Page 14 of To Hunt A Wolf
He nods at my closest guard, and the man reaches over to cut the bindings on my wrists. They fall to the ground, and I resist the urge to rub at the sore skin left behind.
Thiago leans in, his voice low, as he tells me, “You will bring me my father’s murderer, or Kari will die for it. Do you understand me?”
“She’s innocent, and you know it.”
He shrugs as if none of this matters to him. “She’s a threat.”
Not for the first time, I wonder briefly if he had something to do with Jadick’s disappearance. The older sibling had been next in line for alpha. Not anymore.
My hands fist, and my lips part to bare teeth. Thiago’s sharp eyes flick over me, missing nothing.
“One last thing,” he says, turning back to the crowd. “Until she brings me my father’s killer, Miss Quinn is exiled. This is our justice but not our vengeance. Not yet. I swear to deliver you both, in time. Your alpha has spoken.”
The crowd goes wild, and I’m shoved down the remaining steps and into a black SUV. A burly driver waits inside. The second the door shuts behind me. The man hits the gas, and we speed away. Within moments, we’ve left behind my pack, my town, and any chance of saying a proper goodbye to anyone I actually love.
* * *
We makea right and then an immediate left. I know where we’re going without having to ask; we’re headed for the boundary line. On a lone stretch of highway, I stare out the window and let my mind wander back to the town we’ve left behind and what it thinks of me. Blackstone, Virginia started as a railroad town. That was two hundred years ago, and it hasn’t changed much since. Still small, still simple, still trying to convince the outside world that we’re merely human.
But we’re not human. We’re liars. Always have been. And maybe our lie is justified. Protect our kind from all the things humans would do to us if they knew we existed. I can sort of understand it, this “us versus them” mentality. But then came the cruel rejection of our own.
A century ago, our alpha rejected his true mate and decided, for whatever stupid reason, that rejection made him stronger. Others agreed—because who would contradict an alpha?—and the practice stuck. Toxic masculinity, werewolf edition. Now, our pack prides themselves on the practice of ignoring fate, hormones and instincts be damned.
Can a wolf die from rejecting its one true soul mate?
Yes.
Does my pack see that as a problem?
Not as long as you live.
The ones who wither away from their choice are deemed weak anyway, and who wants weaklings in their pack?
Not Crigger.
And certainly not Thiago.
There is power in being a Reject. And zero glory in being a Romantic. In fact, those who believe in actually choosing your true mate are cast out. And now, they’re also being blamed for Crigger’s death. It’s a political stunt, nothing more. Because Levi is a lot of things, but romantic isn’t one of them. I would know.
If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s this: The Black Moon pack is as black-hearted as they come.
And now, I’m no longer welcome in it.
Exiled.
Homeless.
Inevitably, I think of my father, but I shove the thought away. Wherever he is, he’s probably happy and definitely better off without me. My mother, on the other hand… I don’t know what she’ll do when she finds out what happened.
She’s not a predictable person.
Vicki Quinn is a firecracker.
That’s what the people in town say.
She always dismisses them, smiles in that way she has, and changes the subject. I don’t press it. I already know what I need to know. Once, twenty-one years ago, my mom said screw it and had an affair with a human. They were together fourteen months. Then I was born, and she took me and ran away in the middle of the night.
To protect him.
