Free Web NovelChapter 41: Get The Pup Out
I stand exactly where Raulf delivered me trying very hard not to fidget, in the headquarters of somebody attempting to solve ten impossible problems simultaneously.
The woman at the far end of the room continues drawing lines across the display for several seconds, seemingly unconcerned by the fact I’m here, panicking.
Without turning around, she speaks. "It’s taken you long enough to find us, Fiorenca."
Fiorenca. My name. My breath whooshes out in one long huff, that’s my full name.
I know her voice.
Air catches painfully as I try to replenish my depleted oxygen. Every tiny hair on my body has stood upright. Her voice echoes, not in the room, somewhere deep inside my head.
’Get the pup out.’
The memory slams into me so hard my knees nearly buckle. A large hand settles on my shoulder before my knees can give out completely. Raulf’s grip is firm and warm, anchoring me to the room while my mind threatens to disappear somewhere else entirely.
The pressure of his hand enough to stop the world from tilting. Not enough to stop the memories.
’Get the pup out.’
A sound trapped beneath years of rubble. Heat rushes through me, sweat prickles the back of my neck.
The room remains exactly the same, and yet I’m not standing inside a warm mountain lodge any more.
’Get the pup out.’
The voice is urgent, desperate. Her voice.
Bright pieces of a shattered mirror reflect the memories at me. A woman’s arms wrapping round me, the violent jolt of being lifted from the floor, orange flame dancing across walls, smoke thick enough I can almost taste it coating the back of my throat, running, my face buried against a shoulder while they carry me. The smell of blood. Ash. Burnt wood. Tears soaking into my hair.
Sounds overlap until they’re one terrible roar. Through it all, arms cradle me. Strong arms. Desperate arms.
The woman from memory, the woman stood in front of me now. Her voice rough with smoke and emotion, cracking every few words as she pushes through chaos with me held tightly against her.
’Shh, little pup.’
The words wrap around my heart.
’I’ve got you.’
A crack of something collapsing behind us.
’You’re safe, you’re safe.’
She’s crying. I can feel the wetness where her cheek presses against my hair. I can hear the way her breathing keeps hitching. She’s terrified.
Not for herself. For me.
Surrounded by fire and blood and terror, while my world burned around us, I felt safe. I knew as long as she was holding me, nothing could touch me.
"Steady," Raulf’s voice reaches me from very far away.
I try to answer. Nothing comes out.
Across the room, the woman finally stills, her hand lowers slowly to her side.
She turns, and I see her face, before logic can intervene, before my eyes can catalogue details or build understanding, the ancient, buried thing inside me surges awake.
Recognition isn’t right. Recognition is seeing someone you’ve met before. I have found a missing piece of my own history, it’s stood in front of me after believing it gone forever.
Her eyes meet mine across the room, I finally understand.
The woman who carried me from the fire. The woman whose voice survived when every other memory disappeared. The woman who ran through smoke and blood and death to save me.
Has been waiting all this time for me to find my way back to her.
She is pure, undeniable power.
I’ve spent weeks around Alpha males. I’ve argued with them, slept beside them, watched them fight, watched them lose control, watched them try to order me around and fail. I know what an Alpha feels like. Or at least I thought I did.
This is something else entirely. Atoms are denser around her. I want to lower my gaze, expose my throat, acknowledge her authority. The primal recognition of a stronger predator. The reaction surges with the opposite rising up to meet it. Equally powerful. Equally ancient.
A stubborn, vicious part of me that bares its teeth at the very idea of bowing to anyone. The clash happens entirely inside my own body. One half of me wants to submit to an Alpha. The other half looks directly at her and thinks, absolutely fucking not. The resulting sensation is deeply unpleasant, determined to tear myself in half trying to decide what it wants.
I can only stare at her. She’s my height, maybe an inch taller in the enormous black combat boots planted firmly on the floor. Every inch of her carved from something stronger than ordinary flesh. Wide shoulders stretch beneath a black tank top, powerful arms disappear beneath sleeves of ink that continue across her collarbones and down her chest.
She looks dangerous.
Her thighs are huge beneath dark combat trousers, built through years of fighting not for aesthetics. She radiates the energy of a person who has spent her entire life surviving things that would destroy anyone else.
Thick black curls tumble down her back in a wild mass all the way past her thighs. My own curls feel embarrassingly tame by comparison. We share enough similarities for my stomach to twist.
The restraint is unsettling. I get the distinct impression that Vaela exists in a permanent state of choosing not to rip people’s heads off. The patience she possesses paper thin.
I understand why Raulf gave me etiquette lessons in the hallway. This isn’t an Alpha who demands obedience because she’s insecure. This is an Alpha who knows exactly what she is and doesn’t need to prove it.
Neither of us speaks.
Submit. Challenge. Trust. Run. Reactions crash into the next until I’m dizzy.
Vaela watches the battle play out. She knows exactly what’s happening, and judging by the faint twitch at the corner of her mouth, she knows exactly how much I’m about to hate the answers.
Eventually, a low chuckle escapes her, rolls through the room with the same dangerous weight as everything else about her. Beside me, Raulf makes a similar noise, folding his arms across his enormous chest, enjoying a private joke at my expense.
"I can feel it from here," she says, her voice rough as gravel and whiskey. "The fight happening inside that head of yours."
Her gaze drifts slowly over me. "Half of you wants to plant your ass in a chair and argue with me for the next six hours. The other half is trying to decide whether it should bare its throat."
My cheeks heat at the alarming accuracy.
Vaela’s mouth twitches. "Stubborn little thing." Her expression softens, which makes her even more intimidating. "You don’t have the faintest idea what you are, do you, pup?"
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it.
Raulf snorts. Vaela simply raises one dark eyebrow and waits.
The silence stretches, neither of them seems remotely interested in rescuing me from it.
Smoke.
A woman carrying me.
A voice telling me I’m safe.
"It was you." The words leave me as little more than a whisper.
Vaela’s entire posture shifts, the Alpha disappears and something else looks back at me. Something that has been carrying its own ghosts. "You remember." The words are equally quiet.
I swallow hard. "Fragments." My voice shakes. "I remember your voice, screaming. Blood. Fire." My throat tightens painfully. "I remember you carrying me."
The room falls silent again. "It only started coming back after I met the guys."
Both Vaela and Raulf release disapproving growls. The sound vibrates through the floorboards.
Vaela pinches the bridge of her nose. "Dumb Alpha boys." freewebnσvel.cøm
Vaela crosses the room and stops directly in front of me. Looks me up and down. Then, to my absolute confusion, drops to a crouch and grabs my calf.
I make a startled noise.
She ignores it, squeezes the muscle thoughtfully. Moves to the other leg and repeats the process, then my thighs and shoulders.
I glance helplessly at Raulf. He’s deeply entertained.
"What are you doing?"
Vaela circles me. Assessing. Evaluating. Buying livestock. When she finally stops in front of me again, her expression has darkened considerably.
"How much training have you had?"
I blink. "What?"
"Training."
The answer’s apparent from my silence.
Vaela’s eyes narrow. "Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me." She plants both hands on her hips. "Combat?"
I shake my head.
Her jaw tightens. "Pack education?"
Another head shake.
The vein in her temple twitches. "Control exercises?"
Nothing.
She stares directly into my eyes and asks the question like she’s already afraid of the answer.
"Have those fucking fools at least got you shifting yet?" freёwebnovel.com
I start laughing.
The thing that finally breaks an Alpha female’s patience is learning the idiots back home haven’t even taught me how to turn into a wolf.
