Page 75 of The Alpha's Fated Bond

What happened?

But there’s no answer to my silent questions.

The soldiers seem to know exactly where we are supposed to go, ignoring the side tunnels that we pass. Every couple of hours, we stop for a brief rest during which we shift into our human forms, and water bottles and food are passed around out of the soldiers’ bags. Nobody talks much during these breaks. Everybody just huddles together, quiet and subdued. My own mind is on Alex, and the few times Lily tries to talk to me, I am generally unresponsive.

At some point, the soldiers begin to slow our pace. During our next rest stop, one of them informs us, “About two more hours, and we should be underneath one of the human cities.”

“What do we do after that?” I ask.

“The tunnel will open up in a cabin in the woods. There’s a garage there. We’re going to shift into our human forms, change our clothes, and use the jeeps parked there to head into the city. Apartments have been set up; they’re owned by the pack. We can stay there indefinitely. Your new identities will be handed out to you, and you will have to make sure to remember those names. We don’t know if Karina’s people are going to come looking for us or not, but just in case, we have to be careful.”

Alex really did think of everything. I look over my shoulder, back the way we came.

Will you meet me there?

I want nothing more than to emerge from this tunnel and walk straight into his arms.

The throbbing in my chest has not subsided. It’s still there. My mate is in pain. He’s suffering.

Sadly, there’s nothing I can do but grit my teeth and wait.

***

Everyone is exhausted by the time we reach the end of the tunnel. There’s been no way to gauge the passage of time, but if I had to estimate, I’d say we probably ran for two days straight. Or possibly more. The children are fussy and tired. Needless to say, everyone is relieved when we climb up through the trap door and into the cabin.

Quietly, we change out of our dirty outfits and into the clothes that are waiting here for us. The garage attached to the cabin has five open-air jeeps ready to go. Each soldier jumps behind thewheel of one of them, and the rest of us spread out to join them in the passenger seats. Everyone is too tired to ask questions or even show the relief that we’re all feeling. I think the whole group just wants to rest now.

However, as we drive through the forest, I feel a strange sensation on my arms. It’s rather familiar, one I’m sure I’ve experienced before.

As I look around, I can’t hear anything aside from the sound of the jeeps’ engines. There’s no sound of wildlife or even wind rustling the tree leaves. My eyes dart back and forth, but nobody else seems to have noticed this oddity. A dirty sensation creeps along my arms, and I look for Lily. She’s just ahead of me, in the first jeep. Unlike me, she doesn’t seem to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. I keep an eye out, observing our surroundings.

There’s something off about this place. Something is not normal.

My wolf raises its hackles. We are not safe here.

My eyes catch a flicker of movement in the trees beside us. It’s a dense forest, and the path that we are driving on is man-made. We are surrounded by trees and thick shrubbery on both sides.

There!

Something is following us. I see it again.

It takes me a couple of minutes to realize it’s not one thing but several, on either side of us. My body reacts to it. It’s a grimy feeling, an uncomfortable prickling along my skin.

There’s no mistaking it this time.

Dark magic.

It can’t be!

The jeep gets closer to the trees, and as it does, the prickly sensation intensifies. I realize I felt the same thing when those wolves attacked Alex and me, and Lily came to our rescue.

I’m sitting between two mothers. To my right, the woman is holding her three-year-old son. The boy is waving his arm outside the jeep. I see the movement in the trees again, and a feeling of foreboding takes over. It’s as if the world slows down for a minute. The child extends his arm, and something comes out of the forest. Without thinking, instinct taking over, I grab the child and pull him toward me. Just in time, too.

The wolf that jumped out of the trees nearly bit his arm off. Suddenly, it’s no longer one wolf, but an entire pack. Their eyes are pitch black, and all of them seem to be fixated on me.

“What is this?” the boy’s mother cries out in alarm. “Why are they chasing us?!”

"Lily!” I shout as loud as I can. The witch stands up in her jeep, holding onto the metal frame to steady herself.

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