The Alpha Legacy Boxed Set 1-7

by Holly Hook

"You shouldn't." He paces back and forth, sizing me up and smiling. If I shift, he can defend himself. It's clear from the bulging leather bag on his hip he has more of those toxic bags. "But you can trust that I hate my father and the Savages. So we have that in common, don't we? Think about it. The two of us browsing on a dating site, and we see that on our profiles."

  He's an evil version of Noah. "Shut up and tell me what I have to do to fix Cayden," I demand.

  "Of course." Brett snaps his fingers. "Follow me."

  Chapter Ten

  Brett and I walk through the woods, entering the tree line opposite the one the Savages did. I leave the shelter of the rotten log behind, though since I now smell like it, the Savages might not spot me even if the wind blows in their direction. I lift my sleeve and sniff.

  "You forgot to scratch first," Brett says as we crunch snow under our boots. Though he's without his expensive leather jacket, he doesn't appear cold. In fact, Brett walks with his arms at his sides, sucking it up. Maybe he's full of ice and doesn't need a coat.

  "Scratch?"

  "Scratch and sniff."

  "Could you shut up and take me wherever you need to talk already? My pack will not wait long before they come and tear out your throat."

  "Ooh," Brett says, making fake claws with his hand. "I'm scared."

  "Now you're acting like Matthew," I say.

  That gets to him. Brett balks. "I'm not like that loser. He thinks he's all that just because he's a Wolf."

  "For once, we agree on something. And he thought he was all that before he even turned. It's no wonder the Savages wanted him." I still hate myself for not questioning that bandage around his ankle I thought was a football injury.

  "The Savages take people already aligned to their nature," Brett says, looking straight ahead. He puts his hands in his jeans pockets and breathes out vapor, which curls away in the cold. "They rarely take others. If they do, it's an accident, and then they don't fare well in the Savage order."

  "I didn't know that." Is Brett willing to calm down and talk now?

  I check behind us to make sure none of the Savages are following. It seems Matt and the others have gone in the opposite direction. Wind blows from the north, burying our tracks in snowdrifts.

  "I've seen too much of them already," Brett says, "and they've only been back in the area for a few months. My father used to talk about them and how we needed to be ready for their return."

  "So your coven has been working with Savages for a while," I say.

  "Yeah. You can say that. I thought they'd left for good since they haven't been around here since the Nobles and Hunters drove them out about thirteen years ago. Until now, my father thought the Nobles around here had died out."

  "Huh?"

  Brett stares at me now. He dangles more than a cat toy in front of me: the truth. Is it possible he knows more than Leonora and Aunt May? If the enemy knows more about Breck than we do that's not a good thing. Don't the Russells realize this?

  But Brett goes silent, forcing me to keep following. He has more than the reversal of Cayden's curse to work with and he's using it. I need the truth. There's a whole story waiting to come to light and I won't leave until I have it.

  "Talk," I order.

  "I will, once I have what I want," he says.

  "Great. On the asshole meter, you're going up to a solid seven. And Matt, I'd say, is a nine. You might match him soon at the rate you're going."

  Brett frowns at me. Another win. "On this side of the world, you can't be nice. You'll get destroyed."

  "Noble Wolves don't work like that," I tell him, shuddering.

  He matches what Aunt May told me. And I hate that. Maybe in the Savage world, being nice has no place. It's all about dominance here and who can come out on top, and even the humans who inhabit this world have to play by those rules. It's all about the darkest parts of nature.

  "Are you sure? You have alphas, just like the Savages do. You hunt just like they do. There isn't that much difference between you."

  "But we don't go after humans," I say in defense.

  "True. You love them, which isn't what wolves are supposed to do. The Savages consider you too soft and human. Unless it comes to them, of course."

  "I hope you're just parroting them to make fun of them," I say.

  "You're catching on. Maybe you're smarter than I gave you," Brett says.

  I sigh, biting in more insults. Getting on his bad side and going too far won't get me what I need. I'm in Savage territory. To get what I want, I'll have to play the games. I might even have to throw Noble rules to the side.

  I'll have to quit being nice, even to those who can help me.

  Brett waves me down a trail that I haven't paid attention to. It's narrow, but lined with gravel like someone put it there a long time ago. I crunch small stones mixed with ice and try not to slip. Managing to keep my footing, I watch Brett as he steps over the iciest spots without effort. This is a trail he's taken many times before.

  We pass an old barrel that smells of alcohol and then an old, wooden swing hanging from a tree. I think of my tire swing back home. We're approaching civilization, though there can't be much way out here.

  And then we reach a dirt road. The trail crosses it.

  "Who lives out here?" I ask.

  Brett raises his hand. "Do you think the coven wants to hang around civilization? Too many distractions. Everyone's always on their phones or too concerned about which celebrity farted today. Weak."

  "Superiority complex, much?"

  "Most of humanity has forgotten their true nature. Only those who remember it will survive the future. The Savages will rise and dominate soon enough."

  "I really hope you're parroting them again."

  "What do you think?"

  I hate Brett, but talking to him is refreshing in a strange way. He's blunt. And once he has the truth, I sense he'll be blunt about that, too, and tell me once he thinks I deserve to know. At least I know the guy's authentic.

  "Once the Savages have their way and eliminate the Nobles, the only humans who will thrive in the world will be those who realize their animal nature and fight back," Brett says as we cross the quiet road and continue down the trail. "You Nobles think the Savages want to kill everyone, but that's not true. They only want to bring the world back to the way it was thousands of years ago, when it was truly wild. When people didn't let the weak survive. They know they won't survive in the modern world too much longer. There's no place for them."

  "So they're like, hairy Nazis?"

  "Pretty much. Hey, they want to survive just like you do. Admit that."

  "I never said they didn't," I say. I don't want to imagine a world plagued with Savage Wolves. Opening a history book tells me things weren't rosy in the distant past, no matter what all the crabby old people say. "They want to drag us back to the stone age, basically, so people can hit each other over the head with sticks again."

  "Werewolves go back that far," Brett says. "Two lines split off that long ago. The Savages are your distant cousins."

  "Fantastic," I say.

  "We're almost there," Brett says.

  "Is this the part where I take out your father?" I ask.

  "Not yet."

  "You have a great family."

  Brett looks at me like i'm asking a stupid question. "Don't tell me yours isn't the same."

  He legit is asking like all families are like this. It's as if I've asked him if his parents nag him or if he fights with his sister. I can only imagine what sort of upbringing created this guy.

  The trail curves, and I spot the huge house beyond the thick trees. Though I can only see slivers of it, I can tell it's made of brick and covered in browning vines. The place is old and stands probably three stories tall. Brett and the coven have a mansion out here, far away from the public. I bet few people have ventured out and found it.

  "See the manse?" Brett asks. "If you're like the Savages, you might be able to see it from here."

&n
bsp; "Stop comparing me to them. They might be werewolves too, but they're horror movie werewolves."

  "Well, stop comparing me to Matthew, and then we're even."

  "do you always operate like this?" I ask. "Everything's give and take with you."

  "Well, yes. That's how it works out here."

  "Great."

  I've entered a new world. And there won't be room for nice. There will only be survival of the fittest. I want nothing more than to run back to the pack territory and be in Breck again, where things are more evolved. Where things aren't just about who can come out on top.

  We round the curve and the trees clear, allowing me to see the mansion. It's tall and definitely three stories, and it's old. The place reminds me of Olivia's. Old, broken down, and full of pain. The red brick's faded and covered in vines that have spent deacades creeping up the structure. The lower windows all have metal bars on them.

  "You'd better hope no fire breaks out while you're inside," I say.

  "It's better not to know the Savages can break in while you're sleeping," Brett says.

  "And you push this way of life," I say.

  "Doesn't it make life interesting?"

  "No. It just ruins things," I say. I think of how Cayden and I fought back in October because of danger. "It does not make life interesting. You don't know what the rest of the world is like."

  "The rest of the world is like this, when you think about it. People just don't want to admit the turth."

  Maybe he does subscribe to the Savage way. Brett walks onto the crumbling concrete porch and unlocks the door, drawing a big brass key to do so. I feel as if I've stepped back in time about seventy years or even a hundred. This mansion must have stood here for at least that long. That means this coven has been here at least that amount of time, and so have the Savages.

  This place is just miles from my home. Ten or fifteen at the most.

  "Come in," Brett says, opening the door on darkness.

  I sniff, but I don't detect anyone else inside the house, despite the air that washes over me. It's not very warm inside, maybe twenty degrees better than the outdoors, but I catch a whiff of ashes, burning wood, and plenty of dust. Yes. Lots of that. Brett and his family aren't great housekeepers and probably don't hire a maid. In fact, they might not even be that rich. Maybe they just occupy the house of their ancestors.

  I step inside once satisfied no one's going to ambush me. Once human, I would have balked at the idea.

  Inside, the foyer has an old iron chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The place is mostly dark except for a faint, fiery glow coming from the kitchen. Dusty couches and dying plants occupy the large living room. The place looks lavish from the outside, but it's a dump.

  "You live here?"

  "Isn't it cozy?"

  "It sucks."

  "I know. I can brag that I live in a mansion, but when you're home schooled, that's hard."

  "So. Your father and the Savages. You want me to fight them for you so you can get out of this dump and see the rest of the world."

  "Close," Brett says. He stands only two feet away from me. "Very close. I want my sister to get out of this dump before I do. The Savages keep her here to keep me in line. My father keeps her here, too. They want me to help them find you because I know some magic, but if they don't have anyone here to use as bait, then they don't have any power over me. Got it?"

  "So you want me and the pack to offer my sister protection," I say. That's not as bad as I thought.

  "Yes."

  "And in exchange, you offer a way to end Cayden's curse."

  "Hey. You're not too stupid."

  "I'm not stupid at all," I say. "I can put the pieces together. Sure. I'll get your sister out of here. That doesn't sound so hard." I face Brett, taking my gaze off the old innards of the house. "She's here. I can smell a person upstairs now that I'm inside. I'll do an old-fashioned escort mission out of here and then you're going to tell us what to do to remove it. The witch we have back in Breck is just a novice, it turns out." Why am I spilling this to Brett? He even admits he's not trustworthy. I hope his love for his sister trumps what a jerk he is.

  "You want to meet her?" Brett asks.

  "Why are you talking like there's more to this story than just getting her out of here?" I ask.

  But Brett walks over to some stairs, making the floorboads creak. The other person's scent wafts down the steps. Brett's sister smells like musty roses. A strange scent, but magic users seem to carry them. And something about the smell sets me on edge.

  "Up here."

  "You're not telling me everything. Is your sister horrible?"

  "Well, she's eager to help my father," Brett says like it's no big deal.

  "She wants to help your father find me and you want me to protect her from your father?"

  "Yes. Do you accept this deal or not?"

  I stop right before the steps, only just realizing that I'm following him. "I'm not taking someone who wants to out me to the Savages into our territory. Why? So she can make Cayden's curse even worse and then sell me out?"

  "She's my sister and I care about her," Brett says. "I try to survive this place by sneaking around and making shady deals. She tries to survive by pleasing our father and the Savages. Can't say that I blame her."

  "You can't survive by pleasing people," I blurt. The words fall to the floor. They feel so fake coming from my lips.

  "Are you sure about that?" Brett asks. "Come on. Meet her and get her out of here, or I don't tell you how to fix Cayden. I just happen to know the right herbal combinations and the right procedure to take off the Dividing Curse."

  The Dividing Curse. "The one that can kill Cayden?"

  "They want to divide you from your mate."

  "Why?"

  Footsteps sound from above. "Brett, who's in the house?"

  The girl reminds me of Olivia just from her snooty voice. I look up to see Brett's sister, with dark brown, flowing hair around her shoulders, staring down at us. She wears faded jeans with holes in the knees, as well as an old blue sweater that's too big on her. The sleeves bunch up. I thought Leonora had it bad until this girl. She must be about my age while Brett is slightly older.

  And from the way she squints in the dark, she can't see me all that well, if at all.

  "Karina, you're leaving today," Brett says. "We both know we won't last long with these Savage Wolves back. The alpha is worse news than usual."

  I back away, sensing I should stay out of the coming argument. Karina balls her fists. "Just because I'm female doesn't mean I can't handle myself around the Savages. I know magic better than you do."

  "But this alpha is worse than any Savage I've ever seen," Brett tells her. He drops the annoying exterior and speaks with care. He really gives a crap about his sister. "We both know what will happen. Matt's going to assault you and maybe he'll even bite you. Do you want to get infected?"

  "I know how to defend myself. I could have handled it."

  "With what?" her brother asks, whirling on her.

  "with this," she says, reaching into her belt.,

  She pulls out a wicked-looking dagger not unlike the one Leonora carried when we rescued Alesha. But this girl is different. She has a gleam in her eyes like she wouldn't hesitate to use it. The silver shines in the pale light and sends a chill down my spine. I feel sick and weak just looking at it and I get the sense that it's killed werewolves before. Wehther that was due to the warlocks and witches here defending themselves from the Savages or attacking Noble Wolves, I don't know.

  All I know is that I want her to put it away.

  "And who do you have standing there? My eyes are adjusting and I see it's a girl. You bringing home the girl of the week again?" Karina talks like she doesn't care. She's a mix of Olivia and me. And I hate seeing her because of that.

  "It's none of your business," Brett says. "Stop getting into my affairs."

  "Affairs?" the girl asks. "Since when are you sophisticated enough to use th
at word?"

  "Could you both stop it?" I ask. "I'm here to take you away from the Savages until things calm down." It's clear these two will never stop arguing long enough for me to get out of here and do whatever Brett wants. I need to fix Cayden and the longer I stand here, the higher the chance that he dies.

  "You're not taking me anywhere," the girl says.

  I agree with her in a way. I don't want to transport someone with a silver dagger capable of dealing serious damage to me. My hope is that she doesn't suspect what I am. But being human, she shouldn't be able to smell me.

  "Give me the dagger," Brett says, holding out his hand.

  "Not at this property," the girl says. "Dad won't move us out of here anytime soon. We have to make sure the Savages don't attack us. You know that. And you say you're worried about my safety."

  "I am. The best thing for us both is to get out of here."

  "Then why don't you go with me?"

  "Because the Savages will follow me. They expect me to find the girl."

  "I'm not good enough?" Jealousy flows into her words.

  "You are, but we know our father doesn't believe that."

  The girl frowns and tucks the dagger back in her belt. It's going to be a problem once she crosses over into our territory.

  "But I'll walk to the border with you," Brett says. "And once we're there, you have to relinquish all your weapons and magical supplies. It's the only way this is going to work."

  "Get rid of the only means to defend myself?"

  "Yes," Brett and I say at the same time.

  Karina walks down the steps and stops halfway down, eyeing me. "Who is this girl?" she asks, squinting.

  "This is Brianna. She's going to take you away from here and hide you from the Savages until Matthew's gone. He's a threat to every girl on the planet. I've met guys like him and they can't be trusted, even if you work on their side."

  I balk, shocked that Brett has just come out and said my name in front of a girl who wants to help the Savages and her father find me. It's clear I'm the target here. The one they want, for whatever reason. And the king he mentioned—who is he? I have a lot more questions that need answering, but right now, I have to play Brett's game. I have to protect his ungrateful sister.