The Alpha's Gamble - Chapter 12: Chapter 12

I skipped breakfast, my stomach was holding a war and nothing would stay down if I ate. Instead, I dragged my feet downstairs and saw Noah waiting by the door, and he wasn’t alone.
Logan leaned against the car outside and Nate sat in the backseat. The disaster was unfolding in front of me; I didn’t have to experience it to know that things were about to crumble. I had voluntarily accepted the help of the devil’s spawn, and now I had to pay up by stepping into their world.
The second they saw me Noah headed down to the car and I followed.
I was dragging my feet, forcing them one step at a time so I didn’t turn around and run back to the house. Part of me was enthused, getting out, doing something I'm sure I’d regret but the other part kept reminding me of my mother’s warnings. The scolding and the rings on her hand that I was sure she wore for extra sting in her hits, and they always got bigger for some reason.
The open car door welcomed me but before I made it inside, it slammed shut and I gasped. My fingers were an inch away from being cut clean off and the shock turned into a glare when I watched Noah.
“Are you insane?”
The idiot looked bored even when my eyes rounded in fear.
I gritted my teeth, I knew I couldn’t trust them, they didn’t care about anything other than having fun and fucking people’s lives up. The one thing they cared about in this world was each other; they always had each other’s backs and I’m sure they’d die for each other. Something stung in my chest at the thought and I felt a cramp growing up my throat.
“Drink this,” he shoved a glass into my hand and I looked down at the thick crimson blend.
“Is this-“
“Blood. My blood.” I gulped and chewed on my inner cheek. Drinking the Alpha’s blood tied you to him, he’d be able to sense me, speak to me through mind link, and I would pledge myself and my wolf to him.
“Don’t be scared, Maddie,” Logan cooed from where he stood by the passenger door. “you’ve swallowed a lot worse,” he said through a thick grin.
My lips parted in a snarky retort, but it died on my tongue when Noah’s eyes hardened, the stoic expression shifted into a warning, and he pressed two fingers under the cup, lifting it to my lips.
The smell wasn’t too bad, it was blood, nothing I wasn’t used to but I didn’t normally drink it. It was different sinking your teeth into a rare stake and the blood swirling on your tongue, that taste made me moan and the pleasure it brought me was better than sex but drinking another person’s blood? It was twisted ways we had as shifters, every pack had the same traditions, the same ways of connecting the leader to the pack. The Alpha wouldn’t be able to read my mind, but he would sense me, track me, and know if I left and where I was. Noah came from the Academy recently, which meant he hadn’t officially taken the title yet; he wasn’t connected to the pack, but everything was planned, and he would rise to power next month. Until then, I’d be the first one pledging my loyalty to him.
There would be no escaping him. I took the rim of the cup between my lips and the warm blood slid down my throat. After a few drops, I was ready to pull back, but Noah put pressure under the cup, pressed it against my mouth, and held it until every drop was in my system.
“All of it. Can’t have fucking this up.” He said.
I squeezed my eyes shut and wrinkled my nose when I felt the last drops slide down my throat. He took the cup, his blood stained my lips and I gagged as I swallowed what was left in my mouth.
I waited; it would happen soon. The pain would be no different than the first time when I pleaded my loyalty to his father. We do it when we’re ten and then again if there is a power shift. It started with electric pulses up my spine, out through my arms and my legs, and then in an eruption of mind-altering torture the pain spread through my head and reorganized the old bond- cutting the strings to my old Alpha and tying them to Noah.
I fisted my hair and thought I’d fall but instead, I was pulled in against him and my screams filled the air around us.
“Fuck!” my jaw throbbed from how hard I was gritting my teeth and my legs trembled under my weight. I wasn’t holding myself up, not even slightly, it was all him.
It only took a moment but felt like an eternity, and then I sensed the bond tying together and forming a new shift that benefited Noah. From here on forth, my future wolf and I would obey only him. The pressure of his hands on my back kept me glued to his chest, and I heaved a few breaths until I calmed down. After another moment, when I felt my heart slowing down, I could finally peel myself away from him. It took longer than necessary, that incessant silence he commanded without knowing it- I wanted to feel that for a few more seconds, but then I forced myself away and looked down at my feet. When I felt his finger on my lips, I opened my eyes and saw him gazing at the blood he wiped off. Instant heat spread across my face, my cheeks flushing when his eyes lingered on my lips where his thumb wiped away the stains, he dried his hands on a cloth that he put in the glass and shoved it in the hands of a passing warrior. Logan’s glare was hard to miss, he clenched his jaw and was in deep thought as he got in.
“Good girl,” Noah said and opened the door. He flicked his head. “Get in the car.”
The door slammed shut behind me and I turned to face sweet, dumb Nate who was biting down on a Snickers bar.
But something was different, his usual innocently oblivious eyes were filled with a luring darkness, a sinister joy that he could barely contain.
“Are you ready to join the dark side, sis?” Logan looked back at me. How the fuck would I know if I was ready? And it didn’t matter if I wasn’t, I was in it regardless.
“Let’s just go,” I buckled my seatbelt and leaned back.
Noah drove across the pack border and down the main road. We passed towns I didn’t know existed this close to us and then we passed another pack. You could smell them, the werewolves. They had a musky scent and it coated the borders with a thick cloud, unlike the human towns that were sweeter and touched on the senses like humility. It did kill our natural instincts a little to drive through there; they were so weak, mundane, and harmless that we pitied them, and our anger and bloodthirst had to be controlled even more than when we were with our own kind. But it was easier around humans, mainly because they weren’t a threat.
This was why I never visited human packs, I hated the feeling of dumbing my senses to fit in, and it wasn’t voluntarily, it was like we responded to their submissive existence.
Thankfully Noah passed all the human towns and drove up a separate road through the forest. I looked around, my eyes narrowing when I realized where we were.
No no no!
This had to be a joke.
We shouldn’t be here.
This was the last place I ever wanted to be seen, let alone join in a dumbass plan by the Reed brothers and their equally sick friend. This was a mistake, a huge mistake and I had nowhere to go.
If they mention fighting or fire, I’m out.
I felt a pair of eyes burning into my skin and turned away from the window to look at Logan’s smug face.
“You okay back there?”
“This is Timber Pack,” I said under my breath.
“Nothing gets past you, huh,” he rolled his eyes and turned back. Nate’s lips pulled up and he nudged my shoulder.
“It’s fine, you’ll be fine,” he reassured but his words did nothing to calm my erratic heart and my antsy legs.
They drove around the border and parked the car behind a thicket of trees. Hidden and out of sight, which meant the pack had no idea we were there. And please for the love of God, don’t let them find out.