To call a wolf weak, to hear it throughout the world in harsh whispers and discontent, as if I was a poison set about the wolf race, to end them all…
It had shaken my already broken heart and nearly left me for dead.
Until Cassius.
Ethan.
Stephanie.
Begrudgingly, I even admitted Alex’s sarcasm turned my focus to wanting to murder him more than the people who doubted my strength, my ability to be the Great Wolf, the Alpha.
I rolled to my side and watched her sleep.
My mate.
My goddess.
My vampire.
What beautiful blood she had running through her veins. What an impossible task we had set before us.
My mind — my entire body — begged me to default, to put on my torn jeans, to grab my flip-flops from the Goodwill, and put my hair in a ponytail. To march downstairs and hunt some berries, to suffer a crunchy pinecone-filled breakfast.
My body wanted me to be punished.
My soul demanded it.
My mind told me I was no longer worthy.
But my blood — her blood — whispered, “You are.”
And for the first time in my existence, I chose to believe something other than the negative thoughts in my own brain.
I trusted the blood.
I trusted her.
I closed my eyes. This was so different, living a life of depravity made me feel — better. Any wolf would see me and see the suffering. The judgement had never been narcissism, only pity for my state.
It had helped me stay in that condition, their pity.
And so I’d stayed.
Warriors had stopped begging my return.
And the whispers stopped.
And I was lost.
Because when you lose your purpose, you lose your very soul.
Mine had not been returned to me, until I faced what I was, what I was becoming with her.
I pushed the jet-black hair from her perfect face. She was even pretty when she slept, her earth-toned skin, the kind formed by the hands of The Creator alone shone in all its glory. It’s dizzying pieces of onyx twinkled with delight.
Maybe they’d be so distracted by her beauty they would not remember the old tales.
But I knew some of them were still alive. Some of them would know.