Page 56 of The Alpha Wolf’s Secret Baby Boy

I narrow my eyes. “How is she doing that?” I ask, and my brother points to the back door.

“She’s using traces of his DNA from the blanket.”

Flynn comes in from the same door. “But it’s better that you’re here now. Since you’re the child’s father, he can be tracked with yours or Poppy’s direct DNA sample.”

“Poppy isn’t taking this very well,” I admit, stepping forward. “Tell me what you need. Tell me what the witch needs.”

Flynn nods firmly, and I follow him out, only to see the leader of the nomadic witch coven and her fellowship gathering around a makeshift fire pit—a shallow hole dug up in the ground with splintered wood glowing red as it throws up orange and blue flames.

My heart sinks at the thought of witchcraft being used so openly in my brother’s pack. But if this is the only way to find my son, I am prepared for anything.

“Come,” Aoife says to me as she holds out a hand from where she’s kneeling on the ground.

A frown flits past my face before I walk over to her, hesitantly putting my hand out when she suddenly pulls out a knife from under her robe.

“Whoa! What the—” Dorian begins, but it’s Flynn who steps in and places a hand on his shoulder to stop him from coming forward.

“Sister Aoife knows what she’s doing. You can trust her. She’s not gonna hurt Damian.”

I hang on to Flynn’s words as the witch uses the knife to slice a thin line against my flesh, drawing blood. It’s hardly enough to feel like anything, and I barely flinch when she turns my palm over. Another witch is ready to collect the blood that drips from the flesh wound into a wooden bowl, and then passes it to Aoife.

“You can stay here for the rest of it, or you can leave if it makes you uncomfortable,” Aoife says, as if she can read my deepest, darkest thoughts, where I can hardly wrap my head around any of this.

Despite what I’ve been taught about witches my whole life, I decide to stay. For Daniel. For Poppy.

As the witches conduct their ritual, chanting strange words, twisting their fingers in odd ways as Aoife pours my blood into the fire, I just stand and watch with curiosity and wariness hanging heavily on my chest.

I can’t believe I’m doing this—relying on the witches for help when I should be—

I should be with Poppy.

And that’s when the mate bond goes from gentle humming to violent screeching in my mind as my inner wolf awakens with resolute force.

Spinning on my heel, I’m about to shove past anyone in my way when Aoife, the leader of the nomadic tribe who just inhaled the smoke from the fire, snaps her head around and calls my name.

I stop in my tracks, only to see her eyes swimming with thick, white clouds.

“The warehouse in Fayetteville,” she says, her voice thundering with the layers of too many echoes to belong to a single voice.

And everything in Dorian’s backyard turns deadly quiet.

Fayetteville…?

“That’s the warehouse where the rogues were operating…” Flynn says in shock as he turns to me.

“Before Jackson moved the operation to Wichita Falls,” Dorian says as gut-wrenching horror twists in my gut.

“Impossible…” I murmur as a shiver runs through me. “We took care of the rogues… “

Behind me, Aoife clears her throat, and when I turn to her, I see that her eyes have turned back to normal.

“Rogue wolves are not created organically, Alphas,” she says as two witches help her to her feet. “Magic is responsible for the creation of rogues. It is a gruesome process, and it results in werewolves becoming rabid, diseased-like beings.”

My heart thunders with panic.

“Poppy!”

Without wasting another second, I shift into wolf form, cracking the barriers of my human vessel to become the beast I was born to be, and race toward the forest where I’d left Poppy.