Chapter 4

*Roscoe POV*

Air floods back into my lungs as I gasp for breath. The chains twist and pinch at my skin like an octopus choking the life out of its prey until the suddenly cease. I heave, heavily bile threatening to rise as I try to calm myself and my agitated lycan. A warmth radiates at my shoulder and I look toward it, finding Gemini.

Her head seems to wobble before it falls back and her breathing grows ragged. I stand, reaching out to grab her, my eyes meeting hers as she sways and Bridger goes on about the barrier. She collapses in my arms, and I blink, staring at her, completely lost for words. 

Healers don’t do that. Not this type of healing. They don’t take all the pain and heal at the same time. It’s impossible for them to keep up at that pace. There should always be a balance. She seems to have none.  

“Alpha,” Bridger calls out, finally securing my attention as I look up at him, still shocked I have a passed out woman in my arms. “What the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know…” I mutter, looking back down at Gemini as she moans, trying to wake.  

“It doesn’t make sense. No one has left the pack once they cross the threshold. How the hell did she leave after crossing over here…?”

“I don’t know,” I mutter again, lost in her pale sunken face. She looks awful, not in the way that she is unattractive because she is far from that. But she looks so…sick. 

“And what the fuck was that with your tattoos? That hasn’t happened since…”

“I am well aware,” I grit out, scowling over at him.

“Do you think…Does it mean…could she be the…”

“No.” I growl.

I refuse to get my hopes up. It has been years of living like this, years of hope and searching. I refuse to get my hopes up now that someone is somehow able to cross into our pack borders after so many years of not a single soul other than myself being allowed to leave. And I wasn’t exactly allowed out. It was more of an eviction notice. 

“Then how else do you explain it?”

“I don’t know, Bridger.” My anger simmers just below the surface, growing annoyed by his incessant questions. 

“She is immune to the curse…” He says and I nod in agreement. 

“Yeah, it does seem that way.” I mutter, stroking the hair from her frail face. She is pretty for a sickly looking little thing. “Not immune to anything else, though.”

“What does that mean?” My beta asks pacing the border.

“She told me she is a healer. Not like the kind of healers I have ever seen, though.”

“She absorbed your pain. Healers don’t do that shit.”

“Not usually, no. They feel the pain, but take it away? Heal it completely? That’s new.”

“And why did the curse activate when she crossed over?”

“Bridger!” I growl, “I don’t know! Okay? I don’t fucking know! What more do you want from me?”

Gemini groans in my arms, her brows furrowing as if she is trying to regain consciousness. I try to ignore the sparks of the faint mate bond that will always linger, a ghost of what could have been had I not been cursed. A glimpse into who I could have had it not for my damn selfish ancestors and the crime they committed.

“Gemini…” I whisper to her, trying to get her to open her eyes. “Hey, wake up.”

“You know her name?” Bridger asks, confused. 

“Yes,” I sigh. 

“That’s a first.” He says, looking shocked as he paces along the barrier anxiously. “Uh…why…do you know her name? Or do you not know the answer to that, either?”

I glare at him, watching the small, satisfied quirk of his lip.

“Funny.” I grumble. “So happy to see you have been working on your sense of humor. Can’t wait to beat it out of you when this curse is broken.”

“I look forward to that day,” he grins. Gemini squirms in my arm, slipping from my grip as she lands in the dirt and scrambles away, her eyes scanning around as if she is just coming back to the world. She inhales sharply, holding her head and wincing before she releases a breath.

“Shit, it wasn’t a dream.” She mutters. 

“Nope.” Bridger says, and she looks at him, confused, then back at me. 

“What now?” She asks me.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…what happens to me now…” 

“You go with Bridger, just like we planned on.” I look at her like she is dense. What the hell else is she expecting? Freedom? 

“But it hurt you when I crossed the border…”

“No.” I chuckle. “That wasn’t what happened.”

“Then what happened?” She asks and I sigh, annoyed. What the fuck is this? Question the alpha day?

“It doesn’t concern you.” I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“We need to make it back to the pack if I am going to introduce her to the singles looking for a mate—”

“No!” I roar.

My lycan rising to the surface, irate. Gemini shrieks and falls back on her butt, scurrying away toward Bridger. The second her hand crosses the barrier, I feel the pain rising again. My tattoos tighten, slithering over my skin like a den of snakes choking out their prey.

My lycan retreats, whimpering in my head as I heave for air and she freezes. I can taste the concern oozing from her pores as she watches me and then looks up at Bridger. 

“What happens to me if I can’t enter your pack?” She whispers, her voice hoarse from the pain that she is stealing from my body, as she yanks her arm to her body. 

Bridger looks at me, waiting for an answer even I don’t have. I can’t let her go, not out here where the feral rule the forest. But I can’t take her back to her pack either.

No, I know Gage well enough to see how he treats his people. Bridger interviews each offering, learning about their packs and how they are all treated. The very first thing I intend to do if I ever break this curse is to liberate his members and push out the rogues. 

“Alpha?” Bridger asks, trying to coax an answer out of me.

“You will stay with me.” I mutter and her eyes grow wide, morphing from shock into fear in the span of half a second.

“What?” Bridger gapes at me, eyes wide and mouth open. 

“Stay with…you…?” She repeats after me like the words themselves taste like acid. 

“Yes.” I scoff, resentful of her tone.

“Why?” she asks. “you rejected me, and crossing your pack border causes you pain. Why not let me go? I am nothing to you anymore.” 

She seems to grow in confidence, and I ignore the continual gaping from my Beta, who seems stunned into silence for once. But at least he’s stopped asking stupid questions. It is obvious that she wants out, out of her pack, my pack and my presence, but only one of those happened and the other wants mean nothing to me. 

“You fear me. I see it in your eyes. That is why you want your freedom so badly. You think I’m a monster?” I ask, rising to my full height as I stalk her down. “The feral animals that roam these woods are blood thirsty. They make me look like Prince fucking charming.”

She frowns, looking at me, and I give her a fake bow, pretending to be that Prince Charming for her. 

“Lycan King Roscoe, at your service, milady” I grin sinisterly. She is well aware I am making fun of her as she sighs heavily.

“I’d much rather chance it with the feral animals,” she grumbles, and I watch her closely looking for the lie, not finding it. My lycan cowers at the thought of her preferring anyone else to us. 

“Careful, Gem, keep begging for the beast and I might just turn into one to appease you.”

“Please don’t,” she whispers, fear in her eyes, and I realize just how much I hate it. 

“So you are…keeping this one…?” Bridger asks. “For yourself…?”

“I’m not an object,” she says angrily, dusting herself off.

“Or just until you figure out what to do with her,” he finishes his sentence, ignoring her. 

Bridger observes me, his eyes filled with burning questions I know are eating him up inside, but he doesn’t ask. It seems like he is learning fast. After a moment, he blows out a puff of air and whistles low. 

“So for the first time ever, I go back empty-handed.” He says.

I give him a nod. I don’t envy him, having to head back to the group of men waiting to sniff around and see if she is their mate or one worth taking as a chosen mate. “Do I tell them she is yours, that the alpha has finally claimed one?”

“I’m not his.” She rushes out, sliding a glance in my direction.

“No,” I shake my head. “Tell them the rogues got her.”

“Interesting.” Bridger mutters, his eyes narrowing as they dance between Gemini and I.

“What are you going to do with me?” She asks again, and I shrug. 

“I guess that just depends.” I shrug. 

“On what?”

“On you. Or how hungry I get.” I give her a tight smile and she pales slightly. I have no idea what the hell I am supposed to do with her or where I’ll put her in my remodeled tiny loft home. But I guess for now I have a pet.