Page 19 of Wolf's Fate

As I descended the steep peak of the mountain face, I felt myself open more to the familiarity of my surroundings. Every rock, tree, and stream was as familiar to me as old friends. Areminder that no matter how much time had passed, I’d never truly escaped.

As I picked my way down the unstable terrain, I sought out new paths rather than relying on old ones. Like I had when I left. And what had I found? Nothing. The life of a loner was everything I wanted—and nothing like I’d expected. However, I liked having only myself to rely on.

Which was what the shaman was worried about. What Cannon feared but had not yet voiced.

A lone wolf was dangerous.

A lone wolf was independent. There was no pack to return to and nothing to tie you.

There was just…nothing.

Except for the loneliness. The wildness. The temptation to live too much as the wolf. To shed your humanity. Was I so close to forgetting who I was that they thought I was a danger to them?

To myself?

To Willow?

Cannon had put himself between us. Did they really think I had forgotten the ways of our Goddess?

The rage I carried with me since that fateful day ten years ago had nothing to do with Willow. The grief I held was mine to hold. It didn’t make me weak. I’d been weak before, and the sting of betrayal was still as sharp now as it had been then.

Willow was not in danger from me. She never had been. Did it piss me off I’d been drawn to her while she haddrawnme. Of course it did. I didn’t understand it, and I’d never been someone to accept something I didn’t understand. A fact that used to make my father clench his jaw tight and pray forpatience from Luna. The memory made me smile. I could still see him so clearly.

Amos had been a proud man. A towering presence, both in life and the memory he had left behind. He’d been an easy alpha to follow. He commanded attention with ease and without question. I’d never heard him shout or raise his voice; he didn’t need to. Pack knew his authority. It was how he carried himself, broad-shouldered and tall. I’d inherited his dark eyes, but I didn’t think I would ever master the same piercing stare my father had controlled, the way he could see through the bullshit, and one look from him told you not to try any bullshit either.

I had my mother’s light hair coloring. My father’s was dirt brown, streaked with silver as he aged. It was a mark of his wisdom, my mother used to say. He used to say it was from raising me. His family was his life, and his pack was his pride. Amos was respected and known as a strong leader and an even stronger ally.

Balance is what made a good alpha. Amos was well-balanced. He was firm but fair. I remembered his ability to be fierce but kind. Calm but calculated.

And if you really, truly pissed him off…he was relentless.That, I’d inherited from him. The unrelenting need for justice. He would never have approved ofhowI achieved it, and for that, I was thankful he had never lived to see it.

There was a lot I’d done in the years since they passed that he wouldn’t have approved of. He wouldn’t have liked the situation with Willow. He would hate how I had been alone for so long. Amos believed that a pack centered you, and maybe once,I did too. But now…now they were just a burden I’d never asked for.

Willow Harper, I’d never asked for her. I hadn’t asked for any of this. This was the hand that Luna gave me. She didn’t get to complain when I didn’t play the way she wanted.

It didn’t make me dangerous. It didn’t mean I was a risk. It only meant I was content with my own company. Nothing more. I knew it didn’t help that I’d left the way I did that morning in Cannon’s house.

It would have confirmed their fear I was lost.

Maybe I had been. Maybe this mountain was the only place where I knew who I was, and maybe that would have to be good enough. I had changed over the last ten years. In some ways, I was unrecognizable. In others, I was so predictably the same that it mademyteeth grind when I clenched my jaw.

I stood on a bluff overlooking the mountain, and I looked down and around, taking it all in. Possessiveness surged within me as I surveyed the mountain.Mymountain.

Is this what they wanted, Cannon and the shaman, to have me back here?

Or…maybe they thought they could trick me?

Was that their plan? Push me far enough to renounce my claim here? To use a human to make me think there was a link between us. Why would ahumanhave a link to Luna?Orme? It was preposterous.

Unthinkable.

Yet, I had believed it.

The thought made me step back. Had they thought to use my grief and my pain against me and, in doing so, it would make meblindto what was in front of me?

Did they think I was stupid? As I thought about all the ways they had plotted against me, I saw how they had pushed me into situations without me recognizing it for what it was at the time.

Manipulation.

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