Page 81 of Never His Mate

—but after twenty-five years of hiding who I am—who I was born to be—there’s no point in hiding any longer. Wicked Wolf Walker knows about me. Shane has betrayed both Ryker and me all for the promise of becoming an alpha himself. I only got one real good swipe in, but he’s leaving enough of a trail for me to track him down.

The other wolves are waiting for me to do something. My howl put them under my sway. As the only alpha around, they’re waiting for me to give them instructions.

They’re confused. I don’t blame them. Even if they believed I was an alpha before now, none of the Mountainside Pack has ever seen me in my fur until a few moments ago. Without the blonde hair, pretty honey-colored eyes, and petite shape to fool their senses, it’s undeniable that I’m a born female alpha. Add that to the scent of blood and sweat in the air—mine and Shane’s—and they know that their Beta has been here.

I can’t just take off after Shane. I might be an alpha, but I’m not their Alpha. These wolves are devoted to Ryker, and not in the sneaky, slimy way that Shane was. Right now, they’re listening to me because of my howl. If I go back to chasing Shane, these wolves will come after me.

I recognize their scents. That brindled wolf is Jace. The oversized grey wolf is the big shifter who carried me earlier tonight. The black wolf over there is Dorian. Each one is a part of Ryker’s inner circle, and they were all there tonight to present me as a kind of sacrifice to their Alpha. I don’t know if they’ll hunt me down because they’ll want to drag me back to Ryker’s basement, or if they’ll try to shield Shane when I go for his throat, but I can’t just run off.

There’s only one thing I can do. Shifters can communicate basic thoughts and intentions to each other when we’re in our fur, but nothing beats shifting back to human when you want to make sure there are no misunderstandings.

So that’s what I do.

I grew up in a pack. Nudity’s nothing to be ashamed of when it involves shifting. There’s no intimacy involved. It’s just my body, and I don’t even think about how I’m standing bold as brass in front of four wolves with my tits hanging out.

I point in the direction that Shane has gone. “I’m hunting your Beta,” I announce, my voice husky and raw as I put as much alpha power into it as I can. “He’s betrayed your Alpha. He’s betrayed the pack. He’s sold us all out to the Wicked Wolf of the West.”

Jace snaps his fangs at the mention of my sperm donor. Or maybe it’s because he’s gotten a good eyeful of my ruined face.

Yeah.

Same, Jace. Same.

“I’m going after him. If I have to drag him back to the Alpha myself, I will, but his fate belongs to Ryker.”

It’s true, I admit to myself. As pissed off as I am that Shane worked with Trish to come between me and Ryker, and how skeeved out I am at the idea of choosing to mate with him so he can become Alpha, even I know that pack law puts Shane’s fate in Ryker’s claws. By interfering with his mating and working with another pack’s Alpha, he’s challenged Ryker—and only Ryker can answer to the challenge.

But Ryker is still chained up in his basement, sure that his Beta is trustworthy and that I’m safe.

Okay. So Shane is a lying prick. But I’m doing just fine, and I’ll be doing even better once I get my claws in Shane again.

I flash my gaze over the wolves, my shifter’s eyes flaring to the molten lava color that tells them that my alpha wolf is in control. “You can come with me to run him down, or you can return to the pack. Either way, no one is stopping me.”

The massive grey wolf—I really have to learn the big guy’s name!—is the first to pull himself up to his paws. His lips pull back from his muzzle, showing off his canines, but his drawn out rumble of a growl tells me that while he’s pretty fucking pissed, it’s not me he’s pissed off at.

That honor belongs to the former Beta.

I flicker my eyes over the other three. “You in? Jace? Dorian?” A flash of a recognition hits me. I’m pretty sure the smaller grey wolf is another Danvers. Trish’s younger cousin. “Bobby?”

Bobby yips. Dorian echoes it, while Jace stretches out his front legs before resting on his haunches. His head cocks in an obvious, “We doing this or what?”

I can’t keep the smile from tugging on my lips. I might’ve spent a year convincing myself otherwise, but hell if I didn’t miss being part of a pack.

I leap forward, already shifted to wolf by the time my four paws hit the dirt. The other wolves give way, letting me speed right past them before they form a line at my back.

* * *

I wishI could say that we found him. With the five of us hot on his tail, I wish I could say that we surrounded him and took him down.

But we didn’t.

Because I’m in the lead, I’m the one who first notices when the trail goes dead. I was following the scent of Shane’s blood mingling with his wolf, and I stop short when I get a snout full of exhaust. The blood trail disappears right when the exhaust starts and it doesn’t take an alpha wolf to figure out what went down.

Two wolves dart past me when I stop, the other two staying at my back.

A soft rumble has Dorian and the larger grey wolf returning. The big guy cocks his head as he comes clomping back to where the rest of us are crowded around a visible tire mark left in the dirt.

I know this path. We took a roundabout way to get here, but this is one of the mountain roads that leads straight into Muncie

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