AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. My parents have been gone a long time, leaving no other family behind that we ever knew of. As far as I’m aware, the only ones left are Tasha, Tevin, and I, and all we’ve ever known is the North Summit Pack.
Ms. Margaret offers a disapproving look, almost as if she doesn’t believe my answer. The woman has never been anything but kind to me before, but suddenly she is looking at me like I’m some kind of monster.
She sits back in her chair, and I take that as my cue that she’s done with me. I start to stand, but her hand snakes out and grabs me, drawing me closer instead.
“Your smell, girl. It’s luring good men to their death.” She looks at me with worried eyes, eyes that say she believes exactly what she’s saying. And as much as I want to think she’s just going a little senile, the second she mentions my scent I know that’s not the case.
I stand slowly, carefully extricating myself from her grip.
It feels like the walls are closing in on me. All I can see is the flash of a memory of the moment I stepped into the middle of the fighting. The way the rogues all turned their noses to the air for a split second.
I can feel my strength cracking.
And then Callum announces, “It’s over. It’s finally over.”
The pack starts to pour through the basement door, heading up to check out the carnage. To see what’s left. I trail behind them, knowing only heartbreak is waiting for me on the outside. I didn’t just choose Callum over Jimmy; I somehow brought the trouble to our doorstep.
When I step outside, Tasha and Callum are standing together, his arms around her to comfort her as she sobs. I know even without going to them that he’s finally told her.
I’m a fucking coward.
My wolf and I share in our agony as I shift, not even bothering to take off the backup clothes I got from my desk before they rip. I can hear the pack calling after me as I take off, shouting for me not to go off alone, but alone is exactly what I want to be.
I sprint toward the nearest patch of wooded area, disappearing into the trees as footsteps fade behind me. The one benefit of being small is that I’m light on my feet, and no one in the pack comes even close to keeping pace with me when I run. The trees on either side of me become a blur as I sprint, relying on muscle memory to keep me from running into anything.
After losing my parents and being rejected by my mate, I never thought anything would hurt this badly again. My wolf is mercifully silent about me running. She’s usually one hell of a moral compass, but even she’s broken by this night.
As the sun rises, light peeks through the trees, and with no real concept of where I’m running to, I follow those streaks of light like a path.
I’m so focused on it that I fail to notice the wolf that leaps into my path just as I cross over the invisible boundary line of our pack’s land. The unfamiliar wolf appears too suddenly for me to pull up in time. I crash into him, which doesn’t even seem to affect him but sends me bouncing away. I lose my balance and collapse to the ground, my heart in my throat as the wolf comes to tower over me, his teeth bared.
My first instinct is to fight back after what I witnessed with the rogues, but he starts to shift.
The brown wolf becomes a handsome man right in front of my eyes. With shaggy blond hair and a full beard that makes him look supremely masculine, he stares down at me with a peculiar look in his eyes.
“What are you running from?” he demands, not even bothering to wait for me to shift.
But I can’t answer him in wolf form, so reluctantly I shift too despite my wolf’s protests.We don’t know this man. He could be another rogue.It would serve me right if he is, after what I’ve caused.
“Who do you belong to?” he spits out another question without letting me answer the first.
The second question makes me blanch. “I don’t belong to anyone,” I spit out, offended by the mere implication. Packs and mates—whichever he may be referencing—are about being part of a team. Not about belonging to anyone. The very idea of that is so outdated it makes my chest burn with anger.
“Hmm.” He turns his head, looking back into the forest. At first, I think he’s looking to see who might be following behind me, but then a group of other wolves I don’t recognize bursts through the tree line where I just came from.
I’m in an awkward position on the ground, but the last thing I want is to face a whole group of strange wolves in human form. Should have listened to my wolf after all. All of the shifting back and forth jars my body, making me ache, but I push past it to shift into wolf form again. The guy lunges for me, but he’s too late. My speed helps me win out again.
The other wolves head right for me, with the kind of unity that tells me they’re definitely from a pack, not rogues. I briefly wonder if they’re from the Anchorage Lake Pack, but I don’t want to think about that, and it doesn’t change anything for me if they are. I want nothing to do with anyone, much less anyone from the pack of the man who deemed me not good enough with no more than a split-second glance.
The problem is, I might be fast, but I don’t know the land outside pack territory all that well. I lose the other wolves briefly but realize too late they know the lay of the land much better than I do.
While I’m trying to sort out which way to run, they manage to circle me. I slow, dropping my head slightly as I try to study the wolves. Looking for a weak spot to break through. I don’t know why they’re surrounding me, but I have a very bad feeling about it.
I don’t want trouble, my wolf says even though I know they can’t hear me.
They start to close ranks, forming a tighter circle around me that forces me closer to the first wolf who stopped me. I meet his eyes, desperately looking for some sort of explanation for this. Callum called them for help, now that the rogues have been dealt with, they should be worried about getting back to their own packs.
The wolf looks to those on either side of me, and I can tell they’re mind linking. I stare hard at him, desperately trying to read his mind and see what the hell these wolves are playing at. I’m not actually expecting anything, but something manages to break through the mind fog that normally separates pack from pack.
