Page 5 of Alpha Bond
This place is different. Very, very different.
I groan as I stand, wishing I could hide in my wolf form. At least I’d be warm instead of wearing this ridiculous dress I had to escape in. But the wolf won’t come to me now, as hard as I try to release her.
I pad across the bare concrete floor, rubbing my arms as I reach the door to the warehouse. I pause a moment, straining to catch the sounds of life beyond. Finally satisfied that I’m alone in this place, I slip through the door. Even though it seems safe, I still stick to the shadows, moving along the edges of buildings and dashing from one clump of rubble to another to stay out of sight.
My nose eventually leads me to the garbage dump I’d expected to find. To my heightened senses, the stench is overwhelming, but hunger drives me. Soon, I’m picking through the heaps, scrounging for scraps of anything that might be edible. I drag a torn windbreaker from an old box and tug it on, ignoring the musty odor. A half-empty bottle of water feels like a gift from the gods. Though it’s stale and tepid, I gulp it thirstily, then keep the bottle.
Hydration gives me the strength to explore farther afield. Trying to get a lay of the land. It doesn’t help that this entire landscape is foreign to me. No mountains. No trees. The only signs of life are the gulls overhead and rats that are so brazen they barely scurry out of reach.
“I should be eating one of you! Filthy vermin,” I mutter under my breath. Then I freeze as a shout carries on the wind toward me.
“Any sign?”
“Nothing here,” someone responds.
My breath seizes in my lungs.
“It’s where I’d come if I was hungry,” the first voice says.
The other one laughs. “That little princess? She never had her paws off clean earth until we brought her out here.”
“I can think of a few places to put her paws when we get her.”
“Quit screwing around! She has to be here somewhere. We picked up her trail barely an hour ago,” a new voice interrupts him. A voice that has my blood running cold.
It’s Rack!
How have they tracked me again? Maybe I was wrong about the device I found in my neck. But then again, the last time they caught me, it was sudden and brutal. They’d homed in on me immediately as if they knew exactly where I was. Now it’s as if they’re searching.
“Sorry, boss!” the first male responds. His voice has grown so loud that I have no doubt that he’s moving closer toward me.
“Keep your nose to the ground,” Rack instructs. “You’ll pick up her scent if you shut your trap and focus on tracking!”
I swallow hard. Wolf sense might be almost as good as a damn tracking device if I don’t cover my trail. I back up until I reach an area where the trash has seeped sticky fluids into the mud. The stink of it is enough to make me gag. I hold my breath as I drop and slide myself through it, then burrow into the mounds of garbage nearby, clapping a hand over my mouth to keep the bile down.
Any thought of vomiting leaves my head as the sound of heavy boots draws nearer.
“Where you goin’, boss?” I hear one of the men call.
“Gotta piss,” Rack replies. He’s so close I can hear the squelch of his boots in the muck I just slid through. But I can’t smell him. Which means he can’t smell me. Thank God.
Metal grates as he unzips his fly, and then there is a steady splash as he relieves himself. He gives a satisfied sigh, then zips up again. I keep my eyes screwed shut the whole time, still buried in the muck, not allowing myself to breathe until I hear him turn and trudge away again.
“Fuck it. There’s nothing out here,” he calls to the others. “Bitch must’ve just passed through. I can pick up the scent in the air every few minutes. We’d better move fast if we plan to catch up with her.”
The others respond, their conversation fading as they move off until only silence remains. But I don’t emerge from my hiding place until half an hour later. The garbage clings to me and makes me gag, but I just can’t take any chances. Finally shaking myself free, the smell of Rack’s pheromone-laden body fluids has me shrinking from the pool of water he’d urinated in. My instinct is to back away from it, but as the smell surrounds me, an idea begins to form.
Nobody would come snooping around here if they thought he’d marked out the place as his own. Whatever the male may be, he’s clearly a powerful alpha and aggressive along with it. His own males won’t waste time looking for me here again, and anyone else who might pass by would give the place a wide berth. It’ll buy me time to rest up and hopefully regain some strength. I scamper quickly to the pool, uncap the bottle I’d scavenged, and use it to scoop up as much of the foul water as I can.
An hour later, I’ve sprinkled the stuff around the perimeter of the dump and the warehouse I’ve been hiding in. I splash some on myself for good measure, though it makes my stomach churn.
“You’re going to survive, girl!” I say under my breath. “You do what you must. There’ll be a long, hot bath waiting when you get out of this place.”
If I get out of this place…
I fight to keep my spirits up. Because right now, I don’t know where I am. I don’t know where my pack is. And I have no idea what chance I have of ever getting out of here safely.
Chapter 4