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Ryker’s not the only person I call on my way home—and while the conversation with him ended far better than it began, I wish I could say the same thing for the one I have with my mother.
I knew that he wouldn’t understand why the ruby is so important, but my mom started getting upset the second I told her about it being sealed inside of an envelope with my adopted name on it.
Like me, her mind immediately jumps to Jack Walker.
“But how?” There’s a crackling coming from her end of the line. Knowing my mom, she probably has me on speakerphone while she paces around Dad’s den. “He’s not supposed to know about you.”
That’s an understatement.
I’ve heard the story about how my mom finally had enough and escaped her abusive mate a hundred times over the years. Mainly from my dad, who always treated me as a fellow alpha. While my mom has spent my whole life trying to protect me from the reality of my birth favor, my adopted dad knew I was strong enough to know the truth.
For three years, my mom dealt with Wicked Wolf Walker’s cruelty, his infidelity, and his twisted urge to kill anyone who wrongs him. He holds the record for surviving the most Alpha challenges since, as my dad told me, the Wicked Wolf of the West considers every freaking thing a challenge. Even now, he rules the Wolf District with an iron paw, and it was the same when me and my mom lived there with him.
Up until I was about one-year-old, my mom managed to convince my bio-dad and the Western Pack that I was an omega, just like her. She covered me with her aura, using it to make me seem like one. But, eventually, my alpha nature was too powerful for her to shield and her mate discovered the truth: that I was an alpha female. Threatening my life—telling my mom that he’d drown me if she didn’t bond with him and start cranking out as many pups as possible to make more alphas—was the final straw for her.
She escaped, and when the Wicked Wolf finally found her in Lakeview, she made him think I was dead. Drowned, she told him, just like his threat. I “drowned” in the river that separated the Wolf District from the old Lakeview territory.
He bought it. Mainly because he’d never guess that a weak, lowly omega could ever lie to his face, but also because he then challenged my dad to an Alpha challenge—the only one that he ever lost.
Sometimes I wish that my dad finished Wicked Wolf Walker off then and there. A good man, my dad let him live, but he always said that, if my bio-dad came after my mom again, he wouldn’t hesitate to put him down for real.
The threat must’ve been an effective one since, twenty-five years later, my sperm donor has stayed to his ever-expanding territory, even after Mom and Dad moved their pack across the country to the East Coast.
With a whole country between us—and her ex-mate refusing to attend any Alpha gatherings that my dad might be at—my mom found it a little easier to believe that Jack Walker might actually forget that she was his fated mate. By then, she was mated to Paul Booker, her chosen mate, and she had her Gem.
But just because he couldn’t try claiming her again after she bonded with my dad, Mom was still afraid. Her biggest fear was that her ex-mate would discover that I was alive. Even if he didn’t, any shifter who learned my secret was a threat. Males would do anything to make a female alpha their bonded mate, evenforceme to be their forever.
Shane’s proof of that.
Still, she never really figured out that, as a female alpha, I’m more than capable of protecting myself. Add that to the years of training my Alpha dad gave me, and I’ve never been worried about that.
Nope.Mybiggest worry was that my fated mate wouldn’t want me.
Been there. Done that. Didn’t matter that it was all one big misunderstanding. I still had to deal with Ryker rejecting me and my wolf.
I survived that, though, didn’t I? And, squeezing the ruby in my fist as I swing around the back of my apartment building, I try to explain that to her.
Part of me wonders why I told my mom. Even if my dad’s not sitting in the same room, listening to my call—and I doubt hr is, since he’s not butting in with some booming comments of his own—she’s going to tell him. They’re mates. That’s what mates do.
For good reason, my dad hates Wicked Wolf Walker. Obviously. If it’s tough to keep Ryker from rushing down here to watch my bad, it’ll be impossible to hold Paul Booker back.
With Mom, there’s always a compromise. Like how I agreed to monthly phone calls around the full moon to prove that I was fine, happy, healthy, and, oh yeah, not being bonded against my will, I tell her that I’ll let her know the second there’s any sign that my bio-dad’s involved in terrorizing me.
After all, it could be Shane. I have to admit that. Shane, or any other of the Wicked Wolf’s army of shifter goons. Just because he knows my name, that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t shared it with anyone else. Shane already admitted that he’s working with the Alpha of the Western Pack. Now he’s his Beta, so odds are he’s involved.
I just… I just wish he wasn’t. For Ryker’s sake, I wish this could be some kind of prank that I’m too oblivious to make sense of.
I don’t think it is. Neither does Ryker. And, after my discussion with my mom, I realize that I’m more rattled than I wanted to admit to even myself. Old Gem would’ve sucked it up, dealt with it on her own, and probably made plans to trade Muncie for some new territory.
Not this New Gem, though. Muncie is mine, just like Ryker is mine. No one is going to change that—not even a wannabe alpha.
However, before I can finish explaining that, my wolf yips loudly, catching my attention. I pause, senses immediately alert. As a shifter, my main senses—eyes, ears, nose—are constantly filtering information in so I know I’m not in any danger.
But something’s still not right.
What is it, girl?
My wolf tilts her head back, snuffling through her snout. In my human form, I do the same, and—
