Page 40 of Escaping Wildfire

“Not interested?” He chuckled. “That’s never stopped me before, and I am interested.” He roughly grabbed onto my ass with both hands and got closer to my face. I hated the feeling of his hands on me, but his grip tightened as I tried to pull away.

“I bet a good girl like you is still a virgin. Tell me, have you been fucked before?” I could feel him getting hard against my stomach and bile rose in my throat. He was as deranged as the alpha, and I knew I had to get away from him. “Once I sink into that tight little pussy of yours, you’ll be begging for more.” I pushed at his chest again desperate to get away.

“Let her go, Griffin.” Larkin’s firm voice sounded behind us, and the Beta was suddenly pulled away from me as Larkin’s fist landed on his jaw.

“I’m not sure what the fuck you think you’re doing, but I’m certain my father told you to keep your hands off of my mate.” Larkin crossed his hands over his chest as he stared Beta Griffin down, but Beta Griffin just scoffed and wiped at his busted lip. “Not doing anything she didn’t want, Alpha.” He spit that last word out mockingly.

“Gema, are you okay?” Larkin looked at me with kind eyes, and I nodded as he gestured for me to stand beside him.

“Everyone in this pack house knows the kind of filth you are, and you can guarantee I won’t let you manhandle any more women while I’m here.”

“I’d like to see you try and stop me.” Beta Griffin narrowed his eyes at Larkin.

“You are not to touch any woman living in this pack house, especially not my mate. You’re lucky all you got from me today was a busted lip.” I could feel Larkin’s aura radiate off of him, stronger than I had ever felt from him before. Did he just give Beta Griffin an Alpha command?

“And another thing, don’t tell my father about this little conversation we just had.” Beta Griffin looked to the side and down, baring his neck at Larkin, seemingly unable to look up with Larkin’s aura directed at him. I could see his clenched fists indicating he was seething on the inside.

“Let’s go, Gema.” Larkin had me lead the way as he walked behind me.

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I knew better than to let you go alone with him.” He put his hands in his pockets as he let out a slow breath. “I can guarantee, he won’t be bothering you like that again.”

“Did you give him an alpha command?”

Larkin looked around the hallway, appearing hesitant to answer. “You can’t tell anyone about this. My father can’t find out I can do that, he’ll see it as a threat.” His eyes widened in fear.

“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thank you…” He visibly relaxed. “And about the whole room thing. You don’t have to worry about me. We’ll have to share the room because of my father, but I can sleep on the couch or the floor. I won’t ever hurt you.”

I nodded slowly in understanding. “Thank you.”

“Look, I know this whole situation is fucked up…this isn’t what I wanted either, but maybe we can be friends and help each other get through this together. I know having you around has already helped Rory not be as sad as usual.”

“Rory’s a nice girl, and yeah, I think we can be friends.” I gave him a small wave as I turned and walked into my room. As I started to change clothes, I realized I hadn’t heard the lock click this time.

Tonight had not gone as expected, but I seemed to have broken through Larkin and Rory’s defenses this week, which was the first step in getting out of here and getting back to Noah.

18 Happy Birthday

GEMA

As directed, I met Alpha Marek in his office after breakfast. He had told me to meet him so that we could discuss my doing some work around the pack.

“Gema,” his voice sounded calm, kind even. It was alarming, and immediately put me on edge, not that I felt all that calm coming into this office to begin with.

“I’ve been doing some research on you.” He pointed at me while tossing a file onto his desk with my name on it. He must have brought over all of the Cobalt Falls member files. “You’re smart, graduated top of your class and have always been one of the top trainees in your age group.”

I nodded wordlessly, not sure where he was going with this.

“I want you and your little friends to start training. We train all Wildfire pack members, and now that you’re pack, you’ll need to join in. I also want you to head up our pup training.”

Normally, I would have jumped at the chance to lead the pup training group, but here at Wildfire, all it made me feel was anxiety.

“You do the pup training, and I’ll start allowing you and your friends to roam freely around the pack house. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes, Alpha.” I wanted the others to have more freedom here, even if we were still prisoners. The twins had been so happy just going swimming the other day, and I wanted to see them smile again, so I said yes.

While I had agreed to his terms for the others, I was terrified of being trained by Wildfire. They were ruthless fighters, and the boys were young enough that they might take the Wildfire mentality to heart. Knowing this possibility existed just made me want to escape more. I had to get us out…even if that meant I would have to kill Alpha Marek myself.