Page 42 of Cruel Alpha Beast
“You’ve won for now. But retribution is coming, little wolf.”
Chapter 17 - Lacey
I pace the kitchen floor obsessively, wringing my hands. I haven’t moved since the message came through the window, summoning Sawyer into the uncertain night. I hope that Penelope hasn’t been too hard on him.
I told him she was firm but fair, though I still worry that maybe she might have changed a lot in a short amount of time. I mean, if Danielle and Monroe were so freaked out about Violet’s lie, then maybe the latter was convincing.
A littletooconvincing.
I glance over at the clock on the stove. Sawyer’s been gone for some time now. I start to worry that maybe something very, very bad has happened out there in the forest. Something much worse than just Penelope punishing Sawyer for something he didn’t do.
My heart wrenches. If Sawyer’s truth isn’t believed, then I can’t even begin to imagine what would befall Danielle and Monroe in that village. Violet has been accusing them of helping a traitor all day.
And that so-called traitor is me.
Would Shea and I ever be welcomed back someday? Or worse, would the twins be exiled from the coven, never to return again?
Before the first tear welling in my eyes can fall, I hear something outside of the house. Footsteps were hurrying up the front porch. I pause on the tiled floor, staring straight at the door ahead of me, waiting for something to happen.
The doorknob twists, and soon it swings open. There, standing in some of the worst shape I’ve ever seen him in, isSawyer. His hair is ruffled, his eyes open wide. He looks like a shell of the man he used to be.
But he’s alive. Thank the moon and every star in the sky that he’s alive.
I launch forward, throwing my arms around his waist before he can even close the door behind him. Sawyer latches onto me, pulling me so close to his body that a single sheet of paper couldn’t fit between us.
His body quakes against me, and if I didn’t already feel like something went horribly wrong, now I can’t imagine a scenario where any of this went right.
“Sorry it took me so long,” Sawyer murmurs into my ear. “I had to make sure Penelope got home safely.”
I lean back, confused. If the meeting went well enough that he walked her home, then what the fuck happened that’s got him so upset?
“We were ambushed,” Sawyer explains. “The meeting was going well—Penelope knows that I didn’t hurt that Violet lady. She was about to tell me that Violet could be into some evil shit, but then… Well, then, some evil shit attacked us.”
I clap a hand over my mouth. “What? Are you okay?”
Sawyer finally closes the door and then sinks into one of the kitchen table chairs. He looks down, his head hanging incredibly low.
“Physically, I’m just tired,” he tells me. “But… Lacey, there were these…these shadow monsterthings. They kept coming, like they were literally appearing out of thin air. And Penelope, she tried to hold them off so I could run, but I knew they would kill her if I just left her there. She was able to stop them for a minute, but then they chased us to a tree.Thetree.”
I sit in the chair next to him, reaching for his shoulder. “Sawyer…”
“Everything is escalating so quickly,” he says. “What if we’re not ready for it?”
“We will be,” I tell him, hoping against all else that my confidence will be enough to convince him of that. “Because we’ll have to be.”
Sawyer sits up straight again, looking at me from his bloodshot eyes. “You need to call Danielle back. Tell her and Monroe to stay as safe as they possibly can.”
“Okay,” I reply, pulling my phone up.
“I’ll have to find some sort of neutral meeting place to talk to them,” Sawyer continues as I press the call button. “I’d invite them here, but you know these people will revolt if I bring witches into the valley.”
“Hello?”Danielle says, her voice still a harsh whisper.
I relay to her Sawyer’s message, and Danielle is quite receptive.
“I say we should meet up on the outskirts of town,” she suggests. “Not in the same spot, though. For all we know, Violet could be camping out there, waiting for us to stop by so she can turn more people against us.”
“Good thinking,” I tell her. “There’s a spot right on the edge of the lake. Right where all of those cat-o’-nine-tails grow.”
