Chapter 20

I tried to not spiral, but that was nearly impossible. He was sending me back. My biggest fear was coming true. I wouldn’t survive going back. They would kill me. There’s no way I wouldn’t die. They would say I embarrassed them by being seen by the Alpha King and embarrassed them again when I wasn’t good enough for him.

Ugh. I should have tried harder! I should have cooked and cleaned and offered my body more willingly. I should have made myself invaluable. I spent too much time unconscious and injured for me to have really done much, but it hurt to know that he didn’t care enough to keep me. My most recent experience must have crossed the line. I mean, I had been unconscious for 4 days. Just because I woke up to him holding me, clearly didn’t mean he wanted me as a bride anymore, despite what his brother had said just a little while ago.

“Grace? Are you still with us?”

I looked up, tears brimming in my eyes, and realized he was standing right in front of me. I nodded, hoping that I wasn’t wearing my emotions on my face.

“You do realize that I am not sending you back, right Grace?” He voice was serious as his hand cupped my face forcing me to look him in the eyes.

I blinked in surprise. He wasn’t sending me back?

He stepped back and leaned against his desk, putting a distance that I didn’t love between us. “As I was saying, Beta Leon, Caleb and I will be going back to the Red Blood pack to personally handle everything.”

I looked at him in surprise and so did his twin before Caleb schooled his features into a look of disdain. I also felt confused at the announcement since the Alpha King and Caleb didn’t really seem to get along and as far as I knew, Caleb didn’t have a title like Dr. Sonnett did. A part of me once again wondered what had happened between them for them to be like this.

“Why?” Caleb asked.

“So, I can feed you to them when they decide to try and feast on us being there.” Alpha King Rhys responded sarcastically.

I snuck a glance at Caleb who was rolling his eyes before looking back at the Alpha King.

“There is a lot that I believe the Red Blood pack is hiding. I can’t pretend that I’m not worried that they are plotting our demise as we speak. We “took” what they were hiding... which was you, Grace. For whatever reason, they were desperately trying to keep you contained and under their total control. I want to know what they have now that’s keeping them feeling so secure.”

The 3 men talked for a little bit longer. Discussing theories and thoughts that honestly I didn’t care about. The way the Alpha King had just said everything, made me feel like I was some secret weapon or something.

“Now, I think that has been enough excitement for the time being, come on Grace, let’s get you back into bed. You still need lots of rest.” The Alpha king said, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I nodded, and the Alpha King placed his hand on the small of my back as he escorted me back to my room.

“I’m sorry for scaring you.” The Alpha King said once we reached the door.

“It's ok.” I wrote on my chalkboard.

“Is there a specific reason I smell my brother on you, Grace?” I could tell he was trying to be patient, but the words came out as a growl.

My eyes went wide, and I quickly erased my chalkboard and tried to figure out how to explain what exactly happened, but my mind felt blank.

I quickly drew a stick figure representing me, and a stick figure representing the Alpha King and then drew his two brothers and a circle around us and then wrote “we will be famaly” but I didn’t quite know how to spell family.

The Alpha King glanced at the board, and I could see the anger on his face as he pulled me close to him. “I don’t want you hanging around him, Grace. He’s bad ne-” His voice trailed off and his eyes sort of glazed over. I wondered if he was trying to find the right words to tell me of his anger as he started muttering to himself, making absolutely no sense.

“Grace,” He said after a long moment. “Whatever you do, do not leave this room. I will come back for you, but do not leave this room. Understand?”

I looked at him in confusion, but before I could even ask what was going on, he was gone.

A scream from outside drew my attention away from the Alpha King’s abrupt exit, and I turned toward the window. I let out a small squeal as I saw a giant creature being dragged out of the woods by a group of wolves.

The creature seemed to have the upper half of a wolf, but the lower half of a human. It had to be at least 8 feet tall and was fighting the wolves with everything it had. It was swinging their massive claws in large swoops at the wolves as they tried to pull him further into the clearing. The way they were moving made it seem like maybe they were trying to keep it alive.

Two all black wolves sprinted into the battle at full speed, they seemed to be circling the group of wolves and the creature, appearing to be assessing the situation. They were clearly the largest ones out there, besides the monster, but they didn’t really appear to be helping much. However, when one of the wolves that was dragging the creature went flying, hitting a tree trunk with a thud I could almost hear from here, one of the large black wolves went for the kill shot, biting his neck and ripping off his head.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I bit back a scream as the head rolled toward the other black wolf, effectively ending the battle. My body shook with fear, and I tried to breathe through the panic. What was that thing?!