The One 6
Chapter 6: Kinsley
Hunter
“Why hasn’t Alpha Aiden returned my f**k**g call,” I growl at Lucas.
“He’s out hunting Alpha females like the rest of them,” he says, gloomily.
Lucas found his mate a year ago. Once he imed her, he realized just how right I was to hate this
process. His mate, while a good Beta female and role model for the pack, still struggles with their
mate bond. Every time he touches her in public, she flinches away from him.
I know he hates it, but she’s actually morefortable with me than she is with him. I asked her
about it once and she told me that she saw me walk out of the room during the iming process.
She said that she trusts me because I did what I could to give her a bit of privacy. The same
couldn’t be said for the others at the party, and so, she still struggles with Lucas’ touch.
I also know that it extends into their bedroom. I don’t ask, and he hasn’t said anything to me, but
Kinsley hasn’t gotten- pregnant yet, so I doubt they are having sex and I know it must be killing him
to not be able to touch his mate.
“Anyone in their right mind who’s paying attention realizes that all we’re doing is causing more
problems for our packs. They need to end this ridiculous process and stop having these public
imings,” I growl, standing and pacing.
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“Yeah, I agree with you,” Lucas says contritely.
There’s a knock at the door and before I tell her toe in, I already know it’s Kinsley. When she
opens the door, she looks surprised to see Lucas in here. She collects herself quickly, then nces
back at me.
“Alpha I was wondering if you wanted lunch. I wasn’t sure what your ns were for today.” She
nces at her mate. “I could bring you lunch as well, Lucas.”
“I’d rather have lunch with you, Kins,” he says.
“There’s a lot going on. I don’t really have time to stop for lunch today.”
“You have to eat Kinsley,” he says to her. I watch the interaction between them, but I stay out of it.
This is their mate bond, and he has to figure it out. There was a time when Kinsley did lose too
much weight and I had to step in. It was soon after they had been mated and she had stopped
eatingpletely. As much as I don’t want to interfere in a mate bond, she is a pack member, and I
was worried about her. I brought her into my office, and I told her that she either needed to start
eating or that she would have to start having all of her meals with me.
I’m not sure if she didn’t believe me, but when I started insisting that she sit beside me at every
meal and I watched everything that she ate, she finally took me seriously. She doesn’t eat as much
as she should, or as much as Lucas would like her to eat, obviously. But she hasn’t gotten
dangerously thin again.
Lucas turns to look at me, a pleading look in his eyes. Where he is unable to make headway with
his mate, I am able to as her Alpha.
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I sigh internally, I can at least try to help. “Kinsley I was going to talk to Lucas about the missing
ranked she-wolves over lunch. You might have a different perspective, different insights, something
that we’re overlooking that could help us find some of these females. Would you be willing to have
lunch with us and talk through that?” I ask her. leave the decision up to her. I won’t force it.
She looks at me a long moment, then looks at Lucas. “I’m not. sure what information I can provide
that would be helpful.”
“Neither do I, but you’re a Beta female, and these are ranked females on the run. They’re in danger
and we need to do something to help them. You have insights to that different than what Lucas and
I have.”
She looks thoughtful for a moment, and I wait her out, letting her make the decision.
“All right. I’ll get three trays of food and I’ll be back.”
When the door closes, Lucas looks at me. “Thank you, Hunter. I know our mate bond is not your
problem, but as my Alpha, as her Alpha, you seem to have a better understanding of how to getContent from N?velDr(a)ma.Org.
through to her than I do.”
“I give her choices, Lucas. I don’t tell her what to do, except in the one instance where she was
killing herself. Everything I do leaves the decision up to her. Perhaps you should try that.”
His lips press together, and I know that he understands that their very first meeting, his im of her,
has caused all of these problems. That night, she had no choice. It didn’t matter how kind he was
during the process, it didn’t matter what he had done to make it as private for her as possible. She
can’t move
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past it, and they can’t move past it together.
One night, not long after they were mated, he got **t-faced drunk and told me that the moment that
his canines sank into her flesh, he felt her fear, her embarrassment, and her shame at what was
happening. The strength of her emotions had flooded into him, and it had made him almost
incapable ofpleting their mate bond. He hadn’t even been able to o**m. He had immediately
pulled out of her and scooped her up in his arms, taking her from the room. But the damage was
done.
I walk to the conference table thinking back to that birthday party two years ago. That party seems
to have been the catalyst that started it all. Sophie Meyers, the younger sister of Amelia, ran the
night of her sister’s iming. Calvin, like Lucas, had done everything that he could to make that
evening better for his mate. Like Lucas and Kinsley, Calvin and Amelia had a rocky start. However,
they seem to be finding their way, unlike Lucas and Kinsley.
I remember the outrage that urred after Sophie ran. Many Alphas bonded together in a way they
never have before, fighting against her father Alpha Carter, wanting him to go after his daughter. But
he refused. He said if she was unwilling to participate in these events, then who was he to force her
into them?
Several Alphas threatened to go to war with Alpha Carter if he didn’t find his daughter and bring her
home. But several of us, including Robin, Dutton, and Kayce, stood beside him. I was surprised
when Alpha Ezra, my sister’s mate, also stood beside him. I guess I shouldn’t be, though. My sister
killed herself to get away from the mate bond. Alpha Ezra has never recovered from that.
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Alpha Carter has been an outspoken activist on eliminating the public iming process since the
day that Sophie left. For al long time, the Alphas kept tabs on him, certain that he knew where his
daughter was, ready to go find her and drag her back. However, from everything that I could tell,
she never contacted him, and he never sent anyone out to find her. They still keep tabs on him, just
not as aggressively as they did at the beginning.
That was two years ago.
Somehow the word of Sophie’s disappearance, of her rebellion against this process, sparked a
revolution of sorts among the ranked females. Rather than waiting until their 18th birthday to tell
them what was going to happen, mothers began telling their daughters at younger ages, helping
them n their escape.
Some Alphas have locked down their packs, refusing to allow any ranked females out alone. Rather
than fixing the problem, this has actually made things much worse. In some instances, ranked she-
wolves are choosing death rather than the public iming. This has only made the Alphas be
even more strict in keeping tabs on their ranked female members, and therefore causing those
females to go to even more dire extremes to get away from them.
The packs have be divided, creating clear alliances, and splitting the packs into one of two
sides. One side is in agreement that the public imings should end and the other is still fighting to
continue with this antiquated process. In some packs, such as my own, there is disagreement within
the pack itself. So far it has not be a problem for me. I don’t have any young ranked she-
wolves that will being of age in the next few years. But eventually this will need to be resolved.
I
Chapter 6 Kinsley
refuse to have a public iming in my pack.
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I think back to that night, of Sophie Meyers and her excitement at the thought of finding her mate.
That’s how it should be. A young she-wolf excited on her birthday to find the man that the Moon
Goddess made just for her I remember how sweet and innocent she was, how she smiled as we
danced around the dance floor. Something about her has stuck with me for thesest two years.
And I’ve wondered more than once if she survived on the run. If she did, she would be on the verge
ofing of age and her time on the run would most likely being to an end.
‘We should try to find her,’ Shaw says in my mind. I’m not the only one who was taken with that
young she-wolf that night. Shaw felt very protective of her, and he howled sadly when we heard that
she had run.
”
‘Shaw, she could be anywhere. How do you propose that we find her? I ask him.
‘Well, the typical way is that we actually would start a search, Hunter,’ he says sarcastically.
‘Really? You want to begin hunting her, just like every other Alpha wolf out there? She would run
from us. You know she would. And I couldn’t me her. You saw the look on her face, same as I
did.’
Her look of horror as she watched her sister imed in front of that group of people has haunted me
for two years. I hated that look. It was such a stark contrast to the happiness that she had on her
face all night before that moment.
I shake my head, putting thoughts of Sophie out of my mind as
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Kinsley walks back in. Lucas jumps up to grab the trays from her arms.
“Thank you,” she says politely, almost painfully polite, as if they are acquaintances and not mates.
I ignore the interaction, sitting down to start the conversation about how we can possibly help these
she-wolves. With our own pack divided, I’m resistant to bringing them inside our pack. However,
they need our help and I have to do something.