by Rosko, Mandy
I am the fucking alpha! You do not cower and hide when I need you!
Laurence stumbled back again, blinking again and again, struggling to see through the blood in his eyes, to heal the wound.
Dennis didn’t like announcing what he was about to do when he attacked, but he couldn’t help himself as he kicked the wolf-man in the balls.
Laurence sucked back a short breath, then seemed to choke on it as he bent over.
You protect my mate and son. You do not hide ever again.
The wolf heard him, and it understood who was really in charge here, and it wasn’t Laurence.
As a warning to the others, Dennis slashed his claws down the side of Laurence’s face, and then he jammed those claws into the wolfman’s throat.
The creature’s eyes flew wide, the choking sound continued, and Dennis was stuck watching the bastard as his wolf retreated, and he melted back into his human shape, Dennis’ oversized claws still stuck into his flesh.
Dennis leaned in closer. “You’re the bitch here.” He pushed the man off his claws, as though his flesh and blood were filth on his fingers.
Laurence fell back. His lips opened and closed as he gasped for the tiniest breaths, his face a mess of blood.
Much as Dennis wanted to stay and watch the life slowly drain from his eyes, he had something better to take care of. He let the shift overtake him again, leaving behind the wolf-man and becoming a simple wolf.
He ran through the trees, chasing down the scent of his mate and the two idiots on her trail. He was fast, and where Anna was concerned, he could be even faster.
He could catch up to her before Wallace and Carl did, and if he didn’t, if he made it to her too late and they’d harmed one hair on top of her head, he wouldn’t let them join Laurence until they begged him to.
5
he only thing Derek didn’t expect about being held prisoner in the house of his enemy was how boring some parts of it could be.
When he wasn’t being terrorized to within an inch of his life, he was stuck in the little room they’d put him in, shackled, staring at the walls or ceilings, trying to listen for any voices or words that made it through the walls.
It was difficult to make out much of anything where he was. He imagined the people upstairs knew better than to be openly talking about his fate. An idiot would know their chances of being heard were great, but Derek’s dad had always taught him to search for those mistakes.
Take ten seconds to get a scope of his surroundings, wait for an opening, and pounce on it whenever he could.
The silver-plated shackles around his ankles were locked with silver-plated locks. He’d checked the places where the chains were bolted into the ground. Nothing was rusted or crumbling. Everything was secure, and he was definitely stuck there.
There were some windows, but they were high up, barred up, and even if they weren’t, he couldn’t reach them. He’d tried.
If he stayed here for much longer, Garret was going to kill him.
His dad had been right. Garret was an unforgiving asshole.
But he still wished he didn’t have to be here. He wished he was braver. Wished he was as strong as an alpha, so he didn’t have to have that woman coming to his defense.
Derek was stuck in some hellish nightmare. He wanted to be defended, but it still hurt his pride when it happened. He supposed it was better for his pride to hurt than for his bones to hurt. They would eventually hurt if Garret, that fucking asshole, got his way, so he supposed he needed to play it quiet and cool.
As quiet and cool as he could when he couldn’t find a single way out of here.
He sat against the wall. The little cot and chair had been taken away when that dickhead dragon shifter caught Derek trying to break them to make weapons.
Derek was so fucking bad at this. He wasn’t going to give up, but he knew better than to think he had the best chances in the world if he didn’t manage to get out of here as fast as he possibly could.
His dad had come through for him before. He’d do it again.
He hoped.
The heavy door to his pathetic prison opened suddenly. Derek shot to his feet just in case it was Garret, or worse, the bear shifter. He didn’t have much patience for anything, that guy.
It was neither of them. It was someone else. Someone closer to Derek’s age. His leg was in the sort of cast that could be walked on. He had a tray in his hand with what definitely smelled like food.
Their eyes met, and there was silence.
The guy was tanned, as most shifters were, his hair short and dark blonde. He didn’t look overly tall, or overly broad in the shoulders, and he definitely didn’t give off the smell of any kind of alpha, or even omega.
This had to be an omega because Derek could definitely smell something inside him. Something that burned in the back of his nose that he couldn’t place, but he decided to stay cautious.
“Katie mentioned you hadn’t been fed yet, so I volunteered.”
That made Derek strangely sad.
He knew it was most likely a product of manipulation, that the woman didn’t really like him and didn’t actually want to be nice to him. She was most likely playing a part to get his defenses lowered, but still, Derek wished she had been the one to bring his food.
He trusted her the most out of everyone here.
The guy took a step closer. “I’m Joey, by the way.”
Derek eyeballed the tray in his hands. He wanted the food. His stomach twisted. “I’m Derek.”
Might as well play nice.
He wanted to turn the food away, to not take a damned thing from these people, but he knew better than that. His dad would smack him upside the head if he ever found out Derek turned away perfectly good food.
Food was fuel. It kept his body going, and if he ever wanted to get out of here, he needed to have something in his tank so he would be able to run and run hard when the time came.
Joey looked around the room, as though searching for something.
“Uh…”
“They wouldn’t let me have a chair or a table, so you might as well put it on the floor.”
“Right,” Joey said, leaning down and setting the tray on the floor, though he seemed to have some trouble righting himself, wobbling a little before catching his balance.
Derek stared at him. “I still can’t reach it.”
“Oh yeah.”
The other man knelt down this time, carefully, and pushed the tray closer, until Derek could reach out and take what was offered.
Which wasn’t much.
A single bread bun, a ramen bowl, and a single juice box.
He stared at the offering, then looked at the other man.
Joey pushed himself back to his feet, wobbling a little again. “Sorry. No one upstairs is exactly interested in giving you the good stuff from the fridge, you know? But I added some shredded chicken to your soup before anyone noticed.”
Derek blinked. The plastic fork was punched into the paper top, likely to keep it down when the noodles cooked. There was no steam. This had been sitting for a while, but there was some dark meat in there.
The protein would be good. He could feel his inner wolf salivating over it.
He didn’t want to admit that ramen was a usual fixture in his upbringing. It was cheap, and adding some meat to it always made it better.
This suddenly wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
“Thanks.”
“No problem, I just need to take the tray and garbage back upstairs when you’re done. No one trusts you to let you keep them. Sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? I’m the enemy, right?”
He twisted his fork into the noodles and chicken, taking a bite.
Lukewarm, but there was a sweetness to it he didn’t expect. Slurping his noodles up, he tried to figure out what it was before looking at the other man again.
“Hope you don’t mind, I added a little honey to your noodles. I like them like that.”
“Do you always go all out for prisoners in your pack?”
“Well, it’s not exactly going all out, is it? I mean, you’re stuck down here. The alpha’s sister is missing…”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. “I don’t need you feeling sorry for me.” Derek took a bite of his bun. It was buttered.
Jesus Christ, between the people here either wanting to kill him or playing nice host, he didn’t know what to think. Other than how much this place was fucked up. He couldn’t believe there was ever a time when he’d wanted to live here. When his dad had wanted him to live here.
Dennis could deny it all he wanted, but Derek knew how his old man once tried to pawn Derek off onto Garret. Derek had just been a kid, but he could remember the phone calls. His dad thought Derek was too young, that he wouldn’t be listening, and if he was, he wouldn’t understand.
Derek understood, and now that he’d spent some time here, he could see just how fucked up this place was.
Almost as fucked up as his own pack, only with more money.
“Sorry, I guess I can’t help it.”
“Have there never been any prisoners here before? It’s standard practice for packs with intruders or…specialty cases.”
“Well, yeah, I guess there have been, but not that many, and none of them ever smelled like you.”
Derek stepped himself before he could bring another bite into his mouth. He looked at the guy in front of him, really looked.
Joey avoided looking at him, but there was a distinct rush of color flooding into his cheeks that made what he meant pretty obvious.
Derek’s first instinct was to not embarrass the guy. His leg was already fucked up, and it wouldn’t get Derek anywhere, but he couldn’t help himself.
“You like my smell, do you? Enough to want to help me break the chain and get out of here?”
“I don’t have the keys, and even if I did, I wouldn’t let you go.” Joey looked right at him. “You have a different smell, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything for you beyond what’s necessary.”
“The noodles are delicious by the way,” Derek mocked, scooping some of the chicken in his bowl onto the bun, making a messy little sandwich of sorts.
Joey watched him, his eyes beginning to glow with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of Derek’s neck stand up.
And he didn’t like this anymore. He swallowed hard, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Whatever you want from me, you’re not going to get it, so you might as well just leave me alone.”
“I have to wait until you finish eating.”
“Fine.” Derek felt like throwing the rest back at the guy just to make a point; instead, he scarfed down everything that was left, drinking down the broth and downing the contents of that tiny juice box in nearly one gulp.
And he was still hungry. It wasn’t enough. His wolf wanted more.
He pushed the tray back at Joey, who reached out and took it.
“Are you still hungry?”
Derek crossed his arms, breathing through his mouth so he wouldn’t get any more of that smell. “Just leave me alone.”
Joey stayed where he was, still watching, as though trying to figure out whether or not Derek was serious, and it was pissing him off.
He let his fangs come out, let his claws show; he didn’t try to fight it. “I said, get away from me!” He would have thrown something at the other guy if he had anything to use, but he didn’t.
Joey didn’t run out of the room. He just turned and walked out, that heavy fucking door slowly closing behind him, the metal lock sliding into place.
The anger Derek felt suddenly melted away, as quickly as it had come to him in the first place.
He was alone again, it was quiet, again, and he wished he wasn’t alone. He wished he wasn’t here and he wished he was back home so he could crawl into bed and hide under his thin ratty blankets that he could remember being way better than they actually were.
Derek brought his knees up, wrapping his arms around them.
He’d take a minute to feel completely miserable about what he’d done and where he was, and then it was back to trying to get the hell out of here.
Just a minute to wallow in his self-pity, that was it.
Then Derek felt something else that made him want to rage against the world.
He had to piss, and there was nowhere for him to go down here.
“Fuck my life.”
6
They were getting closer. Anna could feel them practically on top of her. She heard them first, howling after her, then felt the pressure of their paws on the earth as they gave chase. Then she smelled them, then felt their heat.
Their breath, their scents, so close. They were snapping at her tail, and no matter how fast she pushed herself, how hard she tried to get away, it wasn’t enough.
Duck!
Anna dodged and rolled as one of the larger of the two wolves dove for her. She narrowly escaped, smelling the stink of an old kill on the wolf’s breath as its teeth came within inches of her snout. Diving beneath an overturned tree and darting through the woods, she hoped it would be enough to get her out.
The second shifter chasing after her burst through the old pine of the tree, snarled, and she felt the heavy stomping of paws chasing after her again.
It didn’t stop him. It didn’t stop either of them, but it was enough to slow them down for a little while. Maybe a few seconds.
She didn’t dare look back.
Anna groaned. She wanted to go home. She wished she’d stayed in the motel now, wished she’d helped Dennis to escape; maybe she could have tried to convince Garret not to take things too far. He might have listened to her, eventually.
She didn’t want to be here. She wanted her brother.
She wanted her mate.
Those teeth snapped at her tail once more. Anna felt the hairs at the very tip of her tail being plucked or cut as those teeth got her.
She did something she never thought she would ever do.
Anna crouched low, dug her paws into the earth and dead leaves, and spun around.
It confused the two shifters chasing her. They were so big, their speed so great, they couldn’t stop themselves as she lunged beneath their paws.
Anna wanted to smile as she heard a yelp, then felt the two wolves stumble and roll as her sudden move confused and tripped up the both of them, but she couldn’t stop running. She couldn’t stop when they were so close to catching her.
That small victory was short-lived.
Of course they recovered quickly, and Anna was getting winded. She’d lost a lot of her momentum pulling off a move like that, and now she was running in the opposite direction she wanted to go.
She didn’t think she could pull another move like that again. They wouldn’t fall for it twice. They were going to catch her. They would bring her back to Laurence if she was lucky.
Until they did, they could decide to hurt her, and she wouldn’t be strong enough to do a thing about it.
Dennis! Dennis! I can’t do this on my own!
Keep coming, baby. I’m on my way.
Her heart stopped for a fraction of a second. She should not have been able to hear that, but there it was, as clear as though Dennis had sweetly whispered it into her ear.
She pushed harder, her muscles burning, the muscles of an entirely different wolf. Not her. She would never be this fast, this focused, but something ignited inside her, and she couldn’t contain it as she burst with speed towards that voice.
The voice inside her head, the voice that should not have a direction leading to it but did.
And then, just as she felt the paws slamming against the ground behind her, she felt them ahead of her, from one very large, very angry wolf shifter.
Maybe the two behind her didn’t notice it. Maybe they were too focused on catching their kill because they didn’t slow down, they didn’t turn and run in the other direction, or maybe they thought
they could take him.
Either way, Anna felt Dennis coming, smelled him long before she could see him, and when she did finally see him in the darkness, her eyes barely caught a glimpse of him before the shadow of his body ran around her and body slammed into one of the wolves behind her.
And then she could go on no farther. Anna’s legs finally gave out from beneath her, her body falling, falling, falling. It felt that way as the cold ground hit her, and with her momentum, she ran until a tree crashed into her, stopping her before she could make it any farther.
The strike against her body briefly knocked the wind out of her sails. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move, and everything sounded so far away, echoing as though through a long tunnel.
So strange to have that happen, but slowly she pulled herself out of it. Anna’s vision cleared as her body changed back into her human shape. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Dennis.
He was beautiful. Anna almost didn’t recognize the creature fighting with the other two wolves as being a wolf at all.
She’d seen her brother before when he’d transformed into his monstrous wolf shape. She knew what that looked like and was familiar, and while Dennis had the height, the muscle mass, the fur, and the tail, there was something about the way his nose scrunched, the length of his teeth, and the red glow of his eyes that made him look far more demonic and dangerous than any werewolf ought to look.
And yet she was not afraid as Dennis picked up one of the other wolves, slamming him down onto the ground, again and again, roaring when the second jumped onto his back and bit down on a chunk of hair and skin.
Anna searched around with her hand, hoping for a stick, a rock, anything that would help.
And her prayers were definitely answered when she found her rock. She held it tightly, forcing herself to her feet, using the tree behind her to support herself since her wobbling legs would not do the job right now.
Dennis spun around, releasing his first prey as he bucked and kicked like an electrical bull ride. They got so close, Anna barely ducked out of the way before she could be squashed against the pine tree, but she had to do something.