Craig couldn’t understand why she’d left. Everything she’d come with lay discarded in her room. Jessica-Lyn’s choice must have come from her experience with Alrick. Craig felt his respect for his friend lessen thinking she’d felt herself better off alone and hunted that living with the Silver Ridge Pack. Jessica-Lyn has said nothing of her actual intentions to those that knew her. A couple received a goodbye, and she’d just walked out. No one questioned her or stopped her.
Alrick returned with the clothes Craig was sure he’d last seen her in his hands not long after dawn. Jessica-Lyn left her people behind in Alrick’s care.
Slacking his sexual need on her and then discarding her. Craig could not understand what words Alrick said to her. But for her believe she was better off outside of a pack?
Stories were coming in from many
Alrick had never felt like this before. Even in the icy wind that should have taken his breath. He felt like he could breathe. Jessica-Lyn stood before him in her wolf form. He wanted to call her beautiful, and he believed he would have. But right now, he saw the delicate form of a starving wolf. This wasn’t something you saw in a wolf shifter. Unless they’d gone feral long before this. He noticed his sudden appearance triggered her flight reaction before her. But unlike a feral shifter or even a natural wolf, her fighting instincts weren’t apparent. That’s when it hit him. She’d never resisted him. She’d just let him have his way. It hadn’t mattered whether he’d been right or wrong. She’d let him have his way as an honourable and
Alrick slipped out of his apartment and locked the door behind him. He felt bad for tying Jessica-Lyn to his bed. But look at what she’d done when he gave her a small amount of freedom. Alrick knew he couldn’t do that again until he had her trust. She must have misunderstood in her confusion or something. She thought dying alone was better than dealing with him. Then being a member of his pack.He’d to admit that he’d approached her the wrong way. But she needed to learn her lesson, not run from it. Alrick never hurt her. He worried she wasn’t in her right mind, and he feared what she would say if the investigator talked to her. She’d not understood what he was doing. Jessica-Lyn may incriminate herself in something she was not guilty of.This trip into her lands. Seeing the outer buildings and the state the Iron Hill Pack lived in did change Alrick’s impression. She was nothing like the other Alpha family members he’d ev
Alrick agreed with Craig. He’d take the enforcer to see the mess on the Iron Hill lands. He’d go with them to the contested lands and view the drug lab later. Alrick’s men moved the vehicles from pack land earlier to prevent human law enforcement entering their territory and stumbling upon something they shouldn’t. He tried to maintain a polite presence with the enforcer as best as he could. But he left Craig with her as he felt confident Craig would put his full attention into keeping her out of the mess, they were in. Alrick needed to get back to Jessica-Lyn. Unlocking his apartment, he slipped in. She lay on his bed tied with silver to the headboard. He hated to do that. But
He’d seen no one do this before. She wasn’t crying, nor was she putting off any discernible emotional scent. It was almost foreign to him. No, he could see her fear. “Jessica-Lyn look at me. Talk to me now. What were you planning?” Now the fun was over. He’d lost where the pit of his stomach was. He couldn’t stop the dread from forming in his stomach. The thrill of the hunt and having her here with him. It was pleasurable to him. Now he saw something different in her. She wasn’t like the others. Jessica-Lyn wasn’t expecting him to play with her. She expected him to chase her, but not for fun and games.“Jessica!” She just flinched against the headboard but did nothing more. “What did you plan to do?”“Nothing.” Her head slid from his hand. She turned away from him. “I would do nothing. I know where I stand and what the laws say.” That was it. She fell silent again.&l
Alrick carried a tray of food and bags with him. He juggled the items around until he could open the door to his apartment. Once inside, he stopped and looked at the bed. She was there on the bed. Quiet. Too quiet. “Hey.” Words failed him for a bit. “I brought you some clothes to wear.” He paused again. “And some food. You must be hungry.” “So?” She didn’t look his way. If the quiet didn’t dominate. Alrick wouldn’t have heard Jessica-Lyn. He put the tray down on a table near the foot of the bed. Then dropped the bags on the bed. Alrick pulled his keys out of a drawer and walked back to the bed. He unlocked the cuff holding
Jessie took her time in the bathroom. She dragged her heals out of fear of what lies she would hear. What would Alrick say to raise her hopes to dash again? How would she know his words were true or not? Jessie felt like she was on an emotional roller coaster with Alrick. The clothes were big but not. She assumed size seven would be too small. Clothing in size eight was a pain to find. Time was ticking away, though. She’d even taken the time to dry her hair. The bag didn’t have shoes or boots. That wasn’t important. If she left again, she wouldn’t be doing it in human form. She watched herself in the mirror; she pondered how this would play out. If she were lucky, he’d get interrupted. Alrick would decide to stop this new line of torture.&nbs
If a pin dropped, it would shatter the moment. Jessie sat there with a glass halfway to her mouth. Her mouth opens, Jessie’s eyes riveted on Alrick’s in disbelief. She’d stopped breathing long enough to gauge the situation. “No.” Her words came fast and with strength, Alrick wasn’t expecting. “No, you’ve just found an alternative way to torture me. I don’t want to hear it and I don’t want to talk about it. You’re lying.” Alrick had not expected her to be overjoyed at the first mention of it. But he hadn’t expected the shock of hearing her reject it and him. “It’s a little late for that. I may have been too blind to see it. But Craig wasn’t blind. He fixed things so that we wouldn’t suffer if NARC
Alrick watchedthe woman who sat there.Who’d picked his life choices apart and put all his failings on display?Gods,what he’dbeen doing to his people?She was correct. Here he was obsessing about her and wallowing in his recent experiences. While all this time,he’d been ignoring his people’s needs.