Torn Between Enemy Alphas

Chapter 24- Telling the Whole Story

When Alice's hands brushed against the mesh and nylon of the bag that she had hidden inside the crevice she almost didn't dare believe that it was real. And then she whispered a prayer to the Moon Goddess that it had remained undisturbed by animals and vermin through the long months and years, as she managed to hook her arm through the strap and pull it out, just as she had so many times before. She was surprised that it wasn't nearly as dusty as she had expected, but she still held it away from her body and gave it a good hard shake, half listening for spiders or even something larger to come scampering out.

None of that happened though. Fin had been holding the light on her all this time and he made a noise that sounded a bit like muffled laughter, followed by a groan.

"Fuck that hurts." She heard him mutter and knew that if he was admitting that he had to be in real pain.

"I want to get you laying down before I start going through this to see what supplies have lasted. I have two flashlights in here and a couple packs of batteries that haven't been used. They should still be good. I hope." Alice couldn't see his face since he was standing behind the light and suddenly she really wished that she could. She wanted to see his reactions to what she was telling him.

"Lead the way then, Princess. You're the one who knows where we should set up camp in this place." He held out the phone and she took it from his hand with a nod.

Ten minutes later she had him settled. She had discovered that her sleeping bag was actually intact, and he was laying on top of it, watching as she unzipped every compartment, checking to see what they had and what still worked. As soon as she got new batteries into the flashlights, which were the first things she went looking for once she got Fin positioned so that he could rest, she turned off her phone again, slipping it back into her pocket.

"So." Fin said, and when she looked over at him, she saw that the corners of his mouth had turned up and that he was smiling at her. "Earlier when you told me that you'd run away, I didn't picture this. A teenage girl with a backpack and apparently some killer survival skills and a plan. I guess I pictured you trying to get to a bus stop somewhere to go to a city. But that wasn't what happened, was it? Did they teach everyone in your pack survival skills like this? Because in Obsidian Moon these are definitely skills a subset of our people have, but it isn't something I would expect most of our teenage girls to be able to do. Or to even want to do really."

"No, it wasn't something we learned automatically, but both of my parents were warriors. My mother was one of three female warriors at that time. Just like now, female warriors weren't extremely common, but they weren't banned either like they were fifty years ago. And all of our warriors have to go through survival training, as I'm sure yours do too."

"Of course, from a young age, I wanted to be just like my mom. And so once a month we would go on these family camping trips from the time I could walk, basically. And once I was old enough they started teaching me survival skills. And how to defend myself. All that ended though after the attack. But I'd learned enough in the way of surviving in the wild to get by."

"I remember hearing about the attack." Fin volunteered the information when she fell silent. "We were near enough that we were surprised that we weren't bothered. I mean my father was certain that with a huge group of rogues terrorizing the area we would at least feel a bit of heat from that, but nothing happened to us. He thought we were fortunate. My father was still Alpha then, but I was already a warrior."

"Our pack offered help but Alpha Cadman turned us away."

"He-" Alice dropped what she was holding in her hands without even noticing what it was. She shook her head as a shiver passed through her body. What she really wanted to do was curl up beside her mate with her head on his chest and let his strong arms fold around her. But she could just imagine her mother's face if she suggested doing that instead of what she knew she should actually do in the situation that they found themselves in. If she left things off until later she might live to regret them. Or they might not live at all.