Page 8 of Primal

Something I can respect, not that I know myself what it’s like to be bonded to another.

Yet. I don’t knowyet.

The thought of the arrangement I’ve committed myself to has my paws digging deeper into the earth and my muscles straining as I run harder toward my house. The delicious ache of overexertion doesn’t completely quiet the demons I’ve been silently fighting in my head, but it’s just enough that I’m momentarily able to think clearer.

These days, I hardly feel like I have time to catch my breath. It’s all been one thing after another since I found myself donning the title of pack Alpha.

It was never a question ofifI would take over the mantle from my father, it was a question ofwhen. The day I was forcedto take on this role was years sooner than anyone anticipated, but there wasn’t any other option. Walking away from my pack and allowing it to fall into ruin wasn’t something I could live with.

Just two years shy of thirty, I’m younger than pack Alphas customarily are. While no one was brave enough to question it to my face, I saw the looks of distrust and heard the whispers from my pack and our allies during the first few months of my reign. They didn’t have faith I could keep our pack going strong or that I could keep everyone in it safe. My council, the same men and women who advised my father during his time, were the most open with their uncertainty.

I was eventually able to earn the pack’s tentative trust by just being myself and actively proving to them I am a leader they could count on. The pack council took more convincing, and their support came at an immeasurable cost.

The very notion of completing my end of that bargain has never sat right with me, but the closer we get to the scheduled winter solstice date, the more my wolf balks at the idea. The edgy energy he’s developed since our shared dream changed into somethingmoreonly makes his refusal fiercer.

He is going off the simple, black-and-white baser instincts that are ingrained in him; he doesn’t understand the human side of things—the political side. As an Alpha, we sometimes have to make sacrifices for the greater good of our pack, even at the detriment of ourselves. This is what I’ve been telling myself ever since the proposed alliance—one that promises greater security for my people—was first presented to me.

I won’t let my pack down and I’ll do what I must to make sure my people are safe. Especially those who are most vulnerable and precious to us. As of last month, another omega from my pack has officially been declared a missing person. Abducted.Taken right from out land. That’s seven in total since I came into power.

I cannot allow this number to climb and with what I’ve been promised from this arrangement, our people will be more fortified than ever. Not only can I not bear to have another innocent disappear beneath my nose, but the pack’s fragile trust in me can’t take it either. And this is why I’ll make this sacrifice for them. Not matter the personal cost.

Claws digging into the damp dirt, I skid to a stop beside the pile of clothes I’d left sitting on a flat boulder. The familiar burn and twist of my muscles and bones snapping and reforming is a sensation I savor until I’m once again standing on two feet. My wolf, who is usually more relaxed after intense exercise, is more present and alert than ever. He paces, pushing at the seams of my control. Since the beginning, my relationship with my animal has always been solid. He is always willing to give up control and allow the human side to be in the driver’s seat, but right now, he’s fighting me. He's picked up on something I’m not sensing and he’s clawing at me to let him to search it out.

Redressing in the charcoal wool trousers and the black button-up—clothes I’d only donned this morning because of the council meeting I have to attend shortly after Rhosyn’s stealthy addition—I focus on my surroundings. I’m met with the scent of snow still resting on the pines, damp earth, and the familiarity of my pack. From my house looming far above me on the hill, comes the hum of people speaking, and around me, the light breeze makes the dry leaves rustle and the tree branches creak. Aside from the young pups who are clearly playing hooky from school and are goofing off in the trees a few hundred meters away, nothing seems amiss.

The entire walk up the long, weaving gravel and dirt path, my animal half battles against me, insisting there’s something here I need to pay attention to. We’ve always seen eye to eye on mostmatters and are historically in sync with each other’s emotions and needs, but right now, I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s set him off.

With a powerful show of dominance, I shove my wolf down and strengthen my resolve as I reach the base of the wooden stairs that lead up to my deck.

I’d already picked up on both Canaan’s and Talis’s distinct voices and scents about sixty yards back, but as I climb, it becomes obvious they’re not alone.

I’m already questioning why Talis is here and who she’s speaking to when a new scent, subtle yet intoxicating, slams into me. It’s faint, criminally so, but that doesn’t stop me from filling my lungs with it like it’s the last breath I’ll ever take.

My beast chuffs, a sound that can only be described as his haughty version of”I told you so”.

Like a predator locking onto its prey, I surge up the stairs with newfound urgency, my instincts driving me forward. I reach the top just in time to hear a female voice ask,”You’re going to bond with Merritt?”

Hearing my father’s name spoken aloud summons the familiar inkiness of guilt slithering between my ribs. It doesn’t matter if I know in my heart I did the right thing. At this rate, I’m not sure if my reaction to his name will ever ease. Part of me believes I deserve to feel this way after what I did.

“Merritt?” both Canaan and Talis repeat, sounding equal parts repulsed and dismayed by the stranger’s question.

That sweet voice hesitates for a second, giving me time to step fully onto the deck and take in the scene before me. Talis, with her penny-like hair, has waves of contempt radiating from her as she stares down the newcomer standing in my second’s sizable shadow. It almost appears as if Canaan is safeguarding the pocket-sized woman with the way he positions himself at her side and glares back at the fiery beta female.

“He’s the Alpha, isn’t he?”

I subtly suck in another lungful of the sugary air and there’s no denying it. The scent belongs to her, the stranger with the cascading layers of long espresso-colored hair that is styled in a way that seems both wild and intentional. Wispy bangs fall on her forehead and frame a delicate heart-shaped face, a face that is snapping in my direction when I intrude on their tense conversation.

“Merritt is dead. I’m the Alpha of this pack now.”

Her pink, pouty lips part in a silent gasp, the faint indent on her lower lip making it clear she’s been biting at it, something I silently wonder if she’s aware she’s doing it.

With her attention now locked on me, I’m unable to stop myself from further taking the little stranger in.

Despite the oversized dark sunglasses concealing her fine-boned features, an accessory choice that frustrates both me and my wolf, I can still make out the refined elegance of her face. If I didn’t know any better, I would assume she’s an omega with her petite build, but nothing in her sweet scent conveys she’s a shifter herself. That doesn’t mean she hasn’t been spending time around one, though. Beneath the allure of her own fragrance lingers the distinct aroma of a female shifter. It’s blended with something else. Something familiar, but I can’t quite seem to place it.

It's the brown sugar and spiced fig that both my wolf and I are fixated on. He’s urging me forward, to stick my nose right to her throat so I can breathe it in straight from the source. I force myself to remain rooted in place because with the way my wolf’s been behaving as of late, I wouldn’t put it past him to choose this moment to finally eviscerate my dwindling control.

“Rennick…” She says my name with a hint of familiarity that makes my chest tighten in places I didn’t know it could.What the fuck is going on?“I didn’t know…” Pausing to clearher throat, she looks nervously over her shoulder at Canaan, an innocent action that has my wolf baring his teeth.No! Keep your eyes on me.“I didn’t know you were the pack Alpha now.”

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