Twice Tempted: Between Two Alphas (Mia and Cameron) novel Chapter 94

Chapter Ninety-Four

ASHLEY

I look out the window at the snow-capped that dot the coastline below me and my stomach lurches. The inside of my body feels as choppy as the steel-blue waves that crash against the shore.

Normally, I don’t get airsick on planes, but nothing about this trip is normal.

This trip determines whether my daughter lives or dies.

“We’re almost there,” Eric says. “Are you ready?”

The sound of my mate’s voice sends my stomach for another loop. He’s not just my mate and my husband—he’s also my greatest enemy.

I do my best to ignore the pull of his voice. He doesn’t need to be here with me. I would have found a way to do this on my own. But he’s as stubborn as I am.

In another life, that might have excited me.

A lot of things about Eric might have excited me in different circumstances. It’s hard to miss a man that size when we’re the only two people on the whole jet. Every time he shifts his weight or clears his throat, I notice him.

I notice his dark hair and darker eyes. The serious set of his mouth. The tension across his massive shoulders. The overwhelming power that surrounds him. Most of all, I notice him trying not to notice me.

It’s a pointless exercise.

We haven’t talked about it—but I know he feels our mate bond. Even when I don’t think about it, it’s there, tying me to him whether either of us wants it or not.

And I don’t want it.

Not when he’s given me an impossible choice: he’ll help me save my daughter, but only if I give up my brother in exchange.

My daughter, Marilee, is the most important person in my world. She is my heart and my soul and there is nothing I wouldn’t do to save her. I’m the reason she’s so sick, and I will give anything to make her well. That’s why we’re back on Eric’s plane so soon after we landed in his territory.

But at the same time, I have no intention of handing over my brother, Philipe. Eric will kill him without a second thought if he gets the chance.

I have to make sure he never gets that opportunity.

That’s a tall order considering the Seers severed me from my wolf, I’ve pissed off every wolf pack west of the Mississippi, and oh yeah, an ancient vampire is after me.

There’s a lot going on for me right now.

I rest my head against the window and take a deep breath to calm my nerves. I need to focus on the task ahead of me.

We stopped in Eric’s territory in California long enough to refuel, and for his pack to bring us basic supplies.

His Beta is preparing a jumbo jet of his warriors and a stockpile of weapons and survival gear to meet us in Alaska. I’ve never seen a pack with so much weaponry before.

I suppose it’s my pack now too, but thinking about that sends cold sweat down my back.

At any rate, we’ve left his territory far behind. Where we’re heading now is far more familiar to me, and every bit as dangerous.

Eric is taking me home.

We’re flying to Anchorage, Alaska. From there, we’ve got to take a smaller plane north to Fairbanks. That’s only about halfway to my old pack’s territory, but it’s as far as we can go via plane. The rest of the journey we have to take by road.

In our true form, the journey is easy. Running in the snow through hundreds of miles of pristine wilderness is one of the purest forms of pleasure for a wolf.