Filed to story: Owned by the Alphas Novel
We can’t tell you, Little Human, until your shadow friend leaves you alone.
“After that, we’ll give you whatever answers you want, but the answers to those questions will put us all in danger if Elias gets a hold on your mind. We can’t risk that, or the pack will be in danger,” Kai explained.
Even though it wasn’t an answer, it wasn’t a no either. It was actually a totally fair explanation. Which they should have already given me, but my alphas were stubborn.
“Okay,” I said, and kept walking.
I was already a few feet ahead when I realized they weren’t walking with me. I looked behind me to see Derik looking at me with a what-the-hell expression and Kai chuckling beneath his hand as Brax looked smug.
“I told them you’d be fine with an explanation. Derik said you wouldn’t be, and Kai said we should just tell you anyway. I won again.” He grinned wider, and I laughed.
“Stop betting on my reactions, and Derik, maybe next time bet on me being reasonable. It’s been known to happen every now and then.” I shrugged, then kept walking.
The wolves caught up within a second, Derik’s hand slipping into mine.
“I should have more faith in you, sorry,” he whispered.
I caught his lips with mine before he pulled back.
“Yes, you should, but I’ll take the apology, and you can make it up to me later,” I said, and he grinned, kissing me back.
“Deal.”
We walked further, and just when I thought my legs were going to snap, lights sparkled ahead of us. Little bulbs of light, like glowing stars suspended in a pathway with no other explanation other than magic as to how they were even there.
I had no idea where they led. From where I stood, it was just a black pit, and it had my footsteps hesitating.
Derik walked ahead as Brax took over urging me forward, Kai bringing up the rear.
I walked down the lit path into the nothing when we climbed a small ridge in the snow, stepping onto a landing that had been cleared of snow but was a tiny place to put a campsite.
It was on a ledge, and we had to walk around a tight space to get to the rest of the landing, where there was a cloth hut set up with an outhouse and a pitcher of what smelled like soup.
It made my mouth water thinking about the warmth.
I went to step forward, but Brax stopped me. “Wait. Derik will check it out.”
“Why?”
“Because we may not be the first ones here, which means we have to move on to the next campsite,” he explained.
I frowned and looked for another one but couldn’t see it.
“The next one? Where?” I wondered if maybe my human eyes were worse than I thought.
“Further around the ledge.” Kai frowned, sniffing the air, staying behind me, his pecs brushing me as he protected my back.
Derik edged along the side of the mountain, the ledge not making sense since we had just climbed the mountain, but since there was nothing about this trek that made sense I left that one alone.
He edged along it, the pit below just black. He got to the ledge and checked the hut and outhouse, then the soup. He pulled a note off it and rolled his eyes, his curse words falling heavy in the wind.
“The vamps were here first,” Derik growled, the thought strong in my head.
I tensed and looked around as Derik nodded for me to come over. I planted my feet.
“If the vampires were already here, then why am I still heading to that site?” I asked before moving.
“They left a note. They gave us the campsite because it’s the first one and we have a human to get up the mountain, winter born or not. Consider it a favor, ” Derik read off the note, then screwed it up and chucked it off the ledge with a scowl.
“I’m guessing that means something bad?”
“It means we owe them,” Kai rumbled, angry and clenching his fists as he walked over to the ledge.
He nodded to me to go first. I went to step, but I did not like the idea of owing the vampires. So, I tested how tired I was now that I had a second wind.
“Or we don’t owe them because we don’t use the campsite at all. The second one is over the rocky mountain of death, right?” I asked.
“No, we have to stop,” Derik said.
“That could be hours or days if the witches want to play games,” Brax tried to convince him.
“You think you can make it?” Kai asked, just as put out by the vamps as I was.
“If it means we don’t owe them.”
“This is the only place we can sleep. You were dead on your feet before. We’re camping here, end of discussion,” Derik ordered, and I raised a brow at the alpha tone in his voice.
It annoyed me and brushed against my aversion to authority.
“Can we take our things and move along to their campsite then? Share the space so we aren’t taking what they offer? Or no tent and no food? Surely there are loopholes,” I said, huffing in annoyance, partly because we were in the situation, but mainly because I was starving.
Missing out on the food sounded like the worst idea I’d had in a long time.
Kai laughed then. I had forgotten they could hear my thoughts for a second there.
“We’ll get you fed and rested, then we’ll deal with the vampires,” Kai said, then urged me forward onto the ledge.
I wanted to resist, but my mind was taken up by the black pit staring up at me.
It was the side of the mountain I hadn’t seen and foreshadowed the next part of the trek quite well, with spikes of mountain and rock threatening to stab me if I dared step out of line.
Literally.
I backed up against the ledge, the snow swirling around me a little softer as I edged, inch by inch, step by step, sideways along the ledge until I reached Derik.
Kai and Brax came across next, Kai being smug and taking the ledge in two steps.
“Tabby won’t let me die up here,” he said confidently, and I laughed, but I was pretty sure it was true. She had a definite favorite.
“And what makes you the favorite?”
“She likes my spirit,” he mimicked, and I laughed harder.
My laughter stopped short when there was a flash of red in the snow. A figure in all black besides a red velvet cloak appeared in front of me.
I gasped and shrunk back as Silas grinned, his fangs low as his eyes assessed me.
My alphas growled, the sound shaking the side of the mountain.
“Cashing in your favor already? Because me not tearing your throat out right now for getting so close is the only favor you get,” Kai warned, his eyes red, his fangs salivating as his talons twitched with his hands.
Silas straightened his cape and brushed off the snow that landed after the wolves growled.
His black hair was slicked back, and he was handsome, a dainty, pale handsome that was pretty almost, but the eyes…they were pure seduction.
“The winter born. I must say, I expected someone beautiful, but you are much more than that, aren’t you, sweetheart?”
Silas used that pretty voice on me and something inside me turned. That poison taste filled my mouth, and my shadows thrashed despite having been subdued since we entered this plane.
But then there was the slight fluttering, the recognition of his seduction that made me want to move closer.
I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but I knew nothing of vampires. I didn’t even know the rules of this place–what wasn’t allowed and what was while we were on the landing.
I also wanted the vampires to know I was not answering to them, I was with the wolves.
I belonged to my alphas, so I did the one thing that would show my loyalty despite it going against everything in me: I narrowed my eyes and stepped back behind them.
Kai gave an impressed chuckle as he stepped in front of me. Derik and Brax closed me in behind them too, their faces stoic, daring the vamp to make a wrong move.
I stayed behind them, trusting them.
“You heard her, Silas. Fuck off,” Brax warned.
Silas ignored him and Kai, looking at Derik. “You cannot possibly hope to keep her without consequences. Especially with the brother in your territory too,” Silas scoffed, his gaze breaking past the wolves and clashing with mine.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?