I turn to stare him down, I use my alpha voice, cold and assertive "What the fuck, Alpha Darcy." I correct him. Then I'm crouching down to Anne, and she looks like her brain is miles away.
"Not to be an ass," I say as softly as I can, "But your pack seems worse than those rocks at the river." She looks at me distantly. "Emberhearts can be fiery, but we're mostly not inconsiderate fucks," I continue, "I'm sure you'd find that you'd fit right in, come with me?"
Anne continues to look at me blankly. "Please?" I say carefully. "You can do much better than these Moonfucks." I gain a small smile. So she can hear me. I offer my hand.
"I'm not sure I can." She even sounds like she's miles away, her voice is small in a pained confused way. "Of course you can!" I say quickly. "There's plenty of room in the packhouse, and it probably wouldn't be long until we could find you a decent apartment. Emberheart territory has a city, there's literally so much to do. You'll love it."
Anne looks down, "My legs." She whispers, "I'm not sure I can get up." I hear people mocking her from behind me. I breathe. Getting her out of here is much better than mass murder, let's at least try to go for the cleaner option.
I scoot closer to her and hold my arms out. "Allow me to carry you?" Anne looks at me, then the rest of the room, then me again. She huffs. And then she puts her arms around my neck. I grin and scoop her up. I awkwardly grab the crutch on the floor before stalking over to Asshole the 2nd. "Crutch." I say.
"What, are you going to kidnap our useless omega?" He laughs in my face but hands me the crutch anyways. I give him a lethal smile. "Thanks asshole."
Whispers follow us as I storm towards the exit. Anne's mother steps in front of me, "That's my daughter!" She squeals.
"Ok? We're leaving." I say uninterested. Anne cringes in my arms.
"Anne, this is pathetic, really, are you going to abandon your entire pack for some random alpha?" She speaks with a suddenly cruel tone. "Am I really that bad of a mother?" I feel the wetness of Anne's tears seeping into my shirt.
"We. Are. Leaving." I say sternly. Don't hit her, she's Anne's mother. I can absolutely not hit her.
"Is there a problem?" Alpha Charlie appears at the mother's side. He looks at Anne. "It's not very polite to attack one of our pack, and run off with an omega." He says coldly. "I don't even know why you would want to take Anne. She's a burden."
The primal urge to bite Charlie's head off appears. "Bite me." I snarl. He can't do shit. I hold all the cards in our deal. He needs the Emberheart's alliance. I frankly don't give a flying fuck.
I carry Anne out of this packhouse I now wish to burn down and don't look back once. I set Anne carefully down in the passenger seat of my car. I get in the driver's side. She's shaking. "You want to gather any of your things?" I ask. She nods. "The house isn't far, I'll direct you." She says quietly.
We get to the house and she refuses my help. She gets her crutches and walks herself to the door. She's incredibly shaky so I follow her like a dog in heel. "You sure you want me in your pack?" She asks while fighting with the door and her keys.
"Yup." I say confidently. Anne shrugs. "Everyone warned you, so you can't blame me when I can't provide anything for the pack." She says in a detached tone.
I want to fight her until she realises what bullshit she's spewing but instead I smile. "Deal. As long as you try to stop hurting yourself." She looks like she's been slapped. I shrug. "I see the scratches."
Anne looks away and walks into the house. "Kitchen is to the right," She says. "Go steal some food or something, mum's already going to hate me, might as well get some snacks out of it." This woman is fucking spectacular.
I scavenge the pantry for goodies. I take a shopping bag off a hook and start filling it up with anything tasty, especially anything Anne might count as comfort food. Then I go to the fridge, I grab a pack of orange juice as that seems to be the only easy to steal drink I can see.
"Darcy?" Anne calls out. I follow her voice to her bedroom and see her sitting in front of a bin bag and suitcase. "How much stuff is reasonable to take?"
I look around, it's messy but filled with charm, she clearly likes decorating spaces. "Well my boot is pretty big so as much as you want I suppose. We can go on a shopping trip when we get there- my treat. Anything you need can be got then, but you might as well bring whatever you have that you like."
She points at a closet. "Can you squish my clothes into that suitcase? It'll be quicker if we both pack. If that's ok?" I smile warmly, "Of course."
We pack up her favourite things this way. She folds her bedding, taking blankets and soft sheets and putting them in the bag. She tells me what clothes to grab and which ones to leave behind. I put her makeup in a wash bag and she collects a few valuables.
I carry everything to the car and Anne collapses into the passenger seat. It makes me potentially irrationally angry that she's been told to keep moving and push harder when her body is clearly long past its limit. I mean any decent person would be pissed off about that, but murderous urges? I should probably class that as a bit irrational.
I get in and start driving us away, literally into the sunset. I laugh. I hope we never see those Moonfucks again.