Fated to the Alpha by Jasmine White

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

Eventually I regained my composure, and was able to start asking her questions. “How is everyone?”

“It’s been weird out there,” Charlene said. “It seems like everyone is either talking about you or the Morgandorfs. Half the pack has been saying how much they hate you and how they can’t believe you betrayed us like you did. Others are saying how sad they are for you, either because of what your dad’s doing, or because of how the Morgandorfs obviously brainwashed you.”

“What do you say?”

Charlene paused, looking uncomfortable. “I wanted to hate you for a while, Evie. I’m not gonna lie. I know I said some things to you that… must’ve hurt.”

“A little,” I lied.

“But then that thing with your mom happened.  She’s still outside, chained to that stake. That was when a lot of us started thinking Leon was taking this too far, and we started pleading with Leon to make your dad let you out of here. And Leon would always just say that you weren’t going anywhere until you’d renounced all ties to the Morgandorfs and all that.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard it enough times from my dad.”

“Well, the good thing about your mom being leashed outside is that anyone who wants to can walk right up and talk to her. So that’s what I’ve been doing.”

I frowned. “Then you can tell her I’m sorry about this. She’s in that position because of me. I never meant to get her—”

“Hey, don’t worry, it’s okay! She doesn’t blame you for anything! In fact, if anything, she’s more on your side than ever now after this. She says all she did was open the door for you for a minute, and you didn’t even get very far out of it, and if this is how Leon responds to that, well, she can understand that much more why you’d prefer anyone over him, even a Morgandorf.”

In spite of myself, I choked out a chuckle and rolled my eyes.

Charlene paused for a moment, looking like she was contemplating hard what she was about to say next. “And, if you ask me, I’m starting to get the sense of why you’d go with that particular one, now that I’ve had the chance to talk to him a bit more.”

I looked up at her, blinking in confusion. “Wait, what?  What are you talking about?”

“Yeah…” she said, biting her lip. “I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell anyone but you about this. Well, you and your mom.”

“What is it?”

Charlene took a breath. “A couple days ago, I was out wandering the woods along the border, and I ran into him, just hanging around. So, naturally, the first thing I tried to do was chase him away. But he wouldn’t budge, even when I threatened to rip out his entrails. He just kept asking about you. I kept on threatening him and telling him to get lost and everything, and he kept on trying to find out where you were, why he hadn’t seen you, and all that. And finally I told him that you were locked up down here because of him.” She paused again, getting a faraway look in her eye. “And then, like… the way he looked at me… and then the next thing he said, that really stuck with me. He said, ‘That’s what the pack that claims to love her does to her for choosing to love someone?’ …And I just stood there, not sure what to say. I couldn’t really think of anything to defend what we’re doing to you after he said that.”

I listened raptly, not saying anything yet.

“So, anyway, after that, I came to your mom, and I decided to tell her about it.  I mean, I knew it was risky, ’cause if anyone else found out about it, I’d be in almost as much trouble as you. But I figured your mom didn’t have any reason to rat on me. And it turned out she encouraged me to go back and meet him again, to see if I could come to understand him better. And, you know, I was hesitant. He was still a Morgandorf, you know. But I went. I ran into him again in the same place.” She paused again, and added, “And he wasn’t alone this time.”

I leaned forward. “Who?”

“It was this girl… the Morgandorf alpha’s daughter.”

I couldn’t help smiling when I heard that. “Andrea!” She was still there for me, trying to be my friend even now. That meant a lot.

“She told me I wasn’t the only one who was going against her pack. She said if her father found out she was there, he would—and I quote—‘rip out her insides, stuff her with goodies and string her up to use as a piñata.’”

I managed a small laugh. “Yeah, that’s an Andrea line if I ever heard one.”

“So, anyway, we got to talking, mostly about you. And before I knew it we were beginning to talk about a plan.”

My eyebrows went up. “What kind of plan?”

At that point, Charlene turned to look up the stairs behind her, as if checking to see if anyone was listening. And then she stepped up to where I sat on the floor, and knelt down in front of me, leaning close to me to whisper, “We’re working on a plan to get you out of here.”

Well, I sure as hell perked up when I heard that. “How?”

“Shhh!” she said, putting a finger to her lips. “I’ve been going back and forth between Jeremy and your mom with this, discussing ideas and all that. We don’t have all the details worked out yet.  We’re still working on it. But it’s gonna involve creating some kind of big diversion, to get everyone somewhere else, on the other side of the village or maybe even out of it. And… here’s the part you’re not gonna like.”

I grimaced. “What is it?”

“It’s gonna have to wait at least another three days, when Leon lets your mom off of that chain.”

I groaned, letting my head droop.

Charlene took hold of me by the shoulders. “Your dad is okay with me coming down to visit you,” she said. “I’ll be able to come keep you company from time to time, if that helps you keep your sanity. And we’ll be working on bringing the plan together in the meantime. Trust me, we’re gonna get you out of here.”

That was enough for me, I decided.  I lunged forward and threw my arms around her.

 

*

We spent the next few days in planning mode. As she said, Dad allowed Charlene to visit me whenever she wanted. I’m sure he’d have been a lot less generous if he’d cared to listen in on what we were talking about.

Through Charlene, I was kept apprised of what was going on outside that basement. There was a lot of talk among the pack about how they were going to make the Morgandorfs pay for how they’d “corrupted” me. Some of the pack wanted to respond in kind, by abducting one of theirs. Some suggested they should find Jeremy, saying that the party that picked me up should have gotten him too, lamenting all the lost time they could have been torturing him. Others wanted to simply wage a war of attrition, and make them all pay. Of course, most of these were the ones who had spent years looking for any excuse they could think of to march into Morgandorf territory and just kill them all outright.

I was gladdened to learn that not everyone was down with what Leon and my dad were doing. There were especially a lot who disapproved of Leon’s treatment of my mom for what little she did for me. And even some of the ones who thought of me as a traitor felt that my punishment was being taken way too far. Some. Not enough to rally against Leon, though.

We were having a difficult time coming up with a plan that we felt comfortable using, because most of the ideas being tossed around usually opened the door for someone to get hurt. One advantage we had was that Andrea was still on our side, and since she hadn’t been banished from the village the way Jeremy had, that meant if we needed to we could get her to stir up the Morgandorfs for something. Unfortunately, we couldn’t seem to come up with a way to use that that didn’t involve one pack attacking the other.

Still, even if our planning sessions weren’t really going anywhere, I was more than grateful for Charlene’s company. It meant the world to me that she didn’t hate me anymore, and with her coming down to see me, I was able to sleep much better and keep from feeling like I was losing my mind.

And then came a day when Charlene came down those steps—and not alone.

There was Mom, coming down right behind her.

At once I bolted up from the corner I sat in and dashed into her open arms. “I’m so glad you’re here!” I sobbed.

Mom pressed her face against mine and stroked along my spine. “I am too. I was so sad for my baby pup.”

“They chained you up like a dog!” I whined. “Just for being good to me!”

“It doesn’t matter what they do to me, Evie,” Mom said.  “Because I’m never going to stop caring about you.”

Charlene let us hug it out for a while longer, before she finally had to step in. “Okay, as touching as this is, there is a reason we came down here.”

I looked to her, seeing the determined expression on her face, and I started to get the idea. “You’ve got a plan?”

Mom and Charlene exchanged serious looks. “Yes, we do have something in mind,” Mom said. “But I don’t think you’re going to like what it is.”

I frowned. “What is it?” I deadpanned.

Charlene sighed. “Well… like you said, you didn’t like any of the plans we came up with because they all involved someone attacking someone else. And you wanted us to come up with a plan that didn’t. Well…”

“Well what?”

Charlene swallowed uncomfortably. “We couldn’t come up with one. So we came up with the best plan we could, and we’re going with it.”

“Hey, no! Don’t do that! I don’t want anyone getting hurt on my account!”

“It’s our choice,” Charlene said. “If we can help it, the only ones getting hurt will be us.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “What is this plan exactly?”

Charlene looked to the floor, making an uncomfortable noise before answering. This couldn’t be good.

“Oh, god, I’m gonna hate this plan, aren’t I?”

Mom was the one who finally spoke up. “Charlene is going to convince the pack that she found your boyfriend, Jeremy. And she’s going to tell them he attacked her. Then she’s going to get them riled up to go find him and bring him back here, but she’ll lead them in the wrong direction. Now for the ones who stay behind in the village, Andrea will tell the Morgandorfs that we attacked her and lead them here. When the rest of the pack tries to fight them off, I’ll step in and try to mediate things. And while everyone’s distracted, Jeremy will come in here and smuggle you out.”

I looked back and forth at both of them like they were completely insane. Which for a moment, I honestly entertained the notion that they might be. “You’re serious,” I said, blinking at them. It was an observation, not a question.

“Completely,” Charlene said.

“You don’t think this is just begging to go completely wrong?” I shrugged.

“We know it’s not a perfect plan,” Mom said. “But it’s the best we’ve been able to come up with.”

“Well that doesn’t speak very highly of the other options, because that’s a terrible plan!”

“Yeah, we know,” Charlene sighed. “And it gets worse.”

My eyes widened, my brow furrowing. “Worse?”

Charlene cringed. “This is the part you’re really not gonna like. We made the decision that to really get the pack riled up, we’re going to have to make it look like Jeremy really attacked me. Bad.”

“You mean…” I frowned, getting the picture and wishing I wasn’t. “He’s gonna… you can’t do that for me!”

“It was my decision,” Charlene said. And then she took a breath, letting me know she was about to say something else that I wouldn’t like. “Just like it was Andrea’s decision to have me do the same to her.”

I grabbed my head. “Oh, god, this is going too far!”

Mom stepped forward, taking hold of my shoulders. “It’s what everyone is willing to do to get you out of this!”

“But there’s a million things that can go wrong here!” I protested. “If you bring the Morgandorfs here, who’s to say you can stop them from hurting anyone else? And Charlene, what are you gonna do when the pack realizes you’re leading them on a wild goose chase?”

“We know there’s a lot of risk involved,” Charlene said. “It’s impossible to completely predict how everyone’s going to react. So we can only plan things to a certain point and then play it by ear.”

My head heavy, I stepped backward into the wall and sat down on the floor. “Oh, this is so messed up! This is so not what I wanted!”

“And having you locked up down here is not what we wanted,” Mom said, stepping up and kneeling down in front of me. “You went to extreme measures for what you wanted. What we’re doing is no different.”

“It is different!” I protested. “What I did, I risked myself for no one but myself! You’re all risking yourselves for me!”

“And that’s our choice to make,” Mom said. “We’re doing it because we love you! You can’t ask us to sit by idly while you waste away down here!”

I frowned, and looked away from her. Mom reached out to touch my face, bringing me back to face her. “I want you to understand something else, Evelyn,” she said. “I still don’t completely trust that Morgandorf boy. Maybe that’s my own prejudice as a Caldour talking, but that’s how it is. So when I tell you I’m putting my safety on the line and putting yours in his hands, I want you to realize what a leap of faith I’m taking.”

I regarded Mom hard. I did not like what they were planning to do… but as of this point, it was the only possibility I had heard for getting me out of that basement. And as long as I couldn’t come up with a better option, I had no grounds to refuse them.

They stayed with me for another hour or two. It was the least they could offer. They finally left when Dad came down with my food, and suggested that they should leave now, reminding them that I was down here for a “reason.” So then they left, casting me knowing looks as they walked up the stairs.

Then the door shut behind them, and I had nothing to do but wait.

 

*

Waiting sucked.

That’s all there was to it. I was glad that there was a plan in place to get me out of there, but I couldn’t stand that there was nothing I could do to contribute to it. Down there I was completely cut off, with no way of knowing how things were going. I didn’t know if the plan had been put into motion yet, or how far along it might be, or if anything was going wrong. And of course, as I had pointed out, there was no end to things that could go wrong.

Hell, I wouldn’t know anything until that door opened and Jeremy came in to whisk me away, by which point the plan would already have been completed. Or until someone else came in, like Dad or Leon. At which point I could probably assume it had all gone to hell in a hand basket.

I ended up spending several long hours doing nothing but nervously pacing. All the things I didn’t know were driving me out of my mind. Had Charlene already forced Jeremy to “attack” her? Had she already done the same to Andrea? Were the Morgandorfs on the way? Would Mom be able to stop them when they got here? What if the hunting party picked up Jeremy’s actual scent trail, and followed him back here? Or what if they realized Charlene was leading them the wrong way and turned on her?

God dammit, I’d have given anything to be able to know what was happening outside!

The only thing that had a chance of telling me anything was that little window, which only afforded me a slight view of the village from an odd angle. It was still hard to make out anything that was going on in the village from it, which was all the more frustrating now.

But thankfully, I was soon given a little bit of insight. As I stood on my tiptoes to look out that window, straining to see anything interesting, a pair of feet stepped up to the window. The figure knelt down, revealing my mom’s face. She looked around, checking for any witnesses, and bent forward.

“We’re ready,” she said. “Charlene is on her way back to the village now to show off her wounds, and Andrea is on her way back to the Morgandorf village. Just sit tight.”

Then she walked away. I relaxed my stance, dropping my heels back to the floor. Okay, that was helpful at least. A little. But there was still plenty of room for everything to go wrong.

And once again, I was back to waiting.

I’m sure I was only waiting a short while after that; maybe ten minutes at the most. It felt like a lot longer, though. But I heard a howl off in the distance, and peeking out the window, I could make out the indications of some kind of commotion going on. Many members of the pack were crowding around what presumably must have been Charlene, and while I couldn’t make out what anyone was saying from where I was, I could tell there were a lot of loud words being exchanged. Some of them particularly loud.

There was discussion and argument, which from where I stood, unable to hear them, seemed to take forever. But after an agonizingly long wait, I could see a large group of them branching away, shifting into their four-legged forms as they headed off into the woods.

Okay then. It looked like that much had worked. So far, so good. Fingers crossed.

So then I waited some more. I went back to pacing, wishing I could be out there, seeing what was happening, or helping to make it happen. But of course, if I’d been out there we wouldn’t have been doing this in the first place, so wishing for that was pointless.

A while later, I heard some more howls, the kind meant to be used as a battle cry. It sounded like the Morgandorfs had arrived. But this time I couldn’t see anything from the angle of my little window.  But there were some loud voices carrying through the village; from where I was, I could make out that much.

I went and stood near the bottom of the stairs. If the Morgandorfs were here, and if everything had gone right, then Jeremy should be coming through that door any minute.

Any minute…

Any minute…

Come on, door, open!

Seconds ticked by. Then a minute. Then another. The door remained shut. Every muscle in my body held tense, ready to spring forward the second someone came through it… the very second…

Finally I did hear someone moving up there. I allowed myself to become excited; Jeremy was coming. I was finally getting out of here! I was finally going to be free!

I heard footsteps coming up to the door. I heard the latch unlocking.

The knob turned.

The door swung open.

And I staggered back, falling backward onto the floor as Dad came marching down the steps.

“Dad!” I gasped. “What are… why are you…?”

“Expecting someone else, Evelyn?” Dad probed.

That shut me up quickly.

Dad ducked down and snatched me up by the wrist, pulling me up to face him. “Do you know what’s going on here?”

“Dad, please… you’re hurting me!”

“Do you know why an attack party of your precious Morgandorfs is in the village, demanding blood?  Or why your mother is out there now, trying to stop us from driving them out?”

“Dad…”

He pulled me right up to his face, which began to shift slightly, his eyes turning yellow and his teeth growing long and pointed, with some fur growing from his face. “What did you do?” he growled.

I had seen my dad’s fury before. I had definitely been on the receiving end of it enough times. But I had never seen it rear its head like this. I honestly couldn’t answer him, purely because I was too terrified of him to say anything.

But then we heard another growl. Turning around behind him, another wolf was poised with tail up and fur bristling, showing his teeth from the top of those stairs.

Even if I hadn’t recognized him by sight even in his lupine form, his scent would have identified him for me immediately. Jeremy had come for me, just like we planned. It was just our bad luck that someone else was here first.

Dad whirled around, throwing me behind him. “Get out of my house, Morgandorf scum!”

Undaunted, Jeremy advanced down the stairs, continuing his threatening growls. I jumped forward, grabbing onto my dad’s arm and looking around his shoulder. “Jeremy, please don’t hurt him!  He’s still my dad!”

But apparently, Dad wasn’t going to brook my involvement. His arm snapped out and shoved me roughly back down to the floor, where I landed with a grunt. When I looked up, Dad was quickly stripping his clothes off as he started to shift. The next moment, two angry and ferocious wolves faced each other, baring their fangs and trading fierce growls.

If the two of them came down to it, one of them was likely to kill the other. If that happened… not only would I lose one, but I’d never be able to look at the other the same way again.

No. I couldn’t let this happen. I couldn’t allow anyone I loved to die on my account, least of all at the hands of someone else I loved.

I sprang up onto all fours as I shifted to my lupine shape, and forward I charged, barreling into my dad and shoving him out of Jeremy’s way. Dad lifted his head from where he’d tumbled to the floor, and stared at me with his wolf’s eyes in disbelief. I only spared a momentary glance down at him, before I turned my gaze to Jeremy, and nodded to the open door behind him. Our way out was there, and I wanted to waste no more time down here.

Apparently, neither did he.

Both of us turned and started bolting up the stairs for that door—to which I made it all of two strides before I felt Dad’s jaws close around my right hind leg, yanking me back and dropping me flat down on the stairs. Looking behind me, Dad was pulling down at my leg, desperately trying to keep me down here in his personal dungeon, his eyes turned up to me with a burning determination.

Jeremy’s fur-covered shape went flying over my head, pouncing on Dad and pinning him down, forcing him to release me. I took only a moment to nurse my leg; the wound wasn’t that deep anyway. 

I was much more concerned about what was happening below. The fight that I had just tried to prevent was breaking out right in front of me. Trying to get them apart from each other before they came to blows was one thing, but now that they were actually rearing up on their hind legs, fighting tooth and claw, there was little I could think to do to pull them apart.

Other than to take a side.

So I rushed in beside Jeremy, rearing back on my hind legs and clawing at my father, baring my teeth to him. Once that happened, Dad suddenly had much less will to fight. The fact that his daughter was actually fighting him, physically, was a bit too much to deal with. Jeremy and I stood there, staring him down, and all he could do was bristle.

This time, when Jeremy nodded back to the door, and we again made a break for it, Dad didn’t stop me.