Prologue
Ryan
Six years ago.
The beeping of the hospital monitors cuts through the otherwise silent room. Dad has been unconscious for nearly a week now. Ever since my mom, his chosen and bonded mate of over twenty years, rejected him and ran out of the pack. There’s no treatment for a rejected bond. Only time and fluids can heal that wound.
“I understand this is difficult,” Jaqueline, one of the pack elders, says as I sit beside Dad’s hospital bed. I don’t look at her. I don’t acknowledge her presence. My wolf has been tracking the comings and goings of pack members, allowing me to focus on Dad. “We need to start thinking about what to do if Alpha Elliot doesn’t wake up.”
A snarl erupts from my throat, and I shoot her a glare. She instinctively bares her neck to show her submission. Submission I don’t want or need. I may be an alpha wolf, but I’m not ready to bethealpha. I’m only twenty-four years old. I’m not ready to lead an entire pack. And I’m definitely not ready to be the only family Sofia has left. She’s fourteen; she needs her parents. Not me.
“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it. Now get the hell out,” I snap. Jaqueline pales, and her eyes widen as she scrambles to leave. My heart thunders in my chest, and I’m sure my eyes are as wide as hers. Because for the first time in my life, my voice had an undercurrent of alpha command.
It shouldn’t be there. Alpha commands are something only available to the alpha of a pack. And that’s not me. For the past decade, that’s been the man lying unconscious beside me. And before that, my maternal grandfather.
But now I can feel it. The magic of being the pack alpha courses through my veins. I flex my fingers, and the increased strength is undeniable. I concentrate on my best friend, Luca, and his emotions slam into me—worry, fear, and sadness. All similar to my own feelings, but distinctly different at the same time because they don’t belong to me.
A cough draws me from my contemplation, and I lunge for a glass of water, bringing a straw to Dad’s lips and guiding him to sit up. Fates, I never imagined I would have to help this strong shifter with anything. But he’s not the alpha wolf who raised me anymore.
He’s broken. I can see it in the slump of his shoulders, the sorrow in his eyes, and the pain in the way his jaw is set. He can barely sit up straight without help, and my chest clenches to see him like this. The once vibrant energy that always seemed to crackle around him is gone, replaced by a hollowness that chills me to the bone.
He used to fill every room with his booming laughter and his alpha presence, but now the silence surrounding him is deafening.The weight of losing his mate is pressing down on him, on me, on everything around us. I wish I knew how to lift it. How to make everything better.
But she’s gone. Mom didn’t just leave him. She left the pack. She abandoned me and Sofia.
And judging by how I can no longer feel her through either our family bond or my new pack-wide alpha bond, she’s gone far away. And she’s not coming back.
I always knew I’d be Alpha one day. But not like this. My stomach churns as I hold my father, waiting for him to say something. Anything. Needing him to have the words and wisdom of an alpha, even if he no longer has the physical strength.
“Ryan...”
“Yes, Dad?”
“Promise me…” he rasps, his voice barely above a whisper. “Promise me you’ll never take a chosen mate. Don’t ever let yourself go through this.”
His eyes bore into mine. The gold of his wolf flickers for half a second, but he can’t hold on to it. I can barely sense the presence of his wolf anymore. His eyes glaze over, and he slips away into unconsciousness again. Fates, I never thought I’d see him like this.
Rejection is one of the worst things a wolf can ever experience. But a rejection after all this time together is unheard of. Even though they were chosen mates, once the bond was complete, itshouldhave been the same as if they were fated.
The desire to make each other happy above everything else should be as easy as breathing. I vow in thismoment, with complete certainty, that I will accept nothing less than the female who is fated to me.
Chapter One
Ryan
A snarl escapes my throat as my delta, Jackson, tries to reason with me, moving to stand between me and the warriors that have followed me into the woods. He sees the danger I pose to them. The danger I pose to everyone. My wolf snarls and snaps, pushing forward. I’m drowning in the pain of my muscles breaking over and over again, torn between man and wolf. I need to hold on to my human self, but it’s borderline impossible when my wolf is nearly feral. When he’s pushing me to shift.
To hunt.
To kill.
To destroy.
A howl of agony bursts through me. This was my last chance to find my fated mate. But she’s not here.
She’s not here.
“The chokers could be blocking the bond,” Jackson says in a slow, measured tone, but his calmness only further angers my wolf. He doesn’t understand what I’m going through. He can’t comprehend what it’s like to feel as if I’m being pulled apart from the inside. My wolf needs to find his mate. He blames me for not finding her yet.
