CHAPTER 1

SAPHIRE POV

Growing up without a mother in a werewolf community can have it’s challenges. But luckily my father never gave up after losing his mate and he never lost sight of what was important. Me. he was a great warrior and one of the best vampire hunters out there. 

People would call my father from all over the country and ask for his help if they were having a vampire problem. 

He was my hero and started training me from a very young age. Mostly because he had seen the worst out there and he was determined to make sure that I knew how to take care of myself. 

But after I turned 18 everything in my life went to hell. My father became seriously ill with some sickness that no one could cure or even describe. It was like nothing they had ever seen before. The doctors were stumped and it didn’t take long for the illness to take my father away from me. 

I thought there might have been light at the end of that dark tunnel when I finally found my mate. But that was dashed very quickly when he rejected me. And he wasn’t the only one. 

Three mates and three rejections in just a matter of months. 

They all used the same excuse. I wasn’t feminine enough and I was too outspoken. I didn’t follow the basic rules of a wolf pack. 

So I decided not to leave the pack. I just moved to a cabin the woods where I was alone and I chose to live that way because I was happiest when I was alone. 

I’d given up on love and finding anyone that would actually accept me as a mate and I was fully prepared to live my life alone. 

No one in this pack is really fond of me anyway. I guess if you don’t obey the strict rules and you actually have a mind of your own instead of listening to what people dictate to you, then you’re considered an outsider. But I wasn’t raised to follow conventional rules. I was raised to think for myself. 

And I was happy living that way until I was walking home through the woods one day with my groceries when I caught the faint smell of blood in the distance. 

I placed my groceries down on the porch of my cabin and I turned towards the forest to see if I could actually see anyone near the cabin. 

I started walking away from the cabin and into the forest following the smell while keeping my eyes open for anything that might be lurking in the shadows. 

It wasn’t long before I heard the stream up ahead and that’s where the scent of blood started getting a lot stronger. 

As the sound of the river started getting louder that’s when I noticed a man laying on the rocks next to the river who was pretty badly injured but still moving. 

“Hey buddy.” I sang out but he didn’t respond. 

He was barely conscious but definitely still alive so I ran up to him and I saw that he wasn’t from our pack. I hadn’t seen him before. 

He was soaking wet so that told me that the river had brought him here.

I ran over to him and started examining his injuries and there was no doubt in my mind that he had been attacked by vampires. 

His eyes were pretty messed up and he was still conscious and writhing in pain. 

I took my jacket off and I put it to his most serious wounds on his chest and stomach and I started looking through all of the other injuries that he had. 

Werewolves have incredible healing abilities but these were injuries that I had seen before and they were made by weapons that were specifically made to hurt us. To make sure the wounds don’t heal before the wolf bleeds out. 

It was serious and this man was in a lot of trouble. 

I started looking him over fully to see what other injuries he had and there was a large gapping wound around his ribs. 

I held my hand on it and tried to stop the bleeding but suddenly the man grabbed my wrist. 

He wasn’t as weak as I would have thought but he was still determined and he looked in my direction but I could tell that he couldn’t see exactly what he was looking at. 

“You bastards…I will make you pay for this.” He growled out while not letting go of my wrist.