Page 72 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha

brYN

Icame to with a groan. I kept my eyes closed as I tried to get rid of the dust and cobwebs that had settled on my mind.

Slowly, I recalled Troy, Samson, and Harlon’s sudden return to the cave to drug me and Tavi.

Again. Whatever they’d injected us with left my body feeling heavy and slow.

Then again, it could be that the Alpha wound was taking its toll on me.

Though I was groggy, I immediately noticed a few changes in my surroundings. The wall at my back was no longer jagged, and I couldn’t hear the distant sound of the Kootenai or smell the overwhelmingly muggy air.

That told me that I was no longer in the cave. I was lying on cold, concrete ground, and my hands and legs were still bound. This time, my cuffs were connected to the wall. I could be strung up if Troy wanted it.

I gave a tentative wiggle, trying to take inventory of my body, but that was a mistake.

I gasped as pain shot through me. If I’d healed while I slept, I hadn’t healed enough—my neck still felt like it was on fire, and I ached in places I didn’t even know I could.

And my ankles and wrists were swollen and sore from having been confined for so long.

At least I was still wearing clothes. They were the gross, dirt-and-blood-caked clothes that I’d been wearing for the last few days, but it was better than being naked in an unfamiliar place.

I tried to force my eyes open, but it was a bit of a struggle with the blood and tears dried onto them.

I hoped I could live long enough to feel clean again.

When I peeled my eyes apart, I found that I was in the basement of a cabin.

It wasn’t Troy’s; I knew this because there was no trace of his gaudy furniture, and it wasn’t reeking with his scent.

To my left, there was an old, wooden staircase leading up, and there was a plain wooden door in the wall across from me.

With so few clues, I couldn’t tell whose cabin it was.

I turned to my left and found Tavi lying a few feet from me.

She was clothed, too, and she was still breathing.

Her arms were free, but there was a thick metal collar around her neck.

A chain led from the back of the collar to a heavy-duty lock on the ground.

The chain stretched for three feet, which didn’t leave her a ton of maneuvering room.

My stomach turned at the sight. It was the kind of thing you did to a dangerous animal, not a person.

“Tavi, wake up!”

She stirred, the chain shifting slightly against the ground. For a second, her eyes opened, but they were empty and unfocused.

“Bryn?” she whispered. “What’s that? Where are we?”

“We’re in a cabin, but I don’t know where we are. Can you come closer to me? Maybe you could undo these chains?”

She tried to sit up, but the chain was so thick and heavy against her that she couldn’t do more than shift around. “I’m sorry. I’m too sleepy.” Her speech was slurred.

“Tavi, focus on me.” I tried to scoot closer to peer into her eyes.

She shifted a little closer to me too, but her strength gave out just as she reached my knee. Her head fell onto my leg.

“I’ll help, I promise, I just…I need to…” The rest of her words became mumbled gibberish, and then her eyes slipped closed.

I wiggled my leg, hoping that would wake her up again. “Wait, wait, wait! Tavi, no! Don’t go to sleep!”

Her eyelids twitched and she let out a brief whimper, but again, she lay silent.

I realized with a chill that she was still suffering from the effects of the drug.

I had no idea if Tavi and I had received the same dosage or if we’d even received the same sedative.

Tavi was alive now, but who knew what could happen in the next few hours?

What if she was falling into a coma? What if she choked on her own tongue without ever waking up?

“Tavi, can you hear me?” I spoke more urgently. “Tavi—Octavia? Octavia Black!”

But no matter how much I tried to wake her up, it was useless. After those initial movements, she remained motionless even at the sound of her full name.

That wasn’t good. Bitter panic began to mount in my body. The only bit of relief I felt was that she was more comfortable on my leg than she was lying on the ground. This bit of comfort was the best I could give her, but it wouldn’t get us out of harm’s way, and it wouldn’t protect us.

A sob tore free from my chest as I leaned over her, my hair brushing her face. “Please…I can’t do this by myself,” I whispered as stinging tears slipped over my cheeks and dripped onto hers. Even then she didn’t stir.

I heard a door open above us. Footsteps descended the staircase, and then Troy and a few of his men approached.

“Stay back!” I shouted.

The men ignored me, making a beeline for Tavi.

They unlocked her chain before dragging her through the door across from me.

A glimpse through the doorway revealed a similarly darkened space, but no further details.

I caught one last look of Tavi, her face contorting in pain, before the door slammed shut.

I shrieked after her, straining against my bonds. My wolf raged inside me, both of us keening and screaming after our friend.

“She’s hurt!” I looked at Troy. “She could die! Please don’t—”

Troy crossed to me and slapped my face hard. “Shut up.”

My mouth filled with blood. Desperate rage rose inside me, and I turned to Troy.

Before I could think better of it, I spat the blood in his face, the crimson glob hitting his cheek.

He grabbed me by my hair and lifted me to eye level.

I hadn’t thought I’d be capable of feeling more pain, but here it was, electrifying across my scalp.

“If you want to live, you’ll learn to respect your Alpha and fall in line like a good whore!”

“You will never be my Alpha,” I snapped. “I’ll die before I accept you.”

He let me go and I thudded to the ground on my back. He backed away from me and began walking back and forth in front of the staircase. His restless pacing was happening more and more often. I wondered if he was closer to defeat than I thought.

“You’re just like my father,” he grumbled to himself.

“No matter how hard I try, no matter how much I do, neither of you think I’m good enough.

Nobody thinks I’m good enough. I am the one in control here.

Why does no one respect that? My father ruled with control and fear, and people bowed to him. I do the same, but I get nothing. Why?”

"I’m nothing like your father, Troy.” I glared at him. “But you are no better than him. You’re a coward who cheats instead of fighting his own battles.”

I had no idea what was going on or if I would survive the day, so I just let him have it. What more could he do to me? What other pain could he inflict?

“Just because your father was fucked in the head doesn’t mean you have to be,” I said, glaring at him. “You could have been the better wolf, but you chose to be worse.”

“No! It was his fault.” He turned on me.

“My father made me this way, and then he tried to rip everything away from me by reminding me about Night. The fucker got sick and then he started feeling guilty about all he’d done to his firstborn.

Not to me. He didn’t apologize for any of the shit he put me through.

Shepherd was the only one he could talk about.

He told me he was going to announce it to everyone when he got better.

That Night should always have been his heir, not me. ”

I stared at him as he beat his fists against his chest. He was a child throwing a tantrum because his older brother got the toy that he wanted to play with, a poor sport who’d lost at some greater game.

Of course, I didn’t discount the fact that Troy was probably telling the truth about Gregor and how Gregor had treated him throughout his childhood.

But nothing excused the way he was acting now.

How was I so afraid of him before? How could I have thought he was anything other than a sniveling, pathetic child in a man’s body?

“You’re an idiot,” I said, calm stealing over me as he teetered on the edge of losing his mind. “You had the perfect opportunity to prove Gregor and everyone else wrong. You could have been a better man, but now you’re going down in history as the worst Alpha the Kings have ever had.”

“You know nothing,” he snapped. “I will go down as a legend. Once Night dies a public death, everyone will know that there is no one left to stop me from creating my own empire. I’ll fucking show everyone that I’m the rightful heir, and I’ll combine both packs just to prove it.”

“You’re delusional.” I shook my head. “Under you? Everyone will suffer. It’ll be chaos.”

There was a pause followed by an eerie quiet. “And so what?”

My eyebrows scrunched together. “What do you mean ‘so what?’”

His blank face suddenly parted into a manic grin that was somehow too wide and full of sharp wolf’s teeth.

His dark brown hair was coming out of its usual, slick bun, falling around his shoulders in unkempt, unruly strands.

“Why should I want the packs to succeed? One of them is loyal to my half-brother, and the other turned a blind eye to the way my father treated me. Maybe…maybe I’ll enjoy watching the packs tear each other apart. ”

“You’re sick,” I hissed with dawning horror. “You’re disgusting. It’s only a matter of time before Night kills you. And if he doesn’t kill you, then someone else will. You can’t destroy these packs, you…you’ll—”

Troy threw back his head and laughed, drowning out the rest of my sentence.

I gritted my teeth and wished I had the power to make him collapse right here.

I hated knowing that Night was likely at his weakest now, just like I was.

I hated that I couldn’t do anything to help him or Tavi or even myself.

The only thing I could do was try to survive, to be alive after Night killed Troy so I could hold him in my arms again.

At this rate, I wasn’t sure I could do even that much.

Sudden movement from Troy caused my instincts to kick in. I jerked away from him as hard as I could despite the protesting aches in my body. In Troy’s hand was something black and small.

I screamed as I realized what it was—a muzzle that was used to prevent shifting.

It kept the snout from growing, thus forcing the wolf to stay inside.

These days, it was meant to be reserved for use in the most desperate of medical situations only, but it had been created hundreds of years ago.

Its original purpose was to subdue and torture, not to heal.

“Get that away from me, you son of a bitch!” I screeched. But still, he drew nearer. “Don’t you fucking—don’t put it anywhere near me!”

“Time’s ticking, Bryn,” he said, giggling as he tried to get the muzzle on me. “Soon, you’ll be begging me to claim you just to save your life.”

“Never! You’ll have to kill me before—”

With one deft move, he pulled the muzzle over my head and fit it over my mouth, securing it with the strap at the back.

When he was finished, he stepped back and smirked.

“When Night is dead, your wolf will be begging for a new mate and she’ll claw at the chance to be mated to me, even if you don’t want her to.

” He winked at me. “I’ll see you soon, Bryn. ”

Troy went back up the steps, giggling to himself, leaving me alone, chained up and muzzled like a rabid dog. I fought hard not to cry, not wanting to give Troy or any of his lackeys the satisfaction.

Another day passed without me hearing anything, marking day seven since Troy had taken me and Tavi away from the Wargs’ territory.

All this time in the darkness, in the quiet, made me want to give up and cry.

I hadn’t seen Tavi since Troy’s men took her away, so for all I knew, my best friend was dead.

My mental health had been all over the place this past week, but today it was at its lowest.

If Tavi was gone, there was little point in me sticking around. At this rate, I would never see the Wargs or Tavi or Night ever again. I closed my eyes, almost wishing I could be dead, too, or at least somewhere far, far away from here.

These dark thoughts persisted even as I heard the door at the top of the staircase creak open.

It was probably another one of the Kings who’d come to torture me or take me away or drug me yet again.

But it was a light pair of footsteps descending the stairs, sounding nothing like Troy or any of his men.