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“You’re already doing more than I could have ever asked for…” She drops her spent cigarette and stomps it out, giving me a weak smile before going back inside and meets her very hungry daughters as they beg for a snack.
I sigh and scrub my face with my hands. I feel like I’m failing her, failing the pack. I’m so obsessed with Ruby that for a few days all we could do was mate and I almost completely forgot about Brody. Now, without her here, she’s all I can think about still. My senses are overwhelmed with her sweet scent, the taste of her lips. Heading for my own trailer, I move to the side of the dirt path that serves as a road through the trailer park and turn to look behind me when the thundering rumble of motorcycles roars behind me. I shield my eyes from the midday sun to see Ryder and Rachel. They wave to me as they drive past, but both stop at my little trailer.
Instinctively, I freeze up. Ryder’s face is hard and it’s clear he’s here to talk to me. I watch Rachel hug her brother and toss him the keys to her bike before she walks over to the bar.
Ryder stays mounted, watching me with cool eyes as I walk up to him, stroking his beard as he mulls over whatever punishment I’m sure he’s about to dole out. I can’t help but to hunch my shoulders slightly, this can’t be good. I open my mouth to greet him but he chucks Rachel’s keys at me and points at her bike. His face is emotionless, and as he revs his engine and drives away without a word I know I’m meant to follow him.
I mount Rachel’s Harley, finding it’s much smaller than mine and handles differently, but since mine is still totaled on the mountain I don’t have much choice. I start the bike, leaving my helmet in the trailer. If I’m gonna die in the next few hours, I’d rather it be to the street and not to my friend. He shouldn’t have to face that, not because of my mistakes. I speed up, leaving a trail of dust in the trailer park, and I’m riding beside him less than a mile later. Ryder doesn’t look at me, doesn’t acknowledge me at all, but I see he’s got his hip holsters strapped as well as his concealed weapon under his shirt.
A chill runs up my spine and for a split second I look at the winding mountain highway and consider tucking my tail and running. Ryder is a firm but just Alpha, taking our pack from the gutter and raising us to respectable citizens. He turns without warning and goes off-road, leading me down a winding path in the woods. I swallow a lump in my throat and follow reluctantly. Harley Davidsons weren’t built for offroad driving, and my knuckles go white on the handlebars trying to make sure not to total another bike.
I ride beside my friend, gravel and dust spraying off the back of our bikes in a whirlwind. We’ve ridden like this for as long as we could ride, side by side. I’ve always had his back and he’s always had mine. I remember us playing in a creek as gangly teenagers, splashing each other and Rachel and making her squeal in anger. Girls were so weird back then, more interested in sunbaking on the pebble beach than splashing in the water.
Rachel wasn’t just any girly girl though, and that was the first time I’d learn that messing with her is the worst mistake I could have ever made. The way she flew off her towel and launched herself at me was more like a wildcat than a wolf. She collided with me in the water, shoving me under and laughing, but Ryder had my back. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her off of me kicking and screaming.
“How do you like getting your ass kicked by a girl?” she screamed at me, and I just laughed.
Growing up with them was the best part of my entire life, until I met Ruby. They were like siblings to me, with my mom and dad gone—off doing moon knows what—us kids practically raised ourselves. Feral pups teaching themselves how to fight and how to live.
But now I face not my childhood friend, but the angry Alpha of the Dark Moon pack.
When we finally stop we’re facing a giant clearing, a huge maple tree split in half in the center. Half of the tree lays on the ground, dead and rotting, but the other half is thriving, even though its naked of leaves in the winter. The winter sky above churns as Ryder gets off his bike and approaches the tree. It’s as if nature itself is in tune with his emotions, boiling with anger as a dangerous storm gathers and waits to break over the land.
“This tree…it’s special to me, Chase,” Ryder says, his voice veiled with darkness and mystery as I meet him in the snow packed clearing. “She’s so old that she stood here when our ancestors did.” He points into the distance and I see a cliff rising above the trees. “When Raina gave Cassius the gift of the wolf and saved him from his brother she struck this tree with lightning, breaking it in half. That same day she marked Raul, and unbeknownst to her she created a second line, a troubled line.”
I follow Ryder as he walks up to the tree and he places a hand on the dead and withered branch. He grabs my hand and gently places it beside his and I inhale sharply when my skin touches the bark. It’s hard as a rock, frozen in time. Ryder puts his other hand on my shoulder, and between us we make a circle of connection with the petrified wood.
“Raina’s direct descendants thrive on the mountain, like this tree rises to greet the moon, and we stay below. Because of Raul, we’ve lived through hard times, his children and his children's children plagued by obsession and jealousy, rotting the line. This tree rotted, eaten by the elements, but at some point long ago she hardened, turning from a piece of decaying wood to an immovable rock. Look.”
I crouch with Ryder and look underneath the tree. He moves some leaves aside and sits back on his heels, looking at me for the first time since he led me here. His gray eyes are full of emotion now. Churning like the clouds above with mystery and an impossible unknowing. He gestures to a hole in the bottom of the tree, and a fox walks out and rubs against Ryder’s legs. Behind her six kits crawl out.
“This branch hardened itself, defeating the elements, and now this vixen returns here every year to birth her kits.” The fox climbs into Ryder’s arms and he holds her with reverence, his eyes full of love, while the kits surround him and play with the ends of his long braid. “Like our pack, this tree endured so much, only to harden herself and shelter those who need it.”
When he looks at me again his gray eyes are misty, and he takes a deep shuddering breath. “We’ve come so far, my brother, becoming a pillar of strength for those around us. Instead of ravaging the land we have turned to nurture it, atoning for mistakes of generations past.”
I nod, humbled by his words. Knowing deep in my marrow that they’re true. Dark Moon pack are trying to make things right. Ryder’s trying to make things right.
He sighs. “What you’ve done with Ruby puts this delicate balance at risk.”
I start to talk, wincing internally, but Ryder shakes his head and I close my mouth obediently.
“Generations of hostility have finally come to an impasse. For the last few years there have been no incidents between our two packs. We’ve had a tentative, unspoken peace. Then Brody disappears. Without a trace a seventeen-year-old pup is gone, and when you go to look for him, you vanish.”
Ryder stands, walking back to his bike with the kits and fox at his heels, and takes off his leather jacket. He slowly undresses, his mind churning so wildly that I can see the muscles in his jaw twitch.
He stands before me, naked in the middle of nowhere, and slices his chest with a bowie knife.
I jump at him, grabbing the knife and trying to snatch his shirt to staunch the bleeding, but Ryder doesn't flinch, and surrenders the knife without a battle. His eyes are like cold steel as he wet his hand with his blood and wipes it down the side of my face.
“You’ve lied to me, brother,” he says, his voice so low and ominous that my body shakes, my head dropping so my chin brushes my chest. “Something happened while you were gone, I can feel the change in the wind like someone is gripping my scruff and pulling me off my feet. You’ve done something, started something, and I don’t know if I can protect you.”
With his last words Ryder pushes me to my knees and kneels before me. Both of his hands are on my shoulders, tears falling freely from his eyes.
I’m frozen. My breath disintegrated. Is he exiling me from the pack? Will choosing Ruby mean losing everything?
“You’re my brother, not by the same mother but by soul, and what you’ve done may take you from me and I don’t know if the pack will survive it. I don’t know if I will survive it.”
He pushes my jacket off, picking up his knife and slicing my shirt off my body. He presses his head to mine, and I tremble as he slices my chest in a mirror image of his own wound and pulls me into a tight hug.
