Alpha Lorenzo leaned back in his office chair, stretching his arms above his head and tilting his neck from side to side. He’d spent all day cooped up and it was making him antsy. Add to that, Marcel had been bugging him for the last hour to see Arla, and he could no longer ignore it.
It was Arla’s seventeenth birthday, and Lorenzo had been so caught up in work and meetings, he hadn’t had a chance to see her yet. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the gift he’d asked his mum to wrap for him. Running a pack was one thing, wrapping a gift was a whole different ball game, one he was out of his depth with.
He strolled out to the garden; it was always the first place he looked for her and he loved to try to sneak up quietly and watch her in her element. She usually sensed him quickly though, and today was no exception. She stopped working to greet him
They left their clothes in the greenhouse and shifted, allowing Maeve and Marcel to bound into the forest line. They teased and chased one another playfully, jumping over rocks and ducking beneath branches as though they had no cares in the world. Lorenzo could feel the stress that had been weighing on him disappear further and further, the longer he spent in Arla’s presence, and Arla felt more content than she had been all week. Maeve screeched to a stop, sniffing the air. Marcel slowed down and circled back to her, taking in a deep breath also, but not picking up anything out of the ordinary. “What is it, Maeve?” asked Marcel. “Rogues.” “I can’t smell any rogues. Which direction?”
“How? What the fuck?” “Wait, her wolf can do magic too?” “Stop gawking, let’s go,” commanded Beta Drew. His team fell into line behind him, charging in the direction the rogues had been flung. Drew opened a mind-link to Lorenzo and Arla. “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen, little lady. Now get her out of here, Alpha, we’ve got this.” “Keep one to interrogate,” Lorenzo ordered, before closing the link to Drew. “Come on, you’ve had your fun. Let’s go home,” he said to Arla, his voice gruff. They trotted back towards the packhouse in silence. Maeve was practically prancing. She was on a high and enjoyed every minute of showing off her strength and ability to
“She absolutely is not,” Alpha Lorenzo snarled at him. “How would you know?” Lewis spat back. “Bears can only mind-link with their mates. She linked me. She’s my mate.” “Uh, oops, that’s my bad,” Arla interjected guiltily. “One of my wolf’s special abilities is being able to mind-link anyone, wolf or not. I can even mind-link Felix and he’s human. It’s a bit freaky at first though, sorry, I should have warned you.” “You’ve never mind-linked him before?” Alpha Lorenzo asked her, perplexed. “I’ve never needed to,” she replied with a slight shrug of her shoulders. The tension in the room dissipated slightly, and Arla suddenly became aware that there were two extremely good-looking shirtless men in her room. One in low-waist
“The witch. We came for the witch,” the rogue finally confessed, as he turned his head and spat the blood that was pooling in his mouth onto the ground at Drew’s feet. “Why?” growled Alpha Lorenzo, grasping the man’s long, scraggly, brown hair, and yanking his head back painfully. “Why do you want the witch?” “How should I know?” he answered through gritted teeth, two of which had already been knocked out by Lewis. “I don’t ask questions, I just do as I’m told.” “Who are you working for?” demanded Drew. “I’m not telling you shit,” he said, laughing maniacally despite the pain. Alpha Lorenzo tightened his grip on the man’s filthy hair and slammed his face down violently onto the cold metal table in front of him. The
“It’s been months, and the situation is only getting worse,” stated Alpha Lorenzo. “Why don’t the northern packs want to work with us?” “They’re clearly being told to keep quiet, but we’re not sure who’s pulling the strings,” answered a middle-aged Alpha Dominic via video link. “Have you considered the Alpha King proposal any further?” The rogue attacks had continued to increase across most packs, and the Alphas had decided to hold their annual Alpha’s Alliance conference via video-link. In past years, they would all congregate on the host pack’s territory and meet in person, but with the current uncertainty, none wanted to leave their packs weakened while they travelled to attend. “It’s always a consideration, but as I’ve said previously, I don’t feel it’s a role I can take on without a mate.”
Violet woke on the morning of her eighteenth birthday feeling determined and ready. Today is the day, she thought. The day she would finally be Luna of the Southern Mountains Pack. She had tried and failed many times over the last few months to get Alpha Lorenzo’s attention, but he hadn’t responded to her the way she desperately wanted him to. Everything about him was perfect for her in every way, and today he’d finally see what Violet had known all along. He would know that she was his. She dressed in a long, off-the-shoulder, white silk dress, with long sleeves made of delicate lace, a plunging neckline, and a split at the side that reached the top of her thigh. Nude stilettos showed off her long, toned legs to perfection.
“How are you doing that?” he asked in shock, but instinctively pulled her even closer to him, cradling her head on his chest. “Doing what?” she asked quizzically. “Your eyes are glowing again,” replied Lewis in his deep bass voice. “I’m not doing anything,” she insisted, before hearing Maeve smugly reveal yet another hidden ability. “Maeve!” she shouted out loud, annoyed with her secret-keeping wolf. She sighed before telling the group. “Maeve is channeling between us. She’s taking any strong negative emotions from Drew and channeling them to me. They’re not affecting me because I don’t have that connection to Violet. She says I can then choose what emotions I channel back to Drew, but because I wasn’t even aware I could do it, she’s showing him what I feel for
Lewis pulled the black SUV in to Chloe’s driveway, only for her to come flying out of the front door before they’d even pulled to a stop. She yanked open the back door with a little too much force, threw her handbag in, then plopped onto the seat. She turned to look past Felix in the middle seat, over to Arla on the opposite side of him, her eyes wide with excitement. “Is it true, Arla? Did Beta Drew really reject Violet?” she asked, practically buzzing in anticipation. Felix’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Who said that?” asked Arla, more than a little annoyed that people were gossiping about it already. “Stacey works part-time in the packhouse laundry, and she overheard from one of the cleaners. I called Mum, but she told me to mind my own business.” Chloe f