Page 6 of Alpha’s Wife

“Tomorrow,” he says after a moment, as if he’s just decided something. “You can go outside.”

My head comes back up. “Outside.”

“Yes, you can go see the settlement,” he replies, lining the chess pieces back up neatly and beginning the next game. “Escorted, of course. You won’t go near the docks or the main gate, and you come back when you’re told. But you can go for a walk.”

I narrow my eyes, because I can’t imagine this man giving away anything nice for free. “Why?”

“Because you’ve been clawing at my wards day and night, and it’s probably easier to let you see there’s nowhere to run rather than explaining it to you.” He stands, unfolding all of that impressive height in the all too small cabin, and looks down at me with something that borders on amusement. “Checkmate, by the way.”

I look at the board. He’s right. The infuriating man has taken me in an embarrassingly few number of moves.

“I let you have that,” I lie, tilting my chin.

“Sure you did,” he says, and leaves.

I sit there after the door clicks and the wards flare, looking at the board. I wonder if he handed me those earlier games just so he could cut me down when I wasn’t looking. I’d do well to remember that every time I get a warm feeling in my chest because he brought me a book or let me go for a walk.

I need to remember who he is and what this is.

The next morning, after I’ve just finished breakfast, there’s a knock on the door, but it’s not Bram; it’s a couple of guards that I’ve only seen loitering in the background. Behind them, I see the settlement stretching out down the hill and the sunshine. I don’t need to be asked twice if I want to go for a walk, and step out onto the porch, breathing in the cool, salty air. I don’t want them to think I’m overly grateful, though, because I’m sure that’s what they want, so I’m polite but distant as they follow me down the hill.

I thought Ronan would take me out; I thought he wouldn’t want me out without him, so to be allowed to just walk around, albeit with guards, feels strange. Halfway down the hill, I almost want to run back to the cabin, but I force myself to keep going. If I’m going to escape, I need to see what I’m dealing with.

I’m braced for a full-blown rogue camp, packless shifters all living like animals in their own filth. The kind of place a woman wouldn’t be safe walking through unless she had guards, so I guess I’m lucky some have been supplied.

But that’s not what this is, and I struggle to process the scene as I reach the neat row of well-maintained cabins and gardens that line the streets. There are even shops and a busy bakery with a line out the door. I pass a bigger cabin with a fenced play area and the sound of noisy children.

“The school,” the guard says when he spots me staring. “Cara runs it. My two are in there now.”

“Your two?” I repeat, stupidly.

“Two girls,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “Their mom passed when they were babies. I was injured in the same accident. Couldn’t work, couldn’t hunt, so the pack threw us out. We’d have been finished, but I heard about this place. Alpha took us straight in, and the girls are doing great.”

I don’t even know what to say to that. I know I have a tendency to offer clever responses when faced with shifters; it’s almost like an armor I use while I judge if it’s time to run, but anything vaguely witty dies in my throat, and I just find myself nodding along.

We keep walking, and the settlement keeps refusing to be what I imagined. I try to keep my face neutral and hide my surprise as we turn another tidy corner with flowers in pots against the wall, and I spot a large clinic building. A man is sitting outside and lifts his hand to wave. I instantly notice his heavily scarred face and the burns that extend down his arm. An old injury that must have been catastrophic.

“Don’t mind this,” he says cheerfully, as if he’s accustomed to people being put off. “Good for frightening the pups and gets me out of any hard work.”

An older woman comes out of the clinic door and immediately admonishes him. “Dax, behave.” Then turns to me. “You’re the witch.”

“I’m the witch,” I confirm.

“Emma,” she says, looking at me as if weighing something up. “I heard you know about herbs? Always looking for someone who can use the right ones at the right time, if you ever want to lend a hand. Whilst plotting your escape, obviously.”

I laugh despite myself at her deadpan delivery. “I’m not plotting an—”

She giggles, cutting me off. “We’ve all been dragged somewhere we didn’t want to be at some point,” she tells me, “and we all start off plotting.”

I like her, even if I don’t want to admit it, so I feign indifference, but the truth is I do love using my herbs.

I make no promises, and the guard points out that if we take the next turn, we can loop the settlement and walk back up the hill. I’m not going to fight him on the direction as I don’t know the way, so I take his lead, and we continue on, passing a small garden where a woman is working with salt on a table, creating patterns on a simple template. I’d know that work anywhere—it’s ward magic. She glances up and clocks me at the exact moment I clock her and gives me a small nod of acknowledgment, one witch to another.

“Nice to have another witch here,” she says.

“Are you the only one?” I ask warily, assuming she’s the one fixing the wards that keep me here.

She shakes her head. “There are three of us, all tossed out by covens for one reason or another. I know it seems strange to live with the shifters, but it turns out even they can be compassionate occasionally. Welcome, for what it’s worth.”