Bound to Enemy

11

We came to the car, and just before I got in, I gave my father one long-lasting look of sadness. I would miss this place, but most of all, I would miss him. I had never spent more than a few days away from my father, and I had never strayed from the borderlines for more than a week at most.

Everything was changing, and I was hoping that it was all for the better.

We had been traveling for five hours when we finally decided to make a stop for some food. We still had a good three or four hours' worth of driving to do. We were far beyond the pack border by now, which meant we were in a bit of no man's land.

There were a lot of unmarked territories that were often left for the humans to live in. These areas were usually no-go areas for us wolves, but the rogues had come to plague these lands, which meant that we needed to be careful.

I stretched my arms out and

"Your fiancé looks like he wants to kill me," Jason whispered in my ear. When he pulled away, he had a cheeky smirk on his lips. "I think he knows I want his girl."

I rolled my eyes and smacked him on the chest. "Stop it. You and I both know that ship sailed for the two of us."

Yes, Jason and I had tried to date when we were 16, but that relationship had crashed and burned before it even had a chance to get off the ground. We realized that we were far better off as friends. There was no bad blood, and it was fairly easy for us to flip back into that friendship.

I looked in the direction of my mate and caught his heated gaze. If looks could kill, then Jason would have been six feet under right there and then.

"How are you feeling, Ale?" The tenderness in Jason's voice spiked the emotion that I had been trying to bury these last few hours.

I forced a small smile onto my lips. "I'm okay. A little sad, but I'm okay."

And that was about as honest as I was going to get. Even though I was closest to Jason, I still didn't want to pour my heart out in that way.

Now that we were far behind the comforting lines of home, I needed to keep my hard exterior intact.

"I'm so f*****g hungry," Alex rounded the car and stretched his arms out. "Damn, even the air here smells less clean than back home."

"Alexander," Ali came to stand with us, tying her blonde hair into a tight bun. "Don't say that out loud. We have ears."

We all turned our heads to the left and looked at the guard who had been in the large Land Cruiser with us. He had not uttered a single word apart from his grunts and groans when we asked yes or no questions.

Do you have access to the sea in your pack lands? Grunt.

Do you have a healing course? Groan.

Do you like your life to be taken from the back? Seething glare.

The last one had been from Jason, of course.

"Ah yes, our resident mute." Jason flipped our driver the bird and then turned his attention back to me. "You all know why he isn't speaking to us, right?"

We all did; it had to do with the feud between our packs. The way we had a deep-seated resentment for them was the same for them toward us. We would never see eye to eye. But where we viewed them as traitors to our ways and the goddess, they saw us as lesser than them.

The smell of freshly baked goods wafted into my nose from the small convenience store we had found. My stomach growled loudly, and I blushed.

Alex and Jason cackled under their breath like little school kids, and Ali pushed me toward the store entrance.

"Sustenance it is," she shoved me forward.

Jason and Alex followed closely behind Lilly, also feeling just as famished as we were.

I dared to look over my shoulder at Daxton, who was staring at the four of us intently. I couldn't get a good read on what he was thinking, but I was sure it had something to do with my demise.

The battle lines had been drawn the moment I put my blade against his neck. Now we just needed to see who won out in the end. All I knew was that it needed to be me in the end.

CHAPTER 7

DAXTON

I

wanted to sever his hands and feed them to my hounds. I had been thinking of violent ways to punish that stupid little lap dog that she had decided to bring along with her to my pack lands.

"Your face will freeze like that if you're not careful." Elliot came up alongside me as we walked to the meeting room.

We had arrived in Blood Born almost an hour ago and my guests had been taken to their rooms to freshen up. If I had it my way, I would have put Jason in one of the cells. He didn't deserve to be walking around so freely on my land.

"I don't care," I grumbled, already feeling my annoyance bubbling up again at the thought of that wolf. "Where is she?"

I didn't need to specify who she was.

"From what I heard, she went outside to look at the lake behind the estate." Elliot gave me a knowing look. "Do you want me to have someone fetch her?"

"Don't be ridiculous," I huffed, "she can do as she pleases. We have a meeting to attend to."

I was not surprised that she went to the lake first. I had come to realize that she had an affinity for water. She liked to be near it and listen to it.

My mind took me back to the journey back to the pack lands and the way that Jason and she had been so cozy and comfortable with each other. Why did he have to be so close to her like that?

We walked to the large double doors that led to my meeting room. It was a secret nook tucked away in the corner of the manor. This was where I held the majority of my war meetings with my top generals and warriors.

It was unfortunate that this was where I had been spending the majority of my time lately. The rogues had increased their attacks and we were slowly beginning to falter. No one wanted to admit it, but we were on the brink of collapse. The pack was nervous and so was I.

This union with Alessandra was our last-ditch effort. They may not have been the most upstanding of our kind, but they knew of the ancient ways. They understood the moonstone and all its capabilities.