Page 24 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

NIGHT

Finally, after two additional days of walking through the forest, the end of our journey was near.

We had set up camp in a little clearing with a canopy of trees that almost covered the sky.

As I helped take down the camp, I drew in a deep breath.

Over the scent of pine and moist earth, I could smell the familiar warmth of my pack lands on the air.

We were on track to reach home before midnight on our final day of travel.

Without Bryn, we would have been home in only a day’s travel, but after shifting to cross the river, we all remained in our human forms to keep her safe.

I couldn’t fucking wait to be home. My emotions, my thoughts, my wolf—everything had been in flux since I decided to take Bryn with me.

I tried not to dwell much on why I had become so possessive of her, but I felt as if I’d known her for years despite our having met only three days ago.

Those eyes, the blue of robin eggs, stayed in my mind every night long after I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

I couldn’t shake my emotions. Maddeningly, I wanted to get as far away from her as possible, yet I became restless when she wasn’t within arm’s length of me.

I found my attention drifting toward her even when in conversation with one of my hunters.

My wolf yearned for her. To be near her.

Knowing where she was at all times wasn’t enough for him—he needed to be close enough to hear her heartbeat and to feel her body heat. I wanted that too.

It was like I was being pulled in two different directions—on one end was my responsibility to my pack and to make sure that I took over the Kings’ pack, and on the other was Bryn.

As the days passed, her pull became even stronger.

Every time I thought back to finding her in Troy’s bedroom, my wolf still bristled.

When Troy had returned and said those awful things to her as he crept up the staircase, I could have killed him in cold blood right then.

Now, I’d completely abandoned my original plan and dragged some human girl along with me.

I had to believe that in kidnapping her, I had delivered a blow to Troy.

That having Bryn in my possession meant that Troy couldn’t have her, which would put him off his game.

Without Bryn, he would get restless, and then I would have another chance to end the bastard.

That was what I told my team, what I told Dom, and what I planned to tell the rest of the pack once we returned.

But the truth was that I had no idea why I had taken her.

And more than that, having her around made me feel off.

That was clear just from the fact that I’d almost ripped Dom’s head off when he first offered clothes to her.

He must have seen that she needed shoes to protect her feet from the rough ground.

He was probably trying to make sure she didn’t suffer, but that hadn’t mattered to me or to my wolf.

I looked back on that moment with enough embarrassment to make me squirm.

My head was a confused mess of thoughts and emotions; I hadn’t felt this strange in my life.

Even my first shift made more sense than this.

That interaction with Dom wasn’t one of my prouder moments.

In fact, there was a lot that had happened over the past couple of days that I wasn’t proud of—namely, abandoning my original plan and kidnapping Bryn.

And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to truly regret the decision, even as I could admit that it was a bizarre move, to put it lightly.

With all of that on my mind, I felt a twinge of annoyance right at the base of my skull as I listened to Bryn and Dom chat behind me.

We were finishing up the last leg of our journey.

I should have been focusing on how I was going to make sure that kidnapping Bryn was worth it, but my attention was on her voice and her laugh.

Dom had managed to cultivate a friendly relationship with Bryn, which made my skin itch.

The two were chatting about Bryn’s favorite books—a lot of fairy tales and romances from the sound of it—and her passion for gardening.

There was so much I didn’t know about my captive that Dom had easily gotten Bryn to share, and that irked me more than I wanted to admit.

Still, I hung on to her every word as she answered Dom’s questions.

“You seem to care a lot about cultivating plants,” Dom said. “How did you get interested in that?”

“My mom takes care of the pack gardens,” she replied. “She taught me everything I know, but I still have a lot to learn.”

“I don’t know, Bryn,” Dom’s voice took on a teasing tone. The way you talk about gardening, you sound like you could be an expert.”

She snorted in response.

“So, you mentioned your mom—what’s the rest of your family like?”

“Oh…” she paused. “Well, it’s actually just me and my mom. I don’t have any siblings, and my mom has never had a mate or even a lover since I’ve known her.”

The word “mate” stood out for me and not just because of the dreams that I’d had about Bryn. Dom seemed to have picked up on it too.

“You said ‘mate,’ but your mom is human, isn’t she?” he asked

“No. My mother found me as a baby alone in the woods by the Kings’ pack, and she adopted me on the spot. I don’t have any idea what happened to my original family.”

So she was literally raised by wolves. No wonder she’s got so much courage. It also explained a bit about why she was so eager to get back home. She probably missed the woman who raised her.

“What about your family?” Bryn asked. “Do you have siblings?”

I turned my head to look at Dom. This was a touchy subject for most of the wolves in the Wargs pack. Considering the fact that Bryn had been raised with the Kings’ wolves, if Dom told her the truth about what happened to his family, it could introduce some animosity into their almost-friendship.

“No. Not anymore. But that’s a long story meant for another kidnapping,” Dom said, effectively evaporating any potential tension that another answer—the true answer—could have caused.

Bryn laughed, and the sound of it ate at me.

Over the past couple of days, she had been able to relax and even joke with Dom.

With him, she almost seemed accepting of her kidnapping.

But with me, she was snappy and angry and tried to run.

Jealousy burned in my chest. I could admit that the circumstances under which we had met weren’t exactly ideal—but Dom was part of my pack—shouldn’t Bryn be just as upset with him as she was with me?

These emotions were made much worse by the fact that I was obsessed with being near her.

Her scent alone was enough to take over my senses, but often when we stopped for a rest, Bryn would go off by herself to cry.

She probably thought that she was quiet enough that none of us could hear her, but I heard every gasp, every sob.

When she came back, I could smell the salt of her tears.

Something tugged at my chest every time.

Outside of those quiet, somber moments, and when she wasn’t being friendly with Dom, she was arguing with me.

And though her angry face, balled fists, and stiff posture told me that she hated me, I tasted the spice of her arousal on the air.

It washed over me whenever we were near each other or fighting with each other.

She was turned on by me, and I felt an answering ache in my own body.

The aroma of her arousal was so potent, it kept me up while everyone else slept.

I had never in my life experienced something like this, and the fact that a human woman was the one who drove me mad was even more ridiculous.

When our pack lands finally came into view, I let out a sigh of relief.

I had been more concerned about retribution from Troy than I had fully acknowledged to Dom or even to myself.

But now that we had reached home, I knew that as much as Troy obsessed over Bryn, the new Alpha wouldn’t send his men miles away from the Kings’ compound to cross the Kootenai to retrieve Bryn—at least, not while he was still getting used to his new role.

As we continued moving, the cabins came into view, and I heard Bryn gasp beside me. I hadn’t heard her come up, the sight of my home had been enough to briefly distract me from her, but I was actually grateful for her closeness.

We had taken things slower to accommodate her, but she had kept up with us remarkably well.

One of the female members of the pack had let Bryn exchange her large boots for a smaller pair, and she was wearing almost all of the clothing that I had stashed around the woods.

(I’d need to make a note to build up my stash again when I found the time.)

The shock and exhaustion that Bryn had suffered at the beginning of our trek hadn’t slowed her down. I had made sure we stopped to have breaks and to catch a few hours of sleep, but we had never taken a full night’s rest, and there were always wolves on guard.

After days of travel, my pack lands, neatly tucked into the side of Gypsy Peak, were such a welcome sight. I think that was true even for her.

As she looked over my pack lands in awe, pride filled my chest. The Wargs had so little compared to the other packs in the area, but we were a family, a unit that raised our pups together and shared resources.

We Wargs had worked for years to fix up the lands after the mess that first Gregor and then Peter had left them in.

There were still things that needed to be done, but we now looked and felt like a tight-knit pack. And for reasons I didn’t really understand, Bryn’s approval of the land pleased me a great deal. My wolf, too, purred in satisfaction.