Chapter 6 Flames

Isabella's POV

The silence continued on the way back. I was sitting stiffly in the passenger seat, my arms crossed over my chest, my gaze fixed on the endless stretch of dark road that lay before me.

As Leo's steady breathing broke the quiet, the engine was all that could be heard at all. There was still a faint scent of blood clinging to my skin that I could not avoid. And my pulse hadn't entirely calmed down since the fight.

Since the stranger. A handsome man followed Leo's pointed instructions, his voice firm and knowing. I didn't miss the way he had looked at me before he left or the way his face had quickly resumed its mask.

When it came to giving orders, Leo had an aura that didn't seem at all like that of a beta. No pauses, no stumbles, none of those mannerisms that might cause people to question him. But he was a Lycan after all, and their kind had always been stronger and more ruthless.

Yet there was something about him that made me uneasy. I fought to shake that off and in its place understand the uncertainty of my situation. I had just been cast out, thrown into the arms of a pack to which I had absolutely no connections.

For all I knew, I was being carried off to some old, cruel Alpha who would treat me as a slave. I had nothing. No home. No pack. No control over my fate. And the only person who could count up my future flatly refused to talk about it. The silence dragged on until I could take it no longer.

"So," I said, trying to keep my voice steady, "what's it look like where we're going?"

Leo gave no answer. His hands held the wheel, his unchanging line of sight steadily ahead, his face as ever unreadable.

I gritted my teeth. "You just aren't going to say anything at all?" I demanded. "At the very least, I think I'm owed an explanation as to where the hell I'm being taken."

Bubbling up from my heart, anger fed on frustration and despair. "I was just earlier chased out of my pack, sent here without a choice. Now I'm stuck with you? Maybe an ugly Alpha has agreed to take me as his slave. Can't you please explain something to make me feel better?"

Finally, Leo sighed, twisting to look at me. I wish he hadn't done that. His eyes were frigid and sharp, as though at any time he might snap and break my neck. He just stood there, an invisible force weighing down on me, wretched and asphyxiating, making me feel small and insignificant.

"We're not friends," he said, his voice low and fatal. "I don't owe you. As a favour to both of us, just sit back and keep quiet."

That cut deeper than I thought. My breath caught in my throat, and I hated the ache rising up in my chest. Stupid. I shouldn't care. But after everything...after losing my home, my pack, and any hopes for the future--I'm really tired of feeling so unloved.

I swallowed and turned my face away. "... You're a bastard."

Leo did not reply. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, telling myself not to say anything. I didn't want to let him have the pleasure of knowing how much pain he'd caused me. But as the silence dragged on, I could not help taking sidelong glances at him.

His temples were strained, and his hands gripped the steering wheel too hard. And damn, how beautiful he looked.

I hated how the dashboard lit up his features into bone-white relief, the slight way his hair fell over his forehead, the way that his eyes globed, burning beneath a chestnut stem light a hidden depth I couldn't fathom but could almost feel.

He was the worst kind of beautiful. The type of all edges and danger. 'I cursed under my breath, flipping the finger at his back for emphasis. Minutes passed, humour silent as a stone in water. Just when I'd convinced myself he would never say another word, the silence shattered of its own accord. "The Alpha isn't ancient."

I turned to him, ears ringing. "What?" Leo's eyes stayed on the road. "You won't play the role of a slave." My fingers flicked restlessly across my pants. That should have been a relief. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to feel any sense of elation.

"Then what will I be?" Leo didn't answer right away. His jaw set hard as if he were debating whether to tell me or not. Then he sighed, one hand flexing rigid with tension against the wheel. I braced myself.

"Your pack sold you to us," he said. "To act as a birth mother." At first, the words did not penetrate. I blinked, confusion tightening about me like a noose. "A... what?" Leo's gaze flicked briefly to me, and for the first time since we had met, I saw something in his expression that was not indifference or annoyance. Pity.

The realization washed over me like a tidal wave. I gasped for breath, my stomach feeling the wrench of this new truth. 'No.' I shook my head, my pulse racing like a mill race. 'No, that can't be. Not my pack...'

Not my what? Not my betrayer? Not the tosser-aside at the first signs of nuisance?

The truth settled in, cold and hard. Though my father would deny it, I know he didn't want me to have a bad life. He even sold me into slavery...like a cattle. Not because he wanted a partner and certainly not for my safety. No, he sold me in order to breed.

Again, another indignity. At the moment I could neither see nor breathe. My chest felt like it was going to explode, my skin burned fire into the darkness. "You're lying,'' I whispered inside my mind and fainted in despair.

Leo exhaled and shook his head. "I really wish I was."

Once more the ride was a nightmare of silence, but this time I did not attempt to break it. It was more than I could stand.

Everything I knew, everything I had fought for, was gone. Now all that was left to me was my body. The worst thing was, I hadn't even known what would be worse...remaining with friends who wanted to do something with me or giving myself up to a stranger for whom I'd be no more than the carrier of her child.

Tears scorched the back of my eyes. I tried not to let them fall, instead, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to continue staring out at passing trees, my heart growing harder with each mile covered.