Filed To Story: Destined Bond with My Forbidden Alpha Novel (Alpha Alexander & Selene)
She sobbed uncontrollably.
“I worked so hard to keep myself focused! I should have seen the attack, I should have felt the weakness in the branch!” she cried out, her heart beating painfully in her chest. “But my eyes… they just kept falling back to him…. So I didn’t see the attack. By the time I realized… I couldn’t help him… instead, I just made it worse for him.”
Selene felt the angry tide in her heart pulling away, the light that shone blinding bright began to fade. She let go of Penelope, who slumped down to the ground and hugged her knees.
“Help who?” Selene asked.
Penelope sniffled and pressed her forehead to her knees as the pain in her chest only grew heavier.
“Mateas,” she whispered.
Selene looked down at the young girl and suddenly understood her mistake. She took a deep breath and pushed it out slowly before sitting down beside her.
“Hey…” Selene whispered.
Penelope glanced at her but didn’t lift her head.
“I’m sorry,” Selene smiled. “I didn’t mean to scare you…. I just… misunderstood.”
Penelope nodded and turned away.
“What did you mean?” Selene asked. “When you said, ‘this wasn’t supposed to happen’? What wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Penelope lifted her head, resting her chin on her knees. She sniffled and then took a deep breath.
“Caring about people,” she replied quietly. “I wasn’t supposed to develop feelings for anyone. Just do my job and prove myself. That’s it. No useless attachments.”
She sighed.
“Sounds lonely,” Selene smiled, nudging Penelope.
“But safe.”
“What do you mean?” Selene asked.
Penelope looked away.
“I’m fully aware of all that my brother did,” she said. “To you, to your family…. To those other packs.”
Selene looked down, unsure what she could say in this moment.
“He was a monster, he did horrible, terrible things. And in the end, he didn’t even feel any remorse about it. All because he became obsessed with his attachment to one person,” Penelope said.
“What does that have to do with you, Penny?” Selene asked.
“He wasn’t always like that, Selene.”
“I know,” Selene replied. “There’s a reason it was so hard for me to realize that something inside of him had changed.”
“It wasn’t just you he fooled,” Penelope replied.
Selene looked at Penelope.
“He tricked us all,” she sighed. “He made us all believe we were either wrong or crazy for doubting him. So, every glimpse of the monster became a doubt in our own minds.”
Selene swallowed and nodded. She knew others felt betrayed by Jackson, but she hadn’t realized they would also carry the guilt of not recognizing the danger he had become.
She shook her head, trying to push back the memories of him that made their way forward.
“What does this have to do with you not growing attached to people?” Selene asked.
“Because if I don’t grow attached, if I don’t care about anyone beyond being packmates, I won’t hurt them.”
Selene furrowed her brow and looked carefully at Penelope.
“Do you think you will end up like Jackson?” Selene asked.
Penelope hid her eyes, but she nodded.
“Penny…” Selene sighed in disbelief. “You are nothing like him….”
“Yea, but we both already admitted he wasn’t always a monster!” Penelope replied with a soft sob.
“That’s true,” Selene replied. “But, Pen, he didn’t become a monster because he loved me…there was something dark inside of him. Something twisted and broken. The mate bond may have been the thing that made him understand it, but it was his choice to embrace that darkness and hurt the people that cared about him.”
Selene reached her hand out to Penelope’s chin and pulled her gently to look back at her.
“That’s not you,” she smiled. “Even by trying not to care in order to protect others, you prove that.”
“I made it worse,” Penelope sighed. “I tried not to care about them, but now they are all missing, all alone, and I didn’t do anything to help them. I just made it worse.”
Selene put her arm around Penelope’s shoulder and pulled her close.
“I’m sure they will be fine,” Selene said quietly.
There was a sound that drew her attention to the hallway. Shouting and running feet. She saw three people running by toward the exit down the hall.
“Bring a gurney! Quick!”
“Call emergency services! We’ll need them ready!”
Penelope sat up, and Selene got to her feet, hurrying to the door.
She looked down the hall, two nurses were waiting at the door for the third who wheeled a gurney toward them. A fourth was running by, but Selene grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“There’s been an emergency!” he said, pulling away, he added. “All we know is that there are severe injuries, and at least one dead body!”
Had there been an attack? Were there more injured to come? No, an attack would have set off the alarms, the cold warriors would have been called to action. This was something else.
She looked back at Penelope.
Could it be the scouts? Had they returned?
Selene felt the weight in her chest growing and spreading into her stomach. The air around her grew thin and her heart thumped loudly in her ears.
“A dead body…” she whispered.
“Excuse me!” Selene said pushing past the two of the nurses in the triage area.
There was an instant rush of relief that fell over her as she laid her eyes on Saul sitting on one of the gurneys. He was bloodied and his arm was immobilized, but otherwise, he seemed to be in good health.
“Saul!” she called out with joy and rushed forward into the room.
Penelope followed after her, she smiled when she saw him. But just before she entered the room, a shout from one of the doctors called her attention.
“We need to get him to the operating room right now!”
Penelope looked back at the doctor standing over another gurney. She gasped as she recognized the man lying unconscious on the bed. It was Mateas.
She looked back at Selene who was already talking to Saul, she licked her lips and then quickly followed the doctors heading toward the operating room.
“I’m so glad to see you!” Selene smiled, reaching out and touching his shoulder gently. “When Penelope got back, we weren’t sure what had happened to the rest of you.”
“Penelope made it back?” Saul asked with an excitement in his voice. “That is good to hear.”
“She did, she got back a few hours ago,” Selene nodded. “She was surprised the rest of you hadn’t arrived before her.”
Saul nodded.
“It took a long time,” he said. “We needed to stop and rest. It was unavoidable.”
Selene nodded, and then licked her lips.
She had seen Penelope chase after the other gurney, and though she had only met him a few times, Selene recognized Mateas as the man that had been severely injured and in need of surgery.
Before she had made her way into this room, her eyes had scanned the halls and triage, finding no one else but Saul and Mateas.
“What happened, Saul?” she asked quietly. “Where is my father?”
Saul looked away; he took a deep breath.
“Wyatt refused the order,” he began. “He could not accept that the standard protocol was the best option for the team. He refused to leave Penelope and Mateas behind.”
Selene sat down on the chair beside the gurney.
“And I refused to leave him.”
Saul leaned back against the wall before he continued.
“We returned to the site of the attack just in time to see Penelope make her escape. The sky was full of arrows launched en masse from high up in the hills. Mateas was injured, but he managed to get himself behind the tree. It was barely large enough to provide him cover, but it was enough.”
Saul paused and swallowed.
“Wyatt made his way to him, it was clear the boy was in pain, and we weren’t sure of how serious his injuries were. But Wyatt was able to reach him, he carried him on his shoulder and together we got out of there.
“We traveled for several miles without stopping, just trying to put distance between us and the men that had attacked. But the injuries to Mateas’s back were severe and it made travel difficult. We had to stop and treat him in order to stave off the potential infection. Cleaning the wound as best we could while still trying to keep ourselves hidden from our attackers.”
“How long did they follow you?” Selene asked.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?