“Can you fucking calm down?” Aeon snarled at Riley. “That rogue has been checked. She has nothing on her. I just want her back. She ran away from my Beta.”
“Please, Luna! Don’t give me back to him. I can be your slave until I earn my freedom. I’m not a threat, I promise you. I don’t even know how to fight. Please, just don’t let him take me.” Alexa was kneeling again, her hands clasped together. Her eyes were pooling with tears, but she was holding them back.
“Enough!” Alpha Aeon bellowed. His eyes dilated again, and in a few steps, he grabbed the female’s arm and pulled her up to her feet.
“No!” Alexa shrieked, yanking her arm away from him as if she had gotten electrified by Alpha Aeon’s touch.
The Alpha grunted in frustration, brushing his hair with his hand. “I’m losing my patience with you.”
“Then just let me go!” Her eyes were blazing with fire. Her approach to the Alpha was entirely different from the way she was pleading with me.
“How do you plan to take her home?” Riley asked, ignoring the hostility between the two.
“Run.” Alpha Aeon answered curtly.
“Five to six hours on your paws and with her on your back? Are you fucking kidding me?” Riley chuckled, shaking his head. His arm was still wrapped around me tightly. “By the time you reach your territory, she might have attempted to run away from you a hundred times already.”
“I hope she realizes by then she can’t run away by foot.”
“Hop in the car. I’ll give you both decent clothes and a car. You can’t drag a rogue 400 miles and expect she’ll still be alive by then. Someone will probably spot her or both of you and kill her on the spot.” Riley said as he turned around, taking me with him without waiting for a response from Alpha Aeon.
“I’ll take Nadia in my car.” He advised Jenny before motioning for his Beta to ride with Jenny. It was only then that I saw Beta Dominic was around.
He then pointed to Tristan as we walked. “We’re not done with this discussion. I want a fucking explanation why Nadia was outside the car.”
I let out a sigh and bit my lip. I had to talk to Riley before he ended up blowing up on them.
I turned my head around and saw Alpha Aeon taking Alexa’s arm, but she shoved him away before she followed us to Riley’s car.
Alpha Aeon opened the car door in the back seat and let Alexa inside before he slipped in. Alexa’s eyes were throwing daggers at him, but the Alpha was just ignoring her.
As soon as we started driving, Riley began asking questions at Alpha Aeon. “Where did you find her?”
“We raided a camping spot, east of Caspian’s territory. We’d been watching them for a while now. We thought they were the ones responsible for the attack at the Blue Meadows Pack months ago.”
“You went that fucking far from your territory and didn’t ask for help or inform the packs surrounding the area?” Riley asked and I could sense his annoyance.
“You know how obsessed Dad is with finding Achilles. Once we spotted him, we launched the attack. The fewer people who know, the better the result.” He let out a deep sigh, resting his head back on the seat while Alexa kept herself at the far end of the back seat.
“Did you catch him?”
“No.”
“And why did you keep this one alive?”
“Riley! How could you ask that?” I glared at him. I was disappointed he would even think of killing Alexa and, worse, ask the question as if Alexa wasn’t around.
“You have a soft-hearted Luna, Riley. She needs to learn the ways of the pack.”
“You still didn’t answer my question.”
“I need her. To get more information.”
“And Alpha Argon was okay with that? I thought his motto was to eliminate all rogues regardless of age and sexuality.” He chuckled, and I almost puked at the way he talked, as if they were just talking about chickens.
“He wanted her dead. I have to bargain for her. That shackle on her neck is keeping her alive. Once it’s out and she shifts, Dad has an order to eliminate her.”
Riley didn’t say anything, but I saw him throw a glance at Alpha Aeon through the rearview mirror. I couldn’t read Riley’s expression, but it was surely something else as he scrutinized the Alpha behind us.
