Ditched Cheating Alpha, I Led My Daughter to Life's Peak novel Chapter 26

I lean away. It's too real.

He leans closer. "Having an almost group like mentality because did you see the way they all jumped up when I almost 'hit' you? Half of them weren't even looking this way. And then the golden eyes-"

"Not all of them." I say firmly. There's been grey. There's been black and blue and everything in between.

"Most of them, then. Come on Mia, doesn't all of that sound a little too familiar? You know the answer. You read this stuff all the time."

I cross my arms and sink further into my seat. "They call them Alpha."

"Huh?" he asks.

"The brothers, they call them Alpha. I thought it was a last name, but what if..."

His eyes widen.

My eyes widen. "Are we really considering...?"

He tightens his fists. "If this was a fantasy book, we'd already have our answer by now." He looks at me.

I look at him.

He looks at me.

I look at him.

We simultaneously burst out laughing. "Nah," we say in unison.

I wave him off. "There's no way."

He nods. "I know. If these people were werewolves, there's no way they'd let us openly discuss it right here."

I ignore the thousands of eyes staring wide-eyed at us. "Yeah, and if they're werewolves then Lowetta High was full of vampires."

He gleefully exclaims, "And we weren't turned into blood banks there, so we're good."

"We just barely weren't turned though." I chuckle a few more times and check the lunch line for progress. It's still as long as ever. "Vampire food or not, that line is never going to die down."

"Well have to start bringing sack lunches or something," he mutters.

I remember the items in my bag. "Want a fat storing brownie?" I ask.

He raises an eyebrow. "A what?"

"It's if the troops need quick energy boosters. Don't ask."

He chuckles. "I think I'll pass."

"Oh hey, I think the line is finally dying down." Michael looks at me. He frowns. "What's wrong?"

I shake my head. "Nothing." I put my phone away. "I'm just hungry."

"Same." He reaches for the brownies. "Tomorrow I'm shoving like the rest of these animals."

I pale at his words. It's just a weird coincidence, right?

... I smack the brownie from his hands.

"Hey!"

"It is a northern country; they have cold weather, they have cold hearts. Cold; tempest; wild beasts in the forest. It is a hard life...

The good child does as her mother bids – five miles' trudge through the forest; do not leave the path because of the bears, the wild boar, the starving wolves. Here, take your father's hunting knife; you know how to use it.

The child had a scabbby coat of sheepskin to keep out the cold, she knew the forest too well to fear it... When she heard that freezing howl of a wolf, she dropped her gifts, seized her knife, and turned on the beast.

It was a huge one, with red eyes and running, grizzled chops; any but a mountaineer's child would have died of fright at the sight of it. It went for her throat, as wolves do, but she made a great swipe at it with her father's knife and slashed off its right forepaw.

The wolf let out a gulp, almost a sob, when it saw what had happened to it; wolves are less brave than they seem. It went lolloping off disconsolately between the trees as well as it could on three legs, leaving a trail of blood behind it. The child... went on towards her grandmother's house.