Big Red and the Little Wolf

Chapter 9

Echo Pov

“Echo, are you alright?”

Slowly, I sat up to meet Josh’s concerned expression. I wiped the tears off my cheeks with the backs of my hands. Josh had never been one to know what to do when there were tears involved. “I think so.”

“What happened?”

I sniffled and lifted the collar of my shirt to dry my nose. “They wanted to leave me out here to die at the hands of the hunters.”

“I’m sorry, Echo,” he said in an awkward tone, assuming that it would be the right thing to say. “I’m sure they were just messing with you.”

My brows furrowed. I was used to people “just messing with me.” If that had been the case, I wouldn’t have been left in the state I am now.

“Did that look like just messing around to you?” The disbelief was evident in my voice. I would have been thanking him for saving me if he hadn’t started to excuse their behavior.

“I don’t know, they ran off before I came close enough.”

Maybe that would have been believable if werewolves didn’t have heightened senses. I huffed, pushing myself up to a standing position. When Josh offered his hand, I ignored it. He made it clear he had little intention of actually helping me.

The walk back to the pack house was a silent one. I hadn’t asked for Josh to walk back with me, but he did anyway. Most likely out of obligation from being the one who found me.

It didn’t take us long to reach the back door that I had escaped from not long ago. Once I was about to step inside, Josh stopped me.

“Echo, wait.” As I turned to look at him, he suddenly found the ground to be the most fascinating thing. He scratched behind his ear, realizing he couldn’t start a conversation with the grass. “Could you not tell Derek about this?”

“You don’t want me to tell him what they were about to do to me?”

“Yeah.” His focus shifted to the sky and then to the empty training fields, stalling to face my expression. “The thing is, those boys were most likely training to be our warriors.”

“So that means they shouldn’t have to deal with any consequences?” He clearly never took the time to know me well if he thought I would immediately agree to stay quiet about this.

“It’s just, Derek will go overboard on his punishment for them. You know how he is.”

Of course I knew how Derek was. I was his best friend. And being his best friend meant that he would do anything to protect me. He would never stand for the way those pack members just treated me. Josh, on the other hand, didn’t see me as someone worth protecting. He would see any punishment that was made on my behalf as “overboard.” Though I had never heard him make any snide comments about me, I had a feeling he believed that I deserved them.

“As the alpha, he can be trusted to make the best judgment.”

“I’m not questioning that. I’m simply thinking about it from a warrior’s perspective. With the increased guard shifts, we need all hands on deck.”

Warrior’s perspective my ass. I shook my head. There was nothing more I had to say to that. I turned back toward the pack house and stepped inside, not wanting to look at him anymore.

It shouldn’t have even surprised me. I had learned a long time ago that there were only a select couple of people in this pack that cared about me. Everyone was more concerned with saving their own hind legs as opposed to slumming it with a runt like me.

I hurried through the hallways, worried I risked running into my aggressors. If it were up to Josh, they might receive a slap on the wrist and be left alone to begin tormenting me further. Once I reached my bedroom, I shut the door and locked it behind me. Though I should have felt safe, I couldn’t find it in me to feel relieved.

The only way I would become more at ease is if I got myself far away from here. I soon got to work by pulling my suitcase out from under the bed, not even thinking twice about what essentials I would need to pack.

Halfway through my packing, a knock sounded on the door. I froze in the few seconds before Violet spoke up, asking that I let her in.

I walked over to the door so I could open it for her, but immediately shut it once she entered the room.

She stopped in her tracks upon seeing the open suitcase. “What are you packing for?”

“I need to get away for a while.”

“When Josh said you were frazzled, I didn’t realize that meant you were leaving.”

I snorted. “Josh told you that? I bet he didn’t mention a reason why I would want to leave.”

“No,” Violet drew out slowly. “What is going on? With the hunters sniffing around our pack, it’s not safe to leave.”

“The hunters are precisely why I need to leave. It’s not safe for me here.”

Violet shook her head. “You know Derek would never let anything happen to you.”

“Well something happened to me, and the beta couldn’t give a damn. Josh found me pinned against a tree because a group of pack members thought that if they left me there for the hunters, they would leave our pack alone.”

Violet gasped, but I could tell she couldn’t imagine what was going through my mind as they covered my mouth and dragged me towards the woods. “Were these pack members joking around? Like maybe they just took it a little too far?”

“This was no joke, Violet,” I snapped. Why did everybody think I was just the victim of a harmless prank? “You have no idea what it’s like to be considered the weakest link of the pack. They don’t say cruel things about you or look at you like you don’t belong here. They wanted me dead.”

“Then we’ll go to Derek. He can sort this out, hold them accountable for their actions. You shouldn’t be the one who has to leave.”

But I did have to leave. This was only one instance that showed what everyone truly thought of me. No one wanted me here. Every pack member had made that clear. And should those pack members get reprimanded for what they did, I would be the one to blame for them getting punished. That’s why Josh wanted me to stay quiet. Maybe he wasn’t wrong, but if I were to keep quiet, I could only do that far away from here.

“Believe me, it’s for the best. Everyone will be better off when I’m gone.”

“That’s not true,” she stepped forward and took my hands. “What about me? And Derek?”

“You two will be fine without me. Besides, there may be another reason that I want to leave.”

Violet gave me a look of curiosity before taking a seat on the bed, next to the half packed suitcase. “Sounds ominous. Do tell.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Do you even have to ask? Spill.”

I moved over to my desk, where I took the scrap of red fabric out of my jewelry box. After handing it to her, I sat down on my desk chair that was facing her.

She looked down at the fabric and back at me. After lifting it the slightest bit, she scrunched up her nose. “Echo, what are you doing with this? It reeks of hunter stench.”

“Not to me.” I shook my head.

“What do you mean?”

“This piece of fabric smells like the comfort of home. Having it close to me has made me feel alive, like my future sits just around the corner.”

“You don’t think-” Violet paused, waiting for me to deny where her thoughts were headed. When I didn’t correct her interpretation, she took another few seconds to let the information sink in. “A hunter can’t possibly be your mate.”

“Why not? Don’t werewolves get mated to humans?”

“Rarely because more often than not, it doesn’t go very smoothly. Look at your mom, she freaked out at the first sign of fur.”

My expression dropped into a death stare, as if telling her to leave my mom out of this. “That doesn’t count. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t her one night stand.”

“But you’re her child and she still couldn’t accept the truth. The moon goddess mating you to a hunter is practically a death sentence.”

“Thank you for that vote of confidence.”

“I’m not trying to rain on your parade,” Violet huffed. “I just care about you. Those hunters can be ruthless. There’s no telling whether he will give you a chance to explain the mate bond before attacking.”

“That’s why he’s not going to know about my wolven side until after he’s gotten to know me.” I leaned back in the desk chair as though the plan was foolproof. Violet still appeared skeptical. I continued on with my ideas for keeping my true identity a secret. “My wolf counterpart is already weaker, making it harder to detect me in human form. Once I get away from the pack, I’ll mask my scent.”

“And how are you supposed to find this man? Pretend to be a damsel in the woods so he can come save you from the big bad wolf?”

Whatever expression I was making must’ve given off that I was actually contemplating that idea because Violet’s eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. The plan to pretend to be in danger didn’t sound half bad, but after actually facing danger in the woods earlier this afternoon, it didn’t appeal to me.

“We’re in a remote part of the country, there aren’t that many towns where he could be. I just have to go to them, ask people if they know a man in a red hoodie, and go from there. It will be as simple as a process of elimination,” I explained.

“And then you’ll be mated like that.” Violet snapped her fingers. Since there was nothing I could say to get her on my side, I stood up to continue packing my things. “Listen, I can’t say that I think it will be easy, but remember you always have a place back here. And if you need anything, I will be there for you.”

“Thank you, Vi.”

As soon as I opened my arms, she moved from her spot on the bed to return the embrace. Though I would have liked for her to encourage me from the beginning, I was lucky to have a friend who would be by my side through everything and who loved me enough to not sugarcoat the truth.