Page 7

seven

ASPEN

No one made eye contact with me. No one even looked at me. When I said hi to a few of the men, they straight-up ignored me.

Dicks.

Then again, I knew exactly which dick was to blame for their behavior.

I still got a good feel for the layout of the Lodge, though. I found a few nice lounge areas, too. The top floor had a really nice one. The view from the balcony up there was amazing, and I planned to head back as soon as I finished checking out the land around the building. I’d noticed some nice furniture out there when I was on the other floors, so I wanted to see that.

But I’d noticed a large building down a paved path, too. The groupies and pack women had to be there, and I wanted to make sure they were being treated well.

If the king was holding human women captive, I needed to know so I could get the hell out of there, and take them with me.

Somehow.

I took the stairs down to the ground floor, and my phone finally buzzed with a text message. I’d asked Fletcher how things were going hours earlier.

Pulling it from my pocket, I read the message as I turned the corner to go down another flight.

Fletcher

I’m fine

Ended up fighting a few challenges last night, but I won obviously. More on the schedule today

Fletch wouldn’t be killing the alpha wolves he beat. Alpha wolves who supported the leading Alpha made a pack much stronger.

But if they didn’t agree with him, they could and would keep challenging until they wore him down and he lost, or until he let someone else take control of the pack.

My stomach clenched.

Me

How bad are your injuries?

Fletcher

Just bruises and a few cuts

No big deal

It was a big deal, though. Shifters healed faster than humans, but it wasn’t instantaneous. It would take a few days before he was back to full health, and that meant he would be fighting more challenges with those injuries.

Me

Are they going to back down?

Fletcher

Don’t know

Hope so

I started typing out an apology as I rounded another turn, but just before I stepped down, I noticed a guy in the side of my vision and nearly had a heart attack.

I jerked away while I was in the process of stepping down—and lost my balance, entirely.

I went down so hard, there wasn’t even time to scream. My shoulder collided with the floor roughly a moment later, and I stared up at the staircase, dazed.

The guy who scared me was kneeling next to me a minute later, an “OH SHIT” expression on his face.

“I thought you heard me coming, I’m sorry. Are you—” he reached toward me, but hesitated.

“Fine. At least it was just one flight,” I mumbled.

“Shit.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I’m grabbing Clay for help. I’d help you up myself, but with the Alpha’s orders…”

“It’s fine, I get it. Dick said not to touch me. Hunter would be better, though,” I mumbled.

He was the nice brother, even if he didn’t seem like it.

“Sure,” he said quickly.

I could feel dominance coming off him. He was an alpha. A powerful one. But one who answered to Enzo, apparently.

“Who the fuck texts while they walk down the stairs?” Hunter growled, striding out a door one flight above me not even a minute later. He took the steps two at a time and kneeled next to me when he reached the landing I was sprawled over. “Your ankle looks broken from the security cameras.”

“It’s fine,” I protested.

“It’s not fine. You fell down the stairs and wrecked your ankle.”

“I noticed.” I pushed myself up to a sitting position.

“Enzo’s busy with some rogues. I’ll let him know what happened when he’s done,” Hunter said, lifting me up to a sitting position. I winced as my ankle was moved.

Yeah, that hurt.

Maybe it was broken.

“I wasn’t trying to scare her,” the alpha wolf said. “I was on the other side of the stairs.”

“I know. I saw the security footage. You’re fine, don’t worry about it.”

Relief crossed his face. “Thanks.”

My phone buzzed.

The alpha looked down at it. “Screen’s broken, but Fletcher says he can handle the challenges. Fletcher Keys?”

“Yeah. My brother.” I rubbed a bruise on my head.

That was going to leave a bump. Hopefully it would fade fast.

His eyes brightened. “I knew him when we were teenagers. Creek Pack, right?”

“Yeah. Guess our birth dad used to be the Alpha there, before he and my mom passed. Jordan Fern.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. “No shit, really?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn. Who’s challenging Etch?”

“Etch?”

“Everyone called him that when we were teenagers.” The alpha waved it off.

“I don’t know. A bunch of them. They found out he was hiding me, and they want him out.”

“You should bring him here. We have way more fun than the Creeks.”

Hunter prodded the swelling goose egg on my head, and I flinched. He said in a flat voice, “Lovely. My brother will be thrilled.”

I ignored him, lifting an eyebrow at the other alpha. “The Savage Pack is more fun than the Creek Pack? I have a hard time believing that.”

He grinned. “The Crimson Pack, actually. We wouldn’t have so many alpha wolves here if it wasn’t. Give me his number.”

He pulled his phone out.

Hunter prodded my shoulder. I gritted my teeth against the pain. “Quit it. I’m fine.”

“My brother is going to want a full description of your injuries when I break the news.”

“I wasn’t attacked, Hunter. I just fell down the stairs. I told you, I’m fine.”

He grabbed my ankle carefully, and I cursed.

Loudly.

“You’re not fine.”

Arguing seemed pointless.

He might actually be right.

“Even if it’s broken, it won’t take long to heal. A week max, probably.” I looked at Fletcher’s friend again. “Ready?”

“Yup.”

He put it in his phone as I rambled Fletch’s phone number.

“Got it. I’ll convince him. No alpha can handle a pack that doesn’t want him.”

“Except the king,” I pointed out.

The alpha snorted. “Every bastard in this pack would forfeit their life if he asked. He couldn’t get away from us if he wanted to.” He stood. “I’d help you to the doctor’s office, but Alpha won’t take my scent on your skin as well as he’ll take Hunter’s.”

“Chicken fucker,” Hunter muttered, shoving an arm under my legs just before he scooped me off the ground. A sharp cry of pain escaped me.

“You’re so afraid to piss him off that you won’t help me, but you like him?” I groaned, as Hunter carried me down the next flight of stairs.

The alpha grinned, walking with us. “The dynamics are weird here, but you’ll figure it out.”

“Does it have something to do with the groupies you have imprisoned in the building down the stone path?”

The alpha barked out a laugh. “There are no groupies within fifty miles of the Lodge. Or women at all, until yesterday. The bottom floor of that building is our gym. The other floors have more male wolves living on them. We outgrew the Lodge.”

I bit back another cry of pain as we turned a corner and my foot brushed the wall.

Hunter grunted an apology. “Doctor’s headed up now. Just a few minutes.”

“Why aren’t there women here?” I gritted out.

“Alpha doesn’t want the distraction, and he’s already in pain because of the pack’s link. We have to hit the bars in town when we need to find a woman.” The alpha wolf tapped his temple.

Five hundred wolves was a crazy amount, and he had more than that. It made sense that there would be some side effects. I hadn’t seen Enzo struggle with the pack yet, but it wasn’t like I’d spent much time with him.

“Anyway, I’ll deal with Etch for you. You want him here, right?” Fletcher’s friend asked.

“Of course. I don’t think there’s anywhere else for him to go, anyway, but he won’t come here until he reaches that conclusion himself.” I took a sharp breath in as my leg bobbed, courtesy of Hunter turning roughly to step through a doorway.

“No worries. Give me a few days, and I’ll make it happen.”

I nodded, pain taking the words out of my mouth.

Fletcher’s friend disappeared. I hadn’t learned his name, but that was fine.

“Don’t spend much time with Jake. Enzo respects him, but he can’t be here much. He won’t handle it well if you’re developing feelings for one of his alphas while he’s gone,” Hunter grunted.

“He’s the first person to talk to me all day. Everyone else is acting like I don’t exist.”

“No one wants to be the next to test Enzo’s limit with you. If he doesn’t hurt Jake, everyone will calm down about it.”

I sighed. “I didn’t grab my phone. Or my iPad.”

Hunter pulled them out of the big pockets on his cargo pants, and I accepted them gratefully. Both screens were cracked below the screen protectors, but I didn’t have the money to replace them, so I’d make do.

The door opened, and a man stepped through. I didn’t recognize him, but he was clearly an alpha too. He wasn’t wearing a lab coat, but I assumed he was the doctor when Hunter stepped over to him and gave a quick rundown of what had happened.

The doctor lifted his hand to his chin and studied me. “I can’t touch her without the Alpha’s permission, of course.”

“One of the rogues in the north went rabid, and he’s out hunting him. Do you want to be the one who distracts him right now?”

“Of course not.”

“Do you want to be the one who didn’t help his mate after she broke her ankle, then?”

He scowled at Hunter. “Of course not.”

“Then fix her.” He gestured toward me.

“You’ll need to stay to attest that I didn’t mishandle her. And I’ll have to wipe my scent off her with alcohol afterward.”

Jake had to be wrong about the pack liking Enzo, because the doctor was clearly terrified of making him think he had intruded on his territory or whatever.

Hunter plopped down in a chair off to the side of the flat bed he’d placed me on and pulled his phone out of another pocket.

“You’re the Gamma, right?” I asked Hunter.

It seemed pretty obvious. Gammas were usually the observant, careful ones. Betas were the friendly, outgoing ones most of the time. That wasn’t always true, but most of the time it was.

“Yeah.” He typed something into his phone, his fingers moving quickly.

Didn’t want to talk, I guess.

“Are people mad that he claimed me?”

He grunted.

It sounded noncommittal.

I was pretty sure that meant he didn’t know.

“No one’s angry.” The doctor prodded my ankle, and I sucked in a breath as tears stung my eyes. “Well, maybe a few. Not angry at him. Angry that he has you, and they don’t. We’ve seen many alpha wolves go insane because they’ve been mateless for too long.”

My forehead creased. “That’s a thing?”

“It’s what makes wolves rogue, and eventually, rabid.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Rogues are werewolves who have been lost to their wolves. They never shift back. They’re not any more violent than normal wild wolves, but they always turn into rabids. And rabids are out for blood. When they’ve turned, they kill quickly and without rhyme or reason. We hunt rogues to prevent them from becoming rabids, but there are too many.”

“How many?”

“We estimate at least five thousand. Ten wouldn’t be a surprise.”

Fuck.

“That’s why Enzo’s not here?”

The doctor nodded. “The Alpha tries to handle most of the killing on his own, to spare the rest of us.”

“And succeeds,” his brother said.

“What does the rest of the pack do, then? There are so many of you.”

“Us,” the doctor corrected, gesturing to my neck, and the mark there. “You’re one of us now.”

My throat welled with emotion. What emotion it was, I couldn’t say. I didn’t even know whether it was good or bad.

“I’m going to save us the trouble of larger scans and just use an ultrasound on this. It’s clearly broken, and will heal fine given what you are, but I’ll need pictures to show the Alpha when he gets back.”

“I really don’t think he’ll care that much,” I protested.

“He’ll care.” The doctor opened a cabinet and dug around for a moment before pulling the device out. He unpackaged a disinfectant cloth. “I’m sure you can’t get diseases any more than we can, but I don’t want to report to him that I wasn’t careful.”

“Okay.”

I eyed the machine. It was surprisingly small, and looked modern. “It’s going to hurt when you put that over my ankle.”

“Probably.” He brought it over. “I’ll be as gentle as possible.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as he pressed lightly but firmly to my skin. My eyes stung, and I bit my cheek.

“Most of the pack patrols the forest to watch for rogues and keep track of them. When one goes rabid, they hear about it immediately. Some members of the pack run the city’s police department. Most of them are the older, more trusted wolves. I’m technically an officer, but I work with the lab team currently.”

“Lab team?” I barely got the words out.

“We’re trying to figure out a way to alter werewolf DNA so it’s compatible with females. I’m sure you’re aware that the first male wolves were made in a lab, by human scientists. They purposefully created us not to be able to produce female werewolves, so they could control us.”

I did know that. Everyone knew that.

The doctor pulled the device away from my ankle, and I let out a shaky breath, eyes still stinging.

“All done. I’ll just wrap it up and put it in a boot. You usually heal at the same speed as a male wolf, yes?”

“Faster,” I admitted.

He made a noise of interest. “For reproductive reasons, I imagine.”

I had no idea.

“I’d like a sample of your blood, if possible.”

Hunter growled, but the doctor went on without acknowledging the sound.

“If we could isolate the strand of your DNA that allows your wolf to exist, we could turn the willing pack females, and the groupies. By doing so, we could solve many of our society’s problems. We wouldn’t go rogue, because we would have mates to ground us. Theoretically, packs would be much more stable under an Alpha pair. We?—”

“If you want to take her blood, you’ll need to talk to the Alpha,” Hunter said firmly.

If the doctor could figure out a way to turn human women with science, I would be so much safer. I wouldn’t have to spend my life in a lab. I’d never have to worry about any of that, ever again.

Enzo could even choose another mate.

Maybe I could actually be free .

There was a chance he would realize that something in my blood, or saliva, made it possible for me to turn them myself, but that seemed unlikely. I didn’t understand how genetics or DNA worked, but I was fairly confident it wasn’t as simple as finding blaring signs in my genes that said, “USE ME TO MAKE MORE WOMEN”.

But what if it was?

What if they trapped me, and the Alpha agreed to it?

I couldn’t give them my blood. Not if I didn’t know for sure that I was going to be safe. If I was a better person, maybe I would be willing to sacrifice my life for the good of all werewolves.

But I wasn’t.

Not in a pack I didn’t know, surrounded by people I didn’t trust.

Not when it could lead to a lifetime of pain, torture, and abuse.

If I really mated with Enzo, and I knew his wolf would protect me no matter what, then I would think about it. But I didn’t know that. I didn’t even think that.

So, it was out of the question for the moment.

“I’ll think about it,” I said honestly, ignoring Hunter’s warning.

The doctor smiled. “Thank you. I’m sure the Alpha will consider it too.” He grabbed a bandage and sat beside me with a stack of alcohol wipes. “This is probably going to hurt too, but I need to wrap your foot. It would heal fine on its own without interference, but you’re likely to reinjure it if you walk around without a bandage.”

“I’m ready.”

He started, and I closed my eyes again. Tears leaked out of the corners as he slowly wrapped the injury, pausing to wipe the fabric down constantly. I didn’t think he needed to be as thorough as he was, but I wasn’t going to argue with him while he held my broken ankle in his hand.

The doctor gave me details about their rotations and stations as he wrapped it, telling me how they looked for wolves who may be close to going rogue, and staging interventions with their packs when possible.

There were just too many of them.

The population of Crimson River was more than eighty thousand, and it was growing rapidly. We lived a very long time, and as more groupies came to town, more wolf pups were born. And since we were always born in multiples, we definitely didn’t struggle with reproduction.

Staying alive and sane seemed to be much more difficult.

He put my bandaged ankle in a boot and gave me a bottle of werewolf-strength painkillers before Hunter helped me hobble back toward Enzo’s room.

“Does he know?” I gritted out.

My wolf was curled up in my abdomen, hiding from the pain with her paws over her face. She wasn’t interested in coming out at the moment.

“He knows.” My head turned slightly as Clay reached us and pulled my free arm around his shoulder, taking the other half of my weight. It was such a relief, I could’ve cried. “He’s snarling at everyone, but they took down the rabid and are making quick work of the remaining rogues. It’s about a two-hour drive from where they are right now, but I imagine they’ll be back around three or four.”

My stomach clenched.

The idea of them killing sane wolves who were trapped in their fur was just… sickening. If the wolves were going to turn rabid, I did understand why they were doing it, but still. It was horrible.

Knowing I might be able to help was more horrible. I had never tried turning someone as an adult, or even a teenager. It had almost killed me as an infant, but I might be able to manage it without dying now that I was older.

I didn’t know for sure, though.

And they could lock me up for the ability, if they knew about it.

I was in too much pain to think about sharing it.

I needed to focus on figuring out what to do about my Alpha situation first.

They turned down the wrong hallway, and I frowned. “Where are we going?”

“He wants us to feed you,” Clay explained.

Ah.

“Can he talk to me mentally?” I asked, curious.

“He added you to the pack, so I’m sure he can. It just causes him less pain to talk to us.”

I frowned. “Why does it cause him pain?”

Clay shrugged. “Too many wolves. Not enough Enzo.”

I frowned and looked at Hunter for a better explanation, but he just grunted at me.

We reached the dining room, and Enzo’s brothers lowered me into a chair. Hunter propped my boot up on an empty one across from me, and my eyes stung with the motion.

“Did you take the meds?” Clay checked.

“She refused,” Hunter grumbled.

“I don’t want my mind scrambled by medication around people I don’t know.”

I flinched as a new feeling seemed to blaze to life in my mind.

That didn’t feel great.

Didn’t seem like a great sign, either.

The sting of it faded quickly, and Enzo demanded in my mind, “Take the medication.”

There was dominance behind the words, but it rolled off me like always. “I’m surrounded by people I don’t know, and they’re all stronger than me. I’m not taking it.”

“Stubborn little Princess,” he snarled at me.

“I’m nearly six feet tall. No one has ever called me little in their life, and you’re not starting now. Get out of my head.”

“Take the medication, and I will.”

“I’m fine, Alpha. Back off.”

“You call me Enzo, or Mate. You are not my lesser.”

“Then stop ordering me around and telling people not to look at me.” I was done fighting with him.

There was too much other shit going on.

I closed my eyes and let out a long breath as he snapped at me again. When I didn’t respond, he finally pulled out of my mind. That strange mental pathway he’d left remained, though.

“Fighting with him gets you nowhere,” Clay said, matter-of-factly. “We’ve been trying our whole lives.”

“Has he claimed either of you as his mate?” I shot back.

Neither of them answered.

“Then don’t try to stop me from fighting with him. I’m not going to roll over and present for the bastard. I’m not here to serve him. I don’t know why he wants me, but whatever his reason, I’m never going to be a quiet little princess who follows his orders without question.”

They didn’t reply to that, either.

I didn’t bother telling them that I was going to take the medicine as soon as I was safely locked in the Alpha’s room. They didn’t need to know that shit, and I didn’t want Enzo to know either. Not after he went to the trouble of connecting our minds to try to force me to submit to him.