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An impossible alpha?
Ryker’s former intended?
His attacker?
This time, all of those descriptors are true. But Jace doesn’t get a chance to use any of them before Ryker says in a voice so cold, so different from his husky rasp that it obliterates the last of my broken heart: “She’s nothing. You heard her. She’s not my mate. Let her leave.”
No one stops me after that.
As soon as the cool mountain air welcomes me back outside, I break into a run. The rest of the pack council all stayed behind with Ryker, but I know better than to think that they’re just going to let me go. The Alpha’s command will only last so long, and I’m not so naive as to believe that Ryker’s going to accept my rejection of him as easy as that.
Give up his very own alpha female? Yeah. I don’t think so.
I debate shifting, but decide to stay in my skin. I don’t want to sacrifice all of my stuff, including my Jeep, and I’m just super fucking grateful I had the foresight to pack it all up before I went to confront Ryker.
I always had a back-up plan. Even as I was throwing everything I own in the back of my car, I think I knew that this was going to happen. I couldn’t stay in Accalia if Ryker was going to keep his chosen mate, and now that the entire pack council knows what I’ve been hiding, I’ve got to go.
Going back to Lakeview is impossible. It’ll be the first place they check, and I know my dad. Paul will hide me like he did when Mom and me first ran from my bio-dad’s pack, and there goes any prospective alliance between Mountainside and Lakeview. I won’t do that to my old pack, to my dad or my mom.
And then there’s the matter of my sperm donor. If the bastard wolf who sired me ever figured out that I was still alive and that I’m, well, me, I don’t even want to think about what he would do. My mother spent years trying to shield me from details regarding Jack Walker, but you can’t be a shifter in the States and not hear rumors about Wicked Wolf Walker of the Western Pack.
No, thanks.
So as impulsive as I can be, I do always have a back-up plan. This particular plan might not be a good one, and I’m risking death by fang attempting it, but that’s probably better than being forced into a mating that’ll leave me even more miserable than I’ve been lately.
At the base of the pack’s mountain, there’s an urban city that’s controlled by a powerful cadre of vampires. Muncie is a total Fang City, with vamps who rule it ruthlessly. Like the rest of the supernatural world, technically their identities are kept hidden, but in a vamp town like Muncie, there are a few select humans in on the secret.
Walking buffets, I sneer as I hop in my Jeep and quickly start the engine.
For centuries, my people and the vamps have been at war. Claws versus fangs, shifters against vampires. An isolated pack who wants nothing to do with humans looking down on the more integrated vampires who rely on the humans as their sole source of food.
And they call us beasts. Better than being a parasite.
These days, we have an uneasy truce. Shifters keep to their packs, vamps have control of their cities, and we do not mix.
Even when I came to Accalia, I had to go the long way so that I could avoid coming within miles of the vamp town. If they caught me on my own, I don’t know how they’d react, but I doubt it would be good. As a shifter, I know all about territory. Me going into a vamp town is just asking to be drained.
Which is precisely why none of my former packmates will ever think I’d do something so reckless.
I throw my gear into drive and, without a backward look, I take off. Once the roar of the engine echoes across the still night’s sky, I figure it won’t be long before someone comes after me. They’ll expect I’ve gone down the hidden path located on the far side of the mountain mainly because only a shifter with a death wish would head straight into Muncie.
I try to convince myself that this is my only choice. I couldn’t stay behind, and going lone wolf is the only option I have after what just happened at the Alpha’s cabin. And an uneasy truce is still a truce, right? I haven’t heard of any shifter/vamp skirmishes in years now so maybe I’m just being paranoid.
Or, I tell myself as I slam on my brakes barely a mile into Muncie, I was just in denial.
I don’t know where they came from. One second, the road was empty. It’s late, and the path into the urban city is more rural as it leads out of the mountain. I was the only car on the empty stretch of dirt road, and the only soul around for miles.
That should’ve been my first clue. As a shifter, I can sense all living creatures. Humans. Animals. Even insects.
But vamps? Unless they’re making noise, they’re dead to me. Because, well, they are dead, aren’t they?
Just because they’re dead, though, I know better than to slam into them with my car. Not because it’ll hurt the vamps—short of chopping off their heads, they’re indestructible—but because of the damage an accident would do to my precious Jeep.
I expected something like this to happen at some point. It’s an open Jeep on purpose; my shifter side can’t stand to be contained. But I went this way knowing there was a good chance one of the vamps would pick up on my scent and want to investigate it further, especially since Ryker’s blood still stains my dress.
Just my luck, I’ve attracted three.
“Look at what we have here.” It’s a throaty female voice. “The little puppy dog’s gotten herself lost.”
