The Pack (4 page)

    
“God she’s going to hate us.
” Cade looked
through the window
as she assembled the salad
she insisted they
eat to remain healt
hy,unaware the steak had all they needed to survive
and frowned
. 

     “Better for her to hate us, than
to be claimed
by the first male who recognizes her for what she is,
” Alec said next to him.

     “Can
you imagine if she had a Bond M
ate a
nd he found
with another male?
” Cade asked.

  
Alec had already contemplated such a thing happening
, had horrid dreams of such an occurrence.
I
t
was hi
s right as her destined mate
to claim her, but he planned to hold off as long
as possible. He wanted her to have
the chance to learn about them,
before taking such a life-altering
step
.

     “We wil
l tell her tonight after dinner,
” Lucan told them
walking back to the house
to help her
get dinner on the table.

     “Are y
ou
staying?
” Cade asked Alec
who stood clenching his fists at his sides
.

     “I think I had bet
ter
. T
his is going to upset her
,
and she
will need us all to help her adjust
.”

*****

    
T
he men
sat nervously around the table
after dinner
knowing
the time had come to tell her
they were leaving
,
b
ut none of them were willing
to broach the subject
.
No one wanted to be the one who broke her heart.

     S
ilence hung
heavy
as Mercy rejoined them at the table
after cle
aning
up
the dishes
and s
he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable
. Co
nversation throughout dinner had been
strained and lacking substance
, very unlike their usual boisterous meals
. It was oddly unsettling and
she looked at them all suspici
ously sensing something was wrong
. “So w
hat’s up?”
she asked deciding to get it over with.

     Lucan took her hand in his and lifted his brown eyes to hers
hating himself for the pain he was about to inflict
upon her
. “We are moving.”

     “What?” H
er voice came out
a mere whisper
and her small hand trembled in his large
r
one
.

     “My father
need
s
your bro
thers to take care of
businesses
in
another state
,
they must to go immediately,
” A
lec said
, giving her the
excuse they
had
all agreed upon
using
.

     “No…
I can’t go.
Wh
a
t about school and my friends.” She pulled her hand away from
Lucan’s, shoved her chair back and stood
,
staring
at them defiantly
.
“This is my home
,
the on
ly place I have
felt safe
since my parents died!
” Tears welled in her eyes
,
but she brushed them away.

     “We have no choice,
” Lucan said his own heart breaking for her
.

     “There is always a choice!” s
he screamed
. “I’m not leaving
,
you can’t make me.”

    
S
he
ran out of th
e
back
door and into the woods
seeking solace from the surrounding trees and wildlife there, letting
the forest camouflage her from her brothers
who she knew would
soon
follow
.
T
he dreaded words
repeated
over and over in her mind
as she flew through the evergreen filled acres
that surrounded their home
.

    
Leaving! T
hey wanted to
take her away from her home
,
from everything she knew.
How could they even think about
it?
How coul
d they destroy her life after all she had already suffered
?
 

    
Mercy
was racing
towards
t
he heart of
f
orest
when
the sound of someone or s
omething pursuing her broke through
her
melancholy
.
A musky scent
,
foreign
to her
senses,
brought an immediate
sense of
panic
.
S
omething primal
,
deep inside of her screamed at her
to get
out of there. B
efore she could change course
though
a lean young man
dressed in hunting fatigues
,
his straggly
brown
hair
hanging over
one side of his face
,
jumped down from a tree branch next to her
.
She tried to step aro
und him, but he blocked her,
she tried again, but this time he growled
, a low deep sounding noise
that had her gasping in surprise.
His nostrils flared
as h
e began circling
her
,
his dark eyes taking in everything about
her and
she sto
o
d frozen
in place
afraid to move
.

    
“Please
,” s
he whispered
her voice trembling uncontrollably
.

   
His hand snaked
out connectin
g with the back of her neck pulling her face
within an inch of his
own
. “Where have they
been hiding you?” he snarled
his other
hand down
moving up
the side of her hip
pulling
her
firmly
against him
. She struggled, but
he tightened his grip, leaning
closer
,
pressing
his nose
against her neck
as he moaned low and deep.

     “Don’t hurt me,” s
he begged.

     “Hurt you?” he murmured
his lips trailing over her
collarbone
. “I am trying
to make you mine
.
I won’t
hurt you unless you force
me
too.” His lips
fell on hers roughly
,
his tongue pushing betwee
n her clenched lips
.

     Mercy
gagge
d choking on
the
vomit
that rose in her throat
.

    
H
e
r attacker
pulled back and stared her then
moaned again
burying his face
in her ha
ir,
as he tightened his arms around her
.

     “Release her,
”
Alec
commanded
from across the clearing
,
having j
ust arrived to find the most horrible scene he could have imagined
before him.
The rage he felt for
the
young wolf in front of him daring
to
touch Mercy
,
threa
tened every lesson in calm
reasoning he had ever learned
from his father
. His every muscle was taunt,
ready to fight
,
only
the idea of Mercy getting in the middle
,
kept him from attacking
.

     The
young
male
growled, turning towards Alec,
knocking Mercy
carelessly
to the ground,
crou
ching low
before her ready to defend his find
.

    
T
wo giant wolves mo
ved into the cleari
ng behind him, t
h
eir eyes lo
cked on Mercy
, but the fear the young might attack kept them from trying to save her.

     Mercy
whimpered
,
her eyes wide with terror
clutch
i
ng the front of her shirt
together
with one
hand
while staring at
the young male before her in
horror
.

     “She’s mine!
” t
he male screamed
his face di
sten
ding
and reshaping
as his wolf began to take over
.

     “She is under my protectio
n
.
I
will not allow you to hurt her.”
Alec inched forwar
d
mindful of the young man’s lack
of control
now that he thought to defend the
female he had come across
.

     “I don’t want to
hurt her,” h
e cried out
,
his body stiffening
as
the shift
came over him.
“
I found her first,
she’s mine,
”
h
e panted
his eyes
morphing from brown to yellow.

    
H
is body hunched over
suddenly
to accommodate the change of his bone structure
from human to wolf
and he let out scream of terror
.

     “She’s not yours
!” Alec denied
.
“This is not our way.
We do n
ot just take females against their will.
”
He tried to remain calm
,
reminding himself that t
he young one was not to b
lame
.
Mercy’s uncommon DNA
was what
made her so attractive to him
.
Her anger and upset had triggered a pheromone that he had obviously picked up on and now he was fighting to posses her without really understanding why.

    
No one
,
other
than
her brothers, himself,
his father
, and a few
select
trusted
individuals
were aware that Mercy carried the blood of two of the oldest and most pow
erful packs of their kind
. The mix of
those
bloo
d
lines had created
an anomaly within
her
,
which made her one of the
rarest
females
of their kind
, a B
orn Were
.
Usually
,
f
ema
les of their packs
sh
ifted only after a male Were male
bit them, b
ut Mercy
was the exception to the rule
.
Her bloodline
ensured that she had been born
Were
wolf,
something that
none
of their kind
aside from
the oldest of their ancestors had ever
heard about
.