Page 6 of Fall of the Alpha

CAPTIVE

Bella

Bella woke slowly, feeling groggy. The inside of her mouth tasted awful. The inside of her head felt even worse. She moaned, shifting a bit, and wondered why she was lying on something so hard and uncomfortable.

“Bella,” a familiar voice whispered urgently. “Bella, are you awake? Are you okay?”

“Alek?” Her voice came out as a hoarse croak. She forced her eyes open, blinking and squinting as the light blinded her for a moment. “Alek, what’s going on?”

There was a muffled whimpering sob behind her, and Bella tried to turn to see who was there, only to be pulled short by the cording around her wrist, secured to a pole. Horrified, she stared at the cording before blinking and looking in the direction that Alek’s voice had come from.Which was to the left of her, not behind her.

He was sitting up, leaning against another pole that his wrists were tied to.

What kind of sick joke was this?

“I’m sorry, Bella, I’m so, so sorry,” Alek said, hanging his head. She didn’t understand.

“What’s going on?” she asked again, her voice becoming a bit shrill.

“Shhh,” he said, doing his best to be soothing, although it was obvious from the tension in his body that he was suppressing his own amount of panic. “Stay quiet.” There was enough of a forceful demand in his voice that she pushed down the scream that wanted to bubble up out of her throat.

Another whimper behind her had her scooting toward the pole so she could sit up the way Alek was and look around. A fragile-looking young woman was also tied to a nearby pole. She had practically wrapped herself around it, in fact. With her big crystal blue eyes, white-blonde hair, and slight figure, she looked like a captured pixie. She looked incredibly young, but she was so slight, she could have been quite a bit older than her looks indicated.

“What’s going on?” Bella asked again, unable to completely keep the panic out of her whisper.

“I’m so sorry,” Alek repeated, looking even more miserable. “We should have never come to the Territories.”

Memories swirled.

Traveling into the Territories. The meal. The realization that something was wrong, that she’d been drugged.

The woman.

“Oh my god...”

“Bella, take a deep breath, try to be calm.” There was something odd about Alek’s voice as he crooned the words, almost as if there was a rumbling noise within it that soothed something inside of her. But that just made her panic more because that was not normal. It was not natural.

“Calm? Be calm? How can you say that?” Her voice rose to a shriek, which was cut off when metal scraped against concrete.Immediately, all three of them turned toward the sound, and Bella’s breath strangled in her throat.

The biggest and most dangerous-looking male she’d ever seen in her life filled the doorway. The room they were in suddenly felt much smaller than it had a moment ago. His cold gaze swept over all three of them, lingering on the little blonde, who whimpered again as his lips hooked up in a cruel smile.

Alpha. He’s an Alpha. He has to be.

The man had the same white-blonde hair as the young woman, although his was barely half an inch long, cut very close to his head, and his eyes were a clear grey. A vacant, sinister grey. Bella didn’t blame the other woman for whimpering. She felt like doing so herself, and he’d only looked at her for a moment. There was something about him, the way he held himself maybe, that screamed violence and danger. He was everything the Zones warned about.

“Good. You’re all finally awake.”

The cruel smile widened in anticipation, and Bella finally understood why Alek had wanted her to be quiet.

6

BEFORE THE WOLF

Bella

Roped between Alek and the whimpering young female, Bella did her best not to whimper along with her. The big Alpha leading them down the hall had hobbled Alek’s ankles and was keeping him close.

Which was when Bella realized Alek was nearly as big as the Alpha, and the male was treating him as a threat.

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