Running with Rogues

CHAPTER 58 - OUT OF LINE

I had a horrible feeling that the combination of Micah threatening us and Liam's wolf being wide awake was going to be a deadly one.

I nudged my link with Nia. "Hey. Um. How soon do you think you can get here?"

Her answer was slow in the coming. I felt her assessing the colour of my thoughts, trying to get a feel for what might have prompted that question, before she said, "Depends how fast I run, Eva."

I looked between the two brothers. My mouth felt dry, all of a sudden. "Fast. Please."

It would be safe for her today. Well, as safe as it could be. After the fighters had died, Micah had pulled back all his men from the border. He hadn't wanted to give the rogues any more easy, isolated targets. She heard those thoughts running through my mind, and I felt her considering it carefully.

"I'll take the car," Nia said, after what felt like a lifetime. "Ten minutes. Tops."

Ten minutes was a long time to stall. But it was manageable. I tried to convince myself of that as Micah came to a halt right in our path. Arms folded, he regarded our little group with a nasty look in his eye and a smirk growing on his lips.

"That's far enough, ladies."

We had been so close. Another minute, and we could have been in the shelter of the trees. A little too late, I dropped the baseball bat behind me and tried to look innocent. It might have been more effective had Lin's attackers not come out of the pack house behind us to watch the show.

"You have an appointment to keep, Lin," Micah told her, one eyebrow cocked. "The priestesses are waiting for you."

Her face blanched, but she didn't dare argue with him. She just shrank back, almost trying to hide behind the other girls as Micah padded closer, trying to intimidate her into obeying. I took the tiniest of steps so that I was blocking his path, because we'd come too far to turn back now.

Micah's lip curled. "If you get in my way, sweetheart, I will put you in handcuffs. These gentlemen say you assaulted them, and we don't take too kindly to that here."

Oh, okay. So if two lads started a fistfight in this pack, it was encouraged, it was just 'sorting the hierarchy' and the Alpha would happily watch. If I hit someone with a baseball bat because they were being an arse, it was 'assault.' Interesting.

I didn't step back. Because who cared if he tried to arrest me at this point? Liam wasn't going to let him. So I stayed exactly where I was, because it wasn't like Micah was physically trying to push past me anyway.

"You will go with him," he told Lin, "and you will say your vows at the sanctuary, and you will do it with a smile on your face. Do I make myself clear?"

Lin looked at the man she was supposed to mate with. She looked around herself, no doubt noticing that none of us had moved. Seven woman around her who were willing to stand up to the Alpha. And although we had not always seen eye to eye, although she was only sixteen years old, she was a brave girl.

"Yeah, that's clear enough," she said quietly. "And now let me make myself clear. I'm not going to do that."

And before Micah could so much as blink at her, she lowered herself to the ground and sat down. Her legs were crossed, her jaw was set, and her hands were shaking. But she just sat there, and she looked up at Micah, making it very clear that if he wanted her to go anywhere, he was going to have to drag her.

We had quite an audience by then. We were blocking the main doors to the pack house, and there was one crowd in the corridor behind us and another gathering on the lawn. Plenty of the flockies were pissed at Micah about the dead fighters, but none of them dared to show it, so they just stood there and stared at the lot of us, curious and quiet. Micah glanced at them all and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable with all the attention this was attracting.