"If you think we have anything to conceal, then why did you allow my family become a member of your pack?" My shoulders slump as I realize that questioning him was really disrespectful on my part.

"I chose two of the most fearsome fighters in all of Alpha Nkosi," he says. My head shakes and I nervously bite my bottom lip.

"It will be interesting to find out what, precisely, you are capable of given your heritage," He says as I groan under his next sentence.

I don't see why being of Beta blood means I have to be flawless. Just let me be a normal she-wolf, please.

"What if I completely failed to live up to expectations? " I ask.

"You've got Beta blood, and your mother is one hell of a fighter. " Given this, I can't help but wonder what his reaction would be if he learned my deepest, darkest secret.

"Could I perhaps ask a question?" In the midst of Antony's undivided attention, he poses the question.

"So, what is it, exactly? "I ask.

"Have you met your mate yet?"

"No, I'm not eighteen yet. "

"You didn't say, but I assume you wanted to explain why your family moved. "My chest tightens as He reassures me that sharing the truth won't hurt me. It makes me feel sick to my stomach and causes me to sweat profusely just thinking about it.

"You seem really frightened, why is that? "

"Could I possibly leave this place?"

Alpha reaches across the table toward me as if to grab my hand.

"So, you can finally spill the beans, huh? "

"What my parents told you is true, that's what. "

I leave the room as soon as I hear him say, "You may go, Katrina, but I will be speaking with you again."

Alpha Antony's pov

As I saw my mate go, it hit me for the first time that she had left. I was intrigued by the notion that she and her family members were keeping something from me. Maybe I would have given them more serious thought before accepting them into the pack if she weren't my mate.

Something wasn't right, as they suddenly abandoned the strong pack.

Surprising as the request was, it never occurred to me that I could steal them from Nkosi. The opportunity to put an end to the rivalry that had been going on between our packs for many decades was too excellent to pass up.

Both Philip and his wife Dianna had high positions in the pack, so it came as a shock to learn that they had never publicly acknowledged having children. Something didn't quite seem right about her, despite the fact that she came from a prestigious family and had a powerful scent.

Mathew came in from the backdoor, he had been overserving all this since I told him so and wanted him to find out what strange about this girl.

"She is your mate, right?"

I sigh, no point lying to him, he knows me better than I know myself half the time.

"Now, tell me precisely what it is that you have planned to accomplish? Do you intend to maintain her current schedule of detentions?" His eyes return to mine with a look of inquiry.

"I want some time to spend on my own with her. "

"I'm confused as to why you didn't bother to ask her parents directly,"

"It's because I don't want to upset her parents. They are really important to her. I caution him, telling him that if I start a dispute with them, she would despise me, "So, what are our next steps?"

I am at a complete loss for words right now.

"In all honesty, I don't know how to avoid seeming like a total freak if I ever find myself in her company. "Mathew seemed thoughtful for a split second.

"Is tomorrow a good time? " His shoulders shrug, and he speaks.

"There will be a pack run every Friday after school. The younger members of the pack tend to hang around in the packhouse rather than go out. "

"I let them off the hook for the first week."

"You're the alpha. Tell them you're checking up on her to see how she gets along with the rest of the pack. "

"Well, 'm going to go see her out on the field,' I tell him. " Mathew nods and gets to his feet.

"Have you decided to show up"? When I ask, he cracks a wry grin.

"You've done something terrible. "

"Oh, it's nothing, but Tina's been annoying me, so I've teamed her up with Katrina for some training. " When I look at him, I feel angry.

"Are you trying to provoke me on purpose? "

I could never risk having Tina come anywhere near my mate. Her apparent antipathy towards Katrina was compounded by her attraction with me. One of Tina's numerous advantages is that she has received excellent training.

Katrina is a fiery person, no doubt about it. Mathew tells, "She will get what it takes."

"You best hope so because if she gets wounded, you will be dead."

"Her mother was a great fighter, while her father was a Beta. No need to worry about that at all. "

I've been witness to Tina's training sessions with the crew, and I can attest to the fact that she does not fight fairly. Even in her state, I knew my mate could take care of herself. Given her amazing power and stamina, it would be interesting to see how she shifted as a wolf. It was exciting for me to finally meet her wolf.

To avoid being found, I concealed among the spectator areas. I found Mathew's decision to pair them up to be really peculiar. As Dianna walks toward the playground, she seems to be talking to her daughter. Katrina seemed quite ill and was sweating heavily.

"What's the deal, is she truly doing fine? "

I look on as Katrina dashes to the nearest trash can and vomits into it.

Dianna's mother is a strict disciplinarian. She sat and stared at her daughter for what seemed like an eternity before finally telling her to go back to work in the field.

Ella walks up and places a shaky hand on Katrina's arm. One friend is better than none, and I'm lucky to have found an excellent one in Ella. Aside from Tina and her pals, she gets along with everyone else.

Katrina's mother, Dianna, tells her to "get it together," and the young lady nods in agreement before waving her off. After Katrina tells Ella to go, she gives her a sharp shake of the arm.

"Why don't you see any problems?" After I tell Mathew, he leans forward .

"To me, she appeared fine. "He replies.

I stand on the edge of the stairwell for a while to watch Katrina and Tina enter their little square before I begin heading down them. While Katrina starts to stagger from exhaustion, Tina takes a firm stand.

My wolf is giving a low growl while keeping a careful eye and maintaining its distance. I was caught off guard, but Katrina was able to avoid Tina's strike by turning over onto her back as she was being flung to the ground. This allowed Katrina to avoid being hit.

As Katrina moves in for the kill, she kicks Tina in the face with her raised leg, which causes Tina to retreat. Tina's aggravated expression is accentuated by the fact that she is now holding her bloodied nose. When Katrina finally opened her eyes, she was covered in a thick layer of perspiration. Clearly there was a problem, and that was the case.

My wolf snarls, "Wolfsbane," and I give it a whiff. Now I understood why. Insufficient doses, it might be lethal.

Mathew responds, "There's something wrong,"

Before I could take two steps down the stairwell, Tina shifted.

Katrina's Pov

I was on my way to training when I was grabbed and dragged into my mom's private office.

"You scared me to death. " But her expressionless, stony visage was staring at me harshly. "Where have you been?"

"Place of confinement; where else? "

"I went looking for you, and I found out that neither you nor Tina were in custody. "

"At fact, I am in the Alpha's office. "

"This is the day when the wolves go through their training. " My mother said sternly, looking a little worried.

"Okay, I will tell them I am sick," but she shakes her head. Something she pulls out of her pocket gives me the willies; it's been years since I've seen it.

"You have to go, "she says, but "we can make up a tale for why you can't alter your situation if you take one of them. "

"I'm sorry, Mom, but it just can't happen. "

"There's no way around it; we can't risk them finding out until you've shown your usefulness to the pack. "

When I was younger, in order to conceal the fact that I had no wolf from the Alpha, my mother would feed it to me anyway. Then she started feeding them to me in order to accustom me to eating them so that I wouldn't have any problems with them in the future. Until the time when my dad found out about it. He stopped giving it any thought, and I stopped to consume the drug that was the most lethal to werewolves.

"Don't alert your father. "She warns.

I tell her my dad will be able to smell it on me since I know he has done it before.

She opens the black container containing her medication.

She opens it and exposes the white pills to me. She clenches her teeth and lets out a quiet hiss. And now she is counting on me to cram it down my throat.

"No! " She gives me a look of distaste when I tell her.

"But just because you're acting like a spoilt brat won't mean I'm going to throw everything away. "

"And how should I explain? "

"Just say you ate it someplace. "

My hand was taken, and she slipped the tablet into it.

She offered me water and I declined;

"Swallow it now!"

I have a tendency to follow her orders without question. Chewing the tablet is suggested so that it may be dissolved more easily. She failed to see that I was overjoyed at the opportunity getting along with the Alpha. If he learns the truth, there is a significant danger for me.

I go with her outside, stooping as the agony starts to pound me harder. "Mum!" As I scream, I clutch my stomach.

"Kick their ass, just as what I taught you."

"No, Mom, they're wolves."

As she takes my arm and pulls me to the field, the words "Don't let me down" echo in my ears. "Don't let me down." After that, I make a beeline for the trash can that's nearest to me.

My stomach hurt, my blood became heated, and I started sweating heavily.

"What's going on, Katrina?" Ella asked me. There is nothing I can say,all I can do is shake my head my mother yells out my name, immediately followed by Tina's, I experience a significant blurring of my eyesight.

I almost hear my mother's little gasp of astonishment.

My incapacity to even get up is making it difficult for me to keep up with the rest of the group, who all seem to have the strength to sit in the allotted places. Tina doesn't even pause to consider anything before rushing full speed at me. I had to react swiftly in order to avoid being hit in the face by her fist. My efforts to evade her onslaught are fruitless, and I find myself falling backwards. I bring my foot up and land a powerful kick to the face of my opponent. She shook in an erratic manner, but at this point it felt as if I was seeing double.

The world before my eyes is filled with darkness, and I can feel my bones cracking. The mental links I have to my mother. "I'm sorry, Mom, but I feel like such a coward."

When I realized that sharp claws and fangs were coming straight for me, I was too weak to mind link back.

I squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as I can to prepare myself for the anguish that is almost certainly going to follow. I finally opened my eyes and saw what was making that whimpering sound.

The brown wolf positioned itself. I am startled into looking up as I feel a wet arm draped over my shoulder. When I turned back, the Alpha was drenching with blood. Tina nibbled the crook of his arm.

"She wasn't even shifted!" he yells, his voice so full of fury that it chills me to the bone.

Tina's very loud cry shows her extreme distress.

While he's scooping me up, he asks, "And why she got a scent of wolfsbane from this?" He roars and rams his face into the back of my neck as I struggle to extricate myself from his hold. With a flutter, my eyelids start to close.

"Keep your eyes open, Katrina," he pleaded, as I felt his lips brushing across mine.

"Shit, call for the pack doctor, now! "

Previous to my legs having the want to run. My heart stops beating and I feel a crushing pressure on my chest.

"My dear Katrina, promise me to wait here for rescue to arrive. "

Alpha Antony's POV

In front of me, the doctor injected her and set up an intravenous line.

Her mother's eyes are still weeping as she watches her daughter.

"Exit! Get out of here, as I told you to! "

Daina's gaze had been fixed upon me the whole time.

"You will not succeed in convincing me to give up my daughter. "

"Nobody can get near her until I figure out how she took the wolfsbane." I tell her. Daina is unwavering.

"Get out of here right now!" Then I shout at the top of my lungs at her. She breaks down crying, craning her neck as if to show her surrender, and then bolts from the room.

While sitting at her side, I frantically tried to attach a fluid bag to her.

When I tell the doctor to "calm down," he takes a deep breath, and then his hands stop trembling.

"Can we even guess how much wolfbane is in her bloodstream at this point?"

"We have to redo her bloodwork to know the result and make sure everything is okay. "

"Do it asap. "

I kept checking the time and date while I aimlessly wandered about her room, hoping that she would eventually wake from her sleep.

The doctor entered the room carrying a stack of forms.

With the evidence at hand, he draws the conclusion, "She had about double the deadly quantity."

"The quantity of the plant she swallowed, meant that it could only have been given to her in the form of a liquid or a tablet. It's more than anybody can reasonably consume. "

"Either someone did it on purpose to hurt her, or she got enough of it to kill herself. "

"Do you believe she attempted suicide? Not very long ago, she seemed to be thriving. "

"I had a sneaking suspicion someone gave her a lethal amount, but that's all it suspicions. "

Suddenly cries are becoming louder and I can sometimes make out the sound of skin scraping against flesh. My attention was immediately drawn to the slap, and I found myself standing at the entrance of the room. Because I was concentrating so hard on getting there, I was completely unaware that Philip had just struck Daina.

My rage has been getting the better of me ever since I found out that he hit his wife. I seize him by the scruff of the neck and hurl him headfirst against the nearby wall. Mathew is walking down the hallway with his hand on my arm .

"Alpha, calm down. " Mathew keeps pushing me away.

"I will Fucking murder you if you come anywhere near our daughter again "Philip yells at his wife.

"What makes you treat your mate with such disdain?"

As he raced out and down the hallway, he yelled, "Ask her, I need a fucking cigarette!" As I turned around to check on Dania, I saw that Mathew was giving her the "stink look," too. I went back to checking on Daina. The physician had halted his examination at the front door and was now observing the scene.

Her alarm went off, and I ran past doctor.

Katrina swallows the water the doctor immediately brought over. As she becomes acutely aware of her surroundings, a rich crimson color spreads over her face.

"I'm sorry about that, honey," Daina says as she covers her mouth with her hand and displays a scared expression on her face. A growling Mathew yanks Dianna away from her."

"Don't worry about me, I just drank something by accident, and I'm perfectly OK," she said. She was so sad about her mother that she burst into tears.

"Tell me, Who gave you the wolfsbane?" .

I urge Dianna to shut up, giving her the cold shoulder.

"Just in case, she must build up her tolerance. " Daina replies in a low voice,

I bare my fangs and charge at her, tossing her violently into the wall. When I looked at her with my eyes narrowed and my lips opened in a deep growl.

"If she wants to protect herself against wolfsbane, she'll need to beef up her immunity. "She adds, teas in eyes.

"You gave her about twice as much as would have killed her! "My voice rises in volume and I yell at her.

"Don't hurt my mom, " Katrina begged as she grasped my arm.

"Katrina, have a seat; I'm not going to listen to any more of your falsehoods." Mathew catches her as she is falling to the floor and sets her in the position. She is crying the whole time.

"Get out please, let's have a private talk " Daina cries and slams the door.