Chapter Thirty Four
I hadn’t spoken a word to Alexander in days, and I wasn’t planning to. I shouldn’t have let him touch me; I should have endured the pain longer, but once again, he won.
“So you could come visit me, but I can’t do the same?” Aric asked the moment he saw me by his door.
I pushed past him and walked into the room.
“Not bad.” I say, looking around. It was smaller than the one I shared with the Alpha King, but elegant and nicely furnished.
“Why are you here, Kaida?”
“Do I need a reason to visit my beta and friend?”
“I’m not the Beta anymore; I am a Commander and Chief.
“You will always be the Dawn’s pack Beta.”
“Well the Dawn’s pack is no more; you are a Luna now…”
>>
“Okay, what the hell is wrong with you? If you don’t want me here, all you have to do is tell me.”
“I’m a man who had just been rejected by the woman he had been in love with for years; how do you expect me to react?”
“Aric… It can’t work.”
“I know that—at least now I do. I’m not a fool; I know when to draw back, and you were right: you’ve found your mate now; I cannot hold you back from your future.”
My future. I hated the way that sounded.
“So… are we cool?”
“Of course.” He says. Pouring me a glass of red wine–non alcoholic, of course. I accepted it and took a sip.
“How are our pack members?”
“Technically, they are the Nightshade’s pack members now.”
“How has the Alpha been treating them?”
“Alpha Alexander had outdone himself; each of them has a place to stay; some had to live outside the pack house, but they were all catered for.”
Aric walked further into his apartment; he picked up a file from the table and passed it to me; it was our pack’s business information.
“It’s all under him too.”
“I… had no idea. Who gave the signatures?”
“Your father did.”
“Great! More things he did behind our backs.”
I looked through the financial record for the River–Dawn Enterprise. I tried to hide my surprise when I saw the
figures.
“How had he managed to raise the company’s worth ten times what it had been in just a few weeks?”
“Well, he is the Alpha King, and so others were willing to invest in a business running under his name and thus the figures.”
“He is always good at everything, isn’t it?” I muttered to myself, taking another sip of the wine.
“You don’t look particularly happy about that.”
“Of course I’m not happy. He’s taking over everything and he is doing it so damn well.”
“Kaida, there is nothing any of us could do about it. He’s taking good care of the pack and its businesses. You’re still alive, so, so far, it’s better than I ever expected”
“So you are on his side now?”
“Come on, Kaida, I’m not picking sides; I’m just saying.”
“I need to get out of here. Being stuck in here for so long is messing with my head. So, how about that race you mentioned earlier?”
Aric led me into the woods.
I needed to let my wolf out. Normally, I shifted regularly, but ever since I arrived at this pack, I hadn’t transformed, and it had been quite a while since I beat Aric in a race.
Aric turned away as I undressed, and I switched into my wolf form. He joined me, and together we sprinted into the woods.
My wolf was a beauty; many had told me that. In my wolf form, I had white fur with a few stripes of grey matching my eyes. Aric’s wolf was brown and a little larger than mine Usually female wolves were smaller than the males,
and but I was larger than most females. I felt more confident in my wolf form than I felt in my human skin –, sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to never turn back, to run into the woods, and be… free.
Aric ran past me; I let him, saving my strength for the end, and just when we were close enough to the stream, I sped up, overtaking him. I finally came to a stop.
I was so going to brag about this.
