Blood And Silver Rise of the Alpha's Rejected Mate novel Chapter 2

Chapter 2

DANE

I didn’t bother to turn around and look at my manipulative, murderous mate.

I’d finally f*cked her. It was all she’d been begging me for three years.

She’d never pull her claws out of me now.

The sex had been incredible. Better than I’d imagined. And Goddess, had I dreamed about touching her over the years. All that perfect skin, all that softness. And those huge, gorgeous lilac eyes, soft as her scent.

I hated her for it.

I had fought myself tooth and claw over the years to keep from touching her. To remind myself what she had done. What she was part of.

*****

I could never forget the day I first met her.

Back then, I was twenty-one.

As the Alpha’s heir, I was the leader of the warriors who patrolled Blue Ridge pack land—the deep woods and mountains of Georgia—just south of the Tennessee state line.

I paced the top of an overgrown wall near the edge of Blue Ridge land in my wolf form. The sound from the woods came. Like someone stumbling, lost and sick.

I scented blood and silver.

Then I heard her.

“Help…please…” She sounded weak and sad, like she didn’t expect anyone would ever save her.

I trotted through the forest, searching for her, pulled like a magnet. There was a new scent along with the metallic tang of silver and copper—lilacs.

I came around a tree and found her. Though the moon was dim, she’d fallen in a puddle of light. Her long, silvery hair was matted and tangled. Her white gown was shredded so that most of her body was visible. Streaks of blood covered her body.

From her scent, she was a wolf. One who’d been poisoned with silver and then beaten to within an inch of her life.

I shifted into a man and knelt by her side. She flinched and whimpered, but bit the sound back, trying to be strong.

The moment I smoothed her hair back from her face, my wolf howled wildly. There was something between me and this girl. A connection. I thought I heard her wolf…

But then it was gone. A wisp of smoke blown away on the wind.

I must have imagined it.

I put my hand in hers. “Shh. Tell me your name.”

She shivered and wept, but gripped my hand with a hard, desperate strength. “I-it’s…Ann… My wolf. I don’t feel her!”

I lifted her in my arms and stood. “Our pack has healers. I’ll take you to them.”

She looked up at me with big, bright eyes. “N-no! They’re going to…t-they…”

She passed out. There was so much silver in her, I could see it turning the delicate veins in her pale hands black.

If I didn’t act, she would die.

So, I turned my back on my post.

I walked away and left a hole in Blue Ridge’s defenses.

We were so strong; I didn’t think anyone would dare come against us.

I hadn’t counted on our enemy, the Reeds.

I didn’t realize that this girl was their daughter, Ann.

I didn’t know she was part of it.

Not until Blue Ridge was burning. Not until my parents and a quarter of my pack were dead.