Page 38 of Lunar's Ruined Alpha
I start running west, keeping to the Greenbriar edge of the border. Yet, even as I remain on my own land, I make sure to open my senses to any sign of patrolling Whiteroses.
Since the small altercation that occurred between our packs a couple of weeks ago, you’d think that they’d want to be vigilant along this part of their border, but it seems that Henry Whiterose hasn’t declared it necessary.
In fact, I’m beginning to question why my father respects the Whiterose Alpha so much. The old man doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything at all for his people.
But it’s not my pack, and therefore none of my business.
Or rather, it would be none of my business if Alina and Noah weren’t currently residing in their territory.
I need to find a way to convince Alina to come home. As I run through the forest, free and wild and undeterred by any other shifters, I try to puzzle through it.
At first, I thought that Noah’s needs would be enough to convince Alina to bring him to Greenbriar territory. He’ll need me and his grandfather to help him through his first few shifts as a young Alpha. It’s his destiny to lead the pack one day. Sure, he could form his own, as Alina suggested, but the mere thought of allowing my heir to branch off like that instead of claiming his own birthright makes my skin crawl.
Not only that, but the primal side of my heart and soul that takes over when I’m in this body grows furious at the suggestion that my flesh and blood won’t rule one day.
The beast within is also enraged over the fact that I haven’trepaired the bond with Alina, and the spite has begun to take shape as a dull ache in my chest that I carry around with me whether I am wolf or human.
The problem is that Alina has a very different opinion about what Noah needs. She doesn’t see the Greenbriar pack as family, as home. I understand now that it would be difficult for her to find comfort in her own people. After all, she’s spent the past decade believing that she has the power to destroy them because, according to Kseniya, she has the power to ruin me.
In her eyes, Noah doesn’t need them. He needs to be normal and happy and safe. He needs his mother by his side, not relegated to a distant safehouse on the edge of the territory. He needs to grow up not knowing what it’s like to carry the weight of a hundred or so fates on your shoulders. That’s what she believes.
So, basically, arguing what I think Noah needs isn’t the key to bringing Alina home.
Instead, I’ve resigned myself to the truth that Alina will only be triggered into action if she has absolutely no other option. Which means that I need to prove to her that the Blackburns are an imminent, unavoidable threat.
Hence the run that I’m currently on.
After a few miles, I reach the part of the Greenbriar borderlands where our territory tapers off into straggling tendrils at the base of an untamed mountain range. It’s untouched land, and perhaps we might seek to expand into it someday, but for now, it creates an essential barrier between us and the Blackburns.
The Whiteroses, of course, are not so advantageously positioned. They share their entire western border with the Blackburns.
Which means that I need to enter their territory in order to get a closer look at what the Blackburns are up to.
I slow my pace to a light, trotting jog as I slip past the invisible boundary that marks our allied lands. The shift in scent is gradual, turning from the cool rainwater aroma of the Greenbriar pack to the honeyed fragrance of the Whiterose pack with each step I take.
Another mile passes before I reach the place where their landaligns with what the Blackburns have violently claimed for themselves little by little over the years.
That’s what I despise most about the Blackburns. These aren’t their ancestral lands. Their people didn’t settle here in the Appalachians and carve out a home for themselves through generations of rigor and loyalty. It was in the 1950s that the Blackburns, little more than a crew of criminals and dangerous outcasts united by a vicious Alpha who was exiled from his own pack in the Midwest, decided to start taking things that never belonged to them. They’ve swallowed entire smaller packs whole over the decades, choosing to become conquerors instead of the noble, communitarian creatures we are intended to be.
They are a mockery of our species, a stain on the legacy of shifters everywhere.
If it were up to me, I’d eradicate them completely.
But that would require vast numbers, a strong army, and acceptance of the fact that I would inevitably lose many Greenbriars in the process. My father has always been opposed to such a war, and so was my grandfather.
I would go to war for Alina, though. For my son. For revenge over what happened to Alina’s parents. For the terrible chronic pain that my Beta’s father has suffered as a result of the same attack.
Does that make me a violent Alpha? Was I born to be a warmonger?
Is that what Kseniya meant when she foretold that my Mate would ruin me? That the desire to protect her would turn me into a bloodthirsty monster?
I don’t feel bloodthirsty. I don’t feel like a monster.
As I slip closer to the edge of the Blackburn border, creeping northwest now, I slow to a steady, careful walk. I’m cautious to avoid brushing against too many branches and fronds so that my scent doesn’t stick.
Even out here, where the tensions between Blackburns and Whiteroses should be physically manifesting, I don’t sense any of the latter out on patrol. Henry’s pack seems to be avoiding this border entirely.
It’s an effort not to let a frustrated growl slip out at that. I need to remain as quiet as possible.
