I tip back my beer, finishing it off with a couple of deep pulls, wishing it would help make all of this go away, but Hess was right. It’s not my first beer, and I have too high a tolerance for this to do anything anyway. I suppose that’s a good thing though. As much as I’d love a drunken escape, Burke is on the hunt, and I can’t take the risk of being black-out vulnerable around him.
“Seneca,” Hess starts, and I can tell by the way my name falls out of his mouth that whatever he’s about to say is going to suck. He releases a deep breath and turns to look at me, his gray eyes filled with pain so raw it makes my breath catch. “I’m leaving the Twin Rivers pack,” he announces, and it feels like a kick to the gut.
Surprise and disbelief war for my attention and my shoulders sag slightly with defeat. Just when I think I can’t be any more alone and exposed, my last line of defense against the predators here announces he’s leaving. Heat crawls up my throat, and I try to stomp down the hurt and betrayal I feel. He wasn’t here to extend an olive branch after all. He was here to yank the roots out entirely.
“Oh,” I reply, my voice rough, not sure what else to say. I’m upset, but at the same time, I get it. If I had the luxury of leaving, I’d be right there with him, but I don’t. Burke will never agree to let me go.
“I’m sorry,” he rushes to tell me in a rare glimpse of guilt. “I just can’t stay here anymore. There’s nothing for me here. My mate has been gone for a long time, and now that your mother…”
His nothing for me here statement stings, but I shove it away, burying it under all the hurt already weighing me down.
“Where will you go?” I ask, my voice a little smaller than it was when he first walked through the door. Even though we aren’t close, I still counted him as a permanent figure in my life. To hear that he’s leaving is like a hit to the jaw.
“My brother is alpha of Plummet Lake pack. But I... You should come with me,” he offers, and I’m taken aback by the gesture.
Unfortunately, we both know that’s all it is, a gesture.
I try to give him an understanding smile, but when he drops his eyes from mine with a gleam of guilt in them, I suspect it turned out to look more like a grimace. “I wish I could, but Alpha isn’t going to let me go just like that.”
“There’s no guarantee that your wolf will accept him as a mate,” Hess challenges, some of the sadness sloughing off of him to reveal the dominant beta that he normally is.
I raise a brow. “Do you really think Burke will care?” I counter, filling the question with more annoyance than I mean to. “I mean, if Mom was still here, he wouldn’t dare, but…”
But there’s nothing stopping him now.
I love what I am and where I come from, I just wish pricks like Burke didn’t have to taint it all with their lust for power and control, for their dislike of the word no. I also wish there were more wolves out there who would put a stop to alphas like him. Unfortunately, the pack leaders only get together once a year, and there’s not exactly a forum for members to attend where we can complain about the leadership or air our grievances. It’s our duty as pack members to submit—that one word completely ingrained into our culture.
It doesn’t help that those who get their wolf spirits in the Flux have another side to them that follows a whole different set of rules. Animalistic rules that are more about brute and brawn and the strongest genes for survival. Wolves are about pack and hierarchy. It’s difficult to demand equality and rights when your animal happily submits to maintain pack balance and secure a strong mate.
Knowing my luck, the spirit I get will be an omega, and then I’ll constantly be at war with my head and my soul, bowing down to anyone and everyone who demands it of me.
Ugh.
It’s sacrilegious and very frowned upon in our culture to hope for one thing over another. The wolf chooses wisely is what I’ve been taught since I was in the womb, but I can’t help but hope for a beta, or at worst, a delta.
A howl rends the air, echoing from the distance, calling for a gathering of some sort. I groan and rub a hand down my face. I can probably ignore it since I have a good excuse for not wanting to be social. But I should leave just in case a certain asshole comes by looking for me.
“You should go, Hess,” I encourage, pushing up off my stool. “Like you said, there’s nothing for you here. You deserve to be happy. Mom would want that for you, and so do I,” I tell him, tossing my empty bottle into the bin and thinking through the safest places I could go right now where none of the other pack members will be.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Hess interjects, but I wave his concern away.
He did, and that’s okay. It’s time I start figuring things out and accepting that I’m all I’ve got now. No point holding a grudge against Hess who’s also trying to do what’s best for him.
“I’ll stay until after the Flux. Make sure you’re okay,” he tells me, and I offer him a smile that I know doesn’t quite reach my eyes.
If he’s leaving that soon, it means he already has permission from Burke, confirming my suspicions that his asking me to come is nothing more than a formality. I bet Burke signed that transfer order quicker than he’s ever signed anything. One more wall between us is gone, and he didn’t even have to kill anyone this time to make it happen.
“I gotta go, Hess,” I announce thickly, and before he can object or so much as stand up, I’m out the door.
My world is falling apart, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Outside, I see pack members heading into the woods, jogging away from their houses, but I don’t follow them. I need to be alone. I need to be safe. The problem is that I’m not safe here. My wellbeing isn’t a factor in anything that’s happening. My mom is barely cold in the ground and already, I’m wading through threats and thieves lying in wait to steal my choices, my freedom.
I have to leave.
The realization sinks into my spirit, dampening me more than the last of the light rain still misting from the sky. But as soon as I face the facts, I know it’s the right thing to do. If I get my wolf, I lose the last barrier I have keeping back Burke.
I need to figure out how the hell I’m going to get out of here. Twin Rivers has been all I’ve known my entire life. I was born here, and I thought I’d die here. But as I start to run in the opposite direction of the pack gathering, the cool air doing nothing to soothe my fevered skin, I realize this place is no longer my home. It’s all just a trap. A trap that Burke is waiting for me to walk into.
My hair flies behind me as I pick up my pace as though I’m running from something that I’m not sure I can escape. Alpha Burke is coming for me, but I’d sooner die than be claimed by him, the male who brought a pack war here to Twin Rivers. The male who let loose his band of rogues, killing our old alpha and countless others.
Murdering my dad.
If I stay here, I have a feeling it’ll be me who’s destroyed next. Maybe not in the dead in a grave kind of way, but certainly my soul will shrivel and shatter, and I’ll be broken beneath the rule of a cruel male.
Somehow, that seems worse.
Chapter Two