Prologue

“Don’t you dare die on me, Anna!” he ordered hoarsely at the frail lady puking out blood. “Don’t you dare go back on the promises we made to each other,” he added as the tears poured freely from his eyes as he helplessly watched his pregnant mate wriggle painfully on the ground.

He couldn’t look at her injuries, they were too severe and painful for him to see. Regardless, he applied pressure on her wounds, while praying in his heart that his reinforcements found him before it was too late for his pregnant mate. She didn’t have much time left and he could sense that from his howling wolf.

He didn’t care about his unborn child or that he too was also severely injured from the attack and in need of urgent attention. He just wanted his mate saved and alive, and he didn’t mind dying for that.

“Please! Help us! I beg you, please! …I’ll do anything, I swear…anything you want! Just take her to the hospital please…and then you can kill me or do whatever you want with me!” The Alpha begged agitatedly as he could already feel his mate’s life slipping away very fast.

“It’s no use, they’ll never help…besides, I’ve accepted the fact that I am a dead woman…” Annabel coughed out thick blood while struggling to talk but her mate was not having any of it as he muffled her words by using a napkin to shut her up while gently cleaning the blood that had slipped to the corners of her mouth.

Her words had stirred a hunting feeling inside him and he knew now that if he didn’t act immediately, her words could come through. “Help us, please! Please help us!! Spare her and only take me!” he kept shouting at the drinking men till one of the men got up and walked to where the pathetic couples were lying on the ground.

Stopping a few steps from the couple, he sneered at the annoying man. “And who said we want your life, Alpha?” the leader of the rogues laughed maniacally when Hunter wouldn’t stop begging. “You really think all these resources and time were spent just so we can have your worthless life?” he jeered, which elicited laughter’s from his rogue followers. “You must have been a very proud man; I see why we were asked to do this to you.”

“You…you were asked to do this? Who put you to this?” he questioned the laughing man.

The leader stopped laughing and intimidatingly took a few steps toward Hunter and his dying mate. “I’m sorry Alpha, but who told you that you were free to ask me questions?”

“I’m sorry for speaking out of line.” The Alpha struggled with his pride to say.

He knew the man wanted to pick a fight with him as it was obvious from the smirk on his face. Hunter knew quite well that he was in a sorry state but that didn’t mean that he could not disfigure the fool if it came to a one-on-one battle between them but because of his mate, he knew what to prioritize.

“And what else are you sorry for...Alpha?”

“I am also very sorry for assuming that you wanted my worthless life, Sir” he pushed the bitter words out. “Please, just tell me what you want and I’ll make sure to do it… in place of my wife getting the treatment she needs.”

The man stared at Hunter with a mischievous sparkle in his eyes, his face revealing all the sinister things his mind was thinking “Anything I want?” the leader asked with an evil smile.

“Yes Sir! Whatever you want” Hunter replied immediately which caused an uproar of laughter to erupt from all directions.

“Including me and my men having her…” he pointed at the blood-drenched Annabel who was surprisingly still fighting for her life. “On this cold ground? That is part of anything I want, right?” the rogue taunted with a toothy grin, revealing his rotten teeth.  

Hunter’s eyes widened in disbelief as the words of the man sank in. He stared from the leader to his men, fearing that he had ultimately thrown his suffering mate into more suffering.

The vicious men looked like that was the most inviting idea they had ever been told and Hunter was sure that the men would not think twice about doing it if they were given permission by their leader.

But no matter what, he would never let that happen to his mate, he would rather fight to his death than let any of them touch a strand of her hair.

“Come on, Man! We were only joking with you,” he said with a short evil laugh before heavily patting the Alpha’s shoulder. “I almost feel sorry for scaring you like that” he teased, drawing nearer to the couple.

“If you comply, none of that will happen and we will carry your injured mate to where she’ll receive treatments. But if you don’t do as you are told, or you try to pull any stupid stunts on the way…” he paused to smile sinisterly. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to know what my savage men can do to your beautiful mate.”

“No…I won’t try anything.” Hunter assured repeatedly to the satisfaction of the rogue leader.

“Get up!” the leader ordered.

Hunter did as he was told, he gently placed his mate’s head which had formerly been on his lap to the ground before kissing her goodbye while promising that nothing would happen to her as the men would take her to a clinic immediately he began to leave with their leader.

~~~~~~~~

 “Bring the bastard to me!” he yelled ragefully when his nose caught the smell of the wolfsbane they had injected into the opening of her slit neck.

The men dragged the injured rogue leader to their Alpha, hitting and kicking him as they were at it. “Why did you do it?” Hunter asked in a sinister way, his eyes were bloodshot and feral like his wolf would emerge any minute to rip out the bastard’s heart from his body.

The leader laughed hysterically as blood and saliva mixed and ran generously down his chin. “Why? Will that bring back your dead mate?” the man replied with a smirk, no atom of remorse in his countenance.

The rogue leader’s laughter had not fully rung out when Hunter had almost unnoticeably flung him multiple times on the ground, reopening all of his healing wounds and leaving him in a sorrier state as blood dripped from every part of his arms and legs.

“I won’t ask you again. Why did you order your men …to poison my mate even after I had kept my part of the bargain?” he asked with a cold look that sent shivers down the spines of even his own men.

 “Answer the Alpha!” a blow from one of Hunter’s warriors landed on his jaw, blood immediately spewing out from the rogue’s mouth.

The rogue continued to laugh maniacally while licking the blood from his split lips, “I was simply asked to do so, Alpha” he answered with a cynical smile. 

“By who?! Don’t play games anymore with me.” Hunter fumed as his anxious wolf kept charging forward to waste the fool.

“By someone who will always be greater than you.” The rogue leader replied, the smug smirk still plastered on his face. That was the final word he could let out before his heart was savagely ripped out of his chest.

Hunter walked back dejectedly to the lifeless body of his mate and hugged it one last time to his chest, his heart breaking and his wolf wailing as he cried into the crook of her neck while his men watched on in pitiful silence.

“I have failed you as a mate and as your leader, Anna.” He cried out in pain, his wolf restlessly wailing, reaching the surface, and running back once realizing that nothing had changed.

“But this worthless husband of yours swears by this day to avenge your death in the most brutal way possible. And after that, I’ll come meet you wherever you may be.”