Rescued by the Blackridge Alpha

Chapter 10

The first stop came while the sun was still above the horizon.

The truck slowed before turning onto a rougher road. Gravel rattled beneath the wheels, then the engine fell quiet. The sudden absence of movement changed the atmosphere inside immediately. Maisie sat straighter beside me, while the dark-haired woman turned toward the doors.

“Ravenwood?” Maisie asked.

Tessa shook her head. “Too soon.”

The lock scraped from the outside.

When the doors opened, warm evening light flooded the compartment and made me squint. A farmhouse stood beyond the road, surrounded by fields glowing beneath the sinking sun.

A woman waited beside the truck.

She looked somewhere in her thirties. A bag hung from one shoulder, and a man stood behind her with both hands shoved into his pockets. Two children watched from the steps of the farmhouse.

The smaller one couldn't have been older than five.

The driver gestured impatiently. “Come on. We're already behind.”

The woman didn't move.

“Mama?”

Her head turned.

The little boy had come down one step. His sister caught his hand, but he pulled free.

The man beside the woman touched her arm. There was nothing violent about it. That somehow made the gesture worse. He seemed tired rather than angry, as though this had already been discussed and he couldn't understand why she insisted on making the final part difficult.

“You need to go.”

The woman looked at him. “Tell them I'll write.”

His jaw tightened.

“Please.”

“I'll tell them.”

She nodded once, then climbed into the truck.

The boy ran down the remaining steps.

“Mama!”

The driver reached for the doors.

The woman twisted around so quickly her bag struck the bench. I caught one last glimpse of the boy running toward us before the doors shut between them.

Nobody spoke while she found a place beside Tessa.

The engine started again.

She pressed both hands over her mouth and stared at the doors while the truck carried her away.

I watched her for several seconds before looking at Tessa.

“They're collecting us.”

Tessa's gaze met mine. “What did you think the route meant?”

“I don't know.” I glanced around the compartment. Four had become five. “I don't think I thought about it at all.”

“Probably easier that way.”

Maybe it had been.

Two women joined us at the next territory. Another climbed aboard at the one after that.

By the fourth stop, I'd stopped trying to remember which packlands we crossed.

The process was almost identical everywhere. The truck arrived, papers changed hands and another woman disappeared through the doors.

Only the women changed.

One cried so hard she struggled to breathe. Another climbed aboard without looking back once. A third had a purple bruise spreading from her cheekbone toward her temple. When the driver tried to take her bag, she yanked it from his hand hard enough that he stumbled.

“I can carry my own shit.”

He lifted both hands and let her pass.

I liked her immediately.

Apparently impending sale was doing wonders for my social life.

Her name was Rhea. That was almost everything she offered about herself before taking a place near the doors.

As the truck continued north, the evening light changed from gold to orange, then pink. Our compartment grew warmer and increasingly cramped. Bags filled the space between our feet. Knees touched. Shoulders knocked together whenever the driver took a corner too quickly.

By the time the sun reached the horizon, I counted twelve women.

I counted again.

Twelve.

Every single one of us was female.

“Tessa.” I waited until she looked up from the apple she'd found in her bag. “Where are the male transfers?”

“They travel separately.”

“Why?”

Tessa hesitated long enough for Rhea to answer from across the compartment.

“Because females go to the main sale.”

The casual way she said it made my stomach tighten.

I looked around at the women packed onto the benches. “Why do we need a main sale?”

Rhea met my gaze.

“Because we sell better.”

Nobody had anything clever to say after that.

Maisie stopped chewing the piece of apple Tessa had given her. The woman whose children we'd left behind closed her eyes.

I thought of Garrick sitting behind his desk.

You're young, healthy and unmated.

At the time, I'd been too furious to understand why those particular things mattered.

Now I did.

Outside, the last edge of sunlight disappeared behind the trees.

I hadn't intended to sleep.

I'd been awake since the previous morning, but exhaustion had become something distant beneath everything else. My body hurt. My thoughts wouldn't stop long enough for sleep to find them.

Whenever I closed my eyes, Caden stood in front of the ceremonial stone.

Gold flashed through his eyes.

Then the image changed, and black fur moved between moonlit trees.

Eventually my body stopped asking permission.

I woke with my cheek pressed against something warm.

For one horrible second, I had no idea where I was. The engine hummed beneath me. Metal surrounded us. The compartment was darker than before, and unfamiliar bodies crowded both benches.

Then memory returned.

Silvercrest.

Ravenwood.

Tomorrow.

I lifted my head and discovered I'd been sleeping against Tessa's shoulder.

“Sorry.”

She rolled the shoulder carefully. “You drool.”

I stared at her.

Tessa's face remained perfectly serious.

“I do not.”

Maisie made the mistake of smiling.

I looked at her. “Did I?”

She immediately became fascinated by her hands.

Traitor.

I wiped my mouth just in case.

Dry.

When Tessa grinned, I kicked her boot.

“Asshole.”

“You've known me six hours.”

“Plenty of time.”

My neck protested when I straightened. Every muscle in my body seemed to have stiffened during the few hours I'd slept, but my head felt clearer.

Nia was there too.

Quiet, but there.

I reached toward her carefully.

You okay?

She didn't answer.

I let her be.

Tessa handed me the remains of her apple. “You slept through two stops.”

I took a bite and looked around.

There were women sitting on bags now because both benches were full. “How many?”

“Sixteen.”

Sixteen.

I'd fallen asleep surrounded by twelve women and woken among sixteen.

The thought should have surprised me more than it did.

Maisie had drawn her knees against her chest. “Do you know which packs will be at Ravenwood?”

The question travelled farther through the truck than she'd probably intended.

One of the newer women mentioned Ironvale. Rhea added Red Creek, while another said Ravenwood itself usually bought several transfers.

Maisie listened to all of it before asking, “What about the northern packs?”

That changed the conversation.

Not dramatically. Nobody gasped or told her to be quiet. But Tessa stopped eating, and Rhea shifted against the wall.

I remembered Garrick's words.

Even the wild packs will attend.

“Some of them,” Tessa said eventually. “Not every year.”

“Blackridge will be there,” Rhea added.

The name was familiar enough to make me pay attention.

Everyone in Silvercrest knew Blackridge, although very few of us had ever met anyone from there. They were one of the oldest northern packs. Large. Powerful. Not particularly interested in southern laws or the council that made them.

Maisie looked between the women. “Are they really that bad?”

“Yes,” Rhea said.

Tessa glanced at her. “You've met them?”

“No. My cousin has.”

“And?”

Rhea shifted against the wall. “She watched their Alpha kill a challenger with his bare hands.”

Tessa raised an eyebrow. “He's an Alpha. They tend to kill challengers.”

“He broke his neck.”

“Ah.” Tessa considered that. “Slightly less reassuring.”

Despite everything, I smiled.

Maisie didn't. “Should we be worried?”

“About Blackridge?” Rhea glanced at her. “I'd rather not find out.”

That wasn't particularly helpful.

“Garrick called them a wild pack,” I said.

“That's what everyone calls them,” Tessa replied. “They don't have much use for southern pack rules.”

Rhea picked at a loose thread on her bag. “They do have use for the auctions.”

I looked at her. “Why?”

She hesitated. “Women.”

Maisie shifted closer to me. “What about them?”

“I've heard Blackridge buys them.”

“So does every other pack here.”

“Not like Blackridge.”

The way she said it made the back of my neck prickle.

Tessa sighed. “Nobody here knows what happens in Blackridge.”

“I've heard things.”

“You've heard rumours.”

“Doesn't mean they're wrong.”

The conversation moved on around me, but my thoughts had already gone somewhere else.

North.

Moonlight on water.

Black fur disappearing between trees.

Three grown men shifting so quickly they'd torn through their clothes just to get away from one wolf.

I rubbed my palms over my arms.

There were thousands of wolves north of Silvercrest. One enormous black wolf in one forest had nothing to do with a pack I'd heard stories about since childhood.

Still, I could not get him out of my mind.

I hoped wherever he lived was nowhere near Ravenwood.