Page 119 of Rejected By the Alpha King

It had been too long since I shifted. I needed to let her out, but this was not the time or place. She was acting erratically.

Was she sensing a smell? Lunessa had said that I was stronger.

Show me what you sense.

Quieting inside of me, she stilled, and then I could smell it.

A spell.

Rising back to my feet, I turned. Now that my wolf had shown me, I could see it all over the woods, like a rising mist of colors. Magic reached out to me and danced all around me.

Was Lunessa doing this? Narrowing my eyes, I studied the magic of the woods. Layers upon layers.

Transportation magic. What had Lunessa said? The spell had to connect two different places.

Something else was about to come through this mist. Another dead body? Something else?

Reaching out, I touched the mists and began to spread my void. Nothing else was coming through here. Not while I was around.

When it was done, I turned back toward the house. Whatever Emerson had planned, I wasn’t going to sit out here and hide.

I’d retraced my steps before I realized that I wasn’t alone. Freezing, I watched as Emerson slowly walked toward me. “Anna. What a lovely surprise.”

Lovely surprise my ass. “Emerson. I was just coming to join you, but I expected you to be in meetings all day.”

“Jax is in a foul mood. We decided it was in everyone’s best interests to take a little break.

I wanted to stretch my legs.”

And find me when I was completely alone. How convenient. “I’m on my way to see Jax. I bet I can bring him out of his bad mood.”

His eyes narrowed just a little, but then he smiled. “No doubt. Mates are like that. I was surprised you haven’t been in the meetings. Your opinions are invaluable.”

“You didn’t think that when my father was alive.”

“Anna, I can only imagine how the experiences with your father have clouded your memories. I’ve done some things that I am not proud of, but I never meant to hurt you. I have no intentions of hurting you now. Let me walk you back to the house. I get a strange feeling about these woods.”

I just bet he did. We fell into step with each other, and I tried to hide my revulsion. “Are you even upset that Bridget and Dean are dead?”

“Not at all, and neither should you be. They were disloyal. I am impressed that you were the one who killed them, although I should not be. It’s not the first time you’ve killed.”

“So now that Plan A has failed, what is Plan B?”

“No Plan B. I hadn’t really had a Plan A, either. Dean and Bridget truly did not think you would come to me on your own. If I had realized that they planned to kidnap you, I would have put a stop to it.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No, of course not.” He sighed. “But I can and will show it to you. I hope you’ll join in the meetings. I think the packs should come together as never before. Allies in this fight. If I can get Jax on my side, the others will come around.”

I cast a side look at him. “And what does this entail? This cooperation? A singular figure over all the alphas? You, perhaps?”

Emerson chuckled. “Hardly. That’s a headache I imagine no one would ask for. As packs, we fight over everything. Territory. Products. Hell, just last year, London wanted to send some of his juveniles to a high-ranking university in the city, and the other alphas lost their minds.”

“You think we shouldn’t be a secret anymore?”

“I think we should trust our packs. We are hardly the only packs in the world. Not all of us live in secluded clusters, you know. Some of them blend quite well with the human population.

Perhaps if we did, we would not be such targets.”

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