Healed by the Alpha (Hunted Book Two)

Chapter Forty Three

Emily

I'd never flown before. My parents had taken me away as a child, but I could scarcely remember that. My leg bobbed up and down on the cold metal seat as hundreds of people went on their way around me. Dom placed a hand on my knees, "it's okay little varg. Flying really isn't as bad as it seems." Malik popped his head around Dom's huge frame, "yeah there's far more car crashes year on year than there are plane crashes." Okay so that really didn't help.

"Tell me again why we had to bring Malik?" I asked Dom. Malik held his hand to his chest feigning shock, "I'm a valued member of the team thank you very much." Dom's hand snaked up my back and the warmth was instantly comforting. "Can I get you anything?" I shook my head but instantly felt sick from the action. "You're panicking Emily-" glad to know Dom's expert detective skills were still working. "We just need to find a way to calm you down." Malik snickered beside him, "there's a really efficient way you can relax her, but I don't think I'd recommend it in an airport."

I gritted my teeth, I could usually deal with Malik's boyish childish behaviour, most of the time I ever found it funny. Right now? Right now was not one of those times. Dom was quick to spot my discomfort and sent Malik on an errand. "What if he gets lost?" Dom sighed, "Malik can look after himself. You on the other hand, right now you aren't doing too great and he wasn't helping the situation." I leaned back to make sure no one was listening and whispered to Dom, "why couldn't we just shift and run or something?"

He burst out laughing, his laugh drawing the attention of every possible person near to us that I was hoping to avoid. "Emily it's not like we're taking a trip to the next city over, we're going to Sweden." He lowered his voice so that only I could hear, "besides, we might be werewolves, but not even we can swim an ocean, little varg." He had a point. "Here" he pulled my wrists apart and turned them up to face him, "this usually helps me when I'm feeling anxious." He closed his hand around my fingers so that my hand balled up into a fist and then released.

The feeling of his fingers over mine was soothing, but the action actually seemed like it was starting to help. "When I close your first I want you to squeeze and tell me the colours that you can see." That seemed like a really strange request, but I did it anyway. Dom opened my hand flat and when he began to close it again he prompted me. "The trash can is- " I began to say, Dom repeated his previous words. "Only the colours." I breathed in, "green." He smiled, "good, again. Look for any colour." I searched around and found a young boy carrying a blue backpack. "Blue" I repeated as I squeezed my hands into fists.

After a while my breathing had seemed to calm down and I was doing it by myself. Soon enough I didn't even feel like I needed to repeat the colours anymore. Dom was beaming next to me. "You're incredible." I smiled back at it and a loud voice came over the speakers. "Gate 18 is now boarding to Stockholm, Sweden. Travellers to Stockholm in Sweden please make your way to gate 18." I stood up, ready to get this over with, the sooner I was on the plane, the sooner that fiasco would be over and we'd be where we needed to. There was only one slight problem.

"Where's Malik?" Just as the words had left my mouth, the world's hungriest Beta came around the corner with bags full of doughnuts and pastries. Dom pinched the bridge of his nose, "please don't eat them all on the plane and get sick?" Around a mouthful of a chocolate doughnut Malik replied, "no promises." And we were off.

The flight wasn't as bad as I expected. The only things I actually felt were the take off and landing, I didn't feel like we were moving in the rest of the flight at all. Yet here we were. Bright yellow and blue flags lined the airport and words with funny letters in were dotted around at every information point.

I laughed to myself and turned to Dom, "hey don't you think this strange o's with the dots on top look like shocked faces?" His steely gaze went straight to Malik, "how much alcohol did you let her drink on that flight?" Malik put his hands up in defence, "honestly she didn't have any on my watch."

Wait? Did he think I was drunk? I wasn't drunk. I was relieved to be off of that flight and safe where my feet could feel the ground again. "I didn't drink," I told Dom. "And even if I had, that's 1) none of your business and 2) not your concern." He took the hint and let it drop after that. "Where to now?" I threw the question out to the group because I honestly had no idea.

Malik pointed to the left, "why don't we ask him?" Walking like he owned the place and heading straight in our direction was none other than Ferdinand. "Oh yay the Uber is here." Dom cheered sarcastically. I couldn't help the smile that made its way onto my face. I was very aware that he felt a little threatened by Ferdinand, but seeing how protective he was made my heart melt all the same.

"Hej hej!" Ferdinand cheerily greeted us. "How was the trip?" We all looked at each other deciding who was going to bite the bullet and entertain him. Malik huffed, "you know, it could've been better." They walked off mumbling between themselves. I looked at Dom and started to snicker, he looked the other way smiling. "Looks like Malik has made himself a new friend. Come on, we better catch up and find out what we're doing."

Ferdinand and Malik were standing next to a car outside the airport, our bags already being packed inside. "So how do we do this?" I asked him, ducking my head to get in the back of the car. "We're going to travel to Boden in the car which will take approximately 10 hours and then when we get there we'll be going to Lovikka by sled." I paused, "wait, did you just say sled?" Malik poked his head inside the window, "did he just say 10 hours in a car?" I groaned and popped my earphones in, this was going to be the most painful car journey of my life.