Page 86 of Awakening

Twenty-Two

Olivia

“Hello, Ms. Newman,” the young guard greets me when I roll down my window. He’s incredibly fit, just like everyone I see here, but he doesn’t look like he can be more than twenty years old.

“I need you to open the gates for me, please,” I say, gripping the steering wheel.

His eyes widen as he exchanges looks with the second guard. “I’m sorry, Ms. Newman, but I’m afraid I’m not allowed to do that. I was just called and told it’s not safe for you to leave. I can’t open the gates for you.” Of course. He believes all this nonsense. The second guard turns his attention to another car that is pulling up to the entrance gates.

“It’s okay. I know who I am now. I remember everything. You can let me out,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster while I fake a friendly smile, and the second guard is still engaged in conversation on the other side.

His face brightens with a smile. “You do? That’s amazing, but I’m afraid I still can’t let you out until I receive orders from…uh…Mr. Sullivan.” He called him Mr. Sullivan, not Alpha. He doesn’t believe me.

Ethan said we run the pack together. That would have to mean that I have some sort of authority around here with these poor, brainwashed people. Gripping the steering wheel tighter, and leaning toward the window, I say, “Are you really going to disobey an order from me? I’m your Luna and I outrank you. Let me out!”

“Luna? I?—”

“Fucking do it now! I’m your Luna and I order you to let me out!”

His face pales, and he nods his head as he reaches for the button that opens the gates. The second guard turns his attention back to us when the car on the other side drives through, and he sees the gates opening.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The second guard smacks the first one on the back of the head.

“I don’t know. She said she’s the Luna, and she ordered me to let her out,” I hear him say as I speed through the gates. I look in my rearview mirror to see them arguing as I drive away.

Ethan

She got me good. Really good. It takes me a long minute to be able to stand up and take a deep breath. I slap my hand against the bedroom wall when I hear the door to the garage slam shut. “Fuck.” This is a fucking disaster. I reach in my pocket to grab my phone, but I find nothing. Damn it. I left it in my office downstairs. As I’m heading down the stairs two at a time, the door to the garage flies open and Ben rushes inside.

“Alpha!”

“I know, Ben,” I say, getting to the bottom of the stairs and going to my office to retrieve my phone.

“I called the guardhouse and told them the Alpha ordered them not to open the gates for her.”

“Good. Thank you.” The only reason I’m not in more of a rush right now is that, first of all, I’m pissed off that she got me in the balls and took off again, and secondly, we should be able to intercept her at the gates.

I’m about to call Nick when my phone rings. It’s the guardhouse. Good. They must have stopped her. “Alpha Sullivan,” I say, answering the phone.

“Alpha, this is Dean Miller at the guardhouse. I, uh?—”

“Spit it out, Miller.”

“Luna Newman was just here at the gates. I’m afraid the other guard here with me is kind of new, and while I was busy with an incoming car, Luna insisted she remembers everything and told him to let her out because she outranks us.”

Anger boils in the pit of my stomach. “Had you received the call from Ben instructing you not to open the gates for her?”

“Yes, Alpha, but I guess she was so convincing that he thought he needed to follow her orders.”

“So, he let her out?”

“Yes, Alpha. I’m so sorry.”

“Who is this new guard?” I ask.

“His name is Carson Wilson,” he says with regret in his voice.

“You can tell Mr. Wilson he’s fired. He can start over and go through training to figure out the skills necessary to follow a basic fucking order,” I yell through the phone. “I am the Alpha, and my order stands above all others. Is that fucking clear from here forward?”

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