Chapter 10

Kimble

The next day, I was up at 6 AM and in the main house by 7 AM. Shirley looked at me with pity in her eyes when I reported for duty. Her eyes went to my shirt that I had buttoned to the top to hide the collar, and she shook her head. Interestingly, she didn’t say anything against Talon.

All the others in the room with her looked at me with disgust. Some girls snickered, glancing at me. It seemed like yesterday’s incident had already caught fire amongst the locals.

“Is it true she has a collar around her neck?” a girl asked.

“That’s what you do to the mutts!” her friends giggled. “Goddamn mutt!”

Anger and embarrassment were not the right mix. I was furious with what he had done to me yesterday, and right now my cheeks burned from pure embarrassment. Once again tears pooled and made my vision blurry, but I blinked them away.

Shirley assigned them duties and asked me to stay in the room until the Alpha left. No one talked to me, and so I sat there alone, trying my best to remain calm and not think about the night before. I hadn’t slept as the humiliation burned through me. How could a man so beautiful on the outside, at the helm of affairs, be such a bastard? As if the humiliation wasn’t enough, I had that acute pain in my belly again somewhere toward the dawn.

“Kimble!” Shirley called me. “The Alpha has left. You can go upstairs and do his room.”

“Okay,” I replied, getting up and feeling defeated. It was good that I didn’t have to face him. Seriously, I couldn’t decide whether this life was better than my previous one. Picking up a few sheets and towels, I walked to Alpha’s bedroom. I knocked softly on the door, ensuring I didn’t barge in.

“Come in,” a soft voice came.

I opened the door and saw Aria still in bed, wrapped up in silk sheets. She looked at me with hooded eyes. “Oh, it’s you,” she said dryly.

A pang of jealousy slammed into my heart and I felt like peeling that woman from the bed. Shit. What was wrong with me? I dismissed that odd feeling the instant it washed over me.

I gasped when my eyes went to the open cupboard, all his clothes were on the ground, lying in a messy heap. It looked as though a hurricane had swept through, followed by a tornado.

Aria followed my gaze and her mouth dropped open. “I don’t know how that happened,” she said, bewildered. “Perhaps Alpha Talon was looking for something?”

“It’s okay,” I mumbled, baffled. “I’ll sort them out.”

As I busied myself in cleaning the room, Aria went to the bathroom. When she returned, wrapped in just a towel, she walked to the dresser. Our gazes locked as we caught each other’s reflection in the mirror. She was applying lotion to her legs, and I lowered my eyes. I just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

“You hate it here, right?” she said, turning toward me.

I didn’t answer and turned to look at the window, swallowing thickly.

She faced me fully and sighed. “I have a solution for you, if you want to listen.”

Her words caught my attention.

“I know that Alpha Talon can get very angry, and at times he loses control over himself. Annnnddd…” She sighed. “He’s been really bad with you. I also know that you don’t want to stay here.”

I opened my mouth to say something but snapped it shut.

She chuckled. “I knew it.” Aria cocked her head and a ghost of a smile appeared on her lips. “If you want to run away from here, I have an idea.”

And now she had all my attention. “What idea?” I asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

“I can help you, but with one condition.”

Suddenly, I found myself wanting to rub my chest, though I wasn’t sure why. Did my unease stem from fear, or was it something else entirely? I couldn’t quite grasp it.

Aria poked her tongue into her cheek. “I know someone who can take you somewhere else. I mean a different town. Once you’ve arrived, you’ll have to stay there, under the radar, for at least a month. After that, you can go wherever you like.”

“Why a month? Why can’t I go back home now?”

She licked her lips and shrugged one shoulder. “I can’t tell you why. It’s not my place, but if you agree to my conditions, I’ll help you. And I’ll give you a thousand dollars to kickstart your new journey.”

My mouth dropped in surprise. One thing I’d learned living in my neighborhood was that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. No one helps you unless they have their own agenda, hidden or otherwise. Aria was asking me to leave town without a trace and bribing me with a thousand dollars. It was a great opportunity. A win-win. So why was my heart thumping hard, urging me, telling me that this wasn’t right? Something inside me was restless.

“You don’t have to agree to this today,” Aria added. “Take your time to think about it, but this offer expires in two days. After that, you’re on your own.” Saying that, she turned back toward the mirror and brushed her hair. “Oh, and one more thing—if you speak about our little talk to anyone, I’ll outright deny it, and you already know how that would be taken. You’re absolutely nothing in this place.”

I stared at her. Aria was not only beautiful, she was also polite and cunning. “Okay…” I murmured.

The rest of my morning was spent thinking about her proposition as she got ready and went shopping with her friends. It was clear that I had to be extremely discreet about this plan if I wanted to escape. And I had to trust Aria. Remaining secretive about it wasn’t an issue, but trusting Aria? I didn’t know her very well.

By midafternoon, I had finished tidying the room and went to my room to take a bath. I was so tired that I didn’t bother to change and slept with the towel wrapped around me. My dreams consisted of vast meadows, unexplored horizons, vibrant with possibilities. I didn’t want to wake up.

Reality felt like a garden of twilight, and the path to freedom was paved with uncertainty, a shadowy labyrinth of doubt and fear. I was standing on the precipice of choice, caught between the unknown and the comfort of my tormentor. But I had to take a step toward freedom. If I didn’t explore, I would never know if what I did was right or not. My mind was a tapestry of contradictions, but eventually I decided.

Jackie came to see me in the evening. She hugged me hard. “I’m so sorry about what happened last night. We know our Alpha’s lethal, and people don’t interact with him unless they have to. However, what he did with you at the restaurant was unusual. He hasn’t ever done that with anyone. If he has to punish someone, it usually ends in expulsion from the pack or worse like imprisonment.”

“Imprisonment? Does he have private cells? Is that even allowed?” I asked, sipping my hot coffee.

Jackie stilled for a moment and let out a nervous chuckle. “Anyway!” She dug her fingers into her purse, took out a $50 bill, and changed the topic. “Aunt Shirley gave that to me for you.”

I grinned. “Thanks,” I replied as I looked at the money. “You know, I was just three months away from graduation. Then I would have—” My throat choked with emotions. I would have been free.

“We have a high school here as well. Why don’t you enroll?”

I rolled my eyes. “I have to work for Talon every morning. When will I go to school? Do you know how disorganized he is? Today I found all his clothes tossed on the floor.”

“That’s odd,” Jackie said with a frown. “He’s an extremely organized wol—man.”

I took an exasperated sigh. “I just want to get out of here!”

Jackie and I ended up talking more about Talon and then her adoptive parents. At twenty-two, she had finished her computer diploma in cybersecurity and was one of the best Talon had on his team. She had two younger brothers who were vying to be part of Talon’s security team. Everything in this town was about Talon. Like he owned everyone’s ass or was a part of every establishment.

We both went to the kitchen in the manor for dinner, where Harry and Kirk were talking about shrimp salad. As soon as Kirk saw Jackie, his eyes lit up. Harry stiffened seeing me and turned to furiously chop vegetables.

“Hi, Jackie!” Kirk made his way to us. “You look stunning!”

I looked at Jackie’s gray cotton top and brown skirt that fell to her knees. Her hair was tied in a messy bun and she seemed like she could use a bath. Kirk’s infatuation for Jackie rolled in waves.

Jackie blushed. “Hi, Kirk, is there anything for dinner? And you look stunning too.”

He smelled like onions and garlic. For God’s sake.

“Of course!” Kirk said, and, with the speed of an Olympic champion who could beat all other Olympic champions, he brought us a variety of food, including shrimp salad, bacon sandwich, thinly sliced smoked salmon with capers, and stuffed mushrooms.

While I focused on all the lovely food, Kirk and Jackie chatted about how their days had gone. I was so focused on eating like a pig that I jumped when a hand thumped the table on my side. Silence ensued as my gaze traveled from the hand on the table to Harry’s face.

“Servants are not allowed to eat here,” he growled. “You can eat in the servants’ quarters. If you come here again, human—” he almost snarled, his hand reaching mine. He grabbed my wrist so hard that I cried. “I’m going to rip this hand off your body. You understand?”

“Let me go!” I tried to wrench my hand away, but it was useless.

“Don’t you fucking step into this kitchen again!” he hissed as he gripped me tighter.

“Harry!” Jackie shouted. “Let her go!” She rushed over to wrench his hand away.

But his anger was rising, and my wrist was on the verge of fracturing. Tears welled in my eyes, mostly from the pain rather than how much these people hated me.

“What’s going on here?” An earth-shattering growl made me whip my head round. The next moment, I saw Talon in front of us, his face calm but with a storm brewing underneath. His eyes went to where Harry gripped me. Harry detached his hand and I quickly moved mine to rub it, wincing in pain. Why was he shirtless again? His body was covered in a thin sheet of sweat, and it looked like he had come from an intense training session. His muscles rippled beneath that velvety skin. And, fuck me, I had this sudden urge to lick him everywhere.

“A—Alpha Talon!” Harry paled. “I—this servant. She forgot the protocols.”

Talon ambled to our table, picked up an apple from the fruit bowl, and, using a knife, he pared it into slices and placed it on the table. He cleaned the knife with his trousers and slowly lifted his eyes to where Harry’s hand rested on the table. The tension in the room was so palpable it stifled me.

Quick as a serpent, Talon buried the lethal tip of the knife between the thumb and index finger of Harry’s hand. Harry froze. He tried to remove his hand, but Talon had hold of it. He carved the table around his hand with the tip of the knife.

“Alpha Talon, I’m sorry,” Harry said in a raspy voice. “This human—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Talon struck, burying the knife in the back of Harry’s hand. Harry’s shocked bellow of pain ripped through the kitchen and beyond, halting every activity. He bellowed as he pulled his arm, but it was pinned down. Talon gripped his wrist and yanked the knife out. “What were you saying?” he asked in a soft voice, his icy expression belying his sincerity.

I was so shocked by what I had just witnessed that I froze. Blood sprayed over my face and Harry’s white pants. Harry sank to his knees as he stared at his bloodied hand.

Talon shot a glare at me and said, “Scoot.”

Shaking like a tree in a storm, I got up and ran out of there, stopping only after I had closed the door of my room. The pain in my wrist was mind-numbing, but the fear cruising through my body was soul crushing.

Talon was dangerous in all the wrong ways. He was like a wild animal, wearing danger like a second skin, exuding an untamed energy that crackled in the air around him. In his presence I felt like I was in the den of a wolf who was tense with the threat of imminent violence.

While I slept, I was plagued by nightmares of my house in the meadows being destroyed by the wolves and blood everywhere. I got up with a jerk, a scream ripping from my throat. With my breathing labored and my body covered in sweat, I got out of the bed and walked to the window, opening it to breathe fresh air. I gasped when my gaze went to a massive black wolf sitting in the grass below, staring up at me with his golden eyes. He was larger than any wolf I had ever encountered in my brief life.

My breath lodged in my throat, not because I felt afraid of him, but at his sheer magnificence, at how I wanted to sink my fingers in his silken fur.