had been written by the previous alpha during the most intense and bloody of wars with the Shadow Men.
“‘I will lay waste to kingdoms and slaughter every breathing being in the streets of the world. I will break down doors and eat all within, and from them I will draw strength. I will cast aside all reservation and I will not stop. I will come and I will end life. I will do all this for the sake of my pack, for I am alpha, and you are all my children.’”
He set the book down and looked at Gregory, now at a higher vantage point since the deputy was on his knees again.
“But let’s try for a nice discount on imported goods for an extended period of time and a waived delivery fee, hmm?”
Chapter 6
Analie was going to barf.
'Don’t barf,' she thought.
It was a challenge.
She was feverishly tearing the bed apart. The mattress lay in one corner, the box spring in the middle of the room, and the sheets and blankets everywhere else. The pillows were shoved in the far corner, for they carried the strongest scent of musk. Analie intended to get rid of them as discreetly as possible.
Not that she was being particularly discreet right now.
The bedframe and slats that supported the mattress were useless. Analie cleared a path through the fluffy chaos and shoved it against the far wall. God, why was there such a thing even in this room? She almost threw the box spring, but then remembered Royce’s warning. She dragged it over to the bed frame and put it on top.
‘Stupid, useless crap!’
She had the idea she might be going crazy.
‘Okay, mattress.’ She put that in a new corner, one away from where the leech must have slept. The new corner was nice. Analie noticed her hands were shaking. She grabbed a blanket and put it on the mattress. Better, more like a proper bed. ‘Okay, the sheet. Have to cover up the area. Closet too small to sleep in. Gotta cover it all up.’
Analie realized she was mentally rambling. It was distressing. The situation was distressing. The fact that she had nothing to hang the sheet off of was distressing.
Get the box spring, prop it up against the wall. Useless as a lean-to. Too unstable for a wall. Useless! Bed frame? Weird, constricting. Not good. Okay. No covering for the bed. That was okay with her. She could deal with that. It wasn’t a bad thing.
'Oh god. Don’t barf.'
She folded the rest of the blankets up and put them at the foot of the bed. Good. That was good. She looked around, spotted an easy chair. Yes, go sit in the easy chair and calm down. It would be more like home—a reminder of Gavin.
Analie felt her heart sink a little. Her foster father would be worried. If they couldn’t find another Were to take her place, would he gain a new foster cub? Would it stay in her room? She couldn’t think of it; it made her eyes water and throat hurt.
Analie hurried over to the chair and curled up in it. It was soft and she wondered what the leech did here. Sit and read? Contemplate leechy things?
Feed?
She was up and across the room in half a second. Her stomach was rolling. She clapped a hand over her mouth and took deep breaths. It only made the nausea worse as she inhaled the reek of vampire.
She had to change the scent in the room. It was child’s play to get the scent from your hair to an object, but she would end up covering herself in the scent of the room considering the size of it. That thought was horrifying.
And it made her want to barf.
‘Okay, sit on the floor and think of this logically. No, don’t stay still. Put the bed frame nicely in the corner with the box spring in it. There. Orderly. No reason for Royce or Mouse to point out that the new room is in disarray. Good. Okay, change the scent.’
Analie ran over to the drawers and opened each one, scrubbing her fingers in her hair and rubbing the insides of the drawers. Each one. Good, they smelled okay. No more leech reek. Right. She smelled her hair. Musky. Like a leech.
'Don’t barf.'
Okay, the whole room had to change right now. Not later, not in a couple days, now. She made sure there weren’t any shadows lurking about in the room, kicked off her clothes, (hands