Reclaimed By My Alpha (Natalia and Andrei) novel Chapter 266

Chapter 266

Andrei

Jealousy was an ugly thing in my chest.

I hated the way it was consuming me from the inside out. Especially now, when I needed to focus the most. I should have been worrying about the rogue camp we were infiltrating, not the bitter taste in my mouth.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About her.

It wasn’t even the kiss that was getting to me–Natalia had explained that it was a hallucination caused by the aphrodisiac that made her kiss Karl, and I believed her. I trusted her too much to let something like that drive a wedge between us.

No… It was this place.

Deep down, I truly was happy for Natalia. She had found her long lost family. She had a brother and a father now when she had no one before. The twins had a grandfather and a new uncle.

But something about it wasn’t sitting right with me.

Natalia… She fit in so well in Bloodmoon. She fought like their warriors already. She even looked like the people of the pack, because she was of their blood. In another life–no, in this life–she would have been their leader.

And that was part of the issue, wasn’t it? In just a little over a week of being here, she was already learning their fighting styles, wearing their clothes, using their weapons, wandering the halls of their strange underground compound like she’d been doing it her whole life.

She’d already had several intense experiences here as well. While I was gone, so much had happened so quickly that it felt as if she’d already begun to build a life here.

Natalia told me she wanted to leave soon, that she intended to stay in Moonshadow and Ashmoor… And yet I couldn’t bring myself to believe her.

Watching her now, moving up ahead with David with the silent grace of a black cat, dressed in the loose–fitting pants and wraparound top of the Bloodmoon warriors, was like looking into another version of her that was slowly taking over the one I knew.

When she turned back to look at me, though, I forced my face into neutrality. No. I would not let this foolish uncertainty and jealousy get in the way of our task. I needed to learn more about these rogues, and I wasn’t about to hinder any of us because I was secretly raging like a lovesick adolescent.

I shouldn’t have even been feeling this way at all. I knew it was silly and selfish, but…

Dammit. I’d spent five years thinking she was dead and that I’d never get to see her again. We had only just found our way back to each other, and already she was keeping secrets and assimilating into a culture that wanted nothing to do with me.

Fuck me for being emotional, I supposed.

However, I refocused my attention on the task at hand. David and Natalia came to a stop behind a tree outskirting the rogue encampment. David pointed at the fire pit at the center of the camp, where the embers

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were burning low. A few dark figures still sat around the warmth, laughing amongst themselves and speaking in hushed voices.

“Our warriors will flank the camp,” David whispered, crouching low in the underbrush “Let’s focus on the rogues around the fire. Take them out quickly, then go tent by tent.” He jerked his chin toward me. “You have a dagger?”

“Of course I have a dagger.” I clenched my jaw and withdrew the small knife from my belt. I wanted to ask why David thought I was so incompetent, but held my tongue. More for Natalia’s sake than mine.

David nodded. Our footsteps quiet as death on the forest floor, we slipped out from amongst the trees and made our advance.

Natalia moved faster than I anticipated. Her knife glinted once, twice. Two throats slit in one go before they could even react. The third figure leapt to his feet, wine spilling into the fire pit, and opened his mouth to shout.

David came up behind him and quieted him before he could. When he was finished, he carefully laid the body down on the ground next to the others.

As we dispatched the rest of the camp, I kept my focus solely trained on the task. As best I could, at least. But every time I saw Natalia move alongside her brother, that awful feeling bubbled up again.

“You’re worried,” my wolf, normally quiet, pointed out. “You think she’s going to choose her new family over you.”

A muscle ticked in my jaw as I slashed the throat of another rogue. I looked around, but the tent he was sleeping in was empty, void of anything useful that might help me in my search for information.

“I’m not worried.”

“No? Then why did you miss his carotid artery?”

Frowning, I turned to see that my wolf was right. My mind had wandered, and I had missed the vital artery in his neck that should have given him a quick death. He was currently sputtering and clutching the wound with one hand while he reached for the knife under his pillow with the other.

Before I could react, he had slashed my arm with the knife. I hissed in pain as the metallic stench of my own blood mingled with his, the blade having sliced through both my leather arm brace and the skin.

I cursed under my breath and finished the rogue off swiftly. The knife clattered to the ground beside his now- limp hand, revealing a strangely beautiful silver hilt with a ruby embedded in it. Oddly ornate for a rogue–likely stolen.

I took the knife and slipped it into the sheath at my hip.

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