Page 356 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

“Let’s head back to the main cave,” I said. “I’m sure he’s hiding here. His scent is all over the fucking place.”

We started to backtrack, Bryn in the lead. Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks. “Something’s wrong?—”

Before the words had left her mouth, growls erupted throughout the cave. Moments later, ferals poured into the cave from the many tunnels around us.

Fuck! We’d headed straight into another of Troy’s traps.

“Bryn!” I called to her, but one of the wolves had jumped on her, clamping its teeth into the collar of her dress. It yanked her off her feet, knocking her head against the hard ground. She lay there, limp. I started for her, but one feral bit into my shoulder and another into my arm. I screamed in pain and fury. I tossed the one on my arm away, an arc of my blood spreading across the cave as I shifted into my wolf form.

I looked in Bryn’s direction and saw a wolf dragging her away. Neither Lance nor Dom could get to her—they were overrun with feral wolves snapping at them.

“Octavia, don’t!”

Dom’s shout came just as my sister, moving as lithe and graceful as a gazelle, leapt over the wolves and headed toward Bryn. As I fought off the ferals, Tavi tackled the wolf, who screamed as her sharpened nails dug into its flesh. It dropped Bryn. Tavi fought it and bashed its head with a rock until it ceased moving. But when she went to check on Bryn, more ferals surrounded them.

The next thing I knew, Bryn and Tavi were gone, and the rest of us had dozens of ferals to deal with. Lance, Dom, and I roared at the losses, then turned our rage onto our attackers.

126

BRYN

My head was pounding from the moment I opened my eyes. The last thing I remembered was heading back through the caves. A wave of terror crashed over me. There must have been an attack. I must have been taken.

I rolled onto my back, wanting to touch my stomach, but my hands were bound tightly behind me. I worried that the kidnapping might have killed my baby, but I felt an insistent movement in my stomach. I almost cried with relief. My baby was safe and sound, and I felt strengthened and reassured by their presence. Now I could focus on what I needed to do to get out of this fucked-up situation.

It was cold, damp, and dark. The ground beneath me felt like wet stone, rough against my skin. The air smelled like stagnant water. All at once, I was flooded with memories of the last time Troy had kidnapped me. Tavi had been with me then?—

“Are you awake?” Was that Tavi’s voice? I rolled onto my side and saw her sitting against the wall. She was also tied up andbeaten, just as she’d been back then, but she wasn’t unconscious. In fact, considering our situation, she looked pretty calm.

“Tavi, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” The cut on her head and her split lip and the blood splattered over her clothing and skin said otherwise, but her eyes blazed in triumph. “I’m better than okay. I killed them both.”

“Who?” I asked as I struggled into a sitting position, pressing my back against the craggy rock wall. My head still hurt, but it was already starting to pound less.

“Harlon and Samson. They’re dead.” She grinned at me. “I don’t have to live my life worrying about them anymore. I ended them with my own hands.”

Harlon and Samson were the men who assaulted Tavi. My pacifism only went so far, and Troy and those two goons were not included. “Tavi, that’s great,” I said, my chest swelling with pride. “You’re amazing.”

Tavi shot me a bloodthirsty grin. “I gave Troy’s men hell before they knocked me out, but we still need to get out of this place.”

“Did you see anything before they knocked you out? Any escape routes?”

She nodded. “I saw a few routes that should lead outside as they dragged us into the cavern. If we can get ourselves untied, it should be a cinch to escape.”

“Then maybe we can…” I turned my head, looking for openings in the cave, but there was only one. “Oh no.”

“That’s the thing,” she said. “They were smart about this; it’s so much easier to keep us in this grotto with only one way out.”

“Fuck. The last time, there were three openings, and neither of us could get through them.”

“There is another way. Possibly.”

“What?”

Tavi nodded upward, and I followed her gaze. At first, I saw nothing, but when I tilted my head, I spotted a hole behind a stalactite. It was hidden from the entrance by more stalactites, but a shard of sunlight peeked through.

“I won’t be able to get through there. It’s too small,” I said. “But you could.”