ALPHA: Heir Of The Four

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Notes: Ava-Rain's POV

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- 'A woman can't run from the things she's done, when the weight's got her on her knees.' -

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Leaving the Helland cottage was hard, but actually leaving the Hellands was even harder. Five days with them was more than even I thought I would have needed, yet it just wasn't enough. Five could have easily turned into six, six into seven, and seven into twenty, but the longer I stayed would have only been my way of putting off the inevitable: my return to the den. And the thing about inevitability was that you could never really out run it, no matter how much of a head start you gave yourself.

I had not spoken to Caleb since the night he left with Kane to return to his pack, not entirely by choice but because of circumstance. What came along as a packaged deal of cottage life were fewer cell towers, which made maintaining a cell phone signal damn near impossible. There was no way to inform him of my return, other than a quick four worded text that may or may not have gotten through.

I had hoped the former would have prevailed, but, once I arrived at the den, an uneasy feeling in my gut told me that it ended up being the latter.

Once the car came to a stop, I shifted my gaze from the house towards Kasey in the driver's seat. My decision to leave the cottage had turned into the whole family leaving just before noon to return to the city, though the Hellands were due to come back anyway, give or take a few days. We had been back for a little over an hour, enough time for me to have sent another text that would have undoubtedly been received by Caleb, but decided against it when—despite my protests—Kasey volunteered to drive me to the den.

"That's one huge house," she said.

I initially believed that she had spoken in awe, but that thought process quickly changed with her next words.

"It's completely impossible for them to have every nook and cranny of this estate guarded and protected at all times."

Well, I think it was safe to say that she wasn't impressed.

And if that wasn't enough, she then cut the engine and stepped out of the car. With no other choice, I opened the passenger door and got out, the scent of fresh grass clippings filled my nose as I rounded the car to stand next to her. But that only ended up with me trying to play catch up because she was already off and stomping on the front lawn.

"Do you know what an estate surrounded by trees gets you?" Kasey continued to inspect the area, her hands firmly planted on her hips as her head moved at an impossible speed in every direction.

"A beautiful view?" I smiled.

She spared a mere second of her time to look, or, rather, roll her eyes at me, before settling them back on the property. "More like a blind view. I've already counted three weak areas and I haven't even seen the back yet."

Says the girl with a family cottage, literally, surrounded by trees. Trees, if I remembered correctly, acted as the perfect hiding spot for pure bloods to watch you and the rest of the Hellands.

"You really expect me to ever be okay with leaving you here?"

"But you're not—"

"Where anybody or anything," she cut me off, "can come crawling out of those woods at any given moment?"

"I can assure you, this is the safest place for her to be."

We both turned around to find Kane, arms crossed and eyes narrowed in our direction, standing at the top of the stairs. "As I'm sure you could already tell from the lengthy drive up here," he began to descend, his brown hair glistening in the sun, "the woods stretch out for miles. And it's rigged with traps to keep specific unwanted guests away. And that fifty-foot gate a mile down the driveway that required a code to open?" As he began to make his way in our direction, his eyes found mine for only a moment before they returned to Kasey. "That iron gate wraps around the entire estate through the woods, so even if you are lucky enough to survive the hike, there's no getting past that gate."