Page 4 of Alpha's Bullied Mate
I let out a warning growl. I may have been the weakest in Fenrys’s pack, but I could damn well hold my own.
It wasn’t until a small, tin bottle came hurtling my way that I realized my problem. The bottle hit the ground, let out a small crackle, and then smoke burst out of it. My wolf’s instincts panicked and I jerked back, my tail low to the floor as I backed away. But the haze was thick and it surrounded me.
Two figures approached, sneaking. I barely saw their faces before I let out a whine as the smoke filled my nostrils and my vision went hazy. It was enough to send me shifting back into my human form. Something was flung over me, something warm, and I barely realized what was happening before my eyelids fluttered closed.
Chapter 3 - Aidan
The plan was in motion. I heard the sharp whistle through the trees, one similar to a bird, and I waited for the pattern we’d agreed on. That meant they had eyes on Thalia.
The second sound, similar to that of an owl, meant nobody else was around.
The third noise was that they had her and were coming back.
If they didn’t return in fifteen minutes, I was to get two of my pack and follow the trail Jason and Declan had taken in case they were in danger. I’d heard the second sound but not the third yet. It was nine-fifteen, and I watched my car’s dashboard. The engine had turned off. On the third whistle, I would put it back on and be ready to escape.
“What if there’s trouble? Fifteen minutes could be waiting too long,” Ryan, my most recent pack addition, said.
“Give them a chance,” I said, quietly. “Knowing Jase, he’s being slow, so he’s not loud.”
Ryan shrugged, and I knocked the baseball cap off his head. Ryan was a softer-looking man, not long turned twenty-one, and I’d picked him up a few months ago. After serving time, he’d been a lone wolf, a backpacker, being turned away from every motel and apartment block in town. I’d offered him the couch for the night, and when I’d woken up, he’d shifted, walking out of the back door, into the garden, to hunt. He’d come back with squirrels—not much to feast on, but it had been an offering in return for the shelter I’d given him.
He’d not left since, and I liked having him around.
“There,” he said, pointing ahead. I was pulled into a layby near the forest. On the other side of the trees was Fenrys’s house, and although I risked enough by pulling up there, it was the best place to get Thalia.
Three figures emerged from the woods, one of them squirming and kicking out, the other two holding her arms down as they carried her with ease. She was wrapped in a thick, black blanket. Thalia must have been in wolf form when they’d found her… But why?
Something was off about that. On top of that, I didn’t like the thought of my pack having to make her shift and have her even more vulnerable. I wanted to kidnap her, not anything else. I didn’t want any harm to come to Thalia. I just needed her as the catalyst to get to her mate.
I narrowed my eyes as they got closer.
I’d not seen the new Luna myself but I knew enough about her to know her looks contrasted that of Fenrys’s. Where his hair was dark, hers was pale. His brown eyes opposed her golden-colored ones.
The hair just visible around the blanket wrapped around her head wasn’t blonde.
“Get her in,” I called out. “Quickly.”
As they pushed her into the backseat, I punched on the overhead lights in my car. A feeling of dread knotted in my chest. I yanked down the hood of the blanket, exposing a mass of ginger curls. Her eyes weren’t golden but the purest emerald green, blinking drowsily at me. The recognition flooded through me, shocking and alarming. I shoved it down, composed my face, and looked away.
“Does she look like Thalia to you?” I snapped at Jason.
Because now I’d caused something else. Something not as bad as if I’d kidnapped the Luna but still awful. I’d kidnapped the wrong pack member, and that somehow felt worse. It was a mistake I’d have to admit if I let her go back now. I reached out and cupped a hand around her face.
“Are you coherent?” I asked.
“The smoke,” she slurred, not at all giving me confidence that she knew where she even was, or possibly her name. “Smoke…”
“Yeah, the smoke,” I muttered. Her head lolled back, already passed out. I glared at Jason. “Did you drug her? That wasn’t in the plan.”
“Well, we had a backup. You know, in case she was in her wolf form. Which was a good thing we did because shewas.” So that’s what they’d been whispering about around the campfire. This drug that forced a shift?
“I have thewrong, naked woman in my car, Jase. What the fuck?”
“The wrong…” he repeated, frowning. “What?”
“That’s not Thalia, idiot,” I seethed. “That’s not the Luna.”
“Whois she?” Ryan asked, shifting away from the girl, as if he could be unassociated with Jason’s mistake by removing proximity.
