Chapter Three

Blake

The night was peaceful as I stargaze at the almost full moon in the sky.I felt glad to be alone , well not completely alone because my wolf Alex is always on his guard. I rarely was given the time to come out this far and enjoy my territory. Being an alpha had many perks, but something always needed my attention. Resolving a disagreement about the rank of a particular wolf and whether they were out of line or not with their actions. The books did not add up because my accountants were incompetent. A mate got too rough with their she-wolf or pups. Rogues were approaching the pack. Another pack wanted to attack us. Someone needed sanctuary. The next party we were planning didn’t have the right flower color. As if I had any feelings about that last one. I needed a luna already. The hope I was holding out for my mate was disappearing. I needed to pick someone so I could stop worrying about parties and flowers. It would be great to have someone settle the she-wolf disputes and hold the mother’s hands while they gave birth. My mother was still stuck doing those things, and she was getting up there in age. She deserved her retirement.

‘Don’t even think about picking a mate. She will be here soon.’ I rolled my eyes at my wolf’s comment.

Alex wouldn’t even let me intimately touch another she-wolf. He would jump up and down and make a fuss about it. Not worth the headache. So, I was a twenty-five-year-old virgin who was doomed to be alone. My wolf didn’t want to accept that his mate was probably dead already or lived in another country or something. 

‘She is not dead. I would know.’ He snarled at me.

“Whatever.”I slammed him in the back of my mind. He was not going to ruin my solitude. Not tonight.

Anyway, sometimes I felt I should do all the pack’s work myself from the start. It would be less time and resources since I was constantly cleaning up after them anyway. It was my job, but they mostly acted like children. That was all my father’s fault. While a strong and commanding wolf in the were-world, he had been too soft with the pack seventy-five percent of the time. I couldn't reverse his influence. So, I suppressed my anger and only let the pack know my feelings when it mattered.

What is the power you get from your mate? Since she held the other half of your soul, she made you whole. She gave you something more to fight for. Something real. It also could leave you vulnerable. The best way to take down any alpha was to kidnap or kill his luna. It didn’t even matter if the alpha loved his luna or not. Throughout our history, this was the primary cause of many wars. That’s true in human history as well I think.

In the best of times, a luna balanced the aggression and fueled your drive to make the pack a family versus a gathering of wolves who needed safety. Luckily, my mother did a great job filling that role, so the pack was already a family when my father stepped down. I will admit, though, there is more unrest since I took over. And I suspect a spy or two were planning something, but I have yet to prove that.

Having two alpha parents was the only thing that saved me from losing the land to other alphas challenging me. I was stronger than most alphas because of it. Plus, my father was never kind in training. He fought me until I could win, then had me fight anyone else who offered.

I’ve won six challenges to date, and they all ended in death when they refused to submit.

All the challenges I had won had gained me a reputation I could not shake. Not that I wanted to. The more the world was afraid of me, the better. It kept them in line, but that all can change with the wind. And when I need to, I get aggressive,attacking first, taking over the surrounding territories. Only a few stood in my way from expanding my territory equally in each direction, and how to handle it was still up in the air.

From each challenge, I acquired more land. But more land, more problems. In the packs I conquered, I appointed alphas, but I had to be there any time there were serious issues. So, I traveled around the area, making peace or forcing submission. I was not a peaceful or forgiving man, but I was reasonable. Not every hill is worth dying on. So, I did my best to be diplomatic when I could.

My father’s judgment of my being too brutal made him a hypocrite. For my mother, I went along with it. He killed many that she did not know about. He hid his brutality from her, but he never did from me. I had held many men down while he tortured them. I fought alongside him, killing hundreds before I even left school. We executed men publicly to make sure everyone stayed in line. During these executions we sent my mother and sisters shopping. He acquired three territories when he was the pack’s alpha. One of the challenges was for no reason other than the alpha making negative comments about my mother. I, on the other hand, felt no need to hide anything. I might feel differently someday if some delicate she-wolf stood behind me judging.

‘Our mate is not delicate.’ Alex growled.

‘Okay, chill.’ I scolded and pushed him back a little further this time. Hopefully, it would be far enough to silence him.

It feels like I’m faking it most of the time. My father made a mistake handing the pack over to me when he did. I was not ready, and I don’t think I will ever be. In times of war, sure. In times of peace, I don’t know what to do with that. I had no idea how anyone tolerated the mundane bullshit that went into the day-to-day of running a pack. Meetings and paperwork were not my style. Maybe once I find my mate, I’ll run away with her. I watched how the pack tore my parents apart on multiple occasions, and I didn’t want that to happen to me and my mate. It was already doing it to me and my best friend, Rick.Some days, I regret making him my beta, even though there is no one else I would trust with the job.

We didn’t see eye to eye these days, and I could tell he was starting to go through the motions with no heart in anything. Losing his support would be fatal to my position as alpha. No one in the pack would trust me if he didn’t. So, I’m entertaining his idea to form treaties with the last two territories I want instead of killing their alphas. The treaties he drew up were genius. We were taking more than they were getting; they would only notice if they were more intelligent than we. I doubted that they were. We will see in a couple of months at the treaty meeting he scheduled.

Regardless of my feelings about my position, I was kind to the pack members unless otherwise required. When I had the time, I played with the pups and trained warriors. I did care for them, which drove me to keep my reputation with the rest of the packs in the area. The last thing I needed was to be at war all the time because I had a reputation for being weak. I was at war all the time instead because I was hot-headed and stubborn. I could not be kind when challenged in any way. Call it ego if you want. I call it survival.

I tripped over something since I wasn’t paying attention on my walk. Rolling to the side, I got in a defensive stance. Then, my senses came back to me. That smell was heavenly and thick, running down the back of my throat. It was like key lime pie on the beach; the smell of citrus, coconut, and the ocean washed over me.

“Fuck.” I whispered.

‘MATE!’ Alex roared at me on full alert.

My eyes focused on her body. She was asleep and didn’t wake when I tripped over her. I shook myself out of the mate-bond trance and went over to her. Her skin was so warm, and she was breathing very slowly. Too slowly.

“Hey, Darling.” I shook her slightly.

She didn’t respond. I took a minute to look at her. She was so small lying there. So vulnerable. I brushed her hair back from her face, which was dark blonde and highlighted. I smiled about how it looked so striking against the grass, like golden flowers were in bloom.

Around her neck was a chain with a teardrop-shaped moonstone charm hanging from it. Her skin looked red underneath it. When I touched it, it burned my skin.

“Damnit!” It was silver.

“Why…” I pulled it off and stuck it in my pocket quickly. The chain left a bloody imprint on my hand. It would sting for a while. Kryptonite for wolves: silver and wolfsbane. Why any wolf would wear such a thing was beyond me. Was she a wolf at all? I thought I sensed her wolf, but it was faint.

‘She is!’ Alex interrupted my thoughts.

I traced the ugly mark that was ruining her otherwise perfect ivory skin. Only then did I realize that she was not just warm. She was burning hot. I pulled my hands away, and they were red from touching her. She was alone and in heat.