A dark gray wolf flashes by, navigating the trees with agility as it crosses the snow. Behind it, two more wolves give chase—a larger, chestnut brown wolf and one with gray and white patches across its fur.
What would have appeared to be a casual stroll soon becomes an alarming chase when the chestnut wolf stops and howls, prompting the patchy wolf to race toward the gray one, catching up to the smaller wolf and leaping forward until it knocks it down. My breath catches when I realize what’s happening—the difference in size is what gives it away.
The smaller gray wolf is a female omega who whimpers in a desperate cry for help when Patches steps over her helplesswolf frame, licking his lips with a sinister glint in his eyes. The chestnut wolf joins him to taunt the omega with a lap of his tongue across his face as he growls lowly and steps on her wolf arm.
There’s a shuffle in the snow before that arm retracts and turns human, a set of dainty human fingers being crushed under the weight of the brown wolf’s front paw. Her squeaky voice rings out with desperation as she pleads for the male wolves to let her go.
“P-please! Don’t do this!” she cries out with terror in a frail human voice that sends a pang through my heart.
When the male wolves continue to terrorize her while she’s helpless on the ground, something shifts inside me, spurring my steps as I rush forward and leap over the river, landing on my wolf paws after I shift midair. Howling to warn them to let her go, I act purely on the impulses of my innate primal wolf as I pounce forward and headbutt the chestnut wolf.
It whimpers and wheezes with a bleating cry that echoes through the darkening forest, and in a flash, Patches growls and attempts to charge at me. Fearlessly, because I’m an alpha wolf against these low-life werewolves who don’t have the balls to spare a female omega, I growl back ferociously and lunge for the disgraceful beast.
How dare he take advantage of a female? I think with bitter contempt as I snarl and hiss through my wolf’s sharp teeth, warning the wolf that I’m here to protect a vulnerable omega. I could never stand to see injustice, and even if these wolves are not Snehvolk Pack members, the disgrace of their violation is something I don’t take lightly.
The surge of rage flooding my veins in wolf form is frightening and makes no sense, but I’m running on instinctas the patchy gray and white wolf steps over the she-wolf’s human form and lowers its head, eyes narrowed at me as if I’m interrupting something important.
I growl lowly, my only warning through the red I’m seeing before I act, and I kick my hind legs against the snow and leap forward with canines bared at my nemesis. What happens next is an inconceivable blur, my wolf ruthless as it tears through thick flesh with teeth and distended claws that rip through Patches’s flesh. His severed head is a lead weight between my paws, and I toss it aside with a disgusted grunt before I train my vision on the chestnut brown wolf I’d knocked away from the she-wolf.
It’s standing in front of me, whimpering its grief for the loss of its friend as it composes itself to take me on. The rage that spreads throughout my being has me seeing all shades of red that make it impossible to keep myself calm. All I know is that this wolf must be stopped, because I’ll never accept seeing a she-wolf in distress.
All it takes is the brown wolf making the slightest movement for me to attack, giving my all as I spear my giant wolf frame forward and clamp both sets of claws into its neck. My teeth follow, and I rip the wolf’s head off its shoulders, tossing the decapitated furry head to the side.
Only now that the wolves have been taken care of do I realize that I haven’t even stopped to catch my breath. In my rageful, demented outburst, I’d been holding my breath while my wolf heart pounded against my ribs.
Steadying my breathing now that I’m calmer and the she-wolf is safe, I lug in a deep breath that fills my wolf’s lungs with the unreasonably familiar scent that lingers in the air. The sweet notes are tempting, inviting me to turn my head and see the she-wolf lifting her face through the curtain of soft snowfall. When she looks up, wide, penetrating silver eyes meet my wolf’s eyes, and I’m stunned.
“Yvonne…?”Her name reverberates through my wolf mind, knocking around like a hammer against a bell to call for my attention.
It’s no wonder her scent was so familiar…
Yvonne Lang was an omega she-wolf in the Snehvolk Pack.
Reeling from this discovery, I stumble on my wolf paws, but I’m unable to tear my eyes from the omega. While her intense gaze holds mine with a frown, a million memories flash through my mind, and I’m hauled into remembrance of what I shared with Yvonne Lang.
She wasn’t just any ordinary omega she-wolf in the Snehvolk Pack; she was the she-wolf whose lips I remember on mine. Suddenly craving the sweetness of her lips, I shift involuntarily into human form, sparking Yvonne’s equal shock as her eyes widen and she gasps.
“Dawson…?” she murmurs from where she’s crouched on her knees in the snow, her jaw dropping as she watches me steady myself on my human feet.
The memories are vivid as they come crashing into my mind, sending tingles of awareness through me when I recall everything Yvonne and I have been through together. For five years, she was missing after disappearing from Girdwood, and I had no idea where to find her.
She’s just crashed back into my life, and there’s no time to make sense of the whys and hows when she snaps her head around and gasps again.
“You—you killed the betas of Moonshine,” she whimpers, her voice trembling along with her body as she warily rises to her feet, her brows worrying as she looks around.
There’s something different about her—not just her appearance, but the mere fact that she seems more concerned that I killed the two male wolves who’d been trying to take advantage of her.
She turns accusing eyes on me, shaking her head with disbelief when she repeats herself, saying, “You killed the betas of my pack. How could you?”
Stunned by the ridiculousness of her statement, I stared at her with my mouth agape in bewilderment, wondering why the betas of her pack were attacking her.
And why does she appear regretful that I killed them when they were the ones who would have had their way with her?
What’s going on?
A million questions race through my mind, going as far back as five years ago when she disappeared from the Snehvolk Pack. Did she leave willingly? Did she disappear of her own free will?
Why?
