Chapter One

Duncan

“Not this again,” I mumbled to myself as I reviewed the most recent report that came across my desk. Rogues had been spotted out near our western border. While rogue attacks were not an uncommon occurrence, my wolf, Conan, and I were on edge. They were too close to the Red Wolf Compound. 

I sat, looking out over the training field. My head trainers, Tabitha and Oscar, were finishing up training for the day. The autumn air was starting to turn and it wouldn’t be long before winter had fully taken hold. I liked the changing of the seasons. To me, with each passing season, there were new opportunities. 

The Crescent River Pack sat in a beautiful location, where the forest met the mountains. As a young wolf, I had spent a lot of time exploring all around the packlands. When I became Alpha a year and a half ago, I knew every aspect of the packlands. It had helped tremendously as the increase in rogue attacks started. Stupid rogues thought that they could use my packlands to get close to the red wolves, but they were very much mistaken. 

I ran my hands through my hair, pulling the nearly shoulder length blonde hair back into a small ponytail. 

Fuck it all

The last six months had been fuckin’ hell. I hated everything right now. The only glimmer had been Coral, the red wolf I was guardian for. The red wolves were the protectors and peace keepers of all wolves, and I was Coral’s guardian wolf. Our history told us that having a red wolf present on earth was enough to bring peace and prosperity to all wolves. At most in our history, there had been ten red wolves at one time. Over 200 years ago, a power hungry group of wolves started killing off the red wolves and their guardians, until there were no red wolves left. This led to a period of intense fighting and instability for wolves, making all wolves more vulnerable to attacks, both from wolves and other creatures.

Nearly 40 years ago, the first red wolf, Raina, was born. The struggle of the red wolves continued after Raina shifted for the first time and her red wolf was finally known. The red wolf is very powerful and can control behaviors through emotions. They can feel the emotions of others. Raina, for example, can use her abilities to get someone to tell her the truth, an interesting skill to have during interrogations. This, however, also led to many power hungry creatures who wanted to use the red wolf’s powers for nefarious reasons. 

Unfortunately, this brought risks to not only the red wolf, but also those around her. Raina’s parents were killed prior to her coming to the Red Moon Pack, a neighboring pack that, at the time that Raina joined, was run by Alpha Callan, my dad’s cousin.  My dad, Alpha Michael, and Alpha Callan worked together to form the Red Wolf Compound. Since it was believed that there would again be 10 red wolves, they knew that there needed to be a place where the red wolves could live and be safe. It also was a place where they could learn to control their abilities. 

Coral was the last of 10 red wolves. Her story was one of struggle. After shifting at the age of 13, her Alpha refused to call the Red Wolf Compound. This resulted in Coral and her sister, Luna Harley, running from the Silver Springs Pack to try to make it to the compound on their own. It took two years for both of them to make it. 

My wolf Conan and I had been on edge for the last two years. At first, it didn’t feel as if Coral was in danger. However, those two years that Coral was not at the compound were rough. The feeling that I had as her guardian wolf changed, and I became much more concerned about her well being. Anders, my cousin and now Alpha of the Red Moon Pack, had felt the same way. Each red wolf has 10 guardian wolves, and since my father and Anders’ father, Callan, were both guardian wolves for Raina, we both believed that what we were feeling was due to being a guardian wolf for the last red wolf. 

Coral had been officially at the compound for about a month. The events leading up to Coral coming to the compound had been chaotic, but she was finally safe. Unfortunately, I hadn’t spent much time with her due to dealing with rogue threats and increasing the security at the Red Wolf Compound. Conan was not happy about that and had been bugging me about spending time to get to know Coral. I was well aware of how important it was for the guardian wolf to bond with their red wolf. 

But, honestly, I didn’t fuckin’ care as much as I should have. The last several months had been shitty at best. I had taken over as Alpha about a year and a half ago, and the time since then had been chaotic at times. Much of it had been my own fault.

For years, when my dad was without a mate, he slept around A LOT. And, despite both my mom and my dad talking to me about how hurtful that had all been for my mom to deal with jealous she-wolves that resulted from my dad’s actions, I didn’t heed the warning. Even before becoming Alpha, the she-wolves hunted me down, and, like a fuckin’ idiot, I obliged. I can’t even begin to guess how many women I slept with, but I know that the number would not be flattering. 

I didn’t care. The women were eager to sleep with an Alpha and I was eager to comply. It was well known that Alphas could have a ferocious sexual appetite and if she-wolves wanted to say they slept with an Alpha, who was I to deny them that? 

And so, I slept around. That was, until I met Audrey. I rarely “dated” anyone. My cousin and fellow Alpha, Anders, had been with only three women before he met his mate. He was experienced enough to please his mate but didn’t have the playboy reputation that I had. When I met Audrey, I remembered feeling different. It felt like I had found someone who I could go out with for a while, or at least for more than one night. 

But Audrey had different plans. After we had been seeing each other for about a month, I had told Audrey I wasn’t seeing anyone else and was interested in just seeing her. She seemed happy but, in retrospect, I realized she never actually agreed. Three months later, Conan started telling me that he was “hearing” things from other wolves and none of it was good. I will never forget the day when my Beta, Tobias, came and asked me if Audrey agreed that we were exclusive. I saw red and left out of the packhouse, only to find Audrey in bed with one of my warriors. 

Her excuse? She tried to say that one of her friends told her I was still sleeping with other she-wolves and had never thought we were exclusive, but I knew she was lying as the words came out of her mouth. Vivian, one of the red wolves, witnessed the incident and told me afterwards that she could feel that Audrey was lying. That is one of the many skills of the red wolf. 

After that, I was bitter. Yeah, my ego took a big hit and I shut down. Who the hell would sleep with someone else when there is an Alpha waiting for only you in their bed? Immediately after it happened, I had to go on a visit to another pack and slept with no less than five she-wolves from that pack. But, it did nothing to make me feel better, and at that point, I didn’t give a shit about anything.  There were things that I needed to do around my pack and the Red Wolf Compound, but I just couldn’t do it. I just didn’t fuckin’ care what needed to be done.

That was, until we were going to find Coral. When we first found Coral, her wolf was suppressed, but Conan knew that we needed to be there when she was found. My wolf had been trying to pull my head out of my ass for three months and nothing seemed to help until it became clear we had a real chance to get Coral. Now that Coral was back, Conan had wanted to bond with her wolf to enhance our relationship as her guardian wolf, but I was still struggling with it. 

I had promised Conan that we would meet with Coral today, but that didn’t mean that I wanted to. I knew, however, that my wolf would never shut up if I didn’t sit down and talk with Coral. 

“Tobias? Can you please come to my office?” I reached out to my Beta via mindlink.  We need to discuss the rogue threat before I did anything else today. 

“Already on my way. Your dad is with me. Is it okay he come with?” He asked. 

I confirmed that it was okay and stood from my desk, looking back outside. I knew that most people assumed that I was just an asshole for how I had been acting since the incident with Audrey. It was more that I just didn’t know how to handle my feelings. I didn’t know how to process being cheated on with no resolution and then the fallout from that. After everything happened with Audrey, she left the pack, claiming that she was going out of state to go to college. But my head warrior, Brian, who is mated to Audrey’s sister, told me that Audrey was afraid of me and feared that she would be punished, so she went to spend some time with a friend who actually was away at college. 

As an Alpha, I definitely like having the ability to intimidate others. I like it that people are scared of me, but I don’t like thinking that someone I dated would think that I would hurt them or that I would use my Alpha powers to “punish” someone I dated because we broke up. Regardless of what had happened with Audrey, I never once threatened her. Was I angry? Of course. Did I break a few things? Absolutely. But I never threatened Audrey or my warrior that was on top of her when I entered the house. After Audrey left, there was a change in the pack, and it did seem that pack members looked at me differently. 

I had talked to a few pack members, but my mom and dad had actually spent a lot of time addressing the issue with pack members. Specifically my mom, who was still acting as Luna for the pack because I had no mate, was spending a lot of time with pack members. She told me that most pack members understood that I was not a threat to the pack, but I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t pissed off by all of this. 

“Hey, Duncan. How’s it going?” My Beta asked as him and my dad entered.  They both took a seat on the other side of the desk. 

I shrugged, sitting back down. “Okay. I need to meet with Coral today. Conan is driving me crazy about it.” I stated, leaning back in my seat. 

“It is important that you bond with her.” My dad said as he took a drink from a water bottle he had brought with him. “You have a bond simply because you are her guardian wolf, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend time with her.” 

I nodded. I knew that he was right, but my head was not in a good place, and meeting with her even just two days ago would have been rough. 

“Enough of that. Down to business. Despite the increase in security around the compound, there have still been a few instances in which rogues have been able to get close to the border. We have been catching more further away, so the security is working, but there are still holes.” I handed my dad the most recent report that we had received. 

My dad clenched his jaw as he looked over the report. Over the last few weeks, the threat to the red wolves had increased significantly. It wasn’t just that other wolves were trying to use the red wolf, which had been a significant threat for years. A power hungry Alpha considered the red wolf their golden ticket to gaining power. But these threats seemed to indicate that the rogues were working with other creatures, specifically vampires. 

We had been working closely with Sarah, a witch, over the last two weeks or so to see if we could gather any additional information on threats from other creatures.  Her mate, Javy, died a year ago. He was a warlock and had been able to provide us with some great information on threats throughout the years. There was hope that Sarah would still have connections that could help us understand how these rogues were getting so close to the pack border. 

“We have a meeting set up at the Red Wolf Compound for this evening to review security. We expect to hear back from Sarah soon about a meeting with a warlock that apparently has some information. Other than that, I got nothing else.” Tobias shrugged and slouched down in the chair. He was recently mated and the lack of sleep was clearly catching up with him. 

“Coral is expecting you today. Don’t blow her off again.” My cousin, Anders, mindlinked me. Although we were from different packs, because we were both guardian wolves, we could communicate. This was one of the benefits of being a red wolf guardian. All guardian wolves could communicate with one another. 

I nearly rolled my eyes. “I will be there.” I replied, noting the smirk on my dad’s face. He clearly was aware of the topic of the mindlink conversation. 

“You better. Harley won’t tolerate you blowing off her sister again.” Anders’ mate, Harley, was also Coral’s sister, as well as her guardian wolf. She was a fierce wolf who didn’t tolerate my shit. It was honestly a bit refreshing. Most wolves just rolled over to me because I was an Alpha. Harley was different. She was a guardian wolf and a Luna and was very powerful. I did not want to piss her off. 

I guess it was time to go sit down with Coral.