Chapter 5


    Chapter Five


    I somehow make it out of the building without having a total meltdown.


    Alex knew something was wrong, but he didn’t press. In an odd moment of kindness, he asked if I


    wanted him to walk away from the deal.


    “That’ll cost you millions,” I told him. And, bottom-line, what happened to me has nothing to do with


    him. Alpha MacPhearson would not harm an innocent human. Packs couldn’t afford those kinds of


    missteps. Not in a world where everything was on social media, and cameras upied virtually every


    public space.


    Me on the other hand… I have no value to offer his pack and I’d taken a serious risk by not dering


    myself to them the moment I’d settled into the area. In my defense, I thought their reach extended


    further north, but I couldn’t really im ignorance. There are markers in the city square, even wolf


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    businesses nearby (which I avoid), all signs that point to pack upation in this ce.


    But what was I supposed to do?


    Walk right up to their pds and dere myself? Maybe they would’ve allowed me to stay.


    Maybe they would’ve killed me on the spot.


    Hell, I’d seen Cam in situations with rogues in our territory… and he didn’t always rule with kindness.


    Some wolves moved into new packs with greater ease. Maybe they had friends or rtives, or, when


    you lived as long as wolves did… you’d gotten to know those wolves over time and feltfortable


    forging new alliances.


    Again, not me.


    I was a wolf in my first century, with my only real contacts limited to my pack and dad. Cam’s family had


    been mine. We had the same friends. The same outreach.


    I leave the building and pause at the entrance. I’m parked further away than I’d like, and I sniff the air to


    see if there are any wolves in the vicinity. I wouldn’t put it past them to mask their scents. Or for more


    pack enforcers to be lurking nearby.


    My wolf growls beneath my skin.


    She’s angry. Edgy.


    I am too.


    When ites to my children, there is no limit. I’ll protect them with thest breath in my body. After I


    shifted the first time after my kids were born, my wolf was almost twice as big. Maybe it was because


    we were alone or because I had to be able to defend our babies. Or maybe it was carrying alpha genes


    inside me that my body changed in some way.


    I pull out my phone and dial one of the few people I trust. “Hey Morgan. Can you head over to my


    house?”


    “What’s wrong?”


    She knows me well. “Unexpected visitors at work… of the four-legged variety.”


    “F*ck.”


    Yes. My thoughts exactly.