All Chapters of Alpha, you lost your mute Luna : Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

CHAPTER ONEHAZEL'S POVEveryone in the Blackwood pack agreed that a mute, wolfless stray had no business being their Luna.Julian Blackwood was the strongest Alpha the Massachusetts packs had seen in a hundred years. Every unmated she-wolf from the Berkshires to the Cape had dreamed of wearing his mark. His wife couldn't speak, and she couldn't shift. I knew what they said about us, and most days I agreed with them.But I loved him. I had loved him since I was five years old. I kept believing that if I was patient long enough, one day he would look at me and love me back.At nine o'clock that night, I looked at the kitchen clock for the tenth time.The venison roast had gone cold an hour ago. Julian wasn't coming home for dinner. I'd known it since seven, but I'd kept the table set anyway.I was scraping the plates when my phone buzzed.Nightfall. Come get me.I typed back one word. Okay.Every other wolf in the pack would have heard that order in their head. Julian could mind-link a

CHAPTER THREEHAZEL'S POVMargaret swept past me into the hall. Her housekeeper followed with two thermoses in a basket.She sniffed once and wrinkled her nose. "He didn't come home last night. I can smell it. This house smells like you and nothing else." She nudged Julian's loafers with her toe. "And you can't even keep a front hall tidy."I knelt and lined up the shoes. Then I set out her slippers and stood up smiling.Margaret had never let me call her Mom. In front of the pack she called me the Luna in a voice that made it sound like a joke. In private, she didn't call me anything."Where did he go?""East," I signed. "Last night."Her mouth tightened. East meant Lowe territory, and we both knew it. Then she turned that look on me, as though it were my fault.The housekeeper unscrewed a thermos and poured something dark into a mug.The smell hit the back of my throat. It was bitter and earthy, with a dusty sweetness underneath that I knew from somewhere. I couldn't place it.Julia

CHAPTER FIVEHAZEL'S POVJenna parked by the kitchen entrance, and a young wolf in a navy blazer came down the steps to meet us. He stopped short when he saw me."Luna Blackwood?"He'd been at Nightfall last night. He was Caleb Price, the old Alpha's grandson.I smiled and signed, "Hello."He bowed his head. It was a real bow, the kind a wolf gives a Luna, and I didn't know what to do with it. Nobody in my own pack had ever bowed to me."My grandfather will be glad you came," he said. "He knew your father."Then someone came out of the house behind him.Sienna stood on the top step in a long white dress, and her face went from smug to murderous in one breath."You've got to be joking. Are you following me now?"I found out later she'd spent a week begging Julian to bring her. Old Alpha Price didn't know my face. If Julian walked in with Sienna and didn't correct anyone, three packs wou

CHAPTER SEVENHAZEL'S POVHe slammed the front door so hard the windows rattled. A minute later I heard him shift on the lawn. It was the wet crack of bone and a long, furious howl that set every dog in Weston barking. Then he was gone into the trees.I cleaned the kitchen. I wrapped my wrist in gauze. Then I went upstairs and locked the nightstand drawer with the little key from my jewelry dish.He would never love me, and he would never let me go. I was the one stain on his perfect life, and he'd never risk letting the Council see a second.I didn't cry. I just felt tired all the way down to my bones.Julian didn't come home for two days.Jenna let things slip when she texted. Sienna's ankle was broken, not twisted, and she was milking it. Julian had skipped the pack's monthly run so she wouldn't be alone.Jenna knew because her older brother, Jonah, was one of Julian's lieutenants. I'd only learned that six months after I started at the bakery. She never talked about her pack.On t