Alphas Unleashed 4 (2 page)

"And we'll break her the same way I broke Connor," Marcus continued.

I looked up at him at that. I didn't like the sounds of that word, 'break.' Connor didn't look particularly happy about it either, though I imagined for different reasons.

"And what exactly does that entail?" I said.

"She will be confined to a cell in the basement, and each day I, or one of us, will attempt to get through to her. But she doesn't leave the cell until she has suppressed her animal instincts."

I expected Connor to intervene, to say something, but he only nodded curtly.

"No," I said, shaking my head, "that's awful, we cant do that to her."

Marcus sighed, "it's the only way."

"And it works," Connor added, before I could get a word in.

"She hadn't lashed out at any of us before this though," I said, trying to make a case, "and I think she is willing to talk at least. It was just me touching her knee that set her off. I don't think we need to resort to any extreme measures. It might end up doing more harm than good, to lock her up like that."

Marcus and Connor traded a glance. They seemed to be considering it at least.

"What would you suggest then?" Marcus said.

"Let me talk to her, alone."

But they were both shaking their heads at me at that suggestion.

"She might hurt you," Connor said.

"It's too risky Sara," Marcus said just about on top of Connor.

I huffed, "I don't need constant protection. At least not from Fiona. She's smaller than me, and even if she is half animal, I can shift at will, which she cant do. If it comes to a fight I will win. But it wont come to that. I know it wont."

The two of them exchanged a doubtful glance. I hadn't considered that now that the two of them were equal alphas in our little pack, and on the same page, they would gang up on me like this and overrule me. Before, Marcus had been constantly off doing his own thing, and Connor had always been too distracted by my body to ever say no to something that I really wanted. Apparently that had all changed now.

"Please," I said, not too big to resort to a little naked begging to get my way.

"We can try it I suppose," Connor said, looking at Marcus.

After a moment Marcus nodded, "but not without either Connor or I standing right outside this door, just in case something happens."

I rolled my eyes, "okay fine." I stepped around my two protectors and opened the door to Fiona's room and very deliberately closed it behind me.

Fiona was still curled up on the bed, seemingly uncaring about the world around her. I really wanted this to work, I really wanted to be able to help her. Marcus' method might work in the end, but it seemed barbaric. And Connor wasn't Fiona. He was strong, and independent, and he could handle something like being locked up for a little while. I wasn't sure at all that Fiona could handle that though.

"Hi again," I said, stepping softly over to the edge of the bed again, but not sitting down.

I thought about what I could say that would get a response from her. There had to be something that she would engage with me on. Some topic that would cut through to the young girl that was somewhere inside that unmoving body.

"Have you thought at all about what I said yesterday, about how you look familiar?"

No response, not even a flicker of movement.

"Do I look familiar to you?"

Still there was nothing though. She really did look familiar. I couldn't quite place where I knew her from, but I felt more and more sure that I did know her. From somewhere. Or maybe I was just convincing myself that I did. But I took the silence to mean that I didn't look at all familiar to her.

"I'm sorry about touching your leg before," I said, thinking that maybe calling out what had happened would get some response. "I'm not mad about the way you reacted. I know that you didn't mean it." At least I hoped that she hadn't meant it.

But there was no response to that either. This wasn't going very well. I had assumed, or hoped, that when it was just the two of us she would open up a bit more. I had been thinking all this time that it was the presence of the two males that was making her retreat in to herself like she was. It was what I might have done, given my many past negative experiences with male werewolves, but maybe I was wrong about that.

I sat down in the chair beside her bed and sighed. The truth was that I had no idea what was going on inside Fiona's head.

So I just started talking, about my own life, about all the things that had happened since Marcus and Connor had found me, about my hopes for the future. I left a few things out, like how I had planned to run away and join Amelia in Alaska, because if, or when, she did snap out of the state she was in I didn't want her to know that.

But I just talked, and I caught her glancing in my direction a few times, whether because a particular topic had caught her interest or just because she thought I was crazy and wanted to be left alone I wasn't sure, but she never told me to get out so I didn't stop. I just waited for her to come to me, to say something, to engage.

"...and we had to do this whole triad thing because my mating heat is coming up, and--"

Fiona's whole head swivelled around, which was by far the biggest reaction I had gotten out of her since she had lunged at me and tried to bite my head off.

"Have you had your mating heat for the year yet?" I asked, just praying that she would give me an answer. From what little I knew, every female werewolf's mating heat came on at a slightly different time, but always in the spring.

"Yes," Fiona said, actually making eye contact with me.

"That's probably for the best," I said, smiling, "things around here are already complicated enough without another mating heat to deal with."

I hadn't thought about that, but now that I was thinking about it, I was more than a little relieved that Fiona had gone through her mating heat already. Would Marcus have had sex with her in the same uncontrollable way he had said he would have had sex with me? Would he still? What would happen next year, when we had to go through all this again? Being in a pack was complicated.

"When is your mating heat going to happen?" Fiona said, her grip on her knees loosening up a little.

I was fairly sure that was the first question she had ever asked. Even when she had first arrived, and had been relatively chatty with her one word answers, she hadn't ever ventured to ask a question. At least not to me. It was progress, and I couldn't help but feel a little vindicated by it.

"Well," I said, "probably any day now. Tomorrow or the day after I expect." I waited, hoping that she would ask another question, but she just nodded.

"Marcus and Connor and I will probably be... unavailable during that time," I said, smiling a little, "but you're safe here of course, and there's plenty of food in the fridge, and television to watch."

"I cant get pregnant," Fiona said.

She said it so matter-of-factly that I didn't know what the hell to say. "Why?" I finally managed to sputter out.

She shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe there's something wrong with me."

She didn't seem particularly upset about it though. It was what it was.

"You've had sex though?" I said, wanting to tread carefully. "I mean, with a male werewolf? During your mating heat?"

Fiona nodded, "for two years now."

Two years. I couldn't believe it. And the way she said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"How old are you Fiona?"

"Sixteen," she said. "At least, I think that's how old I am."

"And the guy you were with... was he someone you know, or knew? What happened to him?"

"He was just another wolf at the..." she trailed off, and got a sudden gutted look on her face, like she might be sick. "I cant talk about this," she said in a panicked voice. "You have to leave."

"Wait," I said, desperate not to let all the progress I had made slip away, "we can talk about something else, or--"

"Get out!" Fiona screeched, lunging across the bed at me. In an instant Connor was through the door, but I was already up from my chair and backing away before he got to me. I didn't feel particularly threatened by Fiona, but it was clear I had hit a nerve. I reminded myself that I wasn't going to fix her completely in one day. She had clearly been through a lot, and was damaged, and it was going to take a lot of time and a lot of talking to get her through that. I needed to be patient. We all did.

"It's okay," I said to Connor, holding up my hand. "I'm leaving," I said to Fiona, who had retreated back to her curled up position on the bed, "but I'll be back later. Okay?"

But there was no response, and I joined Connor out in the hallway, a little ways down from Fiona's door.

"I was making progress, she was actually talking to me," I said, leaning back against the wall and staring at the ceiling. "But I don't know what went wrong."

"What was it that set her off?" Connor said beside me.

"I mentioned something about my mating heat coming up, which got her interested, and talking. I asked her about
her
mating heat and she opened up a bit, just a bit, and started to say something about other werewolves that she had been with before... but then it was like she had said too much, like she wasn't supposed to be telling me about that, and that's when she started screaming for me to leave."

Connor put one big hand around my neck and pulled me close to him.

"Maybe she escaped from somewhere, from a bad situation, and she doesn't want to talk about it now, just wants to forget it."

Connor grunted.

"Maybe you could try talking to her," I said, running my hand up and down Connor's arm, "since you were being held somewhere too, and you got away."

"I think you should try again," Connor said. "Later."

I wasn't so sure though. That hadn't gone well. I hated to admit it, but there really were a lot of similarities between what Connor and Fiona had been through. At least, that was the impression that I got from reading between the lines of what little information Fiona had let slip free. Maybe Marcus had been right, and what had worked for Connor would work for Fiona too.

Connor turned me around and we walked down the hallway, away from Fiona's room towards our own much more happy room. But still, I couldn't put her out of my mind. There had been progress there, a glimmer of hope.

I was curled up in bed, watching one of the hundreds of movies that I hadn't ever been able to watch when I was on the run, when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," I said without even looking up, assuming that it was just Marcus being polite.

"Hi," a small little voice said.

I looked up and there was Fiona, standing in my doorway. I paused the movie and closed the laptop lid hurriedly. "Is everything okay? Do you need something?"

"Where is Connor?" Fiona said.

"Gone to get groceries," I said, wondering if that was who she had been looking for. The two of them had been together a little while after all, before he had brought her back to the mansion. From what Connor had said the two of them hadn't done much talking, but maybe she felt a bond with him.

"And Marcus?"

I waved my hand, "he has his head buried in a microscope on the other side of the mansion."

"Oh," Fiona nodded.

I was confused then, not sure what she had come knocking for. "Do you want to talk to one of the guys?" Had I really offended her that much that she would rather talk to one of them? I might curl up in that bed and cry myself if she said that. The last thing I'd ever wanted to do was drive her away.

"No, I just... thought that we could talk," Fiona said.

"Yea absolutely," I said, sitting up in the bed. Maybe I had gotten through to her the previous day more than I had thought. If she was coming to me, if she wanted to talk, maybe I was making real progress. I made some room on the bed for her to come and join me.

"Do you think we could go outside instead?"

"Outside?" I was so cozy on my warm spot underneath the covers, but I wasn't about to say no to whatever requests Fiona had. "Of course we can go outside."

I threw on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt and a pair of sandals and followed Fiona out to the backyard, where it was quiet and peaceful, if a little chilly with the last of the spring weather. I noticed then for the first time that Fiona had brought her little bag with her, the one that she hadn't let any of us get so much as a glimpse inside of. Maybe she was finally going to bare that secret to me.
That
would be real progress.

"Can we sit down?"

Sure, I said, making sure the grass was mostly dry before plunking myself down. Fiona remained standing though, fidgeting just a little, seeming unsure, or nervous, about what was coming next. I could sense that whatever she was attempting to do wasn't easy for her, but I wasn't going to rush her, I would just be calm and supportive and do my best to make her feel safe.

"And... can you close your eyes?"

I smiled, a little confused, but she looked serious. "Okay sure," I said, closing my eyes like she had requested. I heard the zipper on her bag slide open. So she was going to show me what she had been keeping secret in there all this time.

I almost opened my eyes then, as I heard Fiona take something out and start walking towards me.

"Keep your eyes closed," Fiona said, sounding a little nervous.

So I kept them closed, though I wasn't sure what the point was, when she had already taken out whatever it was she was going to show me.

And then there was the clicking sound of a lock sliding shut right below my head, and the feel of something hard and heavy settling on to the base of my neck, and I did open my eyes then, not sure now what was going on. I looked down and there around my neck was some kind of medieval looking collar. It was made from heavy metal, and was loose and wide, but had heavy metal spikes pointing inwards, so that if the collar went too far in any direction the metal spikes would poke in to my skin.

"Fiona what is this?" I said, trying to take it off. I noticed that she was holding the other end of a thick leather leash that was connected to the collar. "Is this what was used on you?" I tried to pull the collar off but the lock was firmly shut.