Alpha Rising

Chapter Twenty

Alvira's P.O.V.

I couldn’t believe it. I honestly, genuinely, couldn’t believe that Nell and Alban had managed to surprise me like this. I clung to them both, tears pooling in the corners of my eyes as I buried my face in the crook of my best friend’s neck for comfort. Somewhere behind me, I could hear a whisper, and I felt the touch of Nikolai’s hand on my back when his mother beckoned him away to help her back to the house. Had he known?

Nell let out a laugh when I wouldn’t pull away from her, and Alban nearly hauled me to the floor with the strength of him pulling me back to hug me for himself. He’d grown some more defined muscle already in his few weeks training with Dad; that much was very clear. And I was proud of him for the hard work he’d been putting in so far.

“Vi,” he said warmly, holding my shoulder firmly and pushing me out to his total reach. I could see the cocky twist of his smile turning up the corner of his lips. “You gonna stand there gawking all day?” Alban teased with a soft shake. “Or are you going to give us a tour?”

I shook myself back to reality and let a chuckle fall into the comfortable silence in the clearing. “s**t, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m all gross and s**t from sparring too. Yeah, we’ll swing by the house so I can change.” The thought had barely crossed my mind if I had to be honest. I was just so excited to see them that it didn’t register that I still had dirt and scratches covering my skin from my time in the ring with Trevor.

The walk back to the house was quick and uneventful, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Every few steps, the hairs on the back of my neck would raise in alarm. But it was only me. Nell and Alban didn’t sense a thing. Or if they did, they didn’t show it in any way. I just had to keep an eye out, I assumed. It’s entirely possible that they caught on to my tension, though, because Nell edged closer to me, and Alban started keeping a pace behind us as we walked.

By the time we made it back to the back patio of the packhouse, several of the children who always seemed to roam around while their parents worked in the house laughed and played in the large in-ground pool just off the main hall. The days were warmer now, and school had ended for the summer, so that was hardly a surprise. However, the real surprise was how quickly the young ones had attached themselves to Joey and Richie. The two young men were in the pool with the kids, each of them hauling one under each arm and sporting one on their shoulders. It was like some strange game of chicken that both men seemed very intent on winning.

Ever the picture of professionalism and diplomacy, Alban scanned the area for Nikolai and Irena. When he found them, he gave me a quick peck on the cheek and darted over to their sides to start what I could only assume was the expected show of appreciation from one high-ranked male to another.

Nell left next to sit on the edge of the pool and dangle her legs in the cool water while Alban met my eyes and gave me a nod to let me know they’d wait here while I cleaned up. I felt a much stronger sense of comfort here now. It felt more like home than it had at any point in these past two weeks. But that uneasy feeling hadn’t left yet, not even as I climbed the stairs and made that increasingly familiar trek to my private suite. My wolf started to pace; her growls and scrapes of anxiety filled my brain with a rising tension that almost rivaled the attack on the cabin.

My ears pricked up at a faint rush of wind, and the scent of a light and floral perfume caught in my nose. That was odd. It wasn’t the same as any of mine, and it certainly wasn’t the same scent that my mousy little shadow had come to enjoy. Speaking of- where was she? Typically, Nadine was seated outside of my bedroom door with her nose in a book. Only now, she was nowhere to be seen, and that only added to my anxiety.

‘Alban?’ I said through our mind link. I didn’t want to alarm anyone, but I had a bad feeling about this.

‘Miss me already?’ He teased. ‘You’ve only been gone five minutes. What’s up?’

‘Not funny, Al,’ I replied with a mental huff. ‘I need you to ask Nikolai where a young woman named Nadine is.’

I got a response almost immediately, but not from Alban. ‘She should be right outside your door. She was there less than ten minutes ago,’ Nikolai said with worry evident in his tone. ‘Stay in the hall. Your brother and I are coming up.’

Almost immediately, I moved to my bedroom door. Thank the Goddess I’d left it open. Because each step I took towards the hallway felt like an eternity that there was a creature of unseen origin behind me, reaching for my back. The howling snap and snarl of my wolf made me turn around at the last second before my door slammed shut. In the dim shadow of my curtains, a figure moved, and I screamed.

It startled the fight-or-flight part of me, and after the instant reaction, I was about ready to pounce on my door and tear through whatever was behind it. But before I could, I felt Nikolai’s firm grip on my shoulder as he forcibly pulled me to stand behind him and my brother. I understood his position, but it was getting increasingly frustrating how Nikolai kept shoving me to the background when any perceived threat came looking for a fight.

I was a fighter, through and through. And my mate was going to have to come to terms with that sooner rather than later. Both men stood before me, crouched and growling as we all three heard the scrabbling sound of claws on the hardwood from beyond the door. Nikolai was the first to burst forward and nearly tear the door off its hinges, followed closely by Alban.

Between their shoulders, I could make out the scrabbling form of a lanky wolf already disappearing through my open window. The curtain caught on its hind leg and ripped against the frame. Tension rose as the trees below shook and cracked. We should be able to catch them if they got stuck in the branches. As the three of us rushed the window, I could hear the sound of Trevor barking orders at the guardians stationed on the first floor of the main house. Apparently, they had the same idea.

“What the f**k,” I heard Nikolai whisper under his breath as he leaned out over the windowsill. My heart leaped in my chest and my stomach started to knot up. I moved carefully to stand beside him and leaned out to get a better look for myself.

Nothing.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. No bodies, no broken tree branches, not even the scrap of torn curtain that should have been billowing in the wind on the way down.

My knuckles grew white; I was gripping the edge of the window with such ferocious tightness that I feared breaking my fingers. Alban pulled me back gently and walked me over to my bed where we sat and waited for Nikolai to finish shouting down for the scouts to double their rounds this hour. I could barely contain the shaking as I looked from my brother to my mate and back again.

But the wind had caught something as it blew back towards us. The perfume!

Immediately, I bolted up and started sniffing around the room. It was faint, but the scent lingered the longest around my closet. I let my fingers rest on the doorknob before Nikolai stepped up and gripped my arm firmly. “Don’t,” he said with a low growl. “Trevor is going to bring one of the investigators up here, and they’re going to do a full sweep.”

Nikolai looked back over his shoulder at Alban and nodded. “Will you take her back down to the kitchens? Sheena should be working on lunch, so it should be safe in there while we get her things moved up-”

“Moved?” I interrupted, pulling my arm back. “You’re making me move?”

“To my suite,” Nikolai finished with a sigh. “I wanted to respect Mother’s traditional ideas of having us live separately until the ceremony. But…” His cold eyes looked towards the window, narrowing on the torn curtain. “Not if you won’t be safe.” My mate let out a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. “I’ll have to let Ola know.”

The thought of bothering Luna Ola was worrisome, but I knew that she and Alpha Jeremy had to know what was going on. They’d made that blood oath to my parents after all.

As Nikolai spoke, Trevor came knocking on the door. “Alpha,” he said, all business at a time like this. “Sentinels are out running circuits on the grounds. So far nothing has been picked up. Mariah thinks that maybe whoever was in here was using something to mask their scent.”

“Like a perfume?” I offered. “There was a very strong smell of flowers when I came in, if that helps.”

Trevor looked at me and gave me as reassuring a smile as he could muster. “It does, thank you.” He came closer, and Nikolai stepped away from my side to listen to the hushed recounting of what was seen from outside. I couldn’t quite make it out, but the way Nikolai’s brow furrowed was concerning to say the least.

Something Trevor had said clearly spooked him, because I could practically feel him bristling. With a sharp bite to his tone, he ushered me out of the room alongside my brother, and gave me the very heavy suggestion of not being alone for the rest of the day. Not that something like that would be an issue anyway.

Alban clapped his hand to Nikolai’s shoulder and tried to look like he wasn’t scared shitless. But, knowing him as I did, he wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding it. As we were shoved out of my now former bedroom, I nudged his arm with my own and looked over to him. “Never a dull moment for us, am I right?”

The tension seemed to dissipate at least somewhat, and he picked up his pace to beat me to the bottom of the stairs. What was a bustling and hectic pack house just a alf hour ago was now nearly vacant save for Nell, Irena, and the kitchen staff. Even Richie and Joey had gone out to help with the search.

Irena’s worried gaze fell on me, and she seemed to relax some, seeing that I wasn’t hurt. She wheeled herself over to me and put her hand on mine. “We’ll find them, dear,” she said. And although I didn’t doubt her, it was hard to feel wholly confident in anything right now.

If someone had been able to slip past nearly thirty active wolves in broad daylight...what else were they capable of?