steps into the grass after me and takes my hand. His touch is softer than I expected, sending shivers up my arm, and he draws me back onto the path. “Now, where were we? Ah yes, Stone.”
We are back on our brisk walk forward, the rising sun brightening the landscape, the altercation that felt like the world would erupt a thing of the past. Yet my head is still whiplashing from what I just witnessed.
“Save your breath,” Stone snaps. This blond Viking looks calmer than he probably is, powerful and captivating with dark blue eyes. He hasn’t left my thoughts after his visit to our room last night, delivering our dinner. And the way he stared at me told me he was trying to work me out. His question about whether I was prepared for the Poisonous Woods has been playing on my mind since he asked it. Just like these Alphas, this is my first time in that forest as well, but my response to him seemed to make him uneasy.
Maybe I had too quickly made the deal with Ragnar weeks ago, but in truth, I never gave my offer much contemplation. I wanted my sisters and would have promised him my soul to have them back. So I guess me being stuck in this situation is my fault for blindly promising Ragnar safe passage.
“Stone is Ragnar’s cousin,” Crius continues. “Not the most chatty among us, but what’s that saying again?” He taps his chin. “The quiet ones are the most deadly.” He smiles at me like somehow that’s meant to soften his ominous description of Stone.
“You suck at introductions,” Stone adds, while Nikos groans under his breath behind us.
They aren’t wrong.
Crius doesn’t seem to care and continues. “And you’ve met our Alpha in command, the most dangerous of us all, Ragnar. The man we’d all die for.”
Die for? The Storm Wolves were loyal to Lovis, but I’d never heard them declare they would die for him or even my father when he ran the pack.
“You’re all from Denmark, right?” I ask, figuring things must be very different up north. “From the same pack?”
“Yes and no,” Crius answers quickly, but then goes no further to explain. And neither do the rest of them.
“And what about you, little fox?” Ragnar asks, twisting his head to look at me from over his shoulder, his words laced with curiosity.
Now I can’t help but wonder if Crius’s questioning wasn’t pre-planned.
“Ah, you know, the usual Omega story. Growing up in a pack, then doing everything in my ability to evade Alphas who are incapable of thinking straight beyond their dicks.” I laugh, but it turns into a strange choking sound when no one finds my response funny. “Well, not you four, of course,” I gasp, and this time, they all glance my way, even Nikos. “What? Geez, that was a joke.”
That completely wasn’t a joke, but I have no intention of telling them anything about me beyond the necessities.
We live in an unfair world, one where Omegas are things to be claimed and broken over and over by brutes. Yes, Ragnar offered me immunity while completing our deal, but what happens afterward? I’ll be just another Omega for them to take, and as far as I’m concerned, I want them to think of me as a dangerous wolf with powers who can freeze their balls right off if they anger me.
“Try again,” Ragnar insists, and I scrub my face with one hand as we all keep marching onward through an open field covered in tiny white flowers. Beyond them lies a wall of woods. Darker, bigger than any I’ve seen, and I tighten my grip on my bag straps as we move closer.
“Don’t think she’s listening to you,” Crius says.
“I heard him,” I respond. “But I’m not sure what to tell you that you can’t work out for yourselves. I’m a nobody. I don’t fit in with wolves or witches, so I’ve spent my life hiding who I am. It’s why my sisters and I left the pack we grew up in, because we were no longer safe there. That’s who I am. A lost girl trying to hold onto the last fragments of family I have left in this world. My two sisters.” My breaths are coming quickly now. I said more than I wanted, and there’s not a lie in sight.
I shift my gaze on the woods ahead of us, on anything but the faces looking my way. Let them think what