Alphas Divided Complete Series (13 page)

Her pack let her go without even a goodbye, glad that a mating-crazed Alpha's son was so crazy for her that he didn't even notice she'd recently given birth.

Then suddenly Ziva's/Emma's vision fast forwarded to the challenge.

Ziva'd been convinced that her mate Thomas would become Alpha, and as an Alpha's mate, she would be made whole again. He would give her a true son, and she would be saved.

The logic seemed kind of iffy to Emma, but as Emma 'watched,' she was also able to feel some of how Ziva felt, and she realized that Ziva was just barely holding on to sanity, so the logic made perfect sense in her mind.

When Thomas lost to Reine, and then moments later a wounded wolf burst in, calling her new pack to action to go help her old pack, Ziva felt like the timing couldn't possibly be an accident.

Emma 'watched' as the strange wolf told everyone in Ziva's new pack that her old pack was being attacked by humans.

The entire pack ran off to help, but when they arrived at Ziva's old den it was obvious that no one had survived.

Ziva was happy though, because she'd never cared for them, and it seemed like her bastard son and his wet nurse must have also died in the attack.

She was thrilled that he was no more, but felt that she was still somehow cursed because Thomas lost to Reine.

Reine had somehow stolen her dream, her rightful life, and Ziva's unstable mind fixated on her.

Emma was concentrating, trying to 'see' more and more, to help her understand, but when Ziva let go of her hair and backed away, the connection was broken.

Emma tried to sort and settle all of the darkness and fear and rage she'd seen swirling in Ziva's mind as the visions spilled forth, but her attention was sharpened to a razor point when she heard Ziva calmly turn to Kate and say, "You are to take over for me, as Alpha's mate, so I need you to prove your loyalty to Galen, and to me. Kill her, Kate."

Chapter 21

"What? No!"

"You have to, don't you see? You're the Alpha's mate now. The responsibility of protecting this pack falls on you as much as it falls on Galen."

"Until the pack splits, Elam is Alpha. Emma is Alpha's mate. And besides, this doesn't even make sense. Why would I kill Emma? She's my friend."

"We won't have to split at all if you fix this, you idiot. Emma's death will kill Elam, and the entire pack can stay here, with Galen ruling, as it should be. Galen wants to go to the adjoining lands? Where I was a slave, and raped? To bow down to Elam and leave? Never! Don't you see? Killing her fixes everything."

Kate rushed over, putting herself between Emma and Ziva.

"I won't do it! If I had known what you were planning, I never would have helped you. You said you wanted to talk to her. I thought you wanted to apologize for how you acted when Elam became Alpha, and make up. I thought we were going to go to the pack meeting all together, as a united front, to help Elam and Galen split the pack on good terms."

Emma had forgotten about the pack meeting. She wondered how long she'd been unconscious. Had the meeting started yet? Did the men realize they were missing?

She looked up toward the cracks in the cave's ceiling. Judging by the darkening of the cave and the color of the light she could see, it would be dark soon.

When the three didn't show up for the pack meeting, everyone would know something had happened.

She closed her eyes and tried to 'throw' visions at Elam. She knew Kate and Galen spoke in words in their heads, but so far she and Elam had only spoken like that in pictures. Even then, the images only went one way. She had no reason to think Elam would 'see' her here, but she tried anyway.

"Kate. Do that thing where you talk to Galen. They will come for us."

Kate didn't seem to hear her, she was too busy facing off against Ziva.

The pair stood toe to toe, Ziva yelling things at Kate, trying to get Kate to kill Emma.

"I didn't do everything I've done for it to fall apart now!"

"Are you kidding?" Kate yelled back at Ziva, right up in her face. "You did everything you've done because you're fucking insane!"

Ziva slapped Kate so fast Emma heard the sound ricochet off the cave walls before she ever saw Ziva's hand raise.

"Don't you dare call me that!"

"It's true! You haven't been normal for a very long time, I'd guess. Maybe Thomas still being alive helped you some. Maybe no one ever looked that close, but it shines in your eyes, Ziva. The lights may be on, but there is definitely no one home."

That pushed Ziva over whatever edge she still clung to.

Ziva leapt at Kate, pushing her down on the cave floor.

Emma tried to pull out of her leather ties, but she was bound well. She could get to her knees, but with her ankles also bound, she could only scoot toward the pair and try to club Ziva with her fists, and pull Ziva's clothes and hair with her hands.

Kate rolled out from under Ziva, trying to get to her feet and run for the cave's entrance, but the desperate insanity driving Ziva made her quick as hell.

Ziva beat Kate to the entrance, but instead of leaving she bent down, grabbing the tree limb Emma had brought into the cave when she'd explored it the first time.

Ziva turned back toward the two women, holding the limb like a baseball bat.

She eyed both Kate and Emma warily for a few heartbeats, while she caught her breath. A stony, detached calm suddenly replaced the anger and venom in Ziva's face.

She addressed Kate first.

"Fine. Obviously you aren't Alpha mate material, and you certainly aren't good enough for my Galen. I guess I'll just have to kill both of you."

It was the sudden switch to calm and calculating that really scared Emma.

When Ziva stepped toward Kate, starting to swing the branch with a deadly precision aimed at Kate's head, Emma channeled all her fear and rage into protecting Kate.

The leather ties binding her human wrists and ankles were suddenly no match for a shifter growing and expanding into a wolf.

Emma put her new and still not quite totally controlled wolf between Kate and Ziva, growling, snarling and showing her teeth.

Ziva's eyes narrowed at Emma.

"You
can
shift. I thought maybe you could, but I wasn't sure. I came prepared for it though."

Ziva tossed the branch aside, and reached behind her back, pulling out a small pistol and aiming it at Emma.

Kate tried to grab the abandoned branch, but the movement drew Ziva's eyes and the barrel of the gun swung with her gaze. Ziva's finger pulled the trigger and Emma leapt.

Emma felt a heavy thud hit her shoulder as she jumped in front of Kate. With Kate behind her now, safe, she turned, aimed and leapt again, this time for Ziva's throat.

She felt another thud crash into her underbelly as she opened her jaws wide, finding and sinking her teeth into the tender flesh of Ziva's neck. She tugged and jerked, instinct and the drive to protect Kate driving any rational thoughts from her wolf brain.

She fought a now lifeless Ziva still, thrashing her like she'd seen dogs do when they were playing tug-of-war with their pull toys.

She didn't hear Kate's screams right beside her, and paid no attention to the yanks of fur and punches from Kate's tiny little fists as she tried to get Emma to stop.

No, Emma heard nothing but the pounding of her own blood in her ears, until the hostile growls of two newly arriving wolves broke though her reality.

She dropped her prey and turned toward the new growls. She recognized both Elam and Galen's wolves as they faced her, growling, and slowly approaching her step by step.

Kate's yells broke through to Emma's ears, and she suddenly realized how this must look. Risking the fact that she wouldn't be able to defend herself against two wolves, she shifted back into her human form, to explain.

As soon as any trace of her wolf form left her, and she stood there naked and human, she felt the pain ripping through her body.

She opened her mouth to explain, raising her hands palms out to speak, but her one arm wouldn't obey.

She looked down at herself, confused, and saw herself covered in blood. She'd been shot, not once but twice.

She raised her face to ask the wolves what had happened to her, but collapsed in a dead faint at their paws instead.

Chapter 22

Emma's body tossed and moaned as her mind was once again connected to her mother's. As Emma's body recovered from being shot, her mind got to re-live Reine's memories with her, as if she was really there.

As her mother's memories pulled her deeper into the past, a still rational part of Emma's mind was grateful that it was her mother she 'saw' through instead of Ziva.

Ziva's mind had been a dark and scary place, so she was glad that if anyone had to be there, her mother was somehow in her brain instead.

Reine hadn't planned on winning the Alpha Challenge, in fact she was as surprised as anyone when she came out on top. Going into the challenge she fully expected to give it all she had, but she was also fully prepared to acknowledge Thomas as Alpha when it was over. But now, in the deep middle of it, she really didn't want to lose.

Her rarely seen competitive streak came out once she had taken care of the wolf attacking Thomas, and it was only she and Thomas in the thick of things, as she enjoyed sparring with her brother immensely.

She had just taken Thomas down with an extra little twist as she had the back of his neck in her grip, and had backed off to let him get up so they could go at it some more when she realized from all the cheers and yells from the coliseum that she had won.

She didn't even have a full moment to process what that meant before a wounded and bleeding wolf from the adjoining pack burst on scene, shifted, and called for help for his pack.

The entire pack took off, aiming for the adjoining lands, but it became very obvious as they neared the other pack's den that they were too late.

Humans and wolves alike lay dead everywhere. Scattered at first, and then more and more bodies as they reached the center of the other pack's den.

The wolves had defended themselves well in the places that it seemed were fair fights, but in the center of it all the human's scents and footprints were very heavy, along with the sharp tangs of gun powder.

The humans had come prepared, well-armed and with many of their women along to boost their numbers. The wolves took out great numbers of their attackers, even as they were shot themselves. Human bodies outnumbered wolves by an average of two to one. The villagers had obviously meant business.

Once it was determined that the entire pack was wiped out, and no wolves were found alive, the pack headed to the village for vengeance.

Vengeance was not to be, though, for the only people still in the village were women, children and teenagers that had been left behind during the attack.

Yes, the humans had managed to take out an entire pack, all but the one wolf who had run for help, but they had also lost all of their men, and a very large percentage of their own women in the attack as well.

Reine could feel the rage and indignation rolling off of the younger wolves in her pack. They wanted to finish the job, to take out those who had hunted their kind, but Reine, in her very first duty as Alpha, wouldn't have it.

She shifted into human form to be able to speak with the huddled and scared villagers that were still alive. Thomas and a few of the other wolves stayed close to her, for protection in her human form, as Reine shouted for whoever was now in charge of this village.

The women looked around at each other, most of them huddled with small children, until the oldest woman still among them reluctantly stepped forward.

"Why have you done this? That pack protected your village." Reine's tone demanded an answer.

"Protection, at the cost of our people. You take our females as slaves when they are young. You take them from their mothers in exchange for this protection. We needed protection from your kind more than we needed you to protect us from outsiders. The world is changing. Your kind became our greatest danger."

"I agree that the world is changing. Our pack does not take humans for slaves, although I understand that some packs still do. You attacked first. We came for retribution, but we will not kill women and children, even if it is our right. As Alpha of my pack, I offer a truce. You leave us alone and we will leave you alone. If any human breaks this pact, we will kill every last one of you. Do you agree?"

"You say your pack does not trade children for protection? We are now
only
women and children, it seems. Can we work out a protection agreement that is fair to
both
sides?"

"You wiped out an entire pack of my people. No, we will not protect you. But we will ignore you. That is as much as I can give you. You are on your own. Do you agree, or no?"

The villager nodded.

"We agree."

With a nod of acknowledgement, Reine shifted back into her wolf form and led her new pack into the woods once again.

They came across Ziva on their way back to take care of the dead. She was on her knees, rocking herself in grief, beside a small group of both dead villagers and wolves.

Thomas went to her, and shifted to hold her and speak to her.

Reine watched as Ziva let Thomas comfort her. Reine heard Ziva cry out, "They were
all
my people, the villagers first, and then the pack. Whether I liked them or not, I now have no one left!"

Thomas rocked her sobbing body in his arms, murmuring to her that he was here for her now, and always would be.

"You belong in our pack, with us. I'm sorry for your loss, Ziva, I truly am. It is our loss as well. But you belong with me, now. I will take care of you. I will always take care of you."

"This was not how it was supposed to be!"

Reine nodded at Thomas, offering to leave them alone for a bit, and she continued on to organize some wolves to take the human bodies back to the village, for them to bury or burn their dead as they saw fit, and to begin to take care of their own kind's bodies as well.

As Reine walked away she heard Ziva carry on, "She wasn't supposed to be Alpha, you were. I've never even heard of a female Alpha before. I thought
you
were next in line. Wait! Were there any survivors at all? Young or old?"

Reine shook her head as she walked away, thinking the stress of losing her pack so shortly after being claimed into this one must be affecting Ziva's thinking. Why else would her only thoughts after everyone she'd ever known had been killed be about Thomas losing Alpha?

Grief affects everyone differently, she thought with a sigh. She didn't know Ziva very well yet, since she'd only recently been claimed, but surely it must be grief, and her fully human blood, making her act so oddly.

* * * * *

The pack had only recently gotten back into some semblance of order after adjusting to the Alpha outcome, and cleaning up after the human's attack, before Ziva and Thomas announced that Ziva was with cub.

Reine's memories flashed to a celebration feast thrown for the pack to blow off some much needed steam. No one cared that the cub was half-human, since most of the pack's cubs were so. The pack rejoiced and celebrated their newest, unborn member with abandon.

The pack was overjoyed, using the feast to not only celebrate new life in the announcement of Thomas and Ziva's upcoming cub, but also to honor and celebrate their new Alpha, and using the feast as a chance to morn those they had known from the adjoining land.

Everyone partook but Ziva.

Ziva wasn't thrilled to be carrying another baby, since this cub would not hold the honor of being the Alpha's cub. She also felt that her own cub news was more of an afterthought, tacked on to honoring Reine and mourning the adjacent pack.

Ziva felt like Reine had stolen her thunder, somehow, yet again.