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As much as I didn’t want to follow behind him, I felt resisting would put me in a worse position, and my feet started moving before I could stop myself.
My heart raced even faster with the gradual distance between me and the pack. I hardly had enough time to let it all sink in, leaving me with a surreal, almost out-of-body experience.
While it felt harder for me to breathe than ever before, I silently urged myself to calm down. I was practically floating forward, questioning how things had changed so quickly. I had woken up like any other morning, only to be ushered away from home.
I was moments away from breaking down completely until I glanced back at the others. The realization struck me immediately and shook me enough to straighten me out again.
They were wearing satisfied smirks as if they were glad I was being removed from the grounds, satisfied that they wouldn’t have to look at me anymore or muster up the energy to pretend like they remotely cared about me.
I felt like I was marching toward a death sentence, and they looked pleased.
Struck by surprising defiance, I didn’t want them to see how upset I was. Even if I were panicking on the inside, I wouldn’t let them know it. They didn’t deserve to take that from me, not after I had been treated worse than the ground they walked on.
Lifting my head, I swallowed my pride and kept moving. It didn’t make it any easier, but at least they’d be disappointed by how well I seemed to be taking it.
I wanted to believe I was the lucky one in that situation. That I was being given to an alpha, and that was some sort of gift. It should’ve been. In any other case, it would be an honor, but given who the alpha was, I wasn’t so sure that sentiment still applied.
“What a prick,” one of the other men mumbled as he pushed through a cluster of branches.
“You’re a better man than I am,” another added to Levi, who was even taller and seemed shrouded in mystery.
“I would’ve knocked that smirk off his face,” a curly-haired blonde said.
“Let him think he’s won for now,” Levi said, visibly tempering his true feelings about the situation. “It won’t last long.”
“I knew you were going to play the long game.”
“He can run with that false hope for as long as he wants, but I’ll be back.”
I didn’t know what to make of his threats, but as I suspected, it wasn’t over. Sam would be foolish to think the problem was solved. But that still left my situation up in the air.
Levi agreed to take me in exchange for letting Sam off the hook, regardless of how long that would last. I was given no choice. No option. My thoughts and feelings weren’t considered for even a moment, and I couldn’t help but feel like auctioned off livestock.
To them, I was just a single, available female. To Sam especially, I was of no value, either. I was a snub against Levi, whether he saw it that way. I was a commodity to be traded, and there was nothing I could do but accept it and relocate to a place I didn’t know.
It was humiliating and disheartening, and worst of all, I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to Ivy or gather any of my things.
I was expected to comply. To passively carry on and pretend like everything was fine.
But I wasn’t in the mood to be accepting or complacent.
Through that despair and embarrassment, my anger gleamed through, and I wasn’t prepared to go quietly.
“I don’t understand how none of them saw through his act,” another murmured, to which the others agreed.
They were busy talking, and I knew that was my chance. Likely the only one I’d get.
Without giving it another thought, I bolted.
I tore away, running east as fast as I could.
My heart was in my throat as my feet pounded, trying furiously to come up with any sort of plan despite the hasty start. The branches and leaves whipped my face as I went, scratching my skin, but I couldn’t let it distract me.
I had to run. I had to.
Aware of his obvious strength, I knew it wouldn’t take much for him to catch me if he wanted to. But given the space that seemed to be between us, the odds of achieving freedom gave me a false sense of hope.
For a moment, I thought I might actually outrun him. Perhaps Levi potentially had a change of heart and would rather let me go than deal with me. It wouldn’t have come as a surprise, but that hope faded when I felt his fingers clamp around my wrist.
