Page 5 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

Although I smile back, I’m already planning how I can leave before I kill him.

2

In the week since Shay gave me a voice with a small pad and pen that I carry in the pouch around my neck, I’ve rarely left my room.

Just like my dead pack, men outnumber the mostly human women five to one—since female shifters are made, never born. But that isn’t why I hide. Or, it isn’t only.

When there are more male voices out in the courtyard than women, I never leave my room unless it’s to sit in the garden with Shay. But today is different.

Today I stand beside the door, as I have for the last twenty minutes, trying to summon the courage to step out.

During his last hour-long pack meeting, Shay had Ana—an older human woman with hair more white than brown and blue eyes, who brings my meals when he’s busy with pack business—keep me company. When he offered to do the same before he left, I shook my head no.

It’s taken all this time, but finally, I think I feel brave enough to leave.

All I have to do is close my hand around the doorknob and pull it open. Once I’ve done that, I just need to shift to wolf and run.

I don’t know how far I’ll have to run before I find a place where I won’t be a danger to Shay and his pack, but none of that can happen until I open the door.

My eyes don’t move from the smooth, dark wood an inch from my hand.

Shay tells me I’m safe here, that no one will ever hurt me. That he will always protect me. But that isn’t true.

If it was, he wouldn’t be calling a meeting to talk about the strangers spotted on the edge of pack land.

I know who those strangers are and what they want.

Me.

And when they come, they will leave death and blood behind, just like before.

So I have to leave. Now.

Swallowing hard, I do the thing I’ve avoided up until now. I close my hand around the knob and turn it.

Sun kisses my face the moment I step out, and two women sitting cross-legged on the grass turn my way.

The younger woman, a pretty blonde in a white cotton sundress with a sleeping toddler in her arms, smiles. “Good morning, Lexa. Did you sleep well?”

“Ahh!” A young boy in a pair of khaki shorts, who looks just old enough to interrupt a pack meeting, runs laps around them, distracting me for the moment.

“Joshua, stop screaming. People are still sleeping,” the other woman calls out. Joshua switches directions and runs faster, his little legs pumping as hard as his arms.

I’m doing the right thing.

I pull the door firmly closed behind me.

Their eyes dip to my chest, and I know what they’re thinking before they ask. “Did you run out of paper?”

I smile as I walk toward the doorway which leads out of the courtyard and into the forest, trying to look like I’m too busy to talk.

Shay must have told the pack to keep their distance because, although their eyes follow me, they remain seated. “Okay, enjoy your walk, Lexa.”

A walk. That’s what I should have written so I wouldn’t make anyone suspicious.

Waving, I slow my pace so it looks less like I’m running away and more like I’m going for a walk on a beautiful early morning. And itisbeautiful.

Just outside the courtyard, I lift my head and close my eyes as a mild wind plays with my hair, and the scent of primrose and tulips envelops me.

---