Page 1 of Forsaking His Mate

Chapter 1

Tessa

The baying of wolves fills my ears.

I can hear the panic in those howls, the determination too, and, through my pack bond, the pain.

Some are dying, others are hanging on by a thread.

That emotional assault is why I’m lying in the dirt, my breath wheezing out of me like an old chainsaw. I was running through the trees, my heart hammering so hard I felt like it was going to explode out of my chest.

Then I felt him die.

Mason.

He is our pack delta—or he was.

Now, he’s gone.

The agony of his death ricochets through my brain like a pinball. Mason was strong. If he is gone, what hope is there for the rest of my pack?

For me.

We’re all going to die out here, and it’s my fault. My father should never havelet me stay.

The thought stabs at my heart. I am responsible for the turmoil and chaos happening around me.

It would be easy to lie in the dirt and wait for the wolves hunting us down like dogs to find me, but I want to live. I have a sense that I have to survive.

Get up, Tessa…

Move…

Pressing my fingers into the mulch and sodden leaves covering the ground, I force myself up onto my knees.

I’m shaking so badly that I can hardly focus on anything, so I take a moment while the world starts spinning around me to try to hone my senses.

Where am I?

Trees surround me, rows and rows of trunks and thick foliage. The sun barely reaches through the canopy of leaves overhead, making it feel more like dusk than mid-afternoon. It casts an eerie hue over everything around me and heightens my terror.

I was running west, away from the pack lands, but I think I’ve turned south somehow and I don’t know where I am anymore. I’ve never been this far from the compound. I was never allowed. My father kept me hidden since I was a pup, and for good reason. I’m different and there are those who do not like anything different.

There are hunters, other wolves, who will tear apart any who is different under the guise of protecting our bloodline. It’s bullshit, but there are those who believe it too, those who would hand over any wolf trying to flee from the hunters because of their misguided sense of righteousness.

I try to reach down the pack bond to sense my father, but everything is jumbled and panicked. I can’tlock on to one voice, one consciousness, and there’s only one emotion coming through—fear.

I raise my head and sniff the air, letting go of my human side for a moment. As I do, I allow the animal I share my awareness with to take over. My wolf is trapped inside me, unable to shift because of what I am. Unlike the rest of my pack, she won’t ever manifest, or so my father says. He tried when I turned sixteen, when I was brought before my pack under the full moon and my alpha—my father—tried to call my wolf to the surface.

Nothing happened except excruciating pain as my wolf tried to free herself and failed. Instead, I left my body. I don’t know how I did it, but I saw things that should not have been possible. I floated above my pack, watching as my bones broke and tried to reform into my wolf.

There is no other wolf in my pack who can do that. As far as I know, no wolf should be able to.

It was then I knew I was different.

When I told my father what happened, his face became serious and he told me I was more special than I could imagine. I didn’t feel special. I felt like a freak.

He forbade me from traveling that way again, and I have kept that promise… until now.

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