Page 66 of Secrets and S'mores
Or should I set my pride aside, let my heart shatter, and agree to be his? It would keep me safe. He might refrain from challenging my mother and wait until she steps down. Either way, he would end up in power.
It’s too much to handle. I hide away in my room for the rest of the day. My mother never visits me.Maybe, if she was honest with me, we could find a way out of this mess together. But that will never happen. Some rifts are too deep.
My best option is somehow eliminating Orion. And since my daydreams of being with Onyx are now intermixed with visions of murdering Orion, I have a head start in brainstorming solutions.
Unfortunately, I’m not fast enough.
That evening, as the sun lowers behind the trees, the roar of a crowd pulls me from my solitude. It starts as a hum that I almost ignore, but rises in intensity until shouts emanate through my windows and down the hallway.
With stiff legs, I scramble from my bed and push off the wall as I cover the distance. The pebbles prick my bare feet as I rush down the stairs and out onto the dirt.
The entire pack is gathered. What the hell?
With this level of uproar, I expect a formal challenge within the painted ring in the training building. Instead, the jostling pack circles around figures in the center of the main road.
Muscling my way in, I snarl as someone elbows my chest. Dust stings my eyes as dozens of feet shuffle around me. Throwing my weight forward, I push further into the mob.
“Ah, there she is,” Orion says, his voice yelling over the din.
The wolves part, letting me through. I wish they hadn’t.
Orion stands in the center with blood spattered across his shirt. He grins at me, his teeth red.
At his feet, my mother sprawls out. Her chest rises and falls, but her eyes are closed. Crimson streaks her face from a broken nose and her wrist bends at an unnatural angle.
“Mom!” I cry, dropping to the ground beside her. Reaching for her neck, I feel for her pulse. It’s steady, and I exhale in cursory relief. Even with a shake, she doesn’t wake.
Rising, I face him. “How could you do this?”
“The pack wants a strong leader,” he says with a shrug.
“You’re disloyal! Why would anyone follow you?” I growl, wishing I had a weapon.
“There’s my feisty little wolf,” he purrs. Without even glancing down, he steps over my mother. I flatten back until I bump into the wolves surrounding us. Still, he comes closer. “Are you ready to accept me as your mate?” he asks.
“Why would I do that?” I growl.
“I’m the Alpha now,” Orion says. The wolves around us whoop and howl in approval. “You are mine now. I’m wondering if you’ll give in, or if you’ll fight. I love when females fight.”
My heart races, in a way that makes me sick. Tingling spreads through my limbs, panic overcoming me.
“It’s okay, you have time to change your mind,” he says with a dark laugh. “Why don’t you spend some quiet time thinking it over?”
He gestures to his cronies and hands seize my upper arms. There’s no use in struggling as I’m led back into the house and roughly pushed through the door to our basement.
Stair treads cut into my ass and thigh as I slide down a few steps before grabbing the railing and halting myself. I deserve this. Without bothering to rise, I lay my head against the step and give up.
I can’t even find the willpower to tell myself everything will be okay. Orion won’t be a good Alpha. He won’t be a tolerable mate. There’s no silver living, because eventually war will come for Onyx and his pack.
Hopefully they can defeat us. But the bloodshed will be my fault. He will never accept me again, marked by another and responsible for even more death.
Eventually, I limp to the sofa and curl up, grim images of the future playing in my head.
When I wake, all is quiet so I suspect it’s night. It’s fully furnished like an apartment, but the lack of windows is disorienting. At least there are frozen meals in the kitchenette from when Hazel was locked down here two years ago.
It seems poetic that I’m now the one imprisoned down here.
I force myself to eat and clean myself up. There are a few spare clothing items, but even that doesn’t make me feel any better. There’s no way out. And what’s the point?
