Page 89 of Claimed By the Rival Alpha
“Dammit!” Tavi kicked her bound legs. Her cheeks filled with red as her temper flared. “We’re so far away! I can’t believe I let us get captured. How could I have let this happen?”
Guilt panged in my chest. “Tavi, don’t think like that?—”
Tavi’s eyes blazed through the darkness. “Bryn, it was my job to keep you safe. I made a promise to Night that I would protect you no matter what.” She shook her head. “I broke that promise.”
“No, Tavi, it’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
Tavi paused in her kicking, staring at me.
“If not for me, you would be safe at home…a-and Violet wouldn’t have been…”Killed, but I couldn’t say that. “I’d grown so comfortable with you and the others. I should have kept my distance.”
“Bryn, stop.”
I looked up at Tavi and found her eyes had softened from the fiery amber they’d been moments before. Tears glimmered like gems along her lower lids. “Don’t think like that. This isn’t your fault. It’s Redwolf’s. He’s the one who decided to trespass over our borders. He’s the one who chose to spill blood on Wargs soil.” She bit her lip, and I wondered if she was remembering the sound of Violet’s head knocking against the wooden floor. “That could never be your fault, Bryn.”
I heard Tavi’s words, but the doubts persisted in my mind. I knew that Troy was doing this to get back at Night after he humiliated Troy the night of the challenge ceremony, but that didn’t lessen the burden that settled on my shoulders. Troy wasmyproblem. He worked tirelessly to be the bane of my existence; he was a man who thrived off the pain he caused me. If I had been able to escape the night of the challenge ceremony, if I hadn’t fallen into his trap, none of this would have happened.
True, I might never have learned that I was a shifter or connected with my wolf, and I wouldn’t have experienced the heartbreakingly sweet love I had found with Night, but at least I wouldn’t have dragged anyone else into my problems. If I had escaped, then I would be the only one who had to answer to Troy—not Night, Violet, Tavi, or Pax.
I was a curse.
Inside, my wolf whined. I still hadn’t mastered communication with my wolf, but I knew that there was sorrow in that whine. It made me sad, too, to think that all those wonderful things might not have happened.
“You are wonderful, girl,”I told her. “But if things had gone smoothly from the beginning, the Wargs wouldn’t have me around to fuck up their lives.”
“Hey,” Tavi’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. “Stop that. I can see the worry lines forming on your forehead.”
I looked up to see that Tavi had shifted closer so that our legs almost touched. “You’re too cute to give yourself wrinkles.”
That comment startled a laugh out of me. “You’re silly, Tavi.”
She smiled, but it quickly faded away. Good humor couldn’t last long given our situation.
“You know,” she said, “I heard that Troy was fucking crazy. There were rumors that he doesn’t have control of his men even though he’s the son of the Alpha. Talk was going around that he and the Kings have been going downhill since he took on the Alpha mantle. I guess that must be true if he’s willing to go through all of this trouble.”
“I can’t say if those rumors are true, but he’s always been a hotheaded asshole,” I said. “And he’s always had it out for me. Like a personal vendetta, and I don’t know why. He used to go out of his way to bully me and embarrass me. He treated me like I was nothing.” Thinking of it now, my skin began to crawl. “There was something sosickabout his determination to make my life miserable.”
Tavi shook her head, disgust curling in her upper lip. “‘Sick’ is the right word. But then, ‘psychotic’ or ‘unhinged’ also work. He has to be all of those things to think he’s in your league.”
It was with a fresh wave of surprise that my laughter filled the air. Tavi quickly joined me. I had no idea if Tavi’s joke was any good, or if we both just needed an opportunity to let off some steam. Either way, as the laughter died down, the reality of our situation began to close in again.
“Can you get loose?” Tavi asked.
“No. I think they’ve put handcuffs on us.”
“Here, let me try something.” Tavi scooted back toward the wall and found a sharp spot. She rubbed the metal cuffs against the jagged surface but only succeeded in chipping chunks of rock from the wall. I scooted to the wall beside Tavi and tried the same technique, but I was just as unsuccessful.
“Damn it all!” Tavi shouted, loud enough that I winced. Even without my superior shifter hearing, Tavi’s voice would have made my ears ring. “We need a plan, Bryn. I don’t want to stick around to see what that psycho has planned.”
“Me neither,” I said. As Tavi’s echoing voice began to fade from my ears, I heard the rush of the river again. I remembered the last time I’d heard the sound of the Kootenai—it had been the day after Night had kidnapped me, when he’d held me in his arms and walked across the chilly water to get me to the opposite shore.
I remembered how angry I’d been about the whole situation, how helpless I’d felt in the presence of the strong Alpha who’d wanted to use me for his personal gain. I had wanted to escape then, too, believing that I had found myself in the clutches ofanother Troy. But even at the time, some part of me understood that as long as Night held me in his arms, nothing could hurt me. Not even the cold.
My chest filled with a deep ache when I thought of the way Night felt pressed against my body, the way he smelled, the way his hair passed like silk through my fingers, and those eyes which seemed to perpetually glow that fierce shade of green.
And then the guilt returned, but it wasn’t a pang this time. It was a pressure wrapping around my throat like the cuffs at my wrists and ankles.
How could Night ever love me when it’s my fault that Troy captured his sister? How could he ever want to claim me when I am the reason his mother is dead?
