Page 40 of Bullied By the Alpha Wolf

“Is this what you want?” Kaiden’s voice was a ghostly whisper. “To leave us like this?”

I shook my head. “What? I don’t understand. Kaiden, I—”

He opened his mouth, and the scream that bled out from him was too loud to process. My brain ached, and I gripped my ears as they bled between my fingers. Then his voice was back, and the screaming was different—crying, wailing.

“He needs you. Can’t exist without you.” Kaiden looked down at his arms, cradling that little bundle, and my eyes flared with realization. “Do you want this? Or not?”

I jerked, the loud clang of metal chains hitting the stone wall pulling me to reality once more. I was still in the basement, still in Eli’s compound. My pulse thundered as I sat there, shaking.

“What…”

Looking down at myself, the images in the dream swirled through my head. I didn’t understand. Or did I?

No, that’s insane. You’re not fucking psychic, Kit. Just…just go back to sleep.

But as I tried to get comfortable again, I knew sleep wasn’t coming again any time soon. The images were still bright in my mind, and I didn’t want to face what they might mean. I didn’t have the strength to spare.

Because I needed to get out of here before Eli killed me.

Chapter 19 - Kaiden

The Collins pack compound was so damn full with all the other alphas here. Between me, Lupe, and Grayson already here, we’d added Alder, Rowan, Cade, Jet, and Brooks.

It was incredibly nice to see Jet and the others again, especially Brooks. He’d been a regular visitor to Jet’s territory when we were young, he, Grayson and I raising hell for all our fathers—adopted or not.

Brooks had been the last to arrive, and he walked over briskly to where I stood talking with Gray, clapping us each on the shoulder in a firm greeting.

“Well, fucking hell, men. It’s only been about a month, and there’s already trouble?” He turned to me. “And now you’re the one calling the meeting instead of old Papa Jet? What has the world come to?”

Chuckling lightly, I nodded at him. “It’s good to see you, man. This…well, there’s a lot to talk about.”

Gray jostled Brooks with a playful elbow to the ribs. “And we’ve been waiting on your sorry ass to get started.”

Brooks scoffed as I led us toward the other room where the counsel was waiting. The others had been waiting for Brooks to get here, and we were all getting a bit impatient, especially me.

“You’re here now, so let’s start. There’s a lot to cover, and we can’t waste another second.”

I could tell that Brooks was intrigued by how focused I was on the meeting. Being around him and Gray usually brought out the playful side of me, and it typically didn’t take long for us to devolve into a bunch of teenage idiots again.

But I didn’t have time for that shit right now.

“Whatever you say, Alpha man.” He leaned toward Gray, who walked on his other side. “What crawled up Kaiden’s ass? It’s just a few mutts, isn’t it? Nothing we can’t handle.”

Irritation flared, and I knew that Brooks was just trying to defuse the tension. Still, I wasn’t in the mood for any of that. Gray did the work of providing a brief explanation for me, and I pressed forward, leaving them behind me as I took up the spot at the head of the kitchen table.

Similarly to Jet’s house, the kitchen had become the more comfortable place to indulge in all this “war room” talk, even though there was a perfectly good living room and cleaned-out study we could have used.

“Kaiden’s a bit more concerned about what the mutts have,” Gray said as he led Brooks in, and they took their seats at the large table. “Do you remember Kit?”

I looked up as the words left Gray and watched as the corners of Brooks’ mouth turned down in a slight frown. But then he was nodding, his brows raising.

“Right, right. Cute, little human? Nice ass?”

The growl left me before I could think better of it, and the entire table eyed me. Quickly, I shook my head, clearing my throat as I tried to downplay my reaction to that.

“That’s the one,” Gray nodded, looking not at Brooks but me as he smirked slightly. Fucker.

“If you’re done, gentlemen.” They clammed up, Brooks sitting back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest. “Good. Now, the reason I called you all here is because we have a problem. I have a problem. Which, of course, is one Eli Williams, the Alpha reluctant to join our meetings and apparently the producer of a new drug targeted at young wolves in my territory.”

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