"Alpha doesn't appear to be happy. What exactly did you do?" Natasha inquired about Selena.
Selena gave her a scornful look and gathered the robe that had been thrown on the floor.
"What could I possibly do?"
"Don't act smart with me," Natasha warned. "Only because Cayden has forbidden me from injuring you. Don't assume you're safe. I can still hurt you in a variety of ways."
"I am sure you can. Why don't you just kill me? That would solve many problems in your dysfunctional relationship."
"Oh, I would have done it a long time ago if you hadn't been Cayden's mate."
Natasha's eyes blazed with rage.
"Hurting you would cause him pain. The bond is unbreakable."
Selena stared at the woman, perplexed. "That's why I asked you to mark him," she said wryly. "You instead offered me to satisfy his lust. I'm not sure what you want."
Natasha burst out laughing. "You won't get it. Because you don't love Cayden as much as I do. I don't mind who he sleeps with as long as he returns to me."
"Nice! So why don't you go out and find him a harem? And please spare me." Selena responded sarcastically and walked away.
Natasha grabbed her arm and forced her to look at her.
"Because Cayden needs you. And you will do whatever he says until he tires of you. Do you understand?"
Fear welled up in Selena's eyes as she nodded, feeling trapped and helpless.
"You are crazy!" Selena muttered.
Natasha chuckled and replied, "Maybe I am, but you don't have a choice, remember?"
********************
Kylie arrived at the abandoned campsite about an hour before the sun set. It was one of their secret hiding places. She knew her brothers were taken. They were vicious packs. There was no way her brothers would be spared. She choked back a sob. She felt helpless and scared, not knowing what to do next. She needed to gather her strength and come up with a plan to rescue her brothers from the clutches of the merciless packs. She had unintentionally encountered her adopted brothers—werewolves—years earlier, when she had escaped from her abusive foster home. These abandoned pups had escaped while their packs were being massacred. They had stuck together and survived the perils of life. Hiding from the authorities and wolf packs, they had been successful until now.
She prepared and ate dinner, cleaned her dishes in the nearby stream, then hung out and stargazed for a bit until her fatigue got the best of her and she crawled into her tent to get some well-deserved rest.
She was startled awake by the sound of something sniffing at her tent. "Oh shit, oh crap," she mused as she mentally went over her campsite setup.
Did she stow her food? Yep. Was it in airtight, bear-proof containers? Yep. Did she wash all of her dishes, including the cutlery? Yep. Then what in the world drew the bear to her campsite? She didn't have to worry about wild animals before because her brothers would protect her. She quietly picked up her bear spray and flashlight and debated the pros and cons of staying in her tent and waiting for the bear to leave, risking the bear collapsing the tent and trapping her inside, or getting out of the tent to scare the bear away with the heavy-duty pepper spray and risking being attacked by the bear.
"But surely the bear can smell me, so if he/she was going to attack, he/she would have already done so. Yes, it's just curious. I should stay here and leave it alone, and it will go away, and tomorrow I will double bag everything," she reasoned confidently.
"Why don't you come out? We just want to talk." She heard a man call.
"Among other things," mumbled another man.
"What about the bears?" she asked, straining to hear the bear that she could have sworn was just at the front of her tent.
"The animals are gone now; you can come out."
She came face to face with a giant who towered over her, blocking her view of the stars. She couldn't see much because it was late at night, so she fumbled with the flashlight in her other hand, trying to turn it on so she could see her rescuer.
He sighed and took the flashlight, flipping it on and handing it back to her.
"Marcus?" she asked as she shone the light into the face of a ruthless man.
"Hello, human," he said.
Startled by a blunt laugh from behind her. She spun around with the flashlight, looking for the source of the harsh laugh, and discovered a stocky man with shaggy hair and dark eyes. He raised an eyebrow and snapped his teeth at her, causing her to take a step back into the tall man, who grabbed her shoulders and spun her around to face him.
"So you are the human who likes wolves?"
She licked her lips nervously and backed away.
"I do not know what you are talking about. Maybe you guys should leave." Marcus laughed again.
"We can't do that, Princess, because your brothers refused to work for me, and you know too much."
****************
The call came in as Cayden approached the office, where the rogues were being let in. The rogues had been apprehended and were being transported. That part of the night had been uneventful. When he arrived, a dejected Max welcomed him and took his usual seat next to him.
Cayden was curious to get a good look at the rogues. The five young men were technically teenage boys who looked gaunt and malnourished. Everything had been pushed up against the walls. The five young men were still fighting their captors and looking around the room wildly. Cayden assumed they must have changed forms several times during the capture because everyone was naked.
"Good evening, gentlemen," Cayden said calmly. "I am Alpha Cayden, and this is my Beta Max."
He could sense that these kids were running from a horrible tragedy; he didn't want to hurt them. But he didn't want to risk exposing the pack to danger by allowing in unpredictable renegades.
"Where are you from?" he asked the boys.
When no one answered, he crossed his arms and stared at them.
"Why the hell do you care?" the boy from the middle spat out. "Kill us now and get it over with."
Cayden sighed, "I don't want to hurt you; was your pack also destroyed?"
The boys stared at him in disbelief.
"How do you know that?"
"What was your pack?" Cayden asked.
The boys looked nervous and unsure.
"As an alpha, I give you my word that I won't hurt you. I believe you were living with a human girl.
"Stay away from Kylie." One boy shouted.
"I have no intentions of hurting her." But I can't protect her unless you tell me everything."
The boys looked at each other hesitantly before one of them finally spoke up. "We are from the Sunnydale pack."
"Which was destroyed five years ago?" Max interrupted.
The boys nodded.
"We.. we escaped..b.. but everyone else died. We had nowhere to go. We hid in the forest away from the pack that wanted to capture us."
Cayden nodded, encouraging them to talk.
"When we met Kylie, she was also running away from those who had hurt her. We started living together. She is very nice. When she found out that we were wolves, she didn't panic and run away. Instead, she stayed with us and took care of us like a real sister."
"Why didn't you approach the council or other packs?"
"We thought everyone would hate us," the boy in the middle said. "Our families were all friends. Our parents told us to stay together and get away. They said that someone would pick us up, but no one ever came. We've stayed together as a pack and lived on our own. We've been hiding ever since."
"You deserve a pack." Cayden astutely surmised,
The boy in the middle-held Cayden's gaze for a moment before looking at the floor. "Yes, sir, it's been hard for us."
"I believe someone approached you about recruiting." Cayden asked further.
The boy, who seemed to be their leader, looked afraid.
"There is a man named Marcus; I don't know for whom he works, but he is inviting us to join him. He offered us a lot of money for attacking other packs and kidnapping females. When we refused, he threatened us."
"Marcus." Cayden mumbled. "Can you tell me more about him?"