All Chapters of She Left His Pack and Found Her Purpose: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

One month of silence is a long time for a wolf.I sat on the steps of the pack house and watched the training grounds. Silver Ridge was rebuilding. The physical scars from Dorian’s attack were mostly gone. The charred wood had been replaced and the stone scrubbed of blood. But the invisible architecture was different now. The omegas didn't walk with their heads down. They didn't flatten themselves against walls when a warrior passed.I adjusted the leather strap of my shoes. They were worn in now. They felt like a part of me.My hands were still dark. Every morning for thirty days I had woken up and reached for the light. Every morning I had found only the quiet thrum of my own human pulse. The three doors were shut and locked and the keys were at the bottom of a mountain I couldn't climb again.I was just Amara. Kitchen lead. Member of the pack council.Kael walked across the yard toward me. He wasn't the wasted man from the sickbed anymore. His muscles had filled back out and his sk

The smell of burning pine hit me before I reached the hallway.Kael was in the corridor, barking orders to Beta Conall. Warriors were running past them, shedding shirts as they prepared to shift. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and panic. When Kael saw me, his jaw tightened so hard I heard the bone pop."You're going to the guest quarters," he said. It wasn't a suggestion. "I'm locking the wing. The fire is moving faster than a wolf can run.""It's not just a fire, Kael." I held up my hand. The red mark was glowing through the dark hallway, a bloody eye in the center of my palm. "The scout in the kitchen... he's been hollowed out. Something is stealing bonds."Kael stopped. He looked at my hand, then back at my face. The Alpha in him wanted to command. The man in him wanted to flinch."Is that the gift?" he asked, his voice dropping to a low rumble."I think it's a warning.""I don't care what it is. You're staying here. I lost you once. I am not losing you to a forest fire

Ronan stood up and wiped the salt from his knees. He did it with the mechanical efficiency of a man cleaning a tool. He didn't look at the burning shelters. He didn't look at the unconscious warriors on the ridge. He didn't even look at the red mark on my hand, which was still sizzling against the cold air."The perimeter is compromised," Ronan said. His voice was perfectly level. "We should relocate.""Relocate?" I stood up, my legs shaking. "Ronan, your pack... Lumi, Nala... they're terrified. You just almost turned into a pillar of salt.""That is a logical assessment of the situation," he replied. He looked at me then. His dark eyes were clear, but the heat I used to feel coming off his body was gone. He was a winter morning. "But fear is an unproductive response to environmental hazards. We move north. The granite caves will provide better cover."He turned and began walking toward the supply shelter, ignoring his splinted arm. He moved as if the bone wasn't even broken."Femi!"

Kael threw the heavy oak chair across the room. It shattered against the stone fireplace, the wood splintering into a dozen jagged teeth."You let her go?" his voice was a low, dangerous snarl that made the hair on Beta Conall’s arms stand up."She didn't ask, Alpha," Conall said, his back pressed against the door. "The warriors on the ridge were unconscious. Femi said she followed a black smoke. He couldn't stop her."Kael turned, his amber eyes glowing with a ferocity that bordered on madness. His wolf was clawing at the inside of his ribs, demanding blood, demanding the scent of the mate he had just found and lost again."She is giftless," Kael hissed, his claws extending until they bit into his own palms. "She is walking into a genocide with a kitchen girl’s stamina and a rogue’s axe. She won't last an hour in the Peaks.""She saved Ronan," a new voice said.Zuri stood in the doorway, her blind face tilted toward the sound of Kael’s heavy breathing. She was pale, her chest bandage

The taste of copper was the only thing keeping me awake.I stood ten feet from Elder Nazim, the axe trembling in my grip. My right arm—the one with the red scar—felt like it had been dipped in molten lead. I looked down and nearly retched. The black ink from the Moonstone had traveled up my wrist, mapping my veins in dark, bruised lines that reached all the way to my shoulder."You look terrible, child," Nazim said. He dipped a finger into the bowl of scarlet feathers and began to stir. The sound was like dry husks grinding together. "The Orphan gift is a parasite. It doesn't use your energy. It uses your history. Every time you flare that red light, you lose a piece of who you were.""Shut up," I rasped. My voice sounded deeper, edged with a growl that wasn't mine."Do you remember the taste of the soup yet?" Nazim tilted his head, his eyes glittering with a pale, sickly light. "Or is it just a grey smudge in your mind? How about the name of the boy who chopped your carrots? Femi? Or