The Alpha Legacy Boxed Set 1-7

by Holly Hook

  But at least Noah's holding her with his injured arm. He's healing.

  "Hey," Noah says with a faint smile.

  "When does your mom come home?" I ask her.

  Olivia rolls her eyes. "She's at a conference for the rest of the week, so I'm on my own." I can tell she didn't want to tell me that information.

  "We'll clear out of here as soon as we can. Promise," I say. "I know it's been a ride and I'm sorry."

  Olivia softens and exchanges a look with Noah before speaking to me again. "I hope you can find your aunt."

  "Thanks." The basement door, which is positioned between the living room and the spacious kitchen, waits. Everly's already vanished through it and closed the door behind her. My stomach turns over again. I'm not even sure what to worry about first.

  Karina, I decide. She has the power to call other cult members to her and even the Savages. While Brett's turned into a monster who can suck the life from everyone around him, she's trained to kill.

  So I swallow as Cayden releases me. "Ready?"

  He nods and gulps. "Ready."

  We walk down the basement steps together. Here we go again.

  Brett's still not back and I don't blame him. I smell the wild scents of the rest of the pack in the basement, and when I reach the bottom of the steps, I find Everly, Remo, and the Colling Wolves surrounding Karina. The witch has been bound to a wooden kitchen chair someone dragged down to the basement. Silver chains bind her ankles and wrists, which someone has wrapped around the chair's legs and Karina's lap. As if she's in for an interrogation session, someone's placed her chair right under a hanging light bulb. Perfect. Don stands aside as I glance at him, giving me a curt nod.

  "She's ready," he says, moving back to stand beside Nan.

  "Thank you," I say, approaching the light in the middle of the basement. Though most of the Colling Wolves stand at the periphery of the basement, in the shadows, silence falls. Remo wraps his arm around Leonora, who I've forgotten also stayed here overnight.

  Karina faces the floor at first, wrists and ankles bound by the same silver chains that held Brett in Edwin's basement the other day. Her dark hair hangs in her face, hiding her eyes, but I don't miss the way she flexes her fingers and grasps the arms of the chair with hatred. This girl tried to kill her brother. And if she gets the chance, she'll kill us. Karina reeks of acrid poison, which mixes with fresh leaves. A strange scent. She's something that shouldn't exist.

  All the spit leaves my mouth as I near her, but I force myself to swallow and step under the glow of the light bulb. I have power over her. I have to believe that.

  "Look at me," I order Karina.

  She snaps her gaze up at me, making me jump/ I see nothing but darkness and boiling hatred in her eyes. All her vulnerability has turned into this raging storm.

  I sniff. Adrenaline washes off Karina, and I suspect it's anger rather than fear. Her whole scent is strange.

  I gulp and reach for the authority within, and I find the sense of strength that courses through my limbs. "You will die if you call the Savages to you now," I say. "Do you understand me? They'll take one sniff and rip you apart even if you try to help them. This means you can't go back to your precious Romulus cult. Ever. There is no cure for becoming a Wolf."

  Karina opens her mouth and purses her lip before I can react. Spit flies and Cayden pulls me out of the way. She's faster now, faster than a human. The spit lands on the basement floor with a disgusting splat.

  "She's taking it better than I thought," Cayden says.

  A few people laugh. But the mood in the room stays in the toilet. The air gets thicker and harder to breathe. Mustier. I flex my arm and the sense of strength remains. It seems Karina doesn't use the art of sucking the life from people, but she doesn't have to. Her expertise is elsewhere. Just the glare she keeps on me is cringe-worthy.

  "The first thing you are going to do is stop treating your brother like shit," I say. "That's an order. And you will not harm anyone in this pack or anyone I know. That's my next order."

  "Why do you care about Brett? He's just an idiot," Karina says. Each word is a blade.

  I ball my fists, wanting nothing more than to deck Karina across the face. I breathe out, forcing myself to hold back. "He cares about you. I'm sorry he has a black hole for a sister."

  "All he does is abandon people and he doesn't care about what anyone else is going through. Don't bother with him." She glares into my eyes. Karina's bold. I have to give her that. "He breaks promises so whatever he promised you is a lie. Don't believe it. What did he do? Tell you he was going to lift your curse and fight the Savage King? Good luck. You can't fight him."

  The vision roars back into my head and I see Remus ready to leap at his brother, but I shake my head and cast it away. Does Karina know about the fight or what I've seen? And how it ended? "That's none of your business. You do what we tell you now and maybe things will be okay. And Brett didn't abandon you. Realize that, please. And if you choose not to listen to me, we'll make sure you can't call on your dark forces." I'm making everything up because I have no plan for that.

  Karina goes silent. She glares at me as the quiet drags out and everyone watches the showdown. Then she smiles and speaks my worst fear. "You won't win against Romulus. Fight, and you'll turn dark. Stand down, and he will destroy you."

  Chapter Two

  "Brie, she could be screwing with you," Leonora says once I've downed a glass of water in the kitchen. After Karina said that crap to me, Cayden pushed in front of me to stare her down. And I, in a moment of weakness, came back upstairs.

  "I know that, but she just spoke what I've been worrying about for months," I say, pushing my back to the counter and leaning over it. Even the water leaves a bad taste in mouth, like nothing can wash my fears away. "But what if she's right?"

  Remo comes up the basement steps and enters the kitchen. "What a witch," he says. "And I didn't believe in them before. Can I have your permission to knock her out?" He looks right at me.

  "Knock her out? I almost did that myself. And we can't kill her. Do that, and Brett leaves. How's Cayden holding up against her?" He's stayed down there with Karina after motioning for me to leave the basement. Not an alpha moment, but he needed that, too. The last thing I want is for Cayden to feel useless again, which will drag us both down into darkness.

  "I could brew up a drug with Leonora's help," Remo says. "Turns out potions and chemistry are pretty much the same thing. Sure, I'm no good with herbs, but I do have access to the chem lab at school. We could break in after school gets out and we'll make something to knock her out. Sure, I could break into the pharmacy, but the punishments are worse for that if we get caught. And Karina needs time to inhabit only her own head."

  "I agree," I say, listening to the basement. Cayden's saying nothing and neither are the Colling Wolves. It's a silent stare-down. But at least Remo's a genius. If anyone can think of a way to incapacitate Karina, it's him. "You have my green light. I don't want her awake. I don't even think Brett wants her awake."

  "School's in session, but I should be able to get in this afternoon," Remo says, pouring a glass of water. "I'm always in the labs so my presence there won't raise any eyebrows. Leonora, want to come with me?"

  "I'm not much of a science girl."

  "You'd never know. I think you'd be good at it," Remo says.

  I've forgotten about it being the school week. So much for any kind of normal routine.

  Downstairs, Karina spits again, breaking the silence.

  And then I smell a now-familiar scent approaching the house. A mixture of nature and burning hay. Brett. He's back to face the music. I go and press the button to open the front gate for him, using the code I've memorized from Olivia. It swings open with an ominous squeak.

  As Brett approaches the house, I can sense his nerves. It's in the way he drags the backs of his feet against the sidewalk and approaches the house slowly. He doesn't want to face this, knowing Karina might be awake.
<
br />   "You took a long walk," I say as I open the front door for him.

  Brett's dressed in his normal jeans and T-shirt today. He's also put his shades back on. He's shed all evidence of ever belonging to the cult. It's not that he has a choice.

  "I know you can't imagine why." He steps into the house, stops, and listens. "She finally woke up, didn't she? I knew it would happen soon when she stopped groaning and twitching."

  "You know, I can't blame you for taking off," I say. "Karina's a piece of work. The cult did a good job making her that way." I'm careful not to say a word about her father. Brett's only tolerating me as it is. "Cayden's down there with her, trying to get her to calm down."

  "Did she spit at you?" Brett asks, leaning against the wall in that cocky way of his. I'm getting that it's his coping mechanism. Act cool and like a jerk to hide the pain.

  "Well, she missed, so that's good news, right?"

  "You might want to stay away from her for a while," Everly says, joining me in the entryway. "I saw how she was, Brett. She just seems so...selfish."

  "And you get your diploma," Brett tells her. "I have to go down there and see her sooner or later, so I might as well get it over with."

  "The cult warped her, Brett," Everly says. "She might be beyond saving, but at least she can't go back to them if she wants to stay alive. It won't be fun, but we have her with us."

  I look at Everly, shocked she's even trying to talk to Brett. I sense she's trying to give me a break and I remember why. Aunt May. The Hunters still have her somewhere and they must have left a faint scent trail through the woods when they fled last night. We have to get her while someone's trying to get through to Karina.

  I want Cayden to go with me. That's one thing he can help fix. A protective urge sweeps over me as I think of him trying to help guard Karina. Even tied up and turned, she's still a witch with the ability to do magic mentally. But to get to us using the Savages, she'll have to kill herself, too, and I'm hoping she still wants to preserve her own life.

  So I go back downstairs without a word. What to say? Brett and Everly follow me. Cayden's facing off with Karina. He stands there as if waiting for her to react. Karina, on the other hand, stares at the ground and plays up the helpless girl role. The Colling Wolves stand at the edges of the basement, watching the silent showdown. No one knows what to do and I feel bad for leaving.

  Then I notice the darkness lurking at the edges of my awareness, ready to strike. As I reach the bottom of the steps, it intensifies as if Karina has waited for this moment.

  Panic seizes me. "Don't let her think," I say. "She can do magic in her head and--"

  A low rumble fills the basement and a loud explosion rocks the corner of the basement.

  Cayden jumps. "Get back!" he shouts at me.

  Then I see the source of the noise. Water surges across the floor, boiling at first. Allen swears and jumps out of the way, climbing onto a chair, and his mother backs into the wall to avoid the scalding mess.

  "What was that noise?" Olivia shouts from upstairs.

  "Sis!" Brett yells from the steps. "You're not making this any better on yourself."

  "The water heater!" Don shouts, looking at me as if it's my fault. "She broke the water heater!"

  The expanding puddle on the floor loses its heat and stops boiling, but now half the basement has an inch of water on the floor that stops just before Karina's chair. As I watch, heart racing, it starts to trickle down the floor drain.

  "Karina!" I shout, advancing on her. I should've told her not to destroy property, because technically she didn't hurt anyone. The whole basement smells of steam. On the other side of the room, a hole in the water heater continues to dribble water onto the floor. But at least the dark spirits she was using have receded. "Look up at me. I order you to stop using your dark spirits for anything."

  Then she snaps her gaze up at me. "Why are you trying?" That dark hatred remains in her eyes.

  "Did you hear me? I order you to stop working against us in any way. And if you have money, you're paying for a new water heater. Look at this mess."

  She tells me where to go.

  "What turned you into this?" I ask. "Wasn't it good enough for you to be your father's favorite?"

  "It's none of your business!" Her shrieking words fill the basement.

  "Maybe not, but you need to stop exploding things," I order. "I know you can feel my command washing over you. I don't like bossing people around, believe me, but we're all on the same side now."

  "Let me and Brett talk to her," Everly says. "You need to go and find your aunt. Please."

  "I'll go with you," Cayden says.

  I kiss him on the cheek, almost in defiance of Karina's darkness. He forces a smile. We both want out of here.

  I look to her and Brett nods at me, pale. He stands there, resigned to his fate. As much as I don't want to leave dealing with Karina to someone else, maybe it's not my place. She's putting up an even tougher wall than Brett was. I can feel it, like an invisible barrier between me and her. The reminder that I really don't have complete control over her is sobering. And terrifying.

  "Good luck," I tell Everly. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" I hate asking this in front of Karina.

  Brett make a face like he's not sure. "We'll get out if it looks like it's not going to be okay," he forces out.

  I gulp as a wave of weakness sweeps over me. Brett's sucking the life out of me without even realizing it. He's back to a dark place. Cayden flinches, too, and approaches me. I sense the storm raging in the connection we share.

  "Everyone out except for Brett and Everly," I order, waving the Colling Wolves and Leonora up the stairs. "Leonora, you might want to go home and take a break. Remo, you too. And Olivia." She's at the top of the stairs, trying to see the source of the noise. "We'll explain."

  "What about your aunt?" Remo asks once we're up the stairs.

  "Cayden and I will search for her," I say.

  "And Callie?" Remo finishes.

  Callie, fearing that the Savage King would take over while we were all sleeping, left with Earl late last night. Don glaring at her a lot, knowing she could get possessed thanks to Brett, helped her with that decision. "She went back to her motel," I say. "The one in Davidstown."

  "Oh," Cayden says. "I didn't know that."

  "She'd want to help recover my aunt," I say.

  "'Recover' means retrieving a dead body," Leonora says. "I've read plenty of mysteries back in the era where my parents didn't let me go out and do anything. The term you want is 'rescue.'"

  "Rescue," I say as a bad taste rises in my mouth. "Got it. Those Hunters might have been wearing that cloaking spray, but they all ran away through the woods last night. If we focus, we could find their scent and follow them to where my aunt is. They wouldn't leave her alone to die of thirst. Right?" I wish I had Callie right now. She'd clarify.

  "They wouldn't," Cayden says, leaning close to my ear.

  "Then that's our plan," I say. "None of them wanted to kill us and they know we didn't want to kill them. I hope."

  Chapter Three

  The woods behind Olivia's mansion are starting to smell of death.

  Cayden gets a whiff of it, too, and grimaces as we jump down from the top of the stone wall. "We didn't bury him deep enough."

  "Great," I say, pacing between a few trees. In wolf form, we shoveled plenty of leaves and old pine needles over the grave, but we couldn't dig very deep with the lower levels of the ground still frozen from winter. Edwin had to rest just three or four feet down. The grave's back from the wall about a hundred feet and very well-hidden.

  "It's nothing a human would smell," Cayden says. "Leonora?"

  Remo finishes jumping over the wall with her in his arms. He sets Leonora down and Cayden repeats the question to her.

  "I can't smell it," she says, smiling and raising her hand. But I hear her stomach turn over as she bites her lip. No one's comfortable with this.

  "Then we should
move on," I say, looking at Cayden. He shakes his head. Having Leonora with us will slow us down, but if Remo's coming, then she's going with him. I don't know if they had a conversation about how Leonora held the truth about Callie from him, but they seem to be doing okay.

  I pace around the area where the fight took place last night. It still smells faintly of gas, but at least that stench evaporates quickly. I pick up some adrenaline from the Hunters we pinned down and a pretty big area of it that must have come from Edwin near the end. The faint scent of blood lingers. And a few of the adrenaline trails fork off into the woods, just as I expect.

  "This way," I say, waving my group into the trees.

  The scent trails are hard to follow and we fan out, but they join about a half mile from the back of Olivia's property and form a faint pool of nerves. The four young Hunters met here last night, probably debating on what to do. It's as if the four of them leaked fear into this small clearing. Boot prints press down leaves into dirt. Even the masking spray couldn't completely hide their confusion and horror.

  "This is where they listened to Edwin dying," I say, dread filling my insides. "That's going to make them less likely to want to work with us."

  "I agree," Remo says, pacing around the clearing. "We should have killed him quickly. His screams--"

  "Don't remind me," Leonora says.

  I push the thoughts from my mind. Maybe this is the reason Noah didn't volunteer to go on this mission with us. He didn't even seem sour this morning about just being the normal guy. Since last night, things have changed.

  "Let's move on," I say.

  The Hunter scent trail continues into the trees, stronger now that the four of them must have joined and walked away together. Despite the fact that the fear scent slowly vanishes, their scents, like leather, fresh air, and even the fabrics from a sporting goods store start shining through. So Alex didn't lend them his cloaking spray after all. Good. And of course he didn't. He stopped working with Edwin when the warlock attempted to hurt the other pack members.