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His grin is lethal and I shiver. Ryder has been my best friend since we were pups, and I know all this is bravado. He would never hurt me unless he had to, but he can’t let the pack see him show favoritism. “Was that Silver Dawn girl worth all this pain and suffering?” he asks, and I try to stand up and get in his face. I see the victorious smirk even as raises his arm and drops his elbow with the weight of his body on my arm.
The answering crack is deafening and my vision blurs as I scream. He distracted me, getting a rise out of me and gleaning information at the same time so he could break my arm without me fighting him. Without me even having time to get drunk. I hiss through clenched teeth and make a solemn vow that I’ll get him back for this someday.
“Fuck, Ryder!” Rachel screams, wrapping my arm tightly with a bandage and glaring at him. “That was excessive, don't you think?”
Ryder only laughs, clapping a hand on my shoulder and handing me the bottle of whiskey.
“Drink up, brother. You’re gonna need it.”
He walks away, leaving me near unconscious from the pain while Rachel chants. My skin prickles with goosebumps and I try to shy away from her and her strange magic. Focusing instead on Ryder as he goes over to the bar where Cookie is serving shots and he leans in, talking to her quietly.
He can try and hide it all he wants, but the whole pack knows something’s up between those two. He hides it because that cute little blonde wisp of a girl is human.
Ryder has a duty to his bloodline, and Cookie doesn’t meet those requirements.
Chapter8
Ruby
Cole herds me away from Chase like a pup on her way to be scolded. He doesn’t look at me, he towers over me and bares his teeth if I shift one paw out of the path he’s set for me. Since dad went missing this is what it’s been like, Cole looming over me with dictations about family and my responsibility to the pack. It never ends.
“You could have died,”Cole growls, twenty minutes into our silent trek home.“I was out here thinking I would find your corpse.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, brother, you didn’t even know for sure I was out here.”
I know I shouldn’t be so snarky, not with him, but growing up with your brother being a shithead doesn’t exactly change on a dime when he becomes the all-powerful Alpha. We’re talking about the same kid that put elk scat under my bed for a week and made my room smell awful. The way he helped me look for the source with a straight face, it was sadistic. Now I’m supposed to just bow down and act like he’s in charge of me?
“When will you learn that your safety is paramount to almost anyone else’s? You’re—”
“I’m the future of the pack, I know, but so are you! Your pups will also be the future, not just mine. So why is it all on me? Why haven’t you taken a mate? You have every girl in the pack staring at you like you’re the moon itself. Yet you’re worried about me and my childbearing!”
Cole growls and pounces, pinning me to the ground. Shamefully my body reacts as expected. I roll over on my back and bare my stomach in submission. I whine as he bares his teeth at my neck, his golden eyes flashing with anger.
“My mate will be the next Luna, she can’t just be any random wolf. The only wolf in this pack that fits that description is you, and that cannot be. You know as well as I my only choice will be one I hate! I’m expected to seed the pack, every unmated woman. That is my responsibility since there is no mate for me! You get the chance to find yours, and you turn your nose up at every single one!”
Cole sighs, stepping away from me and sitting in the snow, looking around at the surrounding woods and the fading daylight.
“Our pack has been blessed with beta males, strong and sure, genetics impeccable, but the women? While lovely and strong, they do not hold the qualities of a Luna.”His nose wrinkles, teeth baring slightly.“Our mother may be the last true Luna the Silver Dawn pack will ever see, unless I die and you lead.”
I roll over in the snow and lay my head on my paws. He’s right, his battle is much worse than mine, but he doesn’t know I’ve found my mate and it isn’t any of the Betas he’s picked out for me. It’s a Dark Moon Beta, Ryder’s right hand, and if Cole knew he’d rip him apart. I walk to him slowly and rub my muzzle on his neck, trying to apologize. All at once embarrassment and shame floods over me. I’ve been so worried about what he’d think if he found me with Chase, but not once did it cross my mind that he’d be worried I was missing in the first place.
“I’m sorry I left without telling anyone, it was dumb. I didn’t know the storm was coming. I’m sorry I worried you,”I whisper into his mind, trying my best to mean it.
Had I not gone I would have never met Chase…and everything that came with him.
“You asked me to save my enemy, Ruby.”He glares down at me, shifting away from my touch.“You called to me, and I came. I followed you even though you wouldn’t tell me why. When I saw that…wolf…”Cole sneers, disgusted.“I should have let him die, but you ran right at that bear. Why? Why would you risk your life for a greasy mut like him?”
“If not for him I’d be dead, and then who would you pressure into spitting out pups!”I snap, and instantly regret it.“He saved my life! I was looking for food and not thinking! I was lucky he was there, or I would have been eaten by that bear. I owe him my life!”
“The only thing you owe him is what he got, punished for trespassing and allowed to leave alive.”
Cole says nothing else, standing and walking away. He expects me to follow him, but all my instincts are telling me to turn around and go back to my mate.
Cole crests the next hill and freezes, his hackles rising.“This is why your ‘savior’ was here, sister,”he scowls, body tensing and looking for danger.
I run up beside him and I smell it before I see it; an entire herd of sheep slaughtered. Still, when I see it, my stomach lurches. The sheep weren’t eaten, just destroyed. Bits and pieces litter the clearing below like they were torn apart and thrown every which way. Every blade of grass is covered in gore, the majority of the corpses piled haphazardly.
“This is what that monstrous pack does, slaughters for fun! They don’t care what they do, as long as they hurt our pack! Their growth is why we’re struggling to produce, they are overwhelming the territory with their ill-bred spawn and we’ll be run out of the territory we have reigned since the great father Cassius ruled these lands. Now the descendants of the betrayer are gathering in mass, threatening our claim once again, and you had me save one!”
