Page 46 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

NIGHT

Iwas looking through the reports from the sentries on my dining table.

They still hadn’t found Vince, and as the hours went on, I became less and less sure that they would find him alive—if they found him at all.

As I sat there worrying, pressing a hand to my throbbing temple, I heard quick footsteps rushing toward my front door.

I was already standing by the time Mom burst inside, her face the white of a corpse.

I was at her side in a flash. “What’s wrong?”

“Bryn is gone.”

The words sounded like a foreign language. “What did you say?”

“I—” She paused and took a few deep breaths. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer but laced with worry. “Bryn and I were in the gardens when I went back inside to rest. I wasn’t gone for more than half an hour, but…but something felt off. I went to check on her, and she was gone!”

“What do you mean she’s gone? Did she run away?

” Part of me knew that Bryn would never be dumb enough to venture out into the woods to attempt the four-day trek to the Kings, no matter how badly she missed her home.

But a larger part of me was immediately pissed off at the thought that she might try.

After all that had happened, with only ten days until the next full moon, would she really try and head back to the Kings? After all the connections she’d made and after the gentle conversations that Bryn and I had shared, would she willingly return to Troy’s clutches?

“Night, focus!” Mom took my face and made me look at her. “She didn’t run away. I know she didn’t.”

She couldn’t know that. She hadn’t seen how hard Bryn had tried to run home the days following my kidnapping her. But now wasn’t the time to argue about this. I needed to figure out where Bryn was. Now.

“How do you know she’s not somewhere on the compound?” I asked. “Maybe she’s in the library.”

“You don’t understand. When I got out there, she hadn’t finished harvesting the vegetables.

She’d left her gloves on the ground, even though she always makes sure to put them back in the crate.

She’s the tidiest creature I know—she would never leave a job half-finished. She would never leave a mess.”

Now that my rage had started to fade, the dread began to creep in. I already had a wolf missing—what if I lost Bryn too?

What if Troy had sent someone for her?

I raced out of my cabin, calling for my mom to stay put.

In my mind, I called for Dom as I rushed toward the garden.

I found the gloves where Mom had said, lying by themselves in the dirt with the unharvested plants.

I inhaled deeply, catching the remnants of Bryn’s scent on the air, but she’d obviously been gone for a while.

Dom ran up seconds later, followed by Tavi and Jasper, of all people. My wolf was clawing at me, desperate to get me to shift so he could search for Bryn. But he was too manic, too desperate; I didn’t think I could trust him to make any real progress.

“What’s going on?” Tavi demanded.

“Bryn is missing,” I said through sharpening teeth. “I don’t know how, but she’s fucking gone.”

Tavi gasped, covering her mouth as tears shone in her eyes.

Jasper snarled, and Dom released a growl.

The three of us shifted into our wolf forms while Tavi remained as a human.

Jasper started moving toward the tree line, and my wolf snarled at him, a challenging growl.

Thankfully, Dom’s wolf bumped mine, pulling my mind away from Jasper and onto Bryn.

Now wasn’t the time to cede control to my wolf, who seemed eager to challenge Jasper—Bryn could be in trouble.

I put my nose to the ground. The moment I picked up her scent on the soil, I launched into the forest, eager to follow it before it dissipated.

“I’ll go find the other trackers,” Tavi called after us, which was good. I was far too focused to try and reach them myself.

The deeper into the woods we went, the more I had to fight the feeling that Bryn might really have run off—that she’d played all of us this entire time. This path would have taken her to the river, and after she crossed it, she would be in Kings’ territory again.

Damn. This was why I didn’t trust anyone. Why would I ever open up my heart when I had been burned countless times before? I was stupid to think that I could let her in, to believe that she might be my mate like Dom had said.

Dom pushed his way into my mind. “The rain is getting worse and worse by the mile,” he said. “Something might have happened to Bryn. How would she know to take these paths? It’s possible that she’s been taken or lured away somehow…though, I can’t smell any other scents mixed with hers.”

I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on either, but it wasn’t looking good for Bryn and her supposed sense of loyalty.

I wasn’t guarding my thoughts, so Dom caught the tail end of my thinking and groaned. “Stop thinking the worst of every person you know. Bryn didn’t leave on her own. There’s something more at play here.”

I heard his words, but I was afraid to hope. Instead of responding, I closed my mind to him and kept running.

Finally, we came upon a cool, dark cave.

The setting sun had disappeared behind stormy clouds.

Steady rain was pouring from a smoke-gray sky.

I knew without a doubt that Bryn was inside.

Worry surged inside me, followed swiftly by an awful, inky dread.

What the hell is she doing in the cave? She could get hurt in there!

I sniffed at the cave and then snarled. There were male wolves in there…

and the scent of blood. I howled, and Jasper and Dom’s wolves joined in.

They had caught the foreign scents too, and all three of us knew that the wolves weren’t Wargs.

With that thought, my wolf shoved me to the background and took full control.

He sprinted inside, vengeance already on his mind. But I was in agreement. Neither of us gave a shit if we were running into an ambush of a whole pack of feral wolves. Nothing would stop me from getting to Bryn.

When I reached the entrance to a small tunnel, Bryn’s scent was so strong that my wolf nearly bit Dom’s head off for bumping next to me. My wolf was on high alert because Bryn was in that tunnel with at least three other wolves. They smelled wild, not of any pack.

I knew I needed to take a second to plan before I rushed in.

If I rushed inside, I could be leading Jasper and Dom into a really dangerous situation, but when I heard Bryn scream, my wolf took over.

He forced me into the tunnel, shoving my large wolf frame into the tight space so I could get there faster.

Behind me, I heard Dom and Jasper crawling in after.

Finally, I emerged on the other side of the tunnel to a terrifying scene.

Bryn was cornered by three large male shifters.

She cowered over something she was guarding with her body, and my nose picked up a fourth wolf.

It was Vince. I recognized him immediately.

Bryn had thrown herself over his body, and she seemed to be protecting him with her life, even as three feral wolves snarled at her.

I understood all of this the second I emerged from the tunnel.

In the following seconds, the three wolves whipped around, finally taking in my presence.

Behind them, Bryn’s frightened gaze darted from the three foreign wolves to Dom and Jasper.

She pressed more tightly to the injured wolf’s side…

until her gaze fell on me. She visibly relaxed when she saw me there.

She recognized my wolf? She trusted him? Emotion pulsed through me, but I didn’t have time to pick apart what I was feeling. Bryn was trembling, likely from a combination of fear and adrenaline. I needed to get her the hell out of here before she suffered anymore.

First, I had three shifters to take care of.

Two of the wolves moved forward, the third backing toward Bryn and Vince.

I saw red, lunging toward the wolf closest to Bryn, my teeth gnashing.

The other two wolves tried to catch me between them, but I was too quick.

I reached the wolf closest to Bryn and, without hesitation, sank my fangs into his throat.

Hot, salty blood rushed into my mouth and dripped from my teeth.

I would have tightened my grip on his throat, but I dropped him when another wolf hopped onto my back, biting into my shoulder.

I grunted in pain and tried to shake the wolf off.

Fortunately, Dom was there in an instant.

He bit into the feral’s leg, bones snapping in his powerful jaws.

The wolf whimpered in pain, and Dom jerked him down off me.

Behind them, the remaining wolf sprinted for Bryn and Vince, its teeth flashing in the light that shone down from the hole above.

Bryn closed her eyes, bracing for impact. But before the wolf reached her, Jasper tackled it, wrestling it to the ground. I had to fight my wolf’s need to be the one to protect Bryn, to save her from every threat in that cave. Winning the fight was way more important than who took down each wolf.

The wolf had managed to sink his jaws into Jasper’s flank. I bounded over to Jasper’s side and bit the wolf by the scruff of its neck. As it snarled in pain, I tossed it across the small space and into the cave wall. Its body made a meaty thump against the wall before crumpling to the ground.

“Night, look out!” Bryn called.

My wolf looked at her instead of looking where she pointed.

He, like me, was eager to make sure she was alright, but this left me wide open.

The first wolf that I had taken down, the one I thought I’d killed, barreled into me, still dripping blood from its wounded neck.

It slammed me into the wall, breaking ribs.

I wheezed out in pain, landing hard on the ground.

The bleeding feral turned toward Bryn, growling. She again threw her body over Vince’s. Why don’t you run? I thought desperately. Get out of here, Bryn!

The wolf neared her, eager to taste her blood, Vince’s wolf tried to snarl, but he was too weak to effectively protect her. She screamed, kicking the wolf’s snout as it got too close. It bared its teeth at her, and I knew it was about to strike.

With a surge of wrathful energy, I hauled myself to my feet.

Pushing through the pain in my ribs, I shot across the distance that separated me from Bryn.

I tackled the wolf to the ground, ignoring its snapping fangs.

I bit into the wolf’s neck again, and this time, I ripped its throat out.

Blood sprayed across the cave wall in an arch.

His carotid artery spurt, spurt, spurt until its stream of blood became a trickle.

The fight was over. Dom and Jasper dispatched the two other wolves themselves, and neither of them seemed terribly injured. I looked at Bryn, who was staring back at me. Pride flushed across her beautiful face even as tears of relief dripped from her chin and onto Vince’s fur.

My wolf was eager to get close to Bryn—to rub on her and make sure that she really was okay.

But I held it back. For one, it would be inappropriate and disrespectful for me to dote on her in front of Dom and Jasper, who had risked their lives for us both.

For another, I didn’t trust that I’d be able to keep myself upright, not with my ribs aching like they were.

Instead, I turned to Dom and spoke to him through our link. “We need to get them out of here, but one of us has to carry Vince.”

“I’m game,” he said. “I’ve just got a small cut on my front paw.” It would be nothing more than a scratch on his hand when he shifted.

Jasper’s wolf walked over to Bryn, sniffing at her. But she paid him no mind. She only had eyes for me. I stilled, meeting her gaze. It reminded me of a dream that I’d had with her—I had approached her in this form, and she had reached out to touch my fur.

She searched my eyes for several long seconds. And when she found what she was looking for, she sighed. Because she was only human, whatever strength or adrenaline had been keeping her alert faded before my eyes. She slumped forward onto Vince, unconscious.