Page 22 of Unexpected Alpha's Claim

“I don’t know but I am a sucker for medieval castles,” Stacy exclaimed as she took a step closer to the nearest golden cup and ran her fingers along the sconce.

“Follow me, ladies,” Helena urged, gesturing them towards her.

She couldn’t have timed her intervention any better. I was too frustrated and too confused to have the will to even try to explain anything to them. I was deep into struggling to fathom this dynamic between Raul and me, then add in the witch Helena on top of that. And now my friends too? How could I talk to my friends about things I was having such a hard time understanding? Helena led them down the hall and out of sight, leaving Raul and me alone.

“Final, huh?” Raul mused, ignoring the arrival of my friends as he pursed his lips. He shook his head. “I’ve thought about it.”

“And?” I asked.

His eyes flashed and his lips curled back once again.

“I’m not afraid of my Alpha or his little bitch,” he says with certainty. “But the stakes are too high. If I lose… once I’m dead, they’ll go after my family. There’d be nothing to hold them back. In the best-case scenario for them, they flee Dawson. But we love that place. It’s been our home for generations and leaving it isn’t something any of us want. And the worst-case scenario? They are all killed.”

It was clear that he had thought this through. I couldn’t even pretend to know what the odds were against him. The night I found him, the wounds were serious enough that he should have been dead. But something about the entire situation had my hackles up and I had never been one to back down from a fight.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You’re already at war with your pack’s leaders. You live in turmoil, and yet, you don’t want to escalate things because you might lose? It sounds to me like the fight is already happening, whether you want it or not. I don’t understand your reasoning.”

“That makes two of us,” Helena’s voice resounded through the hallway as she rejoined us. “Your friends are nice and cozy downstairs. Raul…” She paused, reaching into her cloak. “The other day, I warned you about a great peril. Take a good look at this,” she said, revealing a black orb that she held in the palm of her hand.

The flickering light of the sconces reflected off its surface. She tapped it to the top of her staff with a flourish and it sat there as if somehow mounted to it. The orb started to spin, then began to sparkle and finally turned a soft, greenish shade.

As it spun, the interior of the orb showed a home fade into view. It was an exterior view of a tall cabin. On the front porch were four big men, all of whom were laughing hard when the front door was kicked open. Two others emerged dragging out a blonde girl, curls of her hair cascading past her shoulders. Thrashing, she shouted and called them names, like “assholes” and “motherfuckers.”

“Three down, one to go,”The one clutching her left wrist said with a smirk. He shoved her against the wall.

“Nora!” Raul shouted. He banged his hand into his forehead, looking at Helena. “Where is she? I have to go to her.”

“Who’s Nora?” I asked, confused.

“My sister,” he growled.

“Yes, ,” Helena spoke her voice but a whisper. “Her fate is a direct result of what you’ll see next.”

Finishing her sentence, the witch tapped her staff onto the orb for the second time. Nora and the shapes of everyone inside of it blurred into a sea of gray, white, and green, then the ball spun again. A gentle shade of blue dominated the glass, revealing a rather picturesque sight. It was the bank of a tranquil lake. There were large footprints of wolves all over in the muddy soil.

As the vision coalesced, I recognized Raul’s wolf’s brown fur and the other wolf was reddish, it was the one we had encountered earlier. Raul seemed to have his opponent overpowered, he had him pinned down with his teeth sunk into the other wolf’s neck. Agonized cries of pain mixed with fear filled the air.

The pinned wolf was desperately scratching and clawing with his rear legs to try and kick Raul off of him. His massive paws smashed into Raul’s haunches to no avail. Raul was going for the kill. My heart raced watching it happen. It was exactly what I had suggested to him. Was this because of me?

Suddenly there was a symphony of yips and tremendous snarls that drowned out the noise from the two wolves’ fight. The scene expanded and I saw five more massive wolves loping along the bank. They were led by a black-and-white lupine and as a unit, they charged Raul.

The black-and-white hit first, but it wasn’t enough to knock Raul off of the one he had pinned. I assumed, though I had no way to know, that the one on the ground was the Alpha. The black-and-white was leaner than the rest and something about its appearance made me think it must be female. Again, on an assumption she must be the ‘bitch’ lieutenant that Raul had spoken of. I heard the impact of her body hitting Raul, but she didn’t knock him off his arch-rival.

One after another the rest of the pack jumped onto Raul, trying to break his death grip on their Alpha. It was too much, no matter how strong Raul was, the numbers were on their side. There was nothing he could do about the combined momentum of the pack. As the last wolf leaped and hit, Raul rolled off the Alpha and came to a stop on his side lying in the mud. He was struggling to stand.

Raul was covered in mud, teeth exposed by pulled-back lips as a low, deadly growl filled the air. I knew what would be next. There was no doubt, and it terrified me. I did not want to see him be killed, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it, but I knew what was coming.

“Alright, I’ve seen enough,” Raul said in a low, soft voice hardly more than a whisper. He tore his gaze away from the orb as his Alpha leaped onto his wolf’s chest. He clenched his eyes shut, balled his hands into fists, and was breathing heavily as if from hard exertion. For a moment I thought I saw his form shimmering as if he were about to shift, but then it stopped. He opened his eyes slowly, locking gazes with the witch. “Here’s what I don’t get. I’ve been fighting Brad and Kenny for years, and you never bothered showing up. Why did you take so long to show yourself? Why now?”

“Good questions,” Helena praised with a wide smile and a nod of her head. “I’m afraid my answers are going to take an even bigger toll on your human friend, but shehasto know.”

Helena almost looked as if she regretted what she was about to say but I couldn’t be sure with her. She had one hell of a poker face. I heaved a deep sigh. I couldn’t imagine what else she could say that would shock me. I’ve already been exposed to shifters and witches, what more could she have in store to surprise me with?

“What is itthistime? Flying bears? Talking elephants, maybe?”

“I like your sarcasm, Monica,” Helena said in a calm tone with a tight smile. “You can rest assured that it’s going to come in handy when you see what I mean. Come with me, you two.”

I glanced up at Raul in bewilderment, but the look on his face made it clear that he was just as baffled as I was. Somehow, we had both been caught up in this, and neither of us had a clue about the situation or what was going on. All that seemed certain was that we were both in danger, extreme danger, and if this witch wasn’t fooling us, Raul and his sister at the very least were going to be killed.

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