AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I can guarantee that you won’t be harmed. I will never trade with brutes.”
My heart pounds.
He talks as if he is someone who has influence over what happens to me once I reach the Ash Wolves pack. Except the stories I’ve heard of the Ash Wolves Alpha paints him as a barbarian. A different woman every night. He whips shifters who don’t hunt for food. And any newborns in his pack are banished. Well, I struggle to believe that last rumor since that makes no sense to growing his pack. But the other stories sound real enough.
“Right, a lesser shifter can have such power over the Alpha of Ash Wolves.” I tear my gaze from his.
But I feel him watching me from behind hooded eyes. “You need to know who I—” His words cut off, and I look around to see him staring down the road. A black vehicle is coming our way. The faint crunch of wheels on asphalt reaches me.
My stomach sinks right through me because now my capture feels real. With only this shifter, I feel I have the chance to escape, but once with the pack, I’ll be watched. A shiver grips my spine.
The shifter draws me to the side of the road by an arm and holds me close.
“You don’t have to do this,” I say, my voice desperate. I’m about to be taken into the pack that rules this whole damn country. I won’t be able to escape, and whatever freedom I thought I had will be a distant memory.
He waves at the approaching vehicle, ignoring me.
“Please! Set me free.” I reach for his arm, touching him. “I don’t want to be sold or be someone’s slave. I’ll die. Your Alpha doesn’t even have to know you found me. I’ll slip into the woods and you’ll never see me again.”
When he looks over at me, I search his eyes for sympathy…for anything to show me he isn’t the monster I believe him to be.
“I can’t do that, Meira.”His words are sharp and clipped.
“I hate you.”
The jerk just smiles as the black four-wheel drive vehicle grinds to a halt in front of us.
My legs wobble, and my mouth falls open to beg once more, but the driver pushes the car door open, stealing the words from my lips.
A man steps out of the car. Six-foot-three, slightly taller than the shifter next to me. His pale, steel-gray eyes scream wolf. He’s broad-shouldered and rugged and smoldering. My heart is pounding wildly, my lungs gasping for air.
Despite his burly size, he stares at me with intense interest, like he knows something I don’t. I’m surprised he’s not burning hot in his long-sleeved, button-down shirt under this sun. Dark jeans hang low on his narrow hips, and he’s wearing cowboy boots, which I find strange. He’s got a head full of deep brown hair, a square jaw with strong lips, and a slight shadow covering his jawline, adding to the whole mountain man look. There is something extremely sexy about him, and mysterious… and that isn’t what I ought to feel.
Amid these two, I’m out of place, extremely short in my sneakers and completely breathless.
He stands tall and proud, his chin high, carrying himself with arrogance. Is he the Alpha of Ash Wolves?
“Lucien, I was thinking you’d abandoned me,” jokes my captor to the newcomer, and I suspect that little comment is a jab at my earlier remark.
I stare daggers at him.
Lucien does a double-tap of his fist to his chest before giving a slight bow of his head. “Dušan, I had no doubt you’d find your way back.” He chuckles as if that’s an inside joke between the two.
Wait!
What?
Did I hear right? My gaze flips between the two men and lands on Dušan.
The shifter whose arms I’d fallen asleep in. The man who had his erection poking my butt.
I can’t breathe.
He was Dušan, the Alpha of Ash Wolves this whole time and he didn’t tell me!
His expression is full of mirth, enjoying himself at seeing my shock.
Surprised?He may not say it, but I see it scribbled all over his face.
