Page 4 of Moon Destiny

The wind shifted, bringing the sharp scent of blood.

I put on a burst of speed, the trees around me nothing more than shapeless green blurs. A second later, I leapt into a clearing and skidded to a stop.

And my fears were realized, because Alex was already dead. He lay on his back with his throat torn out, his eyes staring sightlessly at a sky studded with stars. A few paces away lay a human female. The girlfriend he’d spoken of. The reporter from Seattle. I’d warned him that loving a human was a difficult path to walk—something I knew all too well from my failed marriage to his mother. Alex had resented me giving my two cents, and I’d vowed to back off and let him make his own mistakes.

It was too late to back off now.

I threw my head back and howled, only vaguely aware of my beta and top two enforcers cringing, their heads low, as my rage and sorrow echoed through the night. But I couldn’t indulge my grief for long. It was starting to rain. Even a quick summer storm would wash away any trail left by Alex’s attackers.

Dylan, my beta, shifted and went to one knee in the dirt. Gaze on my chin, he spoke in an urgent voice. “Alpha. Hugh. The woman isn’t dead.”

It took a minute for his words to sink in. When they did, I swung my head toward the female. She was slumped on her side with her back to me, her blond hair soaked with blood. More blood pooled under her. There was no way she could have survived. And yet…

There it was—a faint heartbeat.

I shifted as I moved toward her, and for once I didn’t notice the aches and discomforts of the change. My skin was still tingling as I knelt in human form and brushed her hair away from her face. Her throat was a pulpy mess with bits of purplish bone visible among the torn flesh. How was she still breathing?

“The blood clotted,” Dylan said beside me. He pressed two fingers against her wrist, his blond brows pulled together. “She’s hanging on, but just barely.”

The rain fell harder, fat drops splatting in the dirt. In the distance, thunder boomed.

Tanner, one of my enforcers and a huge wolf with blue-black fur, trotted from the tree line where he’d been sniffing at the ground. When he reached us, he shifted and stood, the hair on his head the same sleek black as his fur. Shepherd, my other enforcer, fell in beside him.

“Do you have a scent?” I asked Tanner. He was the best tracker in the Pacific Pack, possibly the whole country.

He grimaced. “It’s faint. The ground is so wet I’d be surprised if it extends more than a hundred yards.” His hazel eyes lightened to yellow. “And these weren’t pack wolves.”

Which meant they were rogues.

A growl rumbled in my chest. Every pack had its own unique scent, and the wolves who belonged to it carried that signature wherever they went. But rogues—wolves who got kicked out or left the pack structure for whatever reason—smelled different. And because no two smelled alike, they were difficult to track. Typically, rogues wouldn’t dare attack a pack wolf.

But these weren’t typical times.

Still, it was almost unheard of for rogues to work together. They were outcasts. Loners who didn’t follow any rules or coordinate with others. And yet that appeared to be exactly what happened here. I turned, my gaze falling on Alex. There were paw prints all around his body. Too many for one wolf to have made.

“It’s just like the attack in Texas,” I said. Two weeks ago, a pair of enforcers in the South Central Pack had been ambushed, their bodies ripped apart. The gruesome scene had sent shock waves across the packs, and several alphas—me included—had called for a Council meeting. But we’d been outnumbered, with the majority dismissing the incident as “unfortunate” but ultimately not worthy of a gathering. One alpha had even suggested a serial killer was behind the killings, as if a human could take down two dominant werewolves.

A fresh wave of rage pounded through me as I stared at my son. The Council bore some responsibility for this. Many of the alphas were old—born in a time when the world was slower and quieter. None of them enjoyed rubbing elbows with humans. They’d let their disdain for modern forms of travel stop them from doing the right thing.

Another growl rumbled in my throat.

“You should bite her,” Dylan said.

I turned back, surprise momentarily blunting my rage. “What?”

“If she turns, she might be able to tell us who did this. She might even recognize their scents.”

“She won’t make it,” Tanner said. “It’s not worth the effort.”

He was right. Women almost never survived the moon fever that followed a bite. I looked at the female’s pale face streaked with blood. Her name was Brooke, I remembered now. She was lovely, and Alex had spoken highly of her intellect. She was—had been—some kind of newspaper reporter. “Such a fucking waste,” I bit out.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Dylan said, urgency in his tone. He shot Tanner an exasperated look. “She’ll die anyway if you don’t bite her. What’s the harm in trying to save her, even if it probably won’t work? At least take the chance it might. Then we can avenge Alex.” As he spoke the last, his voice deepened to a growl and his brown eyes lightened several shades.

Which was no surprise. He knew more about loss and vengeance than most.

And he was right about this. If we moved Brooke now, she’d be dead before we got her to our vehicles. This was her only chance.

And mine.

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