Chapter 3: The Alpha's Prisoner

Desiree looked to the barren room that had been her home for five years. After her private audience with Declan in the carriage, he’d ordered her to be held in her room until he was able to decide what to do about the insurmountable debt that her father had accumulated. Her quilting table and effects had been confiscated along with her bed and mattress. She’d been allowed to keep her chair along with one of her quilts, a blanket, and a pallet of straw.

As she fell asleep the first day and night of her confinement with no food, colder than she’d been in a very long time, she couldn’t help feeling as if this punishment were only the beginning. She tried to imagine the number of options that the new alpha had in regard to her fate. Most certainly he would not stand for allowing her to continue to merely work in the cook house.

She could face hard labor in the field or be expected to voyage out to sea. She could even be sold to another pack altogether in order to settle the debt. Her mouth went dry as her hand went to her throat. If the new alpha were so inclined, he could have her killed.

She awoke the following morning to Missy fussing at the guards beyond her door.

“I came straight from the kitchen to bring my friend a hot meal, and if it gets cold because you’re too bullheaded to let me pass, I promise it will be an extremely long time before you get any favors from me, Lucas.”

“Come on Missy, I just got this promotion. I ain’t trying to get back to the scut crew.”

“Ten minutes?” Missy asked softly. “She ain’t done nothing wrong. We can give the kid a hot meal can’t we?”

Desiree hadn’t realized she was holding her breath in anticipation of Lucas’ answer until she let it out in a whoosh when the key scissored into the lock. The click of the latch releasing brought Desiree to her feet as tears sprang to her eyes. Missy, a tall and busty brunette with large blue eyes looked around the barren digs with sympathy.

“I don’t know what’s got into our new alpha,” the woman stated before she set the tray on Desiree’s stool and then brought the younger woman into her caring embrace. “I’m not sure even he knows what he’s doing. He’s hurting and well… You be strong, my girl. He will come to the right judgment. I put in a word and so did Benny. A few of the ones you quilted for have as well.”

“Really?” Desiree was surprised and heartened to hear that she had advocates within the pack. She came to live in the Blackstone village at sixteen, her father lending her labor to their pack as collateral for Alpha Waylon’s loan.

“Of course. Station or no station, debt or no debt, my dear you’re one of us.”

Desiree began to cry and hugged the woman again. She didn’t realize that is how the village felt.

“The alpha will do the right thing,” Missy assured again. “He’s still getting used to the seat, and grieving his father and brothers. He—"

“Alright! Ten minutes. Food’s getting cold,” Lucas gruffed, interrupting them from the door.

Missy shot him a cold stare but backed out of the room. “I’ll be back with lunch,” she promised.

After the door closed again and the definitive echo of the door locking into place died down, Desiree took up the tray and had a seat. She rested the tray on the ground beside her before lifting the bowl of porridge into her lap, allowing the heat of the bowl to soak into her fingertips and her palms. The chill from a night on the ground began to lift.

Feeling the hunger of having not eaten for more than a day, she brought the first hot and creamy smooth spoonful to her mouth and devoured it. She continued one spoonful after the other until the entire contents of the bowl settled cozily into the base of her belly. She took a long breath in and let it out as the warmth from the food spread throughout her body. She lifted a mug of plain black coffee from the tray as she set the empty bowl aside.

Standing with the coffee, she paced to the window. Taking a sip of coffee she looked through the window that seemed smaller than before, peering through the closed pane over the fields towards the forest, wishing that she could just be on the other side of it. She wouldn’t wait for a judgment from this new alpha. She’d just shift and run.

But where to? Where would she be able to find refuge?

She hadn’t been off Blackstone territory since arriving, and prior to that had only known the Sweetkane lands. Could she make it back to her birthplace? Would she find shelter? Would she be welcomed back by the father that left her twisting in the wind under the weight of his insurmountable debt?

If not, then what else could she do?

She thought about her prospects as a rogue on the run from Declan Blackstone. She stood at the window, sipping her coffee until the last drop, losing herself to the fantasy of gaining enough control over her fate to escape.

When the cup was empty she returned it to the tray and placed the tray by the door. She wished more than anything that they would have at least left her a few scraps of material and threads to stitch together as she awaited her judgment.

With nothing else to do, she cocooned herself in the thin blanket and brought the quilt around herself as she rested on the floor palette. As the waves of sleep took her away she found herself in a wide open space, cast under the warmth of sunlight. She knew it was a dream but still allowed herself the freedom of shifting and running beneath the comforting rays of the sun. When she found her energy waning she lay on the ground allowing the sunlight to bronze the tips of her tan fur waiting for her dream shifter to come to her.

“You are getting closer to me.”

His disembodied voice did not startle her, even as it echoed all around her.

He materialized in front of her, a hazy mass of muscles and sparkling emerald eyes. Tears filled her eyes and his hazy features became even more obscured.

“I’m in trouble,” she told him.

“I know.”

“I thought I could get free but…”

“It’s going to be okay.”

She took in the gentle strokes of comfort that his voice offered as he enveloped her in his arms.

She clung to him as if he were a life raft on the brutal waves of an angry sea.

“I fear I will never be free of my father’s debt. My plan to come to you, it won’t work.” She began to cry in her dream as her sobs in real life brought her back to the real world. Even as she awakened to a cadre of soldiers clamping her wrists in heavy chains, her dream shifter’s voice reached out to answer her.

‘Then I will bring you to me.’