by Angela Foxxe
“Thinking for an entire day that I’m going to die isn’t enough punishment?” Alexa asked.
“Be glad that you’re alive at all,” Sabrina said. She took a step back from the two she wolves and huffed out a sharp puff of air. “We will give you a day to think about it; for Noemi, mostly. Consider this heavily, girls. The right choice is obvious, but I know what choices you have made up to this point and I know that they haven’t been very smart at all.”
“Thanks for the kind words of encouragement,” Noemi growled, curling her lip at Sabrina.
With that, the eldest she-wolf among the three took off, leaving Alexa in a stupor and Noemi a grumbling mess.
“I can’t believe they want me to give up being an alpha,” Noemi spat. She was sitting hunched over, her arms crossed in a pouty way that reminded Alexa very much of a pup throwing a tantrum. “I would rather fight to my last breath as an alpha rather than give it all up just so that I can live another day.”
“That story my mother told,” Alexa began, tilting her head, “what do you think it was about?” she asked.
“What was it about?” Noemi parroted. “I don’t think it was about anything. Get real, Alexa. She doesn’t care about either of us. She just wants us to roll over for her.”
“Don’t you think it was too realistic to be a lie?” Alexa asked, looking Noemi up and down.
That seemed to shock Noemi out of her bad mood, at least for a moment. “What’re you saying?” she asked, furrowing her eyebrows. “You think that that story was about someone that your mother knew?”
“No,” Alexa said, giving a little shake of her head. “I think it was about her.”
Noemi stared at Alexa with wide eyes, her eyebrows raised nearly into her hairline. She looked like a doe that had been spotted in the woods, but Alexa put aside the comedic expression that the alpha was wearing. She honestly thought it was true. It was what made the most sense, at least to her. How else would her mother have gotten so much detailed information? Why else would she offer the two of them the opportunity to live unless she had the power to do so? The last time Alexa checked, most no-rank wolves didn’t have any sort of power at all.
“Just think about it, Noemi,” Alexa urged, trying to snap Noemi out of the dumbfounded look that she was giving Alexa. “Doesn’t it make sense? When was the last time you saw alphas taking an order from a wolf like my mother? She doesn’t have a rank. She lost her mate.”
“Alphas aren’t mated with strangers,” Noemi said. She had the beginnings of a smile playing on her lips, and Alexa knew that her logic was lost on her friend. “And alphas don’t lose their ranks. A true alpha would die for their crimes.”
“Noemi, you aren’t listening to me!” Alexa protested, indignant that Noemi was taking all of it with a lighthearted smile.
“Alexa, you need to listen to me,” Noemi said, holding up a hand to silence any more of Alexa’s protests. “We need to figure out how to get out of here before you have a crisis about your status. I doubt that story was about your mother. If it was, then it explains why you were anything but a beta earlier today. But that doesn’t mean that we forget about our lives being at stake,” Noemi explained. “Don’t let it distract you.”
“I know,” Alexa agreed, running her fingers through her hair.
Noemi was as stubborn as a bull when she wanted to be. Alexa only wanted to discuss the story at length, but it was clear to her that Noemi wanted nothing to do with it. Next to her, Noemi stretched out on her back and stared up at the sky. Her arms were crossed under her head as she frowned pensively, idea after idea running through her head.
“We could make a break for it,” Alexa said. “Get as far away from here as we can and never look back. I think that might work if we could run fast enough.”
“We could never run fast enough,” Noemi said. “They’d follow us at a distance and once we were tired, they would close in. It’s a typical hunting strategy. Maybe they let us come back the first time, but they won’t let it happen a second time and you know it, Alexa. This is something we can’t just glance over.” Noemi paused for a moment, glancing over at Alexa. “Besides, what about Antony?” she asked.
“How do I know that he isn’t already dead?” Alexa asked, glancing at Noemi and furrowing her eyebrows. “What if he’s decided that dying is better than renouncing his title, like you decided? What if his pack doesn’t operate the same way as ours? No, I know that his pack doesn’t operate the same way as ours. Noemi, don’t you think it’s pointless?”
“I can’t believe that I’m hearing something like that from you, Alexa,” Noemi scoffed. The alpha sat up, tucking her knees against her chest and resting her chin on top of them. “We need to at least go and look for him. I know that you won’t be able to forgive yourself if you don’t, Alexa. If we leave without him, you’ll never be the same.”
“You don’t know that,” Alexa said, although she could feel the lie dripping off of her tongue like molasses.
She wanted Antony to be alive. She could practically sense that he was alive, and it gave her a small spark of hope that she was afraid to kindle. If she let it grow too big, it would consume her. If she didn’t tend to it at all, then it would vanish and she would be left as the same kind of wolf that her mother was.
As Noemi stretched out again, Alexa thought of the story that her mother had told them. She had left out a lot of details, but Alexa knew that it was about her mother. There was no way that it was a legend passed down through the generations. If it had been, then she was certain that she would have already been very familiar with it. Yet, the story had been a mystery to her. She was certain that Noemi had never heard of it either. As an alpha, Alexa would have expected that she knew of every story that floated through the pack.
“Noemi, I’m sorry about biting you,” Alexa said, unable to hold back at least her hundredth apology to the alpha.
“Alexa, I told you not to worry about it,” Noemi said. The alpha sat up and looked her friend up and down. “It is gone already, and it doesn’t matter to me if you lost your temper.”
Alexa was ready to retort, but she was cut off when Noemi surged forward and pulled Alexa into her arms. At first, Alexa struggled against the grip, but slowly sank into it. Noemi’s body was warm, and her heartbeat was more soothing than anything Alexa had ever heard before. Reassured by the alpha’s kindness, Alexa rested her head against Noemi’s and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
That night, Alexa hoped for a night without any dreams. She should’ve known that she was asking too much. There was never a night that she didn’t dream. Sometimes she forgot about the dreams before she woke up, but sometimes they were too realistic for her to ever forget what happened in them.
The first sensation that hit Alexa was the shivers coursing throughout her body and the heavy feeling in her belly. It contrasted with what she was feeling, as there was a hunger so sharp within her that it made her want to turn on within herself. She was certain that her belly was tying itself into knots upon knots as she took step after step through a blinding snow.
Alexa turned her head down, her nose brushing the top of the snow. Her body was heavy enough to sink through the soft tufts of snow all over, while the male in front of her walked easily along its surface. He was having no trouble at all, and Alexa wanted nothing more than to snap at his heels and demand that they turn back. She had never once experienced such anger before.
The male was handsome, though. He truly did care about her, shown in the way that he glanced over his shoulder and gave Alexa long, lingering looks. He watched her until she caught up with him, and then began walking again.
The drying taste of stale meat was on Alexa’s tongue, and it only served to make her hungrier. She wanted nothing more than to sink her teeth into a juicy rabbit and gorge herself like a pig. With the life inside of her belly, she knew that she had to eat soon, or that life would flicker out like the flame of a weak candle.
With the male in front of he
r, Alexa trudged on. It was one of the most realistic dreams that she had ever experienced. It was very much like the nightmare with Antony and Noemi. Only this time, it wasn’t a nightmare. It was real life, and she was pushing through the worst blizzard that the packs had seen in generations.
“We need to turn back!” Alexa demanded, although her voice sounded nothing like her own voice. It was the voice of a stranger, but a stranger who was all too familiar to her.
“We can’t turn back now!” the male replied.
Alexa wasn’t certain how they were communicating through words while in wolf form, but she decided to allow the dream logic to slip. The male bounded through the snow ahead of Alexa, his head and tail held high. His status was obvious—he was an alpha. His muscles rippled underneath a thick, plush coat. Alexa was envious of his health.
“There is time for us to head back!” Alexa argued. “No one will ever have to know that we left. We can raise our pups in the safety of the pack,” she insisted. Her voice had the carry of an alpha’s, and power was in each of her freezing nerves. She wanted the male to listen to her, but he carried on.
For a while, it seemed as though he hadn’t checked on her. Alexa could stop for long times and he wouldn’t turn around to check on her. She wasn’t even certain that he had a care for their pup, so much as he wanted to save his own skin. Self-preservation. It made Alexa curl her lip.
Once, her experiment dragged on for so long that she lost sight of the handsome alpha male. He never turned back once to check on her, and Alexa accepted her fate. He didn’t care about her. He didn’t care about their litter of pups. Alexa turned around in the snow, and raised her nose to the sky.
With the blizzard, her scent had long been carried away. Snow was falling so steadily that she could hardly see a few feet in front of her, and her paw prints had long since disappeared. There was no way for her to find her way back unless she relied solely on instinct.
Rely on instinct was what she did. Alexa lowered her head to prevent the incoming flurries getting into her eyes, and began the long trek back to the pack grounds. She had been a fool for falling in love with some strange male in the first place. She had been a fool for thinking that his words had been true. Of course he hadn’t been telling the truth to her. No male cared about her. Any male that claimed that he did was lying.
“Where have you been?!” the first wolf snarled.
Alexa knew that she hadn’t been walking long enough to be back at the pack grounds, but she accepted it once more. She needed to see where this dream would take her, even if the cold was beginning to shake her very lungs as she breathed in and out. Her nose was covered in snow, and she huffed away the flakes.
“You broke the law,” a second wolf growled.
The first grabbed her with a huge paw on her shoulder, and drove her back to the center of the pack ground. Cold fear was rushing through Alexa, turning her already chilled blood into fractured ice. She was certain that her paws would give out at any moment.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” a third wolf asked.
“I have nothing to say,” Alexa replied. She refused to look down from the harsh stares that she was being given. She was a proud alpha, and she would never turn away from her fate. She had chosen her path. She had known what was coming to her when she made her choice. Maybe it hadn’t been the right choice, but it had been the choice that she made.
“We have a choice for you,” the second wolf stated.
“Another choice,” the first clarified. “Perhaps this time you will make the correct decision.”
“What is the choice?” Alexa asked, looking between the wolves in front of her.
She was certain that she knew what was happening, there was hardly any reason for her to have to ask. They were going to give her the choice that her mother had been faced with.
“Give up your rank, and live.”
The male reached forward, and grabbed onto Alexa’s shoulder. He began to shake her, as fiercely as he possibly could. The action was amplified in her dream, and it rattled her to her very core. She was almost certain that her very teeth were shaking. With useless, pawing hands, she tried her best to push off the male that was shaking her.
He was insistent in his motion, trying his best to make Alexa see the error of her ways with harsh hands. At the last moments of her dream, the male seemed to realize that his actions were not working. He drew his hand back, raising it above his heads
Alexa didn’t even have the time to shrink back from the hit before it struck.
“Wake up!” Noemi snarled, pulling her hand back from Alexa’s cheek. She had been trying for a few minutes now, desperately wanting Alexa to wake up. They needed to move while they had the time, and there wasn’t much of it.
“Noemi—what happened?” Alexa murmured. Her cheek was burning, but the smack hadn’t done much to really wake her up.
In the end, all that she was left with was a stinging cheek and vision dancing crazily from side-to-side. Her whole world was spinning from the motion, making her unable to sit up. Noemi had an arm around her waist, supporting her delicately but firmly. Her friend was a wreck; she could see it in the way that her nightmare affected her body. Alexa had been shaking and whimpering, sounded like a pup whining for its mother.
“You were having a nightmare,” Noemi explained. “I wanted to wake you up,” she continued. “We need to leave right now, Alexa.”
“What do you mean leave?” Alexa asked. She furrowed her eyebrows at Noemi. It didn’t make sense.
“That alpha,” Noemi replied, glancing up a she wolf sitting on her haunches just behind Alexa.
Alexa dared to glance over her shoulder, looking at the alpha for just a fraction of a second. She was a beautiful wolf that Alexa had only seen from time-to-time within the pack. With jet black, plush fur, and pointed, prominent features. She was a wolf to envy, as intelligent and strong, as she was beautiful.
“What about her?” Alexa asked, she was whispering, but she could see the female’s ears twitching this way and that. She knew that they were talking, but she wasn’t telling them to stop.
“I’ve known her for years, since we were both pups. She is willing to let us both get out of here,” Noemi said. She finally unwrapped her arm from Alexa’s waist, now that she was certain that Alexa could sit up on her own.
“How can we trust her?” Alexa pressed. She had seen how things had been going for them. After the betrayal of her mother, Alexa did not want to risk losing her life because they decided to trust another wolf.
“Because she wants to be free, too,” Noemi said.
Alexa looked over her shoulder once more at the she-wolf, whose name she still didn’t know. The she-wolf was looking over her own shoulder with the most striking copper eyes that she had ever seen in her life. The alpha looked away not even a moment later, refusing to look over at the two of them again. Although she was an alpha, Alexa could see her prominent ribs, and she was obviously very lean after a hard hunting season. She didn’t want to know what would happen to the female if she continued in a pack that refused to feed her unless she earned it.
“Is that the only reason that we have to trust her?” Alexa scoffed. She looked back at the alpha she-wolf, as regal as she was only a few moments ago. “She is an alpha, Noemi.”
“And I’m an alpha, too,” Noemi snapped.
Alexa ducked her head. She recognized that voice. It was the commanding demeanor of an alpha. Despite her status, she knew the blood that was inside of her and she dared herself to look up and meet Noemi’s eyes. The alpha was clearly taken aback by the obstinacy that was being shown. She frowned at Alexa, but held her tongue.
“You’re an alpha that I know,” Alexa said. She knew that it wasn’t the best defense that she had, but it was better than nothing. The least she could do was try and get Noemi to see that this wasn’t a good idea. “I don’t even know her name.”
“Her name is Tracy, and she’s someone that you can
trust. Believe me on this,” Noemi insisted.
Alexa could feel the hesitation pouring through her veins. How could she trust someone that she didn’t know? She hadn’t trusted Noemi until they properly knew each other, but apparently that wasn’t a good enough excuse for Noemi now.
“All she wants is the same as us,” Noemi muttered. “There’s nothing wrong with trusting someone, Alexa. Tracy isn’t like your mother. She won’t betray us.”
“How do you know that?” Alexa asked, looking Noemi up and down. “There is absolutely no guarantee that she won’t do exactly what my mother did.”
Out of the corners of her eyes, Alexa could see the female’s ears switch from standing up and at attention to lying flat against her skull. Even her tail was beginning to move, her entire body radiating with agitation. Alexa felt bad for putting the alpha under such strain, but she had no way to trust her other than to go off of what it was that Noemi was saying. It made her entire body flutter nervously to think of putting such trust into the wolves that had beaten her down since she was just a pup.
“Please, Alexa,” Noemi pleaded. She didn’t understand why Alexa was being so stubborn, but she couldn’t blame the she-wolf for it. “I know that you’re scared, but we need to save Antony as soon as possible. If we can’t save him, then there’s no reason for us to continue living, either. Without him, we won’t have a pack,” Noemi insisted.
Alexa could hear the fear tinged her friend’s voice, and she felt bad for making Noemi so scared. Alexa looked over her shoulder one final time at the she-wolf alpha, examining each of her features. She still looked agitated, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been just a few moments before. Alexa turned back to Noemi, and nodded. There was no reason left for her to disagree with the alpha. She knew what was best.
“I’ll trust her,” Alexa conceded. “But if this goes south, then I’m blaming you, Noemi,” she said. Alexa allowed a bit of silliness to tinge her voice, and let a smile come through on her features. If Noemi trusted this Tracy, then why shouldn’t Alexa?