Chapter 37

Zara

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves, and then I approached the cabin door. My mistake last time was going to my cabin. It was too predictable. Of course Lucian found me right away. I needed to do something no one would guess.

The whole pack knew what happened between me, Adrian, and Chloe. They knew she spent her whole life making mine miserable. They knew her mother barely gave me the time of day. No one would expect them to help me.

I didn't think they'd help me, not out of the goodness of their hearts. But I could convince them. I hoped.

I knocked on the door, and waited. A minute passed and I considered running off into the woods before I was spotted. Just when I stepped back to run for it, the door opened just a crack.

“Zara?” Charlotte, my step-mother, peered through the opening. “I thought you were with the Alphas.”

“I was,” I said. “I can explain, but I need to talk to you. Please. Let me in.”

“I should call the Alphas,” Charlotte said.

“Please,” I repeated. “Give me five minutes. If I haven't convinced you, then you call them. You'll earn points with them for capturing their wayward pet. If you call now I'll just run and you'll be wasting their time.”

Charlotte huffed. “Fine. Get in here. Talk fast.”

“Thank you,” I said. I stepped inside and glanced around.

The cabin was small and simple, nothing like the elegant rooms she had lived in as Luna. It was far nicer than my little cabin, but I knew Charlotte had to be chafing at her relative “poverty.”

“What is she doing in here?” Chloe demanded from her perch on the couch.

I winced. I'd kind of hoped Chloe would be out with her little minions. It didn't change my plans, though. I was getting away from this pack, and they were my best bet to succeed.

“I want to leave,” I said. “I need to leave this pack. And I want you to help me.”

“Why would we do that?” Chloe asked.

“Because you want me gone,” I said. “You've always wanted me gone, and this is your best chance. I'll leave and I won't ever come back.”

“And we're left to explain your absence to the Alphas,” Charlotte said, arms crossed.

“They'll never question you,” I said. “No one in this pack would believe for one moment that you helped me. All you have to do is stay quiet and keep your heads down for a few days until they give up.”

“Why do the Alphas even want you?” Chloe asked. “You're just some dumb half-blood. You can't shift. You've already met your fated mate, so you can't be theirs. So what is it? It can't be that you're that good in bed.”

I flinched slightly at the mention of fated mates, but shrugged it off.

“I don't know, but I don't want anything to do with them,” I said. “I want to go to the humans. I want to find out who my mother was, maybe find out if I have any family out there.”

“Your mother,” Charlotte scoffed, “left you on our doorstop. She barely left a note. What makes you think she would want you, if she's even still alive?”

I winced. I knew it was possible that she was right. If my mother was alive, and wanted me, wouldn't she have made contact by now? Humans weren't exactly welcome among the wolves, but those who knew about us could get through the magical veil separating our territories from theirs. If she had gotten through to leave me, she could get back through to find me again.

My hope was that while my mother might not be in a position to come look for me, maybe I had other family out there. She must have had parents, maybe siblings. Maybe she had other children. Maybe I had siblings out there who wouldn't hate my guts on sight.

“I need to know,” I said. “I don't belong here, with the pack. I never have.”

Charlotte crossed her arms, and nodded slowly. “You never have fit in. Your father and I tried to raise you into a proper wolf. Nothing worked.”

“Did he ever talk about her?” I asked. “You call him my father. You must have confirmed it, right?”

Charlotte shrugged. “We never discussed it. We had the healers check your blood. You were a match. He swore he knew her before he met me, and I believe him. She was nothing to him. But he felt obligated to take you in, because you were his.”

“And you agreed,” I said.

“You were just a pup,” Charlotte said. “So your father had some kind of fling or ill-advised romance with a human before he settled down and made himself a proper Alpha. You could still have been an asset to the pack.”

“I'm sorry to disappoint you,” I muttered.

“No, you're not,” Charlotte retorted. “You've never been sorry. You look down your nose at us, and pine for the humans like they don't kill each other every day for reasons far more petty than an Alpha challenge.”

“Humans don't turn around after someone kills their own father and try to attract the killer as a mate,” I argued.

“We respect strength,” Charlotte said. “The new Alphas are strong. If you were really one of us, you would understand that.”

My shoulders slumped. Really one of them? I never had been, and never could be, and it shouldn't hurt this much to hear it.

“Will you help me or not?” I asked instead of responding to Charlotte's taunt.

I didn't have to be respectful to her anymore. She wasn't Luna. She was just a she-wolf who hadn't been killed or banished after her mate lost his Challenge. She actually had less status in the pack than I did, as the Alpha's personal attendant.

That was a weird thought. Charlotte had always been this untouchable figure, a marble statue made of pack protocol and reflected Alpha strength. I was terrified of her for most of my life. Now she was discarded by the same pack laws that had given her so much power.

“Why should we help some ungrateful whelp?” Chloe demanded.

“Because you want to get rid of me,” I said. “You were desperate enough to try to poison the Alphas and frame me.”

Charlotte's head jerked around. “You did not!”

Chloe shrugged. “Like you could prove it.”

“I don't have to prove it,” I said. “And I'm not trying to blackmail you. I'm just pointing out how badly you want me gone. I want to be gone just as much. So why not help me and get what we both want?”

Chloe glared at me, while Charlotte tilted her head to study me.

“You've changed,” she mused.

“Maybe I have,” I said.

“Give us a moment,” Charlotte said. “I need to discuss this with my daughter.”

I nodded and leaned against the door. I didn't try to eavesdrop on their conversation. I had done my best to convince them. If they refused, I'd have to make a run for it and hope I could outrun my entire pack. On foot, on the full moon, with two enraged Alphas after me.

“Fine,” Chloe announced several minutes later. “We'll help you. I know a way to get you out of our territory.” She grinned. “You'll have to trust me, though.”

“Yeah, I kind of figured it wouldn't be easy,” I muttered. “Thank you. Both.”

“Don't thank us,” Charlotte said. “Just don't come back.”