The next thing I remembered was waking up with a drawn out grunt. Someone was nudging me awake. I glared - or glared as well as I could with how heavy my eyesstillwere.
“Wake up,” an unfortunately familiarvoicesaid.
A sense of awareness instantly snapped back to my being, and I shot out of bed. I was in enemy territory, and was essentially a hostage - except I was meant to be a part of their military, so I was a hostage with apurpose.
Virgil’s cold face stared downatme.
“What?” Imuttered.
“It’s time for you to eat something. You’ll begin your training today, and Gunner wants you intopform.”
“Training?” Igrowled.
Virgil slowly closed his eyes in exasperation. “Surely you cannot be this dense.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Training for your position in thealphaarmy.”
“Oh.”
He said nothing else as he led me down to the kitchen - or at least, what passed for a kitchen in this dump of a pack. This building that housed numerous alphas didn’t have so much of a kitchen as a pantry full of fast food and easysnacks.
“Where’s the real food?” I muttered. “All of thisiscrap.”
Virgil’s expression was unreadable. “The alphas don’t want to cook. They say it’s anomega’sjob.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Besides, it’s not like there are anyomegashere.”
Virgil shrugged. “You’re not wrong,” he saidsimply.
After a paltry breakfast of stale crackers and whatever else looked edible in the shared pantry, Virgil pulled measide.
“We should begin your training. Gunner won’t be pleased if you don’t know any basic moves by the end oftheweek.”
I felt a flash of irritation. Who the hell did this guy think he was? I wasn’t some baby alpha who needed to be shown the ropes; I had more combat experience than anybody in Indigo Mountain pack, and I could bet I had more thanthisguy.
“What, exactly, are you training me for?” Igrowled.
Virgil held back a sigh of exasperation. “We never know when Gunner will decide to send us in tobattle.”
“Battle for what?” Ipressed.
“Territory feuds, gaining land, taking back stolenomegas…”
At the last comment he shot a peculiar glance at me, like I had something to do with that. I rolledmyeyes.
“Stolen omegas? Please,” I said. “Every omega you lost ran away from this place of their own free will - which they have, by the way, not sure if you knew that in thisplace.”
Virgil’s mouth went tight but he didn’t reply to my snarky remark. “In any case, come with me to thetrainingring.”
But I didn’t want anything to do with any training ring. I had more important things to deal with - namely, rescuing my mate and getting the fuck out of this hellhole of a pack. As much as it stung to be told to my face that Niko didn’t remember me, I knew deep down that hehadto still be there. If it was brainwashing, we could undo it together. We just needed to be rid of Scarlet Ridgefirst.
“Look,” I growled to Virgil. “I don’t give a shit about whatever training routine Gunner wants to put me through. I want toseeNiko.”
Once again, his expression was unreadable. He was about the coldest man I’d ever met inmylife.
“You should ask yourself if he really wants to see you,” Virgil saidslowly.
Without thinking, I grabbed the collar of his shirt and snarled. “Shut the hell up! I don’t know what you bastards did to him, but you’ll all pay for it. Iknowmy mate better than any of you, and whoever that is, it’snothim.”
Virgil’s eyes became narrow slits and he reached down to remove my hand from his shirt, then brushed himself off. I could tell he was exercising a lot of restraint - I realized a moment after when I’d cooled down a little that if I had done that to any other alpha in Scarlet Ridge, I’d probably get ganged up on and have my ass handed to me, possibly even killed. Luckily, no one else was around, and Virgil didn’t commentonit.
