Wolf and Punishment (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 1) (24 page)

Mag and Kang we’re only one year apart, and Mag had always been the more mature of the two, the one with the plan to escape Freedom Town. But at that moment, he fully felt like Kang’s little brother. And despite his original hedging, he was glad his older brother had come.

However, that relief was short-lived. By the time he pulled into the kingdom house driveway, he was a nervous wreck. Shaking on the inside, while bracing himself so hard on the outside, he felt like a robot about to short circuit as he got out of the car and headed up the steps to the front door of the kingdom house…

Mag stopped short, all thoughts of Janelle suddenly getting the pause treatment as he sniffed the air hard.

“What’s got your nose?” his brother asked, coming up to stand beside him.

“Rafe. I smell Rafe… and I guess Alisha. Her scent isn’t that familiar to me, so—” He stopped, realizing why the scent felt so weird on his nose. “No, it’s just her and his cub? I don’t know, she just got mated a few days ago, but her pregnancy smell’s really strong, almost overwhelms her mating scent.”

He went into the house, sniffing all the way. Yes, yes, Alisha Ataneq had definitely been here and had come inside, too, even though her scent had faded since.

“Who’s Alisha?” his brother asked, coming in after him.

“Janelle’s sister, and Rafe’s new mate. She ran away from him and I didn’t think she’d dare to come here, but it smells like I guessed wrong—Mrs. Coates!”

The housekeeper had been slinking around with her head down ever since Janelle caught him in the guest house with Sofia, making it easy to guess who’d let her know Sofia was out there, despite his telling her not to. However, she came quickly when Mag yelled for her.

“Where’s Janelle?” he asked as soon as she entered the front room.

Mrs. Coates shook his head. “I’m not sure. A girl came here, her sister, I think, but she was… off. Dirty clothes, crazy hair. She didn’t look at all like the princess in that picture of Janelle and her family on the mantel.”

“Yeah, it was probably Alisha. She’s been missing for three days. Do you know where they went?”

“I’m not sure. They talked for a little in Janelle’s room, then they left. I thought maybe they were going into town. But when I looked out the kitchen window. I saw them headed west toward the mountain.”

Mag’s forehead creased. “Why would they head to the mountain? The full moon’s not till later in the month…”

Then he stopped, realizing what else was on the mountain. “Fuck, they’re headed for the Wyoming portal.”

“What’s the Wyoming portal?” Kang asked.

LESS THAN AN HOUR after Alisha’s arrival, Janelle and her sister were walking up the trail that led to the Wyoming portal. It didn’t take them long to get there. They both had long legs, and despite three days of travel and less than peaceful nights in a series of cash-only motels, Alisha seemed extra motivated to get to the portal as fast as possible. The fact that Janelle was in six-inch heeled boots didn’t help matters, though, and she found herself almost having to run to keep up with her equally tall sister.

However, they both slowed down when they came to the time gate. Technically, the portal couldn’t be seen or smelled, but Janelle could perceive the presence of the temporal rift down to her very bones, and her wolf senses had started tingling as soon as they came near it. She could practically feel the invisible time gate vibrating, hear its crackle against the mountain’s snow.

“Now what?” Janelle asked her sister when they came to a stop before the gate.

Alisha rummaged through the army duffel she’d brought with her and pulled out two sheets of paper. One had what looked like some kind of lyric poem written on it, and the other was a photocopy of a bunch of written words, which Janelle vaguely recognized as Arabic. “Now I disappear. If this spell works, then I should be taken back to a time and place where Rafe can’t reach me for the next five years.”

“So it’s like a wolf annulment,” Janelle whispered.

There were few laws governing wolf marriages, but one of them was if two wolves remained legally unmarried for five years following a mating, then even if they gave birth to a cub, they we’re effectively divorced. This was called a “wolf annulment” and used by the families of privileged wolves whose son or daughter had made the mistake of mating with someone of a much lower class during a heat frenzy. However, there was no reason it couldn’t be used by a she-wolf who was unhappy with her mateship.

Janelle nodded her head with more understanding than her sister could have possibly suspected. “That’s actually a really good plan,” she said.

Janelle, what the hell are you doing!?
Mag’s voice crashed into her head on full attack.
Why are you and Alisha at the portal?

Janelle’s hand went up to her temple. He was communicating with such force, it actually hurt to receive his telepathic words.

“Janelle? Are you okay?” Her sister’s face came back into view. She looked worried. “You know, you could come with me...”

Janelle. Whatever you’re planning to do. Whatever she’s trying to convince you to do. Don’t.

“Janelle, I can see you’re not happy here with Mr. Rochester. I can see it all over you. Please come with me,” Alisha begged. “We could both escape. I’ll call right now, and leave instructions for Tu about how to get us back—”

Janelle, if you think you can go somewhere I won’t find you, think again. And when I do, it will make me killing your last boyfriend seem like a walk in the park. Do not leave. Do not make me—

Alisha grabbed her hands. “Come with me. Please, Janelle. I don’t want to leave you here with him.”

“I will find you, Janelle. Wherever you go I will find you and I will punish you for leaving me like this again.”

He was close, Janelle realized. If he could project words at her this clearly, he had to be. And he probably had his brother with him.

She brought her hand down to her stomach, which was now slightly swollen with the cub she and Mag had created on their heat night. If she was going to leave, she had to do it now.

25

J
ANELLE. Don’t leave. If you leave, I’ll… I’ll…

Mag ran out of threats. He had thrown every one he could think of at her while headed up the mountain, ugly ones designed to keep her there at any cost of further damage to their relationship, but she hadn’t answered back. And even though he couldn’t see or hear her, he could feel her. Close but not answering him. He swore to the great sky god… he could feel her leaving him, slipping out of his grasp—

Then there came a bright flash of light at the top of the trail.

“What the fuck was that?” Kang yelled beside him.

But Mag knew exactly what it was. The portal. It had gone off, which meant someone had traveled through it.

“JANELLE!!!” he roared, redoubling his steps as he ran even harder up the mountain, toward the time gate.

When he finally made it to the plateau that the portal sat on, he expected to find the space empty.

But there was Janelle, standing all alone, staring into the portal’s blank space, her pleasant princess expression nowhere in sight.

She looked like someone who had just lost her best friend. Or her sister.

“Janelle, what did you do?” he asked, coming to stand beside her. “What did you help her do?”

She turned toward him, blinked like someone coming out of a trance, and then… walked past him. Just walked straight pass him like he wasn’t even there.

But like hell he’d let her walk away scot free. He was right on her heels. “Tell me you didn’t. Rafe is my best friend, and one of our crown’s strongest ally’s. How could you—?”

Janelle went on walking down the mountain like he hadn’t said anything to her, and she probably would have kept on that way if Kang hadn’t gotten in front of her. “I believe my brother, your king, asked you a question. A few, in fact,” he said to her.

Mag came to a abrupt stop behind her, waiting to see what she’d do next, but she just frowned up at his brother, like he was a genie in a bottle who had come out of nowhere. “Who are you?” she asked him.

“I’m Kang. Mag’s brother and his new beta. So I guess you can say I’m the guy who makes sure no one disrespects him. No one.”

Janelle looked at Kang. Then she looked back at Mag. Then she said, “Okay, I want a divorce.”

“What?” both he and Kang said together.

“I want a divorce,” she repeated, like Mag was a toddler with bad listening comprehension. “I want a divorce. Right now. As soon as we can get it. You’re a controlling Neanderthal and I’m tired—I mean, just sick and tired of being married to you.”

“You want a divorce?” Mag felt like his whole world was imploding. Like a sink pit had opened up beneath his feet. “So that’s it? You’re sick of being married to somebody so beneath you, so you’re going to up and divorce me? Find some dude at your class level and have him raise up my kids cuz I’m not good enough? Cuz I don’t come from money like your last boyfriend?”

“No,” she yelled back, her face contorting with true anger. “I want a divorce, because you’re just like Jeffrey. Just like him. And you know what? He wasn’t even my boyfriend. He was the guy I was pledged to. It was little more than a business transaction. You of all people should understand that.”

She jabbed her finger into the air, into a past neither of them could forget. “That great guy I met in Colorado—that sweet football player who made me fall in love with him, even though I knew I wasn’t free to love like that—
he
was my boyfriend.
He
was the person I wanted, the only person I’ve ever wanted. And I kept hoping if I played my part, if I tried to please you as best I could, then he’d come back, but he hasn’t. He’s never going to.”

Janelle brought both her hands to her face, cupping her nose and mouth like she was fighting off tears of grief for Mag. Like he had died three years ago, even though he was standing right there in front of her.

She breathed in deep and when she spoke again, her voice was no longer on the edge of hysteria, but low and quaking with anger. “My sister just did something really extreme to escape that sociopath you call a best friend. And right now, I’m realizing what an idiot I’ve been hoping and praying for the return of that boy I knew three years ago. Alisha’s gone and so is he.”

“If he’s gone, that’s because you
killed
him,” Mag said, his voice harsher than the freezing mountain wind whipping around them. “You’re the one who made me this way.”

“No, I’m the one who made all your dreams come true!” she yelled back at him. “You wanted to get out of Freedom Town, but you were barely taking any of your classes seriously. You thought you were being so cool and clever skating by just enough to keep your scholarship, but you set yourself up, Mag. Everything you wanted was riding on you getting a wild card to play professional football. So when Jeffrey showed up in my kingdom town, telling me Kenny had called him about an inappropriate relationship I might be having with you, I could see the writing on the wall.”

Mag shook his head, “No, Rafe and his dad got me that wild card. That was a lock.”

“Nothing’s a lock in our society,” she said, like he was an idiot for thinking there were any guarantees in life. “The Colorado crown had a lot influence with the Lupine Council. So did Jeffrey’s family. And the Lupine Council always errs on the side of less mess. Jeffrey could have blocked your wild card if he wanted to.
Easily
. And he would have if I hadn’t made that phone call to you, right in front of him.”

“No, no. That’s not why you dumped me.” But it was. The truth of what she was saying sank in like a forklift of dirt dropped into his grave. “Why would you let him… why didn’t you just tell me what was up and let me decide?”

She shook her head. “If I had left it up to you, you would have chosen me over football, because frankly, you’re an idiot. An idiot I thought was worth saving from himself. And when you asked my dad for a pledge meeting, I actually thought this would be our second chance, but I was wrong, so wrong.”

What she was telling him couldn’t be true. She hadn’t wanted him back all this time. She’d just been using him. Plus… “You’re bluffing. You wouldn’t divorce me. I don’t know what your game is here, but I know you’re not serious because if Alisha’s really as gone as I think she is, then your father’s not going to have a second if you divorce me.”

“I don’t care!” she said, spreading her arms wide. “My father killed any allegiance I had to him when he got greedy and set up Alisha against her wishes. I’m tired of being used by him. And I’m sick of being used by you.”

“I never used you—”

“All you did was use me: for revenge, to get back at my father. I’m pregnant, Mag.
Pregnant.
I’m the mother of your pup, and you moved your human whore into the guest house. How is that not using me? You got your football career and your princess, and you got to eat all your cake, too. Well, that stops now.”

She frowned up at him, years worth of bitterness in her eyes, though they had only been married for three months. “And you know what? To hell with you for not respecting me! You think I’m useless? Well, can
you
throw a party at the drop of a dime? Can
you
turn a house into a perfect showpiece? When’s the last time
you
mingled for hours on end? Also…” she indicated the black stiletto boots she was wearing… “Heels! I climbed a mountain in freaking heels, you asshole, and you think I’m worthless? Well, I’m here to tell you I’m not. I don’t care if this makes me persona non gratis in wolf society. I will live among the humans and I will make something of myself and I will prove that just because you don’t value me doesn’t mean I’m without value.”

She screwed up her face and gave him a look so ugly, he couldn’t believe it was coming from the same she-wolf who’d obeyed his every command without argument for over ten months. “I’m getting my divorce, and I’m not going to let you or anybody else control me ever again.”