The Alpha’s Contract
Chapter 0123

Neah

My heart is pumping. The adrenaline that's coursing through my body had crept up like a slow burning fire. Igniting something deep within me. I felt powerful and all it took was Jess.

When I had found Jess, she was already trying to get inside a closet. Her words blur into one another as my own panic seeped in. Tears flooded her face quicker than she could wipe them away. I did what Dane asked me to do, to keep her here. Yet I couldn't help but peek over the window ledge. I had to see what was happening.

The clapping was weird. The Lycans slamming their claws together while staring straight at the Wolves.

'This is all kinds of fucked up.' Nyx mutters

'What are they doing?'

She shrugs her shoulders at me.

I wanted to link Dane. Desperate for him to tell me what was happening but all I could hear was Jess, crying in the closet.

Pulling the closet open, I offer a weak smile. "They are not here for you. They are here for me."

Her arms are holding her legs to her chest, just like the way I did. It was funny, why did we try to make ourselves as small as possible in a time of crisis?

"They....the woman, the one that brought me here, Cassandra, wants me to bring you to them."

She refuses to look at me.

"Is that why you are here? Is that why you tried hiding?" I try to keep the anger out my voice

Jess shakes her head and then taps her temple. "Here, I hear her. It was like a whisper at first and now....." Her soft blue eyes lock with mine. "Now it's a demand." "A demand?"

Her head bobs up and down, "She keeps saying. I am your maker, you will obey me!"

Control, just what Cassandra has always loved and wanted.

"You are going to try and hand me over?" I ask quietly, realising why they had chosen to change a child.

"...I don't want to." She whispers

I sigh, "You can't fight an order. It's ingrained in us to obey those above us."

Jess lets go of her legs. "You make me feel like I can fight it. Like being here with you, I feel a little safer. If you told me not to, I would have to follow you, right? Because you are the Alpha. Because you are my Alpha? Because you are more powerful than she is?" "Dane's...."

"No, you are the Lycans Alpha. If I understand it right, they have to respond to you. that's what Eric told me." She looks towards the window, but closes her eyes. "Her demands are getting louder. I actually feel pain in my chest. That's bad, right?"

"It's because you are not acting on her orders."

"Can you make it stop?"

'Would it work? Dane talked about linking them all, but would this work?'

'There is only one way to find out.' Nyx mutters

"I order you not to take me to Cassandra."

Jess throws her arms around me. "Thank you."

'I think Jess might be on to something.' Nyx muses. 'Let's go take down the whole pack.'

I smile at Jess, "I think you might be right, Jess. And now, I need your help."

My bare feet hit the grass. Jess stands a little behind me as though she is walking me out. She was trying so hard to hold it together, just like I was. It wouldn't have to be for long, just long enough to make Cassandra believe that she was getting what she wanted. I was desperate to look at Dane, but I knew I would break the moment we locked eyes. I had asked Nyx to keep him out of my head, just temporarily while I try to put an end to all this shit.

Two words still got through. "Don't shift." Shifting was not the plan.

Cheers erupt from the Lycans, if you could call it that. It was more like roars and howls of satisfaction. They didn't even have me in their grasp and yet they were celebrating.

As they drop down to silence. Cassandra yells, "You will bring her to me!"

Jess stares through the rows of Wolves. Like me, she was barely tall enough to see. Slowly she reaches a hand out to me, locking it with mine. "You may be my maker, but you are not my Alpha." I feel my heart race. And still, I couldn't believe she was doing this.

"You are a stupid little girl. You know nothing of our world."

"I know enough to know who is wrong!" Jess squeezes my hand as she stares out in front of her. Her eyes are dark in the same way as Dane said mine become. She was close to shifting. "Bring her to me!" She yells and stomps her foot.