AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Stop it! I gave myself a mental shake. Troy could be coming back at any moment! This guy is probably dangerous, but if it’s either staying here or asking him to help me, I think my choice is obvious.
The challenge ceremony would begin just before the moon reached the center of the sky. The idea was that starting it at that moment would allow the new Alpha to fight his way into the new day and claim his position of power. I knew Troy had left to prepare for the ceremony, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t come back.
The last thing I ought to be doing was thinking about a stranger as anything other than a jumping-off point. Escape was all that mattered.
“Listen, that doesn’t matter now,” I said. “We need to get out of here.”
His lips slowly covered his teeth, and one of his eyebrows rose as if to say, we?
Panic began to prickle up and down my spine. There was a possibility that this guy would abandon me here. The thought reawakened the hopelessness I had felt when I was alone in the room with Troy.
“Please,” I whispered. “I need your help. At least—at least let me out of these restraints. I-I’m sure I can handle things on my own from there.”
But I wasn’t sure of that at all. My legs had started to go numb before Night showed up, and now I could hardly feel them. My arms weren’t much better; I could move them and clench my hands, but even my upper body had started to lose feeling from lack of blood flow. However, Night didn’t need to know that right now. I could figure it out once I wasn’t in restraints any longer.
Night’s gaze shifted to the door. No, no, no, no!
“Please,” I said again, more forcefully. Tears stung in my eyes, but I was beyond caring about the warmth slipping down my cheeks and dripping from my chin. “You—you can’t leave me here like this. I don’t want to be here when Troy gets back because if I am, he’ll stop at nothing to kill me. He’ll even go through you.”
Again, Night raised an eyebrow. Skepticism. I realized then that the reason Night was here was most likely to take advantage of the challenge ceremony. Whether he planned to challenge Troy or steal something from him while he was away was unclear, but I knew he thought he could take Troy down. With those muscles and that height, well, maybe he could. But I doubted Troy would fight fairly.
“Alright, alright, don’t cry,” Night said. “I’ll get you out.”
Relief crashed over me, a balm to the itch of anxiety that coursed through my body. Night stepped close to me and reached for the restraints. Our chests were almost touching, and I could feel the heat of his body radiating from him.
“I’m Night, by the way,” he said. “Night Shepherd.”
I nodded. “I figured as much.”
His gaze flashed to mine briefly before returning to the restraints. “How did you figure out who I was?”
“We, um…we learned about you in school, of course.”
“Right, of course—a human learning about me—in a school taught by wolves.” His large hands worked at the knot around my wrist. “Just hold still while I get you out.”
I was surprised when a chuckle escaped my lips and was even more surprised when I joked, “Not like I’m going anywhere right now.”
Night’s lip twitched. It wasn’t quite a smirk, but it was very close. I knew that being tied up for so long must have done something to my head because I felt some amount of pride that I’d made the Alpha of the Wargs almost smirk.
He tried to loosen the knots around my wrists but finding he couldn’t, claws extended from his nails in a partial shift. I had seen wolves shift plenty of times before, but they always glared at me when they noticed me nearby. When I asked Mom about it, she said that it was because wolves always got paranoid about shifting around a human, given the way humans tended to treat them.
But Night didn’t hesitate to shift in front of me. Later, I’d wonder if it was because the situation didn’t call for that sort of paranoia or if he genuinely didn’t care.
He sliced through each of the ropes, and I dropped to the ground. I gasped at the pain that shot through my body from my knees and shoulder. I tried to push myself up to my feet, but my legs buckled. My worst fears were realized; after hours of being suspended, I could no longer support my own weight.
Night’s hand shifted back into a human one as he reached out to me. “Easy, easy.”
At his touch, another spark ignited within me. I jerked out of his grasp and stumbled back against the wall, losing my balance and sliding to the floor.
He released a tight, frustrated breath. “Just stop moving for a minute, and you’ll—” Then he stopped speaking, and his body went stiff.
I wasn’t sure why until I heard the creaking hinges of the front door. My entire body shuddered, goosebumps itching across my skin. Oh no, oh no, he’s back! My thoughts crashed into each other, no longer words, just images of Troy bursting into the room and catching Night and me—free but weakened—together.
I tried again to get to my feet. I managed to stand but had to press my hand to the wall to support myself. There was no way I could run in this state. I was as good as dead, and I knew it.
Night, his eyes glowing an intense green, glanced from me to the door and back again. He knew just as well as I did that Troy had to be on his way up here—with his enhanced senses, he probably knew exactly where Troy was in relation to us—but he didn’t seem afraid or even nervous. His widened pupils, twitching fingers, and slightly elevated breathing all indicated to me that he was practically salivating at the prospect of Troy finding us.
That was when the realization hit me. He's here to kill Troy, not to steal anything from him!
