Libby POV
I don’t wait, I tear the package open with one hand and reach behind with the other to take my water bottle out of my backpack.Her eyes don’t leave me once as I take not 2 but 4 tablets.“That’s a lot…”“I’m fine, I know what I am doing.” I mutter back as I swallow 4 little green pills in one hit. These were different, not as strong as before.However, they start to work immediately.I rejoice internally as my tensed muscles start to relax, that inner voice slowly disappearing again back into the abyss. Just where I like to keep it.I take a long deep breath in, cracking my neck to the side before returning my attention to the female in front of me.She takes a long drag on her cigarette before blowing it out towards my face.She’s not the warmest of characters.“Thanks for coming so quickly, how have you been?”“Yes, yes all fine. I can’t stay…” She’s not as talkative as she normally is. Usually it was me trying to get away from her, not her trying to get away from me.“Oh…yes okay. I’ll let you go…wait, this isn’t enough.” I actually now check the parcel, now my mind is calmer to let me thinking more clearly.“That’s all I could manage this time…it’s getting harder to get hold of them. It’s not like they are readily available in local shops. But I’ll see if I can get more for next time.” She flicks her used cigarette bud to the ground, the farmer in me wanting to lash out at her for ruining nature’s beauty.Then she has the audacity to click her fingers at me, signalling for me to throw the money to her.I have to bite down on my tongue to keep back what I want to say back to her.Instead I throw her the money, it is sealed in a small white envelope. My hard owned cash lining her pocket. She probably hasn’t had a hard day’s work in her life.For as long as I have known her, she has been a privileged high maintenance bitch. But I need her right now and she is my only connection to the outside world.“Are you staying close by?” Her eyes gaze out onto the luscious green landscape around us, before going back to counting the money I have given her.Every time we meet, she tries to press me for information on where I am staying, but I wasn’t as stupid as she may once have thought I had been.I’ve walked miles to be here and have miles to walk back in time for dinner.Having been slowed down from my pain I will be cutting it fine to get back before my friends return from town.“Here, take this phone, it will be easier to get hold of you with the lack of signal around here.” She throws me brand new top of the range mobile phone box, which I catch. However, I don’t intend to keep it.“That’s great, I need a new phone…thank you.” I smile sweetly, playing dumb. With this phone she could trace my every movement.I need her, I’ll have to come up with an excuse for next time I see her.I wait until her car speeds out of the car park, sending dust and loose stones flying towards me. As soon as her car is out of sight I drop the mobile phone box into the closest hedge.I place my tablets into the bottom of my backpack, making sure they are secure before I climb back over the fence and head towards the direction I came from.A couple of hours later and my stomach is rumbling for food, my legs ache from walking on uneven farm ground but I know I am close by. Maybe 1 mile or 2 to go.I’m deep within a woodland area, miles from a main road when I hear an odd noise.Some kind of wild animal in pain.A lot of the farmers put animal traps in the surrounding areas to deter larger animals from killing their live stock. It was cruel but so was waking to find all the farming animals dead. Following the noise I find a male kneeling on the ground, his hands pulling at his hair as he seems distressed. I walk closer to offer some kind of aid when I realise I recognise the back of the male…it’s Ben.What is he doing out here?As I close the gap between us, a gasp escapes me as I finally see what he is shielding with his frame. Some kind of wild dog laying on the ground, whimpering and gnawing at a trap around its ankle.“Ben?” I call out to him, now running towards him. But as I look to the ground the dog was a lot larger than usual, it’s grey colour giving off a blueish tone to its fur.“Libby…what are you doing here?” He looks behind me, surprised to find me alone in the woods. I might ask him the same question, he was supposed to be in town.“I just found this dog, it’s in pain...” He continues, his eyes looking fearful for the animal at our feet. I look down at the animal, it’s snout long…it’s teeth sharp…its ankle covers in blood…it’s eyes telling me it was in pain.I’ve seen animals like this before.“That’s not a dog...that’s a wolf.”Libby POVThe wolf seems somewhat tame…it just keeps trying to bite at the trap around its ankle. Which when I watch Ben touch, every time he pulls his hands away as if it was hot to touch. He swears before trying to touch the trap all over again. “I’m sorry, I can’t…” He whispers to the wolf. His shoulders slumped as he finally has to admit defeat. I don’t understand what has happened and why Ben has got himself involved with helping a wild animal, the farmer couple would have shot it on site.“Here, let me take over.” I crouch down beside him, very slowly stroking the side of the wolf’s tummy, reassuring it that I wasn’t here to cause anymore pain. I keep my movements slow, not wanting to lose any fingers if the wolf decides to snap at me for handling it too roughly. “Is the trap hot?” I mutter to Ben under my breath. I don’t know why, it’s not as if the animal could understand me. “Why?”“You keep pulling your hands away as it if it is hot?” I prepare myself, expecting it to
Libby POVI have to think on my feet, as much as I like Ben, I’m not ready for my past to return to me. Even talking about it brings back flashbacks of that lake house… “I witnessed a man shift in front of me.” This isn’t entirely untrue, a big black wolf did shift the first time I was chased by werewolves. The naked delicious man is who I often dream about. “Fuck! That must have scared the shit out of you.”“You could say that.” “He let you go?” Ben presses further. It was unheard of for werewolves to shift in front of humans. But I was on the run back then and had been cornered. I didn’t know about the werewolf world back then, that fateful night giving me a crash course. “Not exactly…”I don’t elaborate further, I wasn’t let go…but escaped in the most horrific of circumstances. “Who are you and Beth running from?” I ask Ben, keen to move the topic off me. “What makes you think we are running?” He quirks an eyebrow at me. I thought I knew Ben and Beth, but all this time the
Pierce POV “How many guards are on tonight?” “20 in total Alpha. Did you want more?” “No that’s a good number. Not being on high risk anymore, that should be sufficient.” I rub the temple spots by the side of my forehead. Things have been…torturous, but not for any visible reason. The entire pack has been on alert mode for the past 6 months. I have been meticulous in my planning of late. “Did you want to start looking at options for bringing the trackers back…it has been 3 months.” Dane, my long serving beta…my second in command asks. “Can we spare anybody else to take their places?” “No right now Alpha, no. I think they need the break. It has been constant for them, and I know for a fact that they haven’t once come across any Red Stone pack trackers…” They haven’t? In 3 whole months…that surprises me. “They haven’t?” “No, are you sure Alpha Reuben has trackers out in the field?” “That’s what he said.” I stand up from my desk chair, Dane sitting on the other side of my desk,
Pierce POV I’ve visited Reuben’s and Evelyn’s new home plenty of times, but never with a purpose other than just spending time with them. If Reuben’s trackers haven’t been spotted by mine, then there was the strong possibility that he hadn’t sent any out at all.Fate had destined for Reuben and I to be in each other’s lives from a young age. Our Father’s were the best of friends until their feud, forcing Reuben and I to grow apart, to temporarily become adversaries. A few physical arguments as teenagers, I believe one being over both having a crush on the same girl…then our fates crossed again the day he carried a collapsed Evelyn in his arms out of a warehouse located on my outer pack grounds.I found immense pleasure in flirting with Evelyn so openly in front of him, even when he was denying their bond and remaining with Vicky. Now their kids call me uncle. The Royal Alpha family’s house was set away from both packs, geographically in the middle of the Red Stone and the Silver
Pierce POV “What do you mean she is safe?” I can feel my face screwing up as I ask my own question. My own mind at a loss of what he means. “Exactly that, that she is safe.” This is beggar’s belief. “How long….for how long have you known this?” “For 6 months.” For 6 months…for 6 months he has known she is safe yet he has let me think the worse. Every time I have been here I have opened up to Evely, told her how I have been struggling…no wonder he was so quiet, the prick was holding back from me. I could feel my body trembling, my beastly wolf wanting out…to punish this so called Alpha King for letting me think my own mate was possibly dead. My beast becoming ferociously dangerous in this lovely high-end designed kitchen of theirs. The only way to prevent a shift is to attack in myhuman form. The only warning I give him is the snarl that leaves my mouth. I lunge at him, it doesn’t matter there is a dinning table in my way. I knock him to the ground, our bodies rolling around
Pierce POV Reuben prepares me for a long wait. He says he has no idea where Libby has been hiding but from what he suspects, it is the other side of the country. At least, hopefully, she was still in the country and hadn’t gone overseas. That is what filled me with dread…that she would have used smugglers to get her out of the country. Libby has no trace of a digital record, something her father Odin made a point of ordering. She is on the records until she reached the age of 12 and then it’s as if she died…I even have her death certificate…and her mother’s. Claiming she died of pneumonia. We know for certain that Libby’s mother was human, which makes my mate half human half werewolf. A fact she didn’t know until she stumbled across our kind, both Reuben and I chasing her out of one of my warehouses. I have plenty of regrets with Libby. I regret letting her into this world so quickly…she wasn’t ready. She had also lived a life apart from most humans since her mother died. Her an
Libby POV It was a fresh new week on the farm and I was excited on what it might bring.The weekend had been eventful, I now know my friend’s Ben and Beth are secret werewolves with their own problems, hiding just as I am. I now had a fresh batch of tablets to suppress those stomach cramps, Ben and Beth non-the-wiser on my own part in the werewolf world….I was feeling great. Life was starting to seem less…bleak. My life will never be easy, but at least it was a life I was finally choosing for myself. Ben and Beth left my caravan and headed to theirs to freshen up. I took the eggs that Ben had left outside Anwir’s place and was busy making him his favourite breakfast on the campfire. He’ll be out of someone’s caravan momentarily and I’m pretty certain I know which one. I am crouched down by the campfire when I hear a door creak behind me, my head turning to find the culprit. “Why am I not surprised?” I mutter to myself as I witness Anwir climb out of a caravan, as soon as I start
Libby POV I’m slow in comparison but I manage to follow Ben and Beth, breaking away when I reach my own caravan. This was it. Time to move again. I cannot be caught. I rip open the cupboard door under the sink, reaching for my backpack and hoisting it onto my back. I rush to the fridge, clumsily reaching for bottled water as my adrenaline kicks in. I’ve been planning this for months but now that it is happening…I feel severely unprepared. I just don’t possess that…hunter mindset within me. “What’s going on?” Anwir is watching me, too cooly, at the steps leading up to my door. “They will only inspect the others and then move on. Why are you worried?” He turns and I stick my head out the door when I see the blue sirens gathering distance on us…on me. “Anwir…” I hush him, at the sight of the illegal farm workers starting to run away from the now running police officers in the fields. This was like a scene from those tv dramas I used to watch. But now I was in one. I can’t get