My wolf growls again, furious at the site of a male treating his mate with such disrespect.
Alpha Crane nods at two of his men. They prowl forward with hungry eyes, picking up my mother’s lifeless form and dragging her toward the trees.
My wolf steps forward, the hair standing on end.
But a growl from Alpha Crane holds me captive, confusing my senses.
Not my Alpha, my wolf thinks.
Yet my paws are frozen to the earth.
I don’t understand this power, it doesn’t feel right. My wolf wants to fight it, to claw her way out of his hold and destroy everyone in her path.
Alpha Bryson adds his own growl, forcing my legs to buckle beneath me, bringing me down to the earth. “She’s going feral,” I hear one of them say. “She’s useless to us.”
A conversation follows, something about my mother paying for her sins.
“Send her to Carnage Island,” someone suggests, the words sending a blade of ice down my spine. “Let those animals rip her apart.”
No, I want to say.No, please don’t.
But my wolf won’t let me shift back into human form.
Maybe because I don’t actually know how to do it.
Mymateis supposed to teach me that. Yet he’s standing next to his father with his back to me, treating me like I’m nothing. Like I didn’t just spend the last six months going through the mating trials with him.
None of this makes any sense.
I should be frolicking in the trees right now, basking in the scents of the earth, and—
An agonized scream reaches my ears, causing my wolf to perk up.
Mom…
Chuckles follow.
Hungry growls, too.
Myfatherdoes nothing, his face expressionless, as my mother pleads for them to stop. I can’t see them, but I can hear them. I cansmellwhat they’re doing.
They call her a whore.
They call her worthless.
They tell her she’s going to die on her back.
My wolf growls low, the urge to move clawing at my instincts and shattering the hold around my paws.
In the next moment, I’m sprinting across the earth toward my mother’s screams.
She’s crying.
I’m coming.
She’s in pain.
I’ll save you.
