Wolf Hunted (Beta Wolf Academy Book 3) Read online

  Wolf Hunted

  Beta Wolf Academy – Book III

  JJ King

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  ALSO WRITTEN BY JJ KING

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are completely fiction and are in no way meant to represent real people or places.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to others. If you would like to share this eBook with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Copyright © 2021 JJ King

  All rights reserved.

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN- 978-1-989794-21-0

  Dedication

  For Mahli, Frankie, Katie, and Summer.

  You’re the best beta/PA team a girl could ever ask for!

  Acknowledgments

  I’m glad I kept coming back to my wolf world. Lexi’s story makes me grin…and worry for my sanity.

  Chapter 1

  “Lexi,” a voice murmured as if from a million miles away. "Lexi, you have to stop. Your hands are raw."

  Gentle fingers closed around my wrist and pulled me away from the sink.

  I blinked and focused on the speaker. Chase.

  Soap dripped onto the bathroom floor, mixed pink from the blood that seeped out of my abraded skin. I stared down at the stains, remembering the vivid color of Alyssa's blood as it had spilled down the front of her dress and onto my hands.

  I pulled away from Chase, shaking my head, and thrust my hands beneath the running water again, letting the flow wash the suds away. He pulled a small towel from the rack and handed it to me but didn't leave.

  "I'm fine," I murmured, tossing the cloth into the hamper, which was rapidly filling with pink-stained fabric. I frowned and shifted my gaze to the mirror, to my pink hair, wondering if it, too, would remind me of my sister's blood.

  My reflection looked back at me with hollow eyes and swollen lips. I turned away from her hopeless stare and let Chase gather me beneath his arm.

  Lucian looked up from where he sat on the edge of my bed as we stepped back into my room and held up my cell phone. "Rose just texted. They'll be here by the end of the day."

  He turned off the phone and set it aside, his dark eyes wandering the length of my body and stopping on the scratches I'd inflicted on my hands and arms. His eyes spoke volumes, but he bit back the admonitions, probably because, out of all my guys, he understood most what grief felt like.

  I'd had enough grief in my life to last a hundred lifetimes, yet it kept on coming. And, as a bonus, my psyche was replaying the trauma night after night, on a loop, through my dreams, turning them to nightmares that left me shaking and screaming. Exhaustion was like a weight on my shoulders that I couldn't quite separate from the heaviness of loss.

  The door to my room opened and Dimitri walked in, holding three grocery bags full of food and provisions. He set them down on the end of the bed and crossed straight to me.

  "Hey," he said, tilting my chin up with the tip of his finger until I looked up into his worried eyes. "Did you get any sleep?"

  He glanced at Chase, who hugged me tighter and shook his head.

  Dimitri went back to the grocery bags. "Well, I have something that might help with that. Dr. Bennett sent a package of herbs that he said will help you rest.” Dimitri pulled a small package that he’d already opened from the bag and took out a container of loose herbs. “He sent instructions on how to brew it into a tea and asked again if you wanted him to come to Beta Wolf."

  I shook my head. I would soon be surrounded by Rose, Liam, and some of my sisters. The traumatic denial bubble I'd been living in for the last few days would burst soon enough. Maybe I'd want my shrink with me tomorrow, but today I just wanted my mates.

  “I’m good,” I said, offering my sexy Russian mate a smile that I was sure didn’t make it to my eyes.

  He glared at me. “You are not good. You’re barely eating, and you haven’t slept for more than half an hour at a time since—”

  “Since Alyssa bled out in my arms?” I asked, staring him straight in the eye. A hint of anger tinged my voice, then it faded away, seeping down through my body and into the floor.

  The flash of hope in Dimitri’s eyes faded, too. He leaned forward, pressed his lips to my forehead, then asked, “Does anyone know how to steep a cup of loose tea?”

  Chase tisked like an old grandmother. “Uncivilized heathens,” he muttered. He squeezed my shoulders then took the container from Dimitri and sorted through it. “Good, he has everything here. Where’s your kettle?”

  He looked at me expectantly.

  I stared back without answering.

  “Right.” Chase sighed. “Well, wish me luck. I’m off to find a source of boiling water in a dorm.”

  He grabbed the large travel tea mug Dr. Bennett had included, the bag of loose tea, and the infuser, and left on a mission, muttering something about buying me a kettle.

  "Guy takes his tea too seriously," Lucian remarked, with a grin.

  Dimitri scoffed. "Okay. Tell me again what kind of cheese makes or breaks a poutine."

  Lucian screwed up his face. "Right. Like you don't have any Russian foods or whatever that you get uptight about." He reached for the textbook lying next to him on the bed, then huffed and muttered, "It's just not right to put grated cheese on fries, man."

  I wandered to my window holding Dr. Bennett’s handwritten note while they ribbed each other as only brothers could do. I took a moment to watch the students, dressed in rain jackets, with umbrellas saving them from the downpour, as they raced from one building to the next.

  If only they knew the kind of darkness that had hidden in plain sight on this campus. They wouldn't feel so safe then.

  I wasn't sure I'd ever feel safe again.

  The note was short and direct, exactly like the man who'd written it.

  You're exhausted. If you don't take care of yourself, your demons will grow stronger and attack. Get some sleep and call me when you want to talk, no matter the time.

  He was right, but the lure of sleep couldn’t outweigh what awaited in the depths of unconsciousness. I wrapped my arms tighter around my chest and shivered. It was only a matter of time before I either succumbed to the fatigue dragging at me, or someone drugged me. I'd drunk Dr. Bennett's teas before, in the months after being freed. They weren't disgusting, exactly, but they weren't delicious. They did, however, work as desired.

  Might as well give in, I thought, pulling the curtain across the window to block out the already dull sky.

  Without saying a word, Lucian stood up, pulled back my bedspread, and waited for me to crawl beneath before smoothing it over my shoulders. His fingertips floated over the curve of my cheek, the barest of touches, and settled my soul. He pressed his lips softly against my temple and retreated into the reading chair with his textbook.

  My eyelids felt like
weights, impossibly heavy beneath the strain of my emotions and physical exhaustion. Still, I fought to keep them open, knowing what would happen the moment I fell asleep.

  I twisted and turned, trying to find a comfortable position, and cursed under my breath when my foot connected with the bag of groceries Dimitri hadn't had the chance to unpack yet.

  Fresh fruit tumbled to the floor, spilling everywhere, giving me the perfect excuse to climb back out of bed and deny unconsciousness a little longer.

  "Sorry," I said absently, to Dimitri, to the fruit that had gotten bruised, maybe even to myself. My fingers closed around the oranges, apples, and bananas, as if they were lifelines to the real and tangible. As if they could tie me to the waking world.

  Dimitri squatted down next to me and gathered food back into the bag. "I got this. Don't worry."

  His Russian accent thickened with worry.

  I hated worrying my mates. It made me feel like a burden, even though I told myself repeatedly that it was normal to worry about your mate. I worried about them and hoped they never felt burdened by it. So, I offered Dimitri a smile, tried not to sigh, and reached up to the top of the bed to help pull myself up.

  "Oh, I almost forgot. This was in your mailbox, too," Dimitri said, holding out a small package wrapped in unassuming brown paper, my address written in square letters.

  I turned over the package, looking for some sign of who'd sent it, but it was otherwise completely bare. The folded edges were sharp and perfect, and the tape that held them evenly cut. It reminded me of the way Danica had so precisely folded presents with shimmering decorative paper last Christmas. When asked, or rather, when teased, she'd shrugged and said, "I know it's a small thing, but it's my small thing, and I get to control it entirely."

  The girls had stopped teasing her after that, because we all understood the need to assert control over our lives after a lifetime of having nothing.

  “Doesn’t say who it’s from,” I murmured, pulling at the perfect edges of the paper. The brown, unassuming box beneath, also with no text, gave no indication of who’d sent it and what was inside. I glanced up through a swath of hair that had fallen over my face at Dimitri, who pushed to his feet holding the bag of fruit and strode across the room to resume putting the food away. I wondered if he’d slipped the parcel in the bag as a sweet gift.

  He was really good at playing pretend if he had.

  Carefully, so as not to destroy whatever trinket he’d hidden inside the little box, I lifted the lid off and parted the swaths of black tissue paper inside.

  My breath caught like a knife in my throat, slicing me to the bone. I gasped, trying to breathe around the pain in my chest, and stared down at the contents of the box.

  “Lexi?” Lucian dropped his book on the floor.

  The thud made me jump and cry out. My hand twitched, flipping the box into the air. I watched in horror as it somersaulted and landed with barely a sound on the floor of my bedroom.

  Lucian touched my arm, pulling me up from where I kneeled, and turned me to face him.

  “What just happened?” he asked.

  I tried to speak but couldn’t. It was everything I could do not to scream. With shaking hands, I pointed to the floor and squeezed my eyes shut.

  “What’s wrong?” Dimitri turned with a half-eaten apple in his hands and followed my gaze to the floor. The apple thudded onto the hardwood and rolled to a stop next to the three small shapes that had tumbled out of the overturned box. His face blanched. “Is that—?”

  Indescribable pressure squeezed my chest, making it impossible to breathe. My head grew fuzzier with each second that passed, fatigue and shock pushing me further, closer to that perilous edge, where the darkness waited to torment.

  “Do you know how hard it is to find a bleeding kettle in a dorm?” Chase asked, barging into the room, wielding the cup of tea like the Holy Grail. He stopped short as he read the room. His gaze dropped to the floor.

  Three tiny pinky fingers lay next to one another, bloodied, dismembered, and smelling of my sisters.

  Chapter 2

  “Read it again,” I said, barely able to lift my voice louder than a whisper.

  Lucian scrubbed a hand over his face and took another drink of coffee. It looked like the only thing keeping him awake. He lifted the letter, which had been folded and placed inside a plastic bag beneath the severed appendages, blinked several times, then read it, even though he’d probably memorized it by now.

  We have them. You want them. Prepare to give us whatever we want or expect to get them back in more pieces than these. - Raphael’s army

  “Raphael’s army,” Dimitri spat. “More like little boys playing at being God. Why are there no demands yet?”

  He raked his hands through his already mussed hair.

  “Because the longer they make us wait, the more agitated we get,” Chase said. He gestured at Dimitri. “You’re pacing the room like a wild animal. It’s exactly the kind of reaction they want.”

  Dimitri rounded on Chase. “What other kind of reaction is possible?”

  He threw up his hands and ground his teeth together so hard it echoed through the room.

  Beneath my skin, I was burning. The pain focused me, centered me, kept me grounded, so I didn’t mind. It was just a trauma response, after all, not real, not actually happening.

  But my trauma had happened long ago, inside the mountain.

  Raphael had injected silver beneath my skin, had watched as I’d screamed until my throat had swollen shut and refused to allow air passage. He’d taken notes, like the good mad scientist he’d been, and had responded to my life and death situation by cutting into my esophagus to insert a tube to keep me breathing.

  I hadn’t wanted to live.

  That was something I hadn’t really shared with my guys yet, that knowing, deep in the pit of your stomach, that death was the better option. Dr. Bennet had helped me understand that those thoughts hadn’t been suicidal; they’d been a natural response to overwhelming trauma, both psychological and physical. My mind had dreamed of giving up, of fading away to a place where pain didn’t exist, where Raphael and his minions were mere figments of an overactive dark imagination.

  They’d been real, though, and they still were. I knew now that there would always be monsters in this world. I’d just decided to stop wishing for death and fight back.

  I wiped the tears of frustration and helplessness from my eyes and blew out a deep breath. I'd been through the worst life could throw at a person and survived. Fuck that. I squared my shoulders. I'd done more than survive. I was thriving and had no plans of stopping.

  "Chase is right, Dimitri. This is exactly what they want. We're spiraling, panicking. If we are going to get the girls back, and, Old Ones, we will, we have to be smarter and better than those assholes." I held my hand out to Lucian for the note and tucked it in my front pocket.

  I knew it by heart. We all did.

  "So, what do we do, then?" Dimitri asked. Anger simmered off him like heat on pavement in the middle of summer.

  I shook my head. "There's not a lot that we can do until Rose arrives. She said she's bringing the Calvary." A wry smile twisted my lips. "Believe me, when a situation seems utterly helpless, she's the one to call."

  My phone dinged.

  Lucian grabbed it from the bedside table, checked the screen, then held it out to me. "Speak of the devil…"

  I winced and took the phone from his hand. The text message was short and to the point. Rose’s plane had landed, she and Liam were en route, and they would see us soon at the chalet reserved for their stay. I glanced over the address of the chalet, then turned off my phone, tucked it into my pocket, and strode to my closet. I flicked through my clothes, searching for the rain jacket I rarely wore, and pulled it on while my mates rushed to grab their coats.

  "There's an umbrella by the door," I said, walking to my desk, where we’d carefully and respectfully placed my sisters’ severed fingers back in the box the
y’d come in.

  None of the guys commented that the umbrella was pink or that my eyes looked even more hollow now than they had hours ago. Dimitri handed me the umbrella as we stepped into the downpour of rain from the safety of my dorm, and turned east towards the chalets, and the war council on the way.

  ♀♀♀

  The girls eyed Lucian, Chase, and Dimitri warily. They tried to hide their reactions to the three big, muscular, gorgeous guys, my guys, standing awkwardly in the corner of the living room of the chalet, but the unease was clear enough when you knew what to look for.

  Despite the transatlantic flight, Rose, Liam, and the literal army of guards and girls, whom I needed to start referring to as women, looked refreshed and eager to kick some ass. The wariness was instinctual, and I couldn't blame them. They didn't know my mates. They didn't even know I had mates.

  They'd know shortly, though.

  Rose pressed a kiss to Liam's mouth, then shooed him out the door along with the guards, leaving just the women, Lucian, Dimitri, and Chase in the spacious room. Rose leaned her hip against a table and tilted her head in acknowledgement, giving me the floor.

  All eyes turned to assess my mates, then shifted back to me.

  I blew out a slow deliberate breath. This was going to suck.

  They'll understand, Chase murmured through our bond. His warm southern accent was like an embrace. I leaned into it for support.