Page 130 of The Alpha’s Heir

“No chairs… I have… Nothing.” He forced a smile for Meg, one I’d seen too many times growing up. “I’m sorry, dear. It looks like I don’t have anything to offer you, and I’m not quite sure where we are.”

“Oh, that’s okay.” Meg choked back tears as she sat right on the dirt, patting the ground beside her and inviting him to sit. “You know, I’ve been dying to hear one of your stories.”

“I like her already.” Dad winked at me, taking a seat on the earth. I swallowed down the sensation of my heart in my throat as I sat with them, trying to stay present.

Because I knew better than most that each moment was an unpromised gift.

“Cerberus, you say. Now that’s an interesting last name.” Dad rested his hand on top of mine as he looked at Meg with stars in his eyes. “Did you ever hear the story about Cerberus, the three-headed beast of the underworld and Hades’s right hand?”

48

Alec

Fire raged across the mountainside, charring trees and sagebrush as embers rained like hellfire through black, ashy smoke. My wolf’s legs and lungs burned with the effort it took to outrun the flames of the gods’ destruction.

They were going to destroy us all.

My beast was the only one fast enough to get through this hell on earth as the flames tore through the open landscape between Fenrir and Cerberus Territories, eating everything in their path. I needed to make it to the western seaboard and contact Alpha Aiden before the gods succeeded in isolating all our packs from each other for whatever plans they had in store.

Anger and white-hot rage pulsed through me as my wolf ran with all her might, trying to keep us alive.

I hated the gods for this.

A branch snapped overhead, cracking into a burst of embers and shattering as it hit the ground. My wolf dove to the left at the last minute, narrowly missing the crash.

She panted and shuddered, trying to draw at least one untainted breath of air into her lungs, but she didn’t slow down.

The heat closed in on either side, singeing fur as the world continued to burn… and burn… and burn.

It’d be so easy to succumb to the flames. To stop fighting and let the fire consume us too.

But we couldn’t give up.

Not yet. Not today. Not after all we’d learned.

Kill him. My wolf ran faster.

I agreed. It’s the only way.

It seemed like a lifetime before my beast finally escaped the worst of the inferno that destroyed everything in its wake as she broke through the wildfire line down the next mountain ridge.

Dark black clouds filled the sky behind us, raining ash like snow. She took her first breath of fresh air in what felt like days and used it to run faster.

We had to get to Fenrir. Alpha Kera needed us. My sisters—my family…

I had to find a way to stop this.

Kill… Kill… Kill… My wolf frothed at the mouth as she ran.

The smoke in the sky turned the sun setting in the west blood red. That was the beacon we raced toward.

Her steps slowed from exhaustion and I shoved all I was into the beast, giving her my strength.

Once, death’s call had been like a lover. An old friend I’d flirt with. But now, I had to live.

My wolf knew it too.

She ran like the world was on fire.