The Alpha's Prey [Alpha-series (I)]

Chapter 22

My heart skipped a beat as Caleb’s huge dark wolf emerged between the trees. I felt the strangest mix of joy and anxiety. My mate stalked towards us, teeth bared and a dangerous, deep growl emanating from him. Beside him, dozens of pack warriors followed, their bodies tense and ready to strike any second. Crap, this wasn’t mere reinforcement – it was a freaking werewolf-army!

Tension hung so heavy in the air I was almost certain if I would reach out my hand now, I could grab it. Burning with rage Caleb’s pitch-black eyes moved between my captors and me. I instinctively went for our mind bond to calm him down before I remembered what I was wearing. Great, this wasn’t making things any easier!

“I am fine, Caleb. They didn’t hurt me, see? I am fine!”, I greeted him, trying to make my voice sound as soothing as possible.

He showed no visible reaction to my words, no sign of relief. Instead, he stayed poised to attack, kept growling, his gaze arctic. He was only a few meters away from me now, his warriors slowly forming a circle around our small group. I didn’t dare to get closer to him, fearing once I brought a certain distance between Lucas, Laura and Gil, nothing would keep the advancing wolves from savagely tearing into them.

Without warning, a deafening painful scream rang out from behind me. My blood ran cold as I realized Caleb must have also sent some warriors to approach the area from another angle.

“Caleb, you must stop them!”, I frantically pleaded, but he didn’t look at me anymore. Now his gaze was fixated on the group behind me, and even though I couldn’t read his mind at the moment, it wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking. There was no compassion in his features, just pure fury and a mercilessness that send shivers down my spine.

“Caleb, please listen to me!”, I begged him. “Call them back and tell them not to harm anyone! Please, you must trust me in this!”

More screams. If I couldn’t make him listen, this would end in a bloodbath. But how on earth was I supposed to reach him? In this state, he wasn’t susceptible to reason. He was all Alpha, a savage animal acting out of pure instinct, set to destroy those who had dared to lay their hands on his Luna. To get through to him I needed something drastic, something that would guarantee his attention would solely be on me.

Before I could weigh up the pros and cons, I opted for the first thing that came to my mind: I grabbed the penknife Lucas had handed me earlier and rammed it into my right thigh as deep as I could. Pain exploded in my leg with such force my vision turned black for a moment. Holy hell, that hurt! An agonized cry escaped me as I sank on my knees. The pants I was wearing got soaked with blood in a disturbingly fast manner and my hands were covered with it as well, but my plan had worked. Not only did I capture Caleb’s attention, he even transformed back to his human form. His eyes were fearfully set on my right hand. Belatedly I realized I still had my fingers tightly wrapped around the blood-stained weapon.

“Call the warriors back and order them not to harm anyone. Otherwise, I’ll shove the knife into my left thigh next”, I threatened, my voice dangerously quiet. Sweat poured down my face as I had to muster all my strength to keep the pain at bay and talk instead of cry.

“Gemma, w…”, Caleb started but I didn’t hear him out. Every second that ticked by could mean the death of an innocent man. I closed my eyes to brace myself for the next pain wave and pulled the knife out with a shout of pure torment.

“Promise … it!”, I demanded. “Promise it … on your … honor … as Alpha!”

Getting enough oxygen to fill my lungs started to become a real struggle as I fought the almost unbearably pain radiating from my leg. My vision started to get blurry and I knew I wasn’t going to hold out much longer. The blood loss was making me drowsy, I must have hit an artery or something. Shit!