8. Maya

8

Maya

"Continue to scream, and you won't have to worry about seeing your father because you'll be dead," Duke said through clenched teeth as he continued to carry me through the woods. We were definitely out of Rhyson's earshot, but that didn't stop me from shouting and fighting. I beat my fists against his back relentlessly, but it was no use. He didn't even flinch.

When I continued to shout, he sighed. "So you'd rather be dead than see your father. Rhyson is right. You do have issues with him. Are you hoping to see me dead as well?"

I did not. Clamping my mouth shut, I seethed, but Duke just chuckled. "Thank the heavens for small mercies."

He continued to carry me in silence while I seethed. First I'd gone to Rhyson to save my baby, and now he was talking about buying it! The situation wasn't just going downhill, it was catching fire and burning my entire life down in the process.

I'd never thought about being a mother. When I daydreamed about being Larson's loving wife, a thought that made me want to vomit now, a baby had never even crossed my mind. My father hadn't just made me terrified of the thought of being a mother, he'd managed to wipe it from existence.

The moment I realized I was pregnant, all I could think about was how I was going to protect my child from men like my father.

Now it was doomed. Once Bruce Callahan realized I was carrying the king's child, he would ruin the kid's life. He'd eke out everything he could from Rhyson—and at the moment, the bastard deserved it—and then he'd probably ruin my child's life as well. Hell, he'd probably kill me so he could be the doting grandfather who raised the king's heir.

There was fucked, and then there was fucked .

"What's he doing here anyway," I muttered out loud. "Won't they kill him if they figure out who he is?"

"They're not going to find out who he is," Duke answered. "And it's hard to kill a shifter who can control your wolf."

"Well la-dee-dah for him."

Duke just chuckled. "Look, you saw your shot and you took it. It's not going well. If I were you, I'd just keep my head down for the next however many months until the babe is born. If it's Rhyson's, he'll take care of you. If it's not, then you don't have to worry about him anymore."

"Sure. I'll just sell my child to the king. This isn't the Middle Ages, you know."

"And yet you were hoping to trap a king into marriage."

God, men were dumb. Did it look like I was capable of trapping anyone into marriage? I currently couldn't even make someone put me down and let me walk.

"If you were to review the events, and you can because you were there, you will remember that I was thrown out of a ball, nearly gang-raped, and it was your king who picked me up and took me to his hotel room. What, did I plot my devious plan during the limo ride?"

"You saw an opportunity."

Hard to roll your eyes and look perturbed when you were bouncing up and down on a man's shoulder, but I did it anyway. "He said he was the alpha of Summerset, so who's the liar now?"

A twig snapped to the right of us, and Duke instantly froze. I clamped my mouth shut as I felt the muscles of his shoulder bunch beneath my abdomen. For a few very tense seconds, we waited, but nothing jumped out at us. When he started walking again, I sighed. "Put me down. I'll shift. If we keep walking as humans, we're sitting ducks and you know it."

"You won't try to run from me?" he cautioned.

"Here on this hellhole of a mountain?" I asked. "As everyone keeps pointing out, I won't last a mile. You're just going to have to give me a few minutes to shift. It takes me a little longer than most."

"I noticed." He set me down on two feet. "Why is that?"

"I don't know. We don't communicate well. It takes a little time for me to call her."

"All right. I'll shift first."

Watching him, and every other wolf really, shift, always made me a little frustrated. It was always so seamless and easy with them. I was still calling for my wolf when he was done, and by the time my wolf was out, he was getting downright impatient.

My wolf shook out her stress, and as always, I tried to open a line of communication with her. Hey. How are you? I'm sorry I got us into this mess and nearly drowned us.

Nothing.

Duke nosed at me and started to trot. I easily kept pace with him, staying just a little behind while my wolf stayed vigilant.

I hadn't lied to him. I had no intention of running from him in the mountains, but once we got back to the vehicles? I couldn't outright outrun him, but if I could distract him for just a few minutes, I might have a chance.

Of course, I wouldn't be able to stay a wolf for long, especially if they'd parked in a human settlement. No one wanted the humans to know about werewolves, but that was even better. I'd be much harder to hunt in a civilian area.

Maybe I could live my life as a human, hide away and immerse myself with people who didn't have to answer to an alpha or a king. I'd need money, and a way to hide my baby from turning into a wolf cub at school.

Suddenly, living life as a rogue in the mountains didn't sound like that bad of an idea. It couldn't all be wolf-eat-wolf, right?

I knew the tales of the lawless mountain, about wolves who didn't have packs but roamed freely with the natural animals, living off the land, brutal and uncivilized. Some said a king had exiled them because there was a strange magic in the mountains. A magic that made wolves unhinged.

Maybe it was making me unhinged too, for thinking that I could live here on my own.

We were nearing the clearing of the woods when Duke's dark gray wolf suddenly stopped short and bristled. Half a second later, I knew why he was upset. We were smelling wolves. Several of them.

He hunched low in the bushes and belly-crawled closer. I trotted along next to him, easily fitting in the space: score one for small wolves. We were at the edge of the woods. Ahead of us, in the parking lot, were the convoy vehicles.

They'd been stripped. Sitting up on blocks, their tires had been removed, and a couple of people were rifling through them. One wolf sat at the end of the convoy. A lookout, no doubt. Luckily, the wind was in our favor.

So the rogues had found the vehicles. It looked like Duke would not be driving me to my father. Hopefully Rhyson hadn't left anything behind that said Hey, I'm the king, and I'm going to camp out in the forbidden mountain for some unknown reason. Hope you guys don't mind.

A radio beeped, and one of the shifters straightened and pulled it out of their belt.

Not radios. Walkie-talkies. Seriously? What kind of unhinged, lawless rogues were these?

"We found the camp. There are only five. Should be easy to exterminate them at nightfall. Find anything useful?" the voice over the radio said.

Five? Shit. That was Rhyson. There were two teams: one to watch the vehicles and one to hunt the invaders.

"Whoever it is has money. Try to keep the leader alive so we can ransom them. They might be an alpha."

An image popped into my head of someone trying to ransom Rhyson. It was funnier than it should have been.

A growl sounded behind us, and the fun times were over. I sank into my wolf, and she turned and attacked.