Chapter 229

Cara’s POV

I had no idea what the security official was talking about. What danger could I be in? Weren’t the woods being guarded?

And where did he himself come from?

“Please, miss,” the man said with more urgency, while gesturing into a group of trees off the main road. My suspicion lurched. Why would I follow him? And to where?

If I was really in danger, shouldn’t we walk back the path to the start/finish line where most of the other security was stationed?

“Miss Auburn,” the man said again, adding some force into the words this time. “Coming with me is for your own good. Please do so. Now.”

“Why?” I asked him. “What’s happening?”

“I’ll tell you when you are safe.”

“I want to know now,” I said. “Or I’m not comfortable coming with you.”

“You are being stubborn,” he said, impatient now. “It could cost you your life.”

Those last words were vaguely threatening. They sat uncomfortably with me in the pit of my stomach.

I didn’t know what it was about this man. By all appearances, he seemed like a perfectly normal, if somewhat impatient security officer. Yet, the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end like he was the danger.

I might not have had my wolf anymore, but I still knew to trust my instincts. Right now, my instincts were screaming at me to get away from this man.

“I think I’ll just keep on track, if it’s all the same,” I said.

“It isn’t all the same,” he said. “Gods, you are a terrible listener. She said not to hurt you too soon, but I can’t help it if you won’t cooperate.”

I stilled as he brandished a knife from the back of his belt. The knife glistened in the light, shimmering like it was damp with something.

Instinctively, I backed up a step, as his words sunk into my mind. “Who is she?”

He just grinned in response, but I felt like I already knew.

Lilia.

“Whatever she’s paying you, I can offer more,” I said.

“I don’t think so, honey,” he said. “Now be a good little girl and come along with me where I want.”

I inched back another step, but he stepped closer to me now.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. I’d hate to have to cut up your pretty face when I can think of so many better uses for it.”

My stomach twisted uncomfortably as I considered those dire possibilities. None of them were good.

Lucy! I called in my mind, begging her to answer. If I had my wolf, I could escape this. As a human, that knife would skewer me, killing me quickly. And if I tried to run, he’d undoubtedly chase me down.

Yet, I couldn’t just stand here and do nothing. I wasn’t going to be a willing victim. If running was my only choice.

I tense up, preparing myself for a fight for my life – when I heard a howling wolf nearby, and closing the distance fast and furiously.

Relief immediately surged through me. I knew that howl almost as well as the one from my own wolf.

Alaric.

The attacker cursed. Likely recognizing that he had limited time to waste, he surged toward me, knife first. I backed up as quickly as I could, but not nearly fast enough.

Yet, just as the blade was about to pierce the flesh of my stomach, a furry body collided with me, knocking me to the side. Instead, the blade slipped into the wolfy flesh of the shifted Alaric. He yelped in pain, then fell backwards to the ground, the knife still lodged in his side.

The fake security officer backed up a step, a smirk on his lips. “Predictable,” he said under his breath.

I didn’t know what he was talking about, and in the moment, I didn’t care. I rushed to Alaric’s side, grabbed the knife and removed it, tossing it aside.

“Alaric,” I said, hurrying to cover the wound. With the obstruction gone, he should be healing. Instead, he continues to bleed. As he shifts back to human, the wound looks even worse, jagged and oozing with blood and some kind of yellowish gelatin-like substance.

It looked incredibly painful. Alaric usually held back his emotions from his face, pain among those, but even this wound caused him to break his careful mask. His brow was furrowed, his teeth clenched tightly.

“It burns…” he said. He tried to reach out for me, his hand so near my cheek, when something seemed to weaken him in a rush. His arm fell down limp to his side. “Cara… Run…” He was struggling to breathe.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What’s happening to you?”

Alaric had always been the strongest wolf I knew. He was brave and powerful. With him around, I knew I was safe.

Yet, here, in this moment, he struggle as if he could not move at all.

With a gasp, I realized that was exactly what this was. The wet look to the knife. The yellow substance oozing alongside the blood from Alaric’s wound.

This was some kind of poison, a paralyzing agent, strong enough to bring down even the strongest of wolves, a pack Alpha King. A leader, and the proven strongest of all werewolves.

The attacker lifted his phone to his ear. “Yeah, I got him. Track my location. Get the others here. He’s too big for me to carry by myself. Even in human form, he looks like he weighs a ton. You know how heavy dead weight can be.”

Immediately, I was on my feet and facing him, placing myself between Alaric and the attacker.

“He’s not going anywhere with you,” I said, as strongly as I could muster.

The attacker, as he hung up the phone, did not see impressed.

“Go on and get lost in the woods somewhere, sweetheart,” the attacker said. “Before I decide that I want to keep you myself.”

He was telling me to… leave? “Aren’t you ordered to hurt me? Or to capture me?” I was so confused.

“Not this time, though that might come later. Or maybe I’ll hurt you for free if you don’t get out of the way. Right now, my only orders are to bring in the DuskWood Alpha. You were just bait, princess. My boss called it to a T. Try to hurt you and the big guy would interfere. Mates are so damn predictable, it’s almost sad.”

I wasn’t the real target? He used me to get to Alaric?

“Who sent you? Who hired you?”

“There’s a lot of people who hate that man,” the attacker said. “It was practically a coalition to get him taken out. They don’t want him dead though, not yet. Maybe they want to do it themselves. Now, I’m done talking to you. Get out of the way, or join him on the dirt.”

“I’m not moving,” I said, lifting my chin in defiance, even as other fake security officers started to walk out from behind nearby trees. “I’ll fight you,” I said trying to sound threatening.

Someone behind me laughed. “You and what army?” they mocked and viciously shoved me to the side. Their push was strong, and I knocked into a tree roughly. My arm cracked, and the breath pushed from my lungs.

On the ground, I turned and looked at the scene, watching as the attackers circled around a frozen Alaric. They were trying to figure out how to lift him and take him out of here.

I couldn’t allow that. I loved him. He always protected me. I wanted to protect him too!

I had to…

My mate!

I must protect my mate!

Suddenly, a low growl elicited from the back of my throat.

In my anger and fear, I suddenly felt a new strength.

“Lucy!” I called out once more in my mind.

This time, she answered with a howl.