The Pack: Rule Number 1 - No Mates

Chapter Two Hundred Thirty–Two

ROSE

I’ve been treading water for what feels like days. Swimming in a vast black ocean under a moonless sky. Every so often a light flashes from somewhere beyond the waves, revealing what looks to be a rocky shore just ahead. The problem is, every time I head in the direction of the jetty the shadowed sky swallows up everything but the sea and whim the light flashes again, I somehow keep finding myself headed i the wrong direction. It’s like I’ve been swimming in circles. My limbs are so tired, my body is on the verge of giving out. My movements are sluggish and heavy leaving me barely able to do much more than drift in any one direction. The weirdest part is, the water isn’t cold here. As dark as it is in this place, you’d think the water would be freezing, but… it’s not. In fact, it’s warm enough to be bathwater

Soothing

hwater… the kind that puts you to sleep. Maybe if I just close my eyes for a while and flost until the next light fich finally make it to shore. Yeah… that’s it, that’s what I need. A little shut eye should do the trick.

1 feel myself sinking as I close my eyes, but I can’t bring myself to worry about it. My body is just too tired to hang on anymore. I’m going to drown in this warm black ocean and all I can think is, finally con stop swimming.

The moment I go under he is there and I am suddenly lying on the rocks as naked as the day I was born.

“Hello,” I whisper, sitting up and covering my body as best I can with my hands.

He doesn’t speak, only watches me with those vibrant blue eyes of his Eyes like identical sapphires that sparkle and shimmer depending on where he’s looking. His neatly trimmed beard makes it hard for me to read his face and I can’t tell if he’s happy to see that I’m awake

or not.

“Where are my clothes?” I ask him, gazing down at my naked form and feeling suddenly self conscious.

Still, he doesn’t answer me and I have to wonder if I angered him somehow. Maybe he’s tired of watching over me and eager to leave.

I remember asking him not to leave me, but that was ages ago. When we were somewhere else. But where were we? Not in the ocean. Certainly not on this beach.

Gazing around, I forget for a moment that I’m naked and stand up to survey the landscape.

Suddenly a forest surrounds me and I’m alone again. I’m wearing my brother’s uniform and I have a rifle in my arms. Branches snap somewhere in the woods and I’m instantly alert, listening for any sound of the stranger. The man with the sapphire eyes. Why did he disappear? I need to know where he is before I can get into position. I don’t want to make a mistake and accidentally shoot the wrong creature. I only want the lion. The one that tried to kill me. The sneaky, treacherous beast that crept up on me and tore into my throat.

For some reason, the woods are too dark here for me to see much of anything. I can’t distinguish much beyond the first line of trees. It like being in that vast black ocean again, but this time the trees are the barrier keeping me caged in.

“You can’t hunt here,” the stranger says from behind me, the deep timbre of his voice sending shockwaves of pleasure to my core.

I gaze down at my rifle and it’s gone. So is my brother’s uniform. Now, I’m wearing a thin white gown A hospital gown, maybe.

When I look up again, he’s there. Right in front of me. So close that I’m forced to take a step back just to see into his eyes.

“What is–your–name?” I ask him, but he ignores me, which makes me sad. He must be angry with me.

For a moment I have the absurd thought that I’m not what he wanted. That he’d prefer it if I had been someone else. Anyone else.

“You don’t have to keep me,”

~ 1 tell him. “1 can find my way home.”

a home, Rose,” he chuckles almost cruelly. “Everything will change for you

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Two Hundred

night. Something we can’t come back from. But

built from all things muscle and power. There doesn’t look to be an ounce of fat on him at all. Nope. Every line

That’s right! We stole the

not have gone well.

they get caught?

I?” I ask the stranger. “Am

says. “Are you ready to wake up now? Do you think

I ask

going to leave me?” |

me and smiles. “Only if you kill

never hurt you. You saved me. You’re my hero. My

want to

losing his smile as his eyes rove aver my body in a slow appraisal. “Would you give

you?”

hospital gown is suddenly stripped away and I can feel hands on my body. Once again I’m left naked and although I can’t see the hands

arms to show me his hands. “It’s time to wake up now, Rose. Time to face the

ready?”

I don’t know

I’ve been waiting on

lighten and I start to spin in a slow circle, studying the landscape. But the trees that once surrounded me are gone, leaving nothing but an open sky in their wake. It’s like I’m back in that ocean again, with nothing but a vast open void to look upon. Voices

is here,” the stranger

But I don’t have any friends.

“Delilah”

She is not my

Dehlah hates me.

as the one

I would have known she was you had here, I would have certainly requested

the stranger asks.

idea,

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Hundred

of gasps

Pul I say that

awake, someone exclaims. “Take cover.” The voice belongs to an unfamiliar min with an obvious attitude.

feel warm fingers trace the

at the same time electrifying. Lighting spark after spark