The Beta's Arrival

Chapter 17

Helen’s POV

Everything was fuzzy. I recognized James, but something felt off. He said we were mates, but it didn’t feel like the truth. Holand seemed to be sneaking in and out of my room at odd hours. Whenever he came into my room, he would inject me with something saying that it was to help me get through the trauma of being taken by the other pack. However, every time he injected me, the world became more hazzy. Something was wrong with the injection, but I couldn’t fight him. My body felt weak. Much weaker than usual.

“Here,” Holand said as he threw some new clothes at me. “Future Alpha James said you needed new clothes.”

I looked down at the clothes that now sat on my lap. They didn’t look like things I normally would wear, but I was having a hard time remembering. Actually, I was having a hard time remembering most things, even things that should have been easy to.

“Put them on,” Holand ordered. “Future Alpha James will be here soon.”

“Could I get a shower?” I asked, beginning to feel like I needed to be in a space that would be just me, even if only for a few minutes.

“Sure,” he said with a shrug. He walked out of the bedroom and waited for me at the door. When I followed him, he led me to the bathroom. “Here. There are towels in the cabinet.”

“Thank you,” I said as I stepped past him into the bathroom. I closed the door and locked it behind myself. Then I turned to the shower. I grabbed the handle, and twisted it. Water gushed from the shower head. Then I stepped away from it. I leaned against the sink counter and tried to think. Something was wrong. My wolf has been really quiet. It was almost as though she were sleeping, but I could barely feel her presence in my mind.

A knock at the door, snapped me back to reality. “Helen, are you alright?” Holand sounded worried.

“I’m fine,” I called back. “Just enjoying the warm water.” I hoped that he would give me more time to myself.

“Fine, but don’t take too much more time. The Future Alpha will be here shortly.” I could hear the strain in his voice. It seemed he was almost scared.

“Okay,” I agreed, hoping it would put him at ease and he would leave me alone for another few moments at least.

Quickly, I pulled off my clothes and slipped into the warm water. It washed over me as I washed my hair and body. As I cleaned myself, I tried to reach out to Celestria. However, no matter how much I tried, she was unresponsive. I had to give up and get out of the shower. A few minutse later I was dressed in the new clothes that Holand had given me. I looked in the mirror to see that I was wearing short black shorts and a tight red t-shirt. It looked odd to me.

Another knock at the door forced me to pull my gaze from the mirror. “Helen, please hurry up,” Holand called through the door.

“Okay, I’m almost done,” I responded quickly.

I glanced around the bathroom, seeing the window, I got a sudden urge to just go out it. I needed to get out of here. Something was wrong. Things would be better if I got out of here. I just knew it. I hurriedly went over to the window and saw that it would be easy to open. Quietly, I slid the window up and then maneuvered myself out of it, landing silently on the grass under the window sill. I somehow managed to pull the window back down and then made my way toward a group of trees.

Just as I reached the trees, I could hear a car pulling up the driveway of Holand’s house. James arrived. I was out of time. They would be looking around the house in a matter of minutes, if not less. I rushed through the trees, unsure of where I was going, but it was better to get as far as I could before they caught up to me. It felt as though something was pulling me in a specific direction. I decided not to fight it and instead followed it. It was like a string was attaching me to something or someone.

I went toward what seemed to be the end of the packlands. However, I slowed down the closer I got to it. Something was strange. It seemed others were near the border as well. The closer I came to the border, the easier it was to see that the wolves at the border were warriors for Crimson Fang. They were either there to keep Silvertooth out or to keep something or someone in. I wasn’t sure which one.

Carefully, I tried to get closer without being noticed. However, the closer I got, the more I saw that someone was near the other side of the border. No, not someone. There were a few wolves on the other side. They all seemed familiar to me. They also seemed to be trying to get across the border. Then I saw one particular wolf. I felt drawn to him. A particular scent wafted over to me. Mate! It wasn’t James, so I now knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was lying to me. He wasn’t my mate.

I needed to figure out a way to distract the Crimson Fang wolves, so I could get across the border. I grabbed at a few sticks and stones. Then, without giving it much more thought, I threw them off in different directions. Which seemed like a good idea at the moment, but when I saw they didn’t budge, I realized warriors were probably trained for what noise to actually pay attention to. However, my attempted distraction seemed to help the wolves on the other side of the border start to make their own moves.

I watched and waited to see if an opening would be made for me to be able to slip past the Crimson warriors to get to the other side. Just as the Silvertooth warriors started to step closer to the border and I stepped closer as well, I felt hands wrap around my arms and pull me back. “You are very sneaky,” James whispered into my ear.

“Let me go,” I hissed back at him.

“Helen, I’m just trying to help you,” he huffed as he tried to drag me away from the border.

“Let me go!” I growled at him, trying to wiggle free from his grasp.

“Can’t do that,” he responded as I suddenly felt a needle penetrate my skin and the world became hazier and hazier by the second.

“I’m here!” I managed to yell out. Somehow, I knew those wolves from Silvertooth were there for me, and they would help me. They weren’t the bad wolves James wanted me to believe them to be.

Then I heard a battle break out between the Silvertooth and Crimson Fang warriors. I did my best to fight against James’ hold, but whatever he injected me with was messing with my strength, balance and even my mind. Then something struck James and his grip on my arms loosened, giving me a chance to get away from him. I strumbled forward, triping and hitting the ground hard. I managed to get to my hands and knees and crawl away from James. Whoever or whatever had struck James was keeping him busy enough that I was able to put some distance between us.

I couldn’t take a single moment to look back and see what was going on. I needed to focus on continuing to push forward. Just as I was about to slip out from the trees, I felt another set of hands grab hold of me. I tried to push them away, but failed to gather enough strength to be successful. “Helen, it’s me. It’s Vincent.” His name sounded familiar. His scent was calming and my desire to fight him disappeared.

“I’m going to get you back to Silvertooth,” he promised as he picked me up and started racing toward the border.

I was able to look over his shoulder to see what was going on behind him. It was then that I saw James shifting into his wolf form and rushing toward us. Before I could warn Vincent that he was coming someone rushed past toward James. It took a moment for my mind to put a name to who I saw. Diane. She was carrying a gun with it aimed at James. “Vincent, stop her. You have to stop her,” I begged him.

“Stop who?” he asked, confused.

“Diane. She is facing James with a gun. He’s going to kill her.” As the words tumbled from my lips, I saw flashes of my parents’ bodies in my mind’s eye.

In a single, graceful motion, he tossed me in the air toward someone else who grabbed me and continued to run me toward the border while Vincent had turned back toward Diane. I heard the gun shot, but couldn’t see what was happening because the wolf carrying me made it incredibly difficult to look back over his shoulder. Then I heard a blood-curtiling scream. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get out of the warrior’s grip. “Please, I have to go to her,” I cried.

“I am under strict orders to get you across the border uninjured,” he responded as he pushed onward.

“Please,” I whimpered, trying to push away from him, but failing.

He ignored my pleas and continued moving toward the border. Once we came across it, he slowed his pace until he came to a stop. There was a tent that had been set up among the trees. He went inside and set me down on the cot. “She'd been injected with something. It has weakened her,” he informed a she-wolf with a white coat.

“Thank you. I’ll take it from here. You go back out,” she told him as she came around to look at me. She held a clipboard with a pen tucked behind her ear. I couldn’t seem to focus on her words, instead, I fixed my gaze on the tent opening.

There was another she-wolf in the tent. They were taking vitals and had hooked me up to an IV. I was vaguely aware of all this, but couldn’t bring myself to look away from the tent door. I needed to see Diane come through. I need her to be okay. “Helen,” I heard my name being called and then someone placed their hand on my shoulder, trying to get my attention.

I looked up to see the she-wolf with the white coat looking down at me. “I know this is hard, but I need you to focus and answer a few questions. Can you do that for me?” I nodded. “Good.” She then proceeded to ask me to explain the symptoms of what I was feeling currently, as well as if I had been injected before and what symptoms followed after those injections. It took time for my mind to form the words to answer her, but I managed.

She took notes as we spoke. “Get her the antidote for wolfsbane,” she ordered the other she-wolf. In a matter of moments, the antidote was being injected into my IV line. “You should begin to feel better shortly. Although, I have no idea how much wolfsbane you have been injected with so it could take longer than we expected,” she explained to me.

“My sister,” I whispered.

“I will send my assistant to find out what’s happened to her,” she promised, and then looked over at her assistant, who then immediately rushed out the tent opening.