Page 10 of Rejected By the Alpha King

The alarm stopped. “Fan out,” Jax growled. “Find out what happened.”

Great. More people to witness my humiliation.

“Alpha,” Danny called out. His voice trembled just a little, and I couldn’t help but scowl.

Surely, he wasn’t worried that he’d be in trouble. “We’re back here.”

Jax and two other wolves joined him. One was Jenson, and the other was a female that I didn’t recognize. She radiated power, so she was definitely high up in the pack. The alpha’s eyes darted to me and narrowed. “There was a report that she almost reached the river.”

“Yes, sir. She ran. I caught her just in time,” Danny said proudly.

“What were you doing here so late?”

“She’s let this place become a pigsty. I’ve been giving her extra cleaning duties. I came back to make sure that she was doing what she was supposed to, and I caught her trying to run.”

“Bridget, Jenson, take Danny out and get a full report. Then see that he gets home. I’ll deal with her.”

Bridget. Jax’s third-in-command. Did he really think he needed both to catch me?

“But alpha…” Danny protested. When Jax snapped his head around to stare at him, he ducked his head. “I only meant to say that an escort home is uncalled for. I can make it on my own.”

“Nonetheless, an escort you will get.” Pack magic trembled in his voice, and the two flanked Danny as they walked outside. Still under the table, I reviewed my options. There was no running. Not on this leg, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to complain to Jax about Danny.

That was, no doubt, the fastest way to worsen my situation.

“Come out, Anna.”

No point in trying to stay under the table. It wasn’t like I could really hide from him.

With some effort, I tried to scoot out. My knee bent, and I cried out involuntarily.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” With a growl, he reached under and tugged me out.

The pain worsened, but as soon as I was free, he picked me up like I weighed no more than one of the bags of flour stacked in the corner and sat me on the table. “Couldn’t even escape without fucking it up, huh?”

“I was just doing just fine until one of your wolves stepped out right in front of me while that drunk asshole you made manager was chasing me,” I said through gritted teeth as he probed my knee. He’d already seen my pain. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing it again.

“Be glad you didn’t make it to the river because if I have to get wet to chase you down, I’m going to make you pay. It looks like you just twisted your knee and ankle, but I’ll send a healer to take a look at it.”

“No, thank you.” The last thing I needed was more wolves touching me. “I’m sure it’s fine. Get on with your punishment so I can try to get at least an hour of sleep before I start inventory and my shift later today.”

Jax just grunted and lifted me again and slung me over his shoulder. Fear coursed through me. “What are you doing? I can walk!”

“As entertaining as that might be, I don’t have time to watch you hobble painfully around,” he grunted as he walked through the kitchen to the stairwell that led up to my apartment.

“You don’t have to stick around and watch. I can crawl up the steps without you in the audience.”

He didn’t say anything as his boots landed heavily on each step. It suddenly occurred to me that he was very dressed for this late in the night.

Or early in the morning.

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“An alarm goes off in the territory, I’m alerted.”

I could buy that, but he had a security team and guards for this very reason. I highly doubted he personally checked out every alarm. Not to mention that we were pretty far out in the territory. He’d made it here in record time. Even for a shifter.

“I guess it was dumb of me not to disable the alarm before I tried to escape.”

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