Chapter 166

I swallowed hard, and reminded myself to tread carefully to get answers as to not draw unwanted attention to myself. My survival depended on my smarts and discretion.

It didn’t take long for the pack of shifters to run across the grasslands, bypass some rolling hills, and enter a thick forest. We ran for hours, and the sun finally set.

We struck up a conversation now and then, and I learned more about the world and gained some insight into current events without showing my ignorance. Of course, I often goaded Going-gray into heated debates against Shade, so I could glean intel without raising suspicions. The duo loved to have an ardent audience who sometimes presented as cheerleaders and sometimes as merciless critics.

Things were starting to look up.

I raised my face toward the canopy, feeling the last golden ray of sun sifting through the leaves and glimmering across my skin.

I hoped I’d be safe with the shifters for a while.

Suddenly, Sideburns appeared beside us in his warrior form. He towered over Shade and Going-gray by half a head and looked intimidating. I wondered what his royal parents had fed him when he was a child.

“I asked you to run, not to chat and flirt, Shade!” he growled at his brother. He’d been a jerk to Shade just because the younger prince had been nice to me.

While he didn’t want to get close to me, he couldn’t stand watching Shade and me hit it off.

Shade had shifted me to his back, a more comfortable position for both of us. I heaved myself up, my arms around his neck, my legs wrapped around his waist, to glare at Sideburns on Shade’s behalf.

It was so potent that Sideburns snapped his harsh gaze toward me. His eyes glowed silver again. My instincts told me to lower my head and drop

 my gaze while trembling, but I held his alpha stare instead. He might be an Alpha Heir, but he wasn’t my alpha. Plus, regarding my shifter status, the jury was still out. I could be something else.

And what was he going to do? Beat me up because I glared instead of cowered? Hitting a defenseless girl would only make him look bad.

Only weak leaders preyed on the weak and small. I wasn’t weak, I knew that, but I was much smaller than him. And in the eyes of his pack, I was both.

An odd expression lit his gray eyes. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was surprised and proud that I could hold my own. However, he wouldn’t acknowledge how he really felt about me, just like he wouldn’t acknowledge what I was to him. So the Alpha Heir did what he was best at —he scowled at me.

Going-gray had long since dropped his gaze and displayed his submission, but not before he’d caught me getting into a glaring match with the Alpha Heir. A shocked expression parked itself across his face.