

  “Fine,” I said sharply as his mouth tipped into a friendly smile.

  “Saint didn’t want you to leave the room, but a bit of fresh air never hurt anyone. Do you want to go outside for a few? It’s not too cold yet, but you might want a jacket.”

  “Fresh air sounds good,” I answered, noting the way his muscles rippled.

  Xavier’s dark blonde brow rose in silent question, and I shrugged. “I don’t get bothered by the cold unless I’m left underground inside a storage container for a few weeks.” So, I was being petty and rude, but then he was on Saint’s side, and I was done playing nice with all of them.

  Not bothering to wait for permission, I started down the long hallway toward the staircase that led down to the main entrance. The cold air blasted against my face as I pushed through the doors. I could smell the promise of snow in the crisp air.

  People paused the moment they caught my scent, examining me like I was a threat. A mother grabbed her child, pulling him closer before fleeing with him. It caused an ache in my chest that tightened around my heart.

  Men that had been chopping wood paused, staring me down with derision burning in their gazes. I got it; to lie to the pack or place them into a threatening situation was a heinous crime that would sever their trust. It didn’t look good, but that they’d assume I was guilty based only on the word of strangers stung.

  I’d never given the pack a reason to doubt my loyalty, always placing their needs before my own. Now, they’d chosen to treat me like I wasn’t the same girl who had grown up working beside them. They had judged me without a trial or without one person asking if I’d done the crime. Toralei waved, and a soft grin tugged my lips as I turned, peering up at Xavier.

  “Am I free to visit, or does my master wish for me to be kept away from everyone?” I asked, and Xavier’s eyebrows rose before they creased his forehead.

  “You can visit, but don’t go too far. Saint is worried you’re going to run from him.”

  “He should be worried because I will eventually,” I admitted. “Not today, though. It’s cold, and I don’t even have a jacket, now do I?” I smiled, batting my eyelashes as he touched his fingers to his forehead, and pointed at a bench.

  “I’ll be over here if you need me.”

  I watched him walk to the bench before I turned to join Toralei. When I reached her, she threw herself at me, hugging me tightly.

  “Jesus, fuck, Brae. Are you okay?” she asked, turning to hiss at a man who growled at my approach in a warning. “Faithless pricks,” she muttered beneath her breath.

  “I’m good,” I answered, grabbing her hand to pull her with me onto the lookout that peered over the gate of the compound. “I want you to prepare to leave.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” she whispered.

  “No, you’re not. We’re leaving together. I won’t remain here with Saint. He doesn’t deserve me. What I did was to protect him, or what I thought would free him of my father’s hold. Harold sold them into slavery, and they think I was a part of it.”

  “That’s horse shit.” She shook her head, leaning back, resting her elbows on the railing as she looked in one direction while I looked in the other, making sure we wouldn’t be overheard. “You wouldn’t do what they’ve accused you of doing. I know you better than they do, but anyone who could think you’re a monster can get fucked. That is something I would have noticed. The pack will come around once their brains start functioning again.”

  “I don’t care if they do or not anymore,” I admitted. “I have spent my life here in exile from the world because of my father and people like them. Everyone else here has been out into the world and had the opportunity to live off this mountain, Tora. Not me. I’ve been stuck here as a prisoner to my father, and I need to leave for a while, if not forever.”

  “Done,” she exclaimed. “I’ll call Douglas. He will find us a place to stay where we won’t be easy to trace. He can get us off the mountain, too, if we can get out from beneath your new jailor’s watchful eyes. They’re everywhere. I count seven sets of eyes from his team watching you at this moment, not including the hunter he has babysitting you.”

  “We’ll figure it out, and soon. I want to be gone before the snow hits.”

  “What about Chaos? He misses you, and he isn’t buying the shit going around here. That kid has more brains than the entire pack combined right now.”

  “I’m sure they’re shell-shocked. Hell, even I am. My father was a monster, and you and I knew that. We just never considered how black his soul was until Saint exposed it to us. I never even suspected that he was selling people and creatures to other monsters. Lucas—” I swallowed past the bile that burned the back of my throat.

  “I know,” Tora uttered softly, exhaling. “Saint told me what happened and why he wasn’t letting you out of bed yet. He said you were up with the sun, ready to work the next day. I feel like an idiot, Brae. I dated Lucas and never suspected he could do something so heinous. He seemed more beta than alpha, but now we know he wasn’t. That asshole fooled both of us.”

  I smiled tightly, pushing away the images that rushed through my head. Had there been signs we’d missed or overlooked, or was he just good at hiding his true nature? My father had fooled the pack for decades, including my mother. She hadn’t realized Harold was a monster until she was pregnant with his second child, and she still hadn’t predicted how far the sickness went into his soul.

  “Monsters can hide in plain sight, with no one suspecting what lies beneath the surface. The world is filled with them, and most are human. Lucas was always a monster, but he hid it behind kind eyes and smiles. It was my job to find the demons and drive them out, and I failed. Maybe I deserved what I had endured since I’d failed the pack in spotting the monster within our midst. My father never hid the sinister nature he wore like a cloak around him. The pack was always wary of him, but they stayed because of me. Because of my legacy and the bloodline that I hold.” Guilt washing over me that I was held in a prison of my own making. Not me, per se, but the blood rushing through my veins drove Fenrir wolves to our gates, where they’d become my responsibility to protect.

  “It isn’t your fault, Braelyn. What happened to you down there—it shouldn’t have happened to anyone. Ever. Saint is coming. I’ll call Douglas and secure passage. You figure out how to lose your guards.” Tora’s eyes followed Saint as he moved across the courtyard. “The pack doesn’t want you helping them anymore. They prefer that you keep your distance. The omegas have requested that you be denied access to the children and their quarters.”

  Saint’s footsteps stalled at her words. I caught his scent on the wind, closing my eyes against the pain of her confession. Turning toward her, I nodded.

  “You’ll need to count the deer in the meat lockers,” I instructed. “Also, count the blankets, and if there aren’t enough for each person, have the weavers start on more. The roof on the sheds and older houses need shingles replaced.” I knew Saint was listening to every word we whispered. As alpha, he could listen in on any conversation within a certain distance from his location. “The berries need picking before the first freeze. Glenda can take some people out to pick them, as she normally handles it. Candy will make jams and freeze the rest of them. I purchased extra jars and wax seals as she’d requested last year after we were short of them. I sold my mother’s diamond necklace for lumber that should arrive sometime in the next
couple of days; ensure it is weathered and treated before accepting the order.”

  “You loved that necklace,” Tora muttered, scrubbing her hand over her mouth.

  “A necklace wouldn’t keep the pack warm or the winter air from nipping at them as they sleep at night, but that’s no longer my concern as Saint will be handling all these things in the future. Oh, and I almost forgot. I purchased new windows for Lars’s pack, as theirs were cracked from the children playing ball too closely to their house. See that he gets them.”

  “Anything else?” she asked, snorting. “None of them deserve you, Brae. They’re all nothing more than faithless assholes.”

  “Keep Chaos safe from the female alphas. They’ll try to hurt him to make me fight. I have no intention of fighting for anything anymore.”

  “What about the alpha females that will seek out Saint? They’re going to try to challenge you for your position,” she pointed out angrily.

  “I’ll concede it,” I stated, turning to look at her. “If they want Saint, they can have him and my position. I care not for either of them anymore.” I heard Saint grumble under his breath but chose to ignore him.

  “Okay, calm your tits. That’s crazy talk. If you’re not the alpha female…”

  “Then I am nothing? No, Toralei. It means I am no longer needed. It means for the first time in my life, I am not beholden to anything or anyone else. As long as I am the alpha female, I am stuck in Saint’s shadow. If I concede without allowing the challenge, they take my place with my mate. He does not carry my mark, and we share no eternal bond due to his inability to allow it to happen. Because of his rejection, the bond is only one-sided. I’m perfectly okay having my needs met without a male. Besides, why put up with their shit when you only get a few moments of pleasure from them, anyway? After all, I have successfully achieved many orgasms since I discovered the devil’s doorbell and its need to be rung, and didn’t need help, right? I am, if nothing else, sufficient at dealing with my needs.”

  I saw a smirk forming on Saint’s lips from the corner of my eye. He sat beside Xavier, watching us from the bench, and Xavier tapped Saint’s leg to focus his attention on their conversation about hunter business.

  Unlike the others, I knew Saint could hear me. Toralei was aware of it as well, having been at my side since we’d discovered our bond and that even though she was a born alpha, she was my beta. I’d told her secrets no beta had ever been told. Some of what I’d shared were secrets that alphas kept on a tight hold because sometimes betas turned against them, and we were urged never to trust anyone.

  “The pack will come around, Braelyn. They just need a moment to get past the shock of it all. Once they do, they’ll see you wouldn’t do what Saint and his men have accused. You’re not the monster they think you are.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. The fact that my pack thought I could ever do those things to another is what burns me the most. My father was a monster, and they knew that. I spent my life giving them everything they needed and took no pleasure for myself. I have sacrificed most of my mother’s jewels and artifacts from my line to keep them fed and clothed. I wish I had known how easily they would turn with mere words said by strangers. I was taught actions speak louder than accusations, yet they are merely told that I was a part of something horrendous, and they give me their backs, rejecting me without giving me the benefit of the doubt or taking the time to learn the truth.”

  “Saint told them you knew what was in the killing fields,” she pointed out.

  “No, I merely said that ghosts could be heard whispering and keening within the killing fields. I also said the damned screamed for help, and yet it fell on deaf ears. I had no idea what was in the ground, only that Harold forbid the pack from entering that section of the mountain, and I enforced his laws. Those fields have been called the killing fields since I was a child, and every child inside the lodge and compound knows it by that name as well. It is where the battles took place when neighboring packs came to challenge us for the mountain. We just stopped calling it by that name openly for fear it would bring new challengers back to our doorstep. There is pepper inside the shipping containers, which prevented us from catching the scents of those victims. I caught a whiff of cayenne and other dried variants of pepper after the smell of the dead dissipated.”

  “That would make it near impossible for anyone to smell anything from this distance. That’s how Harold prevented the pack from scenting others on the mountain. It still doesn’t explain how he got them into the containers and buried them without anyone noticing,” she mused.

  “He could have done that beneath our noses. We were all focused on winterizing, and that kept us busy. There are so many of us and so much to do that everyone is given a job, including the children. It is the perfect way to slip around this place without others noticing. Besides, we were all warned not to go into those fields. We’re a pack, and we run as a pack. Harold never did so, and so no one even wondered where he was or what he was doing,” I laughed at the fact that I never cared where my father was, so long as he left me alone.

  “But not you, Brae,” she pointed out, grunting at the smile on my lips. “Stop smiling; you’re creeping me out right now. I get the part where no one noticed Harold because he was fucking worthless. But you worked side-by-side with us, never backing down from a challenging job. Shit, there’s not a job here that you haven’t done at least twice, maybe thrice. So how can they find fault with you?” Tora demanded, her anger brushing over my arm to waft in the air around us.

  “It’s self-preservation, Tora. The pack is about to be stuck on this mountain with a new alpha they don’t know. They know he just proved the last one was a monster, something they already knew. Saint won them over by freeing children, and even I would have accepted that as something deserving of respect. I am just collateral damage at this point because I am part of the old alpha’s legacy. He worked beside them, as I have done. Saint isn’t a monster like my father was, not to them. He’s my monster, and I don’t even blame him for hating me for rejecting him. I did that to ensure he had a future. I knew he would hate me for it, but he had to live to hate me, and I was willing to allow it rather than the alternative. They’re not wrong to accept him into the pack, or as their alpha, for that matter. The thing is, the packs are black and white. They have laws and rules they swear by. What happened here, and what is happening to me, it’s a gray area, and they don’t know what to do about it. They’re doing what they were taught to do since birth. They are protecting themselves and their families from the storm that is unfolding here.”

  “By smearing you and your face into the dirt, Braelyn,” she grunted, staring at the pack while I did my best to ignore the bustle of people behind us. “It’s not right, and you fucking know it. And that smug prick is allowing them to condemn you without any proof that you were involved.”

  “If he were anyone else, I’d be dead, Toralei. If another alpha had come here and discovered my father’s sins, my bloodline would have been eradicated with him. You and I both know that to be true. I’m not dead, not yet, at least. Now, make sure that everyone knows what to do and what to expect for deliveries. I think I’ve had enough air for today,” I stated, leaving her to return to my room.

  Saint watched me walk across the courtyard, standing when I got close to his location. His eyes studied my face before slowly sliding back to where Tora remained, leaning against the railing, watching us.

  “Where are you off to, Braelyn?” he asked, searching my face carefully.

  “To my cell, Saint,” I returned icily. “The only place you’ve allowed me to be since you returned.” I didn’t need to look around us to sense the pack watching us. “Do I need permission to return to my cell?”

  “I’ll escort you, Princess.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was a weird feeling not to work with the pack from sunrise to sundown. Instead, I stood on the balcony that looked out over the countryside. M
y room was one of the few that had a balcony with a view of the sprawling mountain range.

  Snow blanketed the peak, indicating that the entire mountain would soon be covered in the soft, icy grip of winter’s mercy. Much like Saint, it was without sympathy, making roadways impassable, cutting the pack off from the outside world.

  The icy wind bit into my naked arms, sending my hair whipping against my face while I watched the sun setting behind the highest mountain. The thin gown I wore did little to keep the chill from settling in my bones, but I welcomed the cold that burned my face, leaving it red from the freezing air.

  Already the pack was behind schedule, running around without no one leading them. The alphas had ignored Toralei’s guidance, and even from the front balcony, I could discern that the lumber they’d accepted wasn’t weathered or treated. It would rot faster, unprotected from the rain and snow that would rage against it until spring came and thawed out the settlement.

  I lifted a joint to my lips, inhaling it as I leaned against the railing. Tears threatened to fall, but they were from the anger and rage churning through me. Saint was sleeping elsewhere, and I’d smelled Carleigh on him more than once when he came to my room. He wanted to fill my womb, telling me it might help smooth things over with the pack, but his offer fell on deaf ears, and I sent him away.

  My options were to breed an heir with him or remain locked in my room until I gave him what he wanted from me. Chaos had tried to get in to see me, but Eryx, my babysitter, had turned him away. He’d turned Toralei away as well, which meant I didn’t know if she’d set up anything with Douglas yet.

  I’d figured out Saint’s plan, which was what every other alpha in his place had tried to do to me. My pack was led through the Fenrir bloodlines, which was why my father hadn’t murdered me alongside my mother.