by Sara Summers
“If that were true, we wouldn’t have almost lost you two days ago.” The woman’s voice was solemn.
“Brooke, this is Carla. She’s our pack’s wise woman.” Ross introduced her.
“Hi.” I didn’t bother with a smile, it would’ve hurt too much. “What’s wrong with me, why am I getting worse? My sickness was supposed to go away when I met my soulmate.” I grimaced. The longer I was awake, the more parts of me started throbbing with pain.
“It will go away, but it will take time. Get some sleep, honey. I’ll explain everything the next time you’re awake.” She assured me, then helped me drink something out of a cup.
“What was that?” I asked, but even as the words came out, I heard them slurring. She had drugged me, that stinking wise woman.
“Rest.” The woman placed her hand on my forehead. “Take a break from the illness, let your mind begin to heal.”
Her words were the last thing I heard before I lost myself to the sleep.
Chapter 11
I was in and out of consciousness a lot the next few days, and I don’t really remember any of it. However, I definitely remember what I saw when I woke up for good.
“Ross?” I mumbled, squinting my eyes open to see just a little.
“Brooke?” he bolted upward, standing over me almost instantly. His face, looming over me, was covered in blood. I’d been dreaming a lot the last few days, so I sort of hoped that was just a hallucination or something. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
“What happened?” I reached up to touch the blood. Some of it was dry and hard under my fingers, while some of it was still a little wet. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Ross said. Judging by the blood that was also all over his clothes, he was lying to me. “How are you?”
“Nauseas, but I’m always nauseas.” I murmured. “What happened to you?” I repeated the question in hopes that this time he’d give me an answer.
“Nothing.” His voice was flat.
“Ross.” I glared at him, scooting upward to try sitting as well as I could.
“Don’t worry about it. Focus on getting better.” He looked straight into my eyes. There could be no doubt about it; my mate was stubborn and brave. In short, he was an Alpha.
“I’ve been trying to get better for years. It doesn’t work. Tell me what happened.” I folded my arms, narrowing my eyes at my soulmate.
“Your body just about gave up when you shifted to human form.” A middle-aged woman stepped into the room with her hands on her hips. She had a heavy southern accent and was dressed in a black pencil skirt and a flowy green top. The woman was beautiful.
“Who are you?” I checked.
“My name is Carla, I’m the pack’s wise woman.” She gave me a small smile. My eyes widened.
“I thought wise women were always old hags with nothing better to do with their lives.”
Ross closed his eyes, but Carla chuckled.
“Maybe in your part of the world they’re like that, but not here. Here, we want all the help the Creator will give us.” She smiled.
“Huh.” I leaned back against the wall behind the king-sized bed I sat on. My gaze went back to Ross. “You still haven’t told me what happened.” I reminded him.
“I told you, focus on getting better.” Ross refused to answer again, so I turned to the second-best source.
“What happened to him?” I checked. Carla pulled her long, wavy hair over one shoulder.
“You happened.” She said.
“Carla.” Ross growled, looking at the woman beside him. “I’m still your Alpha.”
“And Brooke’s my Omega.” Carla shrugged. “I’m here to take care of her and I think it will be better if she knows what’s going on.”
“Yeah, that’s right.” I nodded. If I had to call myself Omega to get answers, then so be it. I could survive the title for a while, if just until I figured out what it would take to get Ross to come back to Glacier with me.
Ross didn’t reply, but his muscles were tense. Looking at the muscles bulging on his arms, I noticed scratches and bruises and even a cut with stitches on it.
“What do you mean, I happened?” My words were cautious, but I had a feeling that I already knew the answer and that it wasn’t one I’d want to hear.
“You’re one of the Shifty girls, and we don’t like that your people are teaching humans all about us. Many pack members have challenged Ross for his place as Alpha because they refuse to follow a man mated to a Shifty girl.”
My mouth opened.
“What? That’s ridiculous, Ross didn’t pick me. I’m sure he’d be happier with some cute Southern belle, baking peach cobbler and wearing tall shoes. Why would he be punished just because the Creator matched us together?!” I demanded.
Both Carla and Ross were looking at me like I was crazy.
“You and Ross are two parts of one soul. If you’re a Shifty girl, there’s a reason Ross is with you.”
“So, what? He’s a cave man, I’m a Shifty Chick. We’re polar opposites so we complement each other. That has nothing to do with him being Alpha, or—“
“You’re right, Brooke. It has nothing to do with me being Alpha.” Ross cut me off. His words were short and he seemed frustrated. “They’re challenging me because they’re not okay with you being their Omega.”
“Okay, then I’ll let someone else do it.” I shrugged. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”
Ross looked up and sighed.
“This is the problem.” He gestured to me. “You have no respect for our history, you don’t care about our traditions. Do you even know what the Omega’s role is in the pack?”
“As far as I’ve seen, Omegas don’t do anything.”
“Exactly. You know nothing of our people, they’re challenging me because they don’t think you have a right to lead beside me.”
“You fight physically to see who becomes Alpha? I thought it all depended on dominance.” I hurried to change the subject. Everyone hated me, we had established that already, so I might as well get all the answers I could before someone slit my throat in the middle of the night.
“The Alpha is the strongest member of the pack. When someone attempts to become the new Alpha, they fight both physically and with dominance.” Carla explained.
“So people have been beating you up ever since I got here?”
“They’ve been challenging me.” Ross nodded once.
“He’s won eight fights today.” Carla stepped in.
“Eight?!” I demanded.
“I told you, people are angry.” She folded her arms. Yeah, it didn’t seem like she was my biggest fan.
“You don’t need to worry about this. You should focus on getting better.” Ross said. Carla nodded.
“The Alpha is right. You’re very sick.”
“Believe me, I know.” I muttered.
“I don’t think you understand the severity of your illness. Your animal side has almost completely retreated. If you hadn’t been fighting for shifter rights this whole time, you would’ve lost that part of you completely.”
I reached up to rub the back of my neck. Her explanation had me worried.
“You’re saying that all of this is my fault? I didn’t shift enough so I got sick and stayed sick?”
“Yes.” Carla nodded.
“Ross.” Someone called my mate’s name and banged on the door. “There’s another challenger.”
“I’m coming.” Ross growled. He stood up and looked at me. “Do exactly what Carla says. I don’t care what it takes, I won’t lose you.”
“Okay.” I bit my lip.
Ross left the room, and I heard the door slam behind him. Tears sprung in my eyes, and I tried to blink away the water.
“Why does he even want me? We just met and I’m already ruining his life.” I whispered.
“You’re his missing piece.” Carla said, as if it was that simple.
“That doesn’t have anything to do with lo
ve.” I shook my head. The wise woman smiled sadly.
“You’ve spent too much time with the humans if you believe that.”
I rubbed at my eyes.
“Do you have a phone I could use? My best friend is probably wondering if I’m okay.” I seriously needed a dose of normalcy, and Jazz was the only candidate to consider.
“Sure.” Carla disappeared for a moment, coming back with an iPhone in her hand. I expected her to bring me an old flip phone, so that was a little surprising.
“Thanks.” I smiled.
She nodded and then left the room, closing the door behind her.
I couldn’t help but wonder why she was helping me rather than challenging my place as Alpha. Carla didn’t seem any happier about my place in Shifty Society than anyone else in her pack, so why wasn’t she trying to kill me?
I didn’t know, but at least I wasn’t dead yet. Though by the looks of it, death could definitely make an appearance sometime in the near future.
Chapter 12
I dialed Jazz’s number—since neither of us could use our family as emergency contacts, we’d made it a point to memorize each other’s phone number ages ago.
“Hello?”
“Thank goodness.” I breathed, leaning back and closing my eyes. “It’s so good to hear your voice, JZ. I swear I’m in Crazy Town right now.”
“What happened?” Jazz sounded cautious. “Are you okay?”
“Well apparently I’ve been slowly dying. Or at least the animal part of me has been dying, I don’t really understand. Anyway, Ross’s pack is ticked. They keep challenging him for his place as Alpha, and here they beat each other up with both fists and dominance.” I reached back to grab my hair, then grimaced when I felt how nasty it was.
“You almost died?” she demanded.
“Apparently. Anyway, what should I do? I don’t know these people and they could kill my soulmate just because I’m a Shifty girl and they’re against what we’re fighting for. I still can’t shift and I could pass out from nausea at any moment.” I wrapped my free arm around my stomach.
“What would you tell me, if I were in your situation? What’s your life motto when it comes to sickness?” Good ole’ Jazz, giving me my own pep talk. She’s a clever one, that girl.
“Fake it ‘till you make it.” I smiled, though it was a bit of a sickly smile. “You’re right, it’s faking time. You’re talking to this pack’s newest Omega, and I’m going to go out there and kick some lion butt until every one of those people accepts Ross as their Alpha again.” I slid out of bed, my feet landing hard on the cool, tiled ground.
“You got this, Brookie. Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck.” I grinned at myself, and had to bite back a laugh as I hung up the phone. Yeah, as if. The only time I wouldn’t need luck would be after I died. Even then I might need luck.
I stopped in the bathroom—it was across the hall so I didn’t have to look hard—to make sure I wasn’t a complete mess. Sure enough, I was. My hair had leaves stuck in it and I reeked of puke, but at least I’d scare everyone. Who needs luck when you have puke on your side, right?
Yep, that’s what I told myself.
It wasn’t until I opened the door to leave that I realized I was only wearing a large t-shirt and a pair of booty-shorts that Carla must’ve lent me. The shorts were too big just like the shirt, but it wasn’t as if I had another option.
So, I tucked the shirt into the booty shorts and steeled myself for conflict.
I was the queen of faking it though I hardly ever made it, and today, this pack would learn that for themselves.
They had no idea whose soulmate they were messing with.
Chapter 12
I didn’t know where I was going, but I heard yelling and growling and snarling so I just followed my ears.
There was a crowd gathered around the two lions, who were circling each other. No one noticed me until I started pushing my way through the crowd.
“Omega coming through, move it!” I ordered, clearing the path by unashamedly shoving people out of my way. If they were just going to stand there and watch my mate get hurt, they deserved every push and shove they got.
My body was weak and wobbly, but my determination was strong. I made it to the front of the crowd in seconds, and all attention turned to me rather than the fight.
Whispers echoed through the crowd.
“What’s she doing here?”
“I thought she was sick.”
“She’s going to watch them fight?”
And, my personal favorite,
“What a slut! I can see her cotie through the back of her shirt!”
Yes, folks, I was wearing a white shirt. It was Ross’s, which meant it was very worn out. Being yanked over a person’s head and thrown in the dirt time and time again will do that to clothing. Don’t ask me why he even had a white shirt, because I don’t know.
Ross’s attention snapped to me and my… sluttyness, for lack of better term. He snarled when he saw me standing there, in front of the whole crowd. I didn’t care one single bit.
“This fight is over! You’re all idiots!” I hollered. That second sentence probably wasn’t entirely fair, but I didn’t care. They deserved it. “If you have a problem with me, tell me that to my face. The next person who takes their anger out on my soulmate will regret it.” I folded my arms and waited for someone to protest.
They all just stared at me. They didn’t say anything, didn’t yell or argue or get mad. They just stared at me as if I was crazy. That was a good thing; part of the plan was to look crazy so no one would attack me, right?
Finally, after a long and extremely uncomfortable pause, the lion behind me snarled. Not Ross the lion, no. I could handle his snarling. It was the other lion who snarled.
When I turned to face him, his front legs were bent as if he was going to pounce. Since I was the target of the pounce, I figured that some more yelling and faking it was in order.
“You think I’m afraid of you?” I demanded, glaring at that big mean lion-man. “You think you’re the scariest thing I’ve seen? You and the rest of your people think you’re somehow better than me just because you believe in living in the middle of nowhere?
“Well guess what, Travis,” I glared and hoped he would catch on fire from the heat of my fury.
Was his name Travis? I didn’t know, but I thought it fit him. Jazz and I were always doing that, giving people assumed names. I don’t know why, it just seemed right that the person had a name while we lectured them.
“I’ve been through things way scarier than you. In the past year, I almost got blown up, shot, poisoned, and stabbed. I rescued my best friend from people who made shifters fight their loved ones to the death, I was a tour guide at a shifter museum where some humans wanted to kill me for the sixtieth time, I built a fricking university, and I did it all while my body refused to digest food.
“Now I’m here, where all of you hate me because I fought for something I believe in. You’re forcing my mate to fight over and over again because of what? Because you don’t like me? Well guess what? You’re not the first, and you definitely won’t be the last. So get over it.” I glared at that idiotic lion shifter, then turned to look at the rest of the bunch.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves.” I told them.
And then I walked back through the crowd (they parted for me this time, no pushing required), and right back to that cabin-house where I’d thrown up more than my fair share of times.
As I walked, I became dizzier and dizzier. The world spun around me as I reached the house, and I grabbed onto the porch railing, hanging on for dear life.
“Carla?” I called out, begging her to come to my rescue. “Carla!” I panicked, and my body began to sway uncontrollably.
Before I could call out again, I lost consciousness. Apparently I’d faked it so long that my body couldn’t make it. That couldn’t be good.
Chapter 13
When I woke u
p, I was strapped to an ice-cold metal table. The room was dark, and my head was spinning.
“Hello?” I croaked. Good gravy, I was sick. And tired, really, really tired.
“Good, you’re awake.” A man stepped out of the shadows. “So, you’re Ross’s mate. The Shifty Chick.”
“The Shifty Chick has a name, you know.” I muttered, trying to sit up. “Can you undo this strap on my stomach?” I gestured to the strap with my head.
“You’re my prisoner, why would I let you free?” the man looked at me like I was daft.
I groaned and leaned my head back.
“Figured it was something like that.” I sighed and looked back at the guy. I couldn’t really see him that well, so I decided just to try to be friends with him. Maybe if he’d be my friend, he would let me go. “Who are you, his evil twin?” my voice was even drier than my throat.
“I prefer ‘arch-nemesis’.” He shrugged. So this guy spoke sarcasm.
Good, I might actually be able to pull this off.
I thought.
“What do you have against him?” I checked.
“Our packs have been enemies for five generations. It began with his pack’s Alpha killing—“
“Don’t bother explaining it, I’ve heard this kind of story a thousand times.” I shook my head. “Didn’t realize this could happen in real life. They have a different story than you, you have a different story than them, both of your stories are fake… can we get to the part where you tell me what you’re going to do to me? Ross will be here any minute, you’ve got to move quick if it’s going to happen.”
The man laughed.
“You’re different. I like you.”
“Well you’re the only one in this state who does, then.” I yawned. “Can you get these restraints off? I’m sick enough without them, couldn’t run away if I wanted to.”
He came over to undo the straps, and I got to actually look at him. His hair was the same color as Ross’s, but his face was a different shape. I could see the two of them being distantly related, though. That was a possible explanation for the pack rivalries.