My heart sinks.
I did, but that’s what I need to do when faced with an alpha challenge. A thin memory flits through my head of the time I chased the dog, and my mates made me sit on the sidewalk. They didn’t like my reaction that day either. I thump my palms into my forehead, making the thin metal chain rattle. If only I could stop the pain whirling around inside. If only I knew what to do.
“I didn’t kill,” I say between quick breaths. The air inside this closed space feels too thick, and the scent on my fingers makes me rumble with suppressed fury.
The alpha shakes his head. “No, but you attacked. Punching, kicking, and biting are illegal too. Now stop stalling and get out.”
A brilliant light burns through my head. I broke the law. Am I like the man who put his hands around White Mine’s throat? I stumble forward and drop the few feet to the concrete floor, my shoes thumping loudly in the quiet. Car fumes mingle in humid air loaded with body sweat. I cough, clearing my scent-singed throat.
The man grabs my elbow, and I jerk around, snarling at the touch. His alpha presence rises and he reaches for a black object hanging on his belt. A weapon.
I stand as still as the concrete underfoot as the instincts that kept me alive for years war with what my pack taught me. Then a fresh flare of pain wells up inside me. Not pain; distress, and it belongs to my omega and my alpha mate. If I break more laws, I might never find my way back to them. Some old part inside me crumbles as I turn my back on the enemy, and my instincts, and walk toward the door.
If I broke the law, then I’ll go back in a cell. That’s why White Mine was so worried about me in public. Worried enough to put a collar and leash on me. The long metal chain with a leather loop still dangles down my chest, swaying with each step. I shouldn’t have pulled away, no matter how dangerous the threat seemed. The bruising around my throat where I dragged out of White Mine’s grip is nothing compared to the ache in my chest.
A stranger behind me whispers, “I thought they said he was completely feral? Didn’t expect him to walk himself inside.”
New thoughts swirl in my brain. How do these men know anything about me? I’ve never met them before. They aren’t the agents who lived in our house and watched me. I neverunderstood why those non-pack men lived in our den, but I think I know now. They tried to stop me from attacking. I despised their presence, but so long as I behaved like a person and not a dog, they didn’t come near me.
These ideas and others collide as the men write my name onto paper, take my collar off, scan my fingertips, and lock me in a tiny cell. Time blurs, and my only connection to the Outside comes from the warmth in my chest tying me to my pack. The omega presence quietens, finally asleep after the storm of her emotions.
White Mine lingers, his profound grief chilling me to the bone. Of course he’s sad. I foolishly left him to take care of our omega alone when she needs us all.
But the invisible challenger I tried to fend off didn’t take them. Maybe I protected my pack after all. I hum under my breath, head aching again.
A disturbance shatters the quiet, and two men come surging through the door. “Stall him as long as possible so we can get the feral out of here,” one says darkly.
The familiar unpleasant scent that follows the voice has me rising to my feet with a snarl. I know this man.
An alpha with a stony gaze glares through the bars. “Hello again, Zazu. You should feel honored; I crossed the country to be here for this.”
I don’t know his name, but he’s from the prison where I was locked with my fighting brothers, and he chased me and Mine in the truck and put us in that other small cell. The other details are hazy because I was so focused on bonding my omega.
“Zack,” I growl out, vibrating with dislike.
He looks up from a board with a piece of paper on it. “What?”
“My name. Zack.”
He laughs, a harsh sound with none of my pack’s joy in it. “I don’t give a flying fuck what your name is, psycho. All I careabout is getting you back in prison where you belong.” His pen squiggles across the page, and then he thrusts the board at the second alpha.
“Get the cuffs on him,” he orders.
I wasn’t planning to fight, but the guard’s menacing aura spooks me. I lash out, snarling. He slams me bodily into the wall, the other alpha locking metal around my wrists again.
A wet trickle runs down my forehead and into my eye, blinding me. With my face smashed against the wall, it’s hard to hear clearly, but I catch the wordlawyer.
“He’s so damn persistent,” the prison guard snaps as they drag me from the cell.
Lawyer. Laws. Court. “Cal-ee?” I mutter, something sparking inside me.
White Mine said Cal-ee decided if people go to jail or not. Has he come to decide my fate? Even if he hates me for rejecting him, he knows Red needs me. I crane my head around, searching the room.
Voices rise in a shout behind a closed door. “Where is he?”
Recognition rushes through me. “Cal-ee!” I roar, thrashing again. He’s come. He’s only one room away.
“Shut up,” the guard hisses, dragging me in the opposite direction.
