My parents stared at me with worry. “Honey, is there a problem?” my mom asked me.

I choked back the tears that threatened to slip from my eyes. “I’m so sorry but…” I cried. “I want to leave the pack.”

The room went deadly quiet, the only sound in the room being the news playing on the television in the background. “What?” my father asked, his eyebrows creased with confusion. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”

“I want to leave the pack,” I repeated, wringing my fingers nervously.

My father pressed his lips together, thinking of why his heir had suddenly decided to leave home.

My mom let out a sigh of frustration. “But everyone is here. Your family, your pack and title, Thane…does your mate know?” I shook my head. “Are you running away from Thane?”

My heart clenched as I remembered what he had done and my wolf howled in sorrow before retreating to the back of my mind. Slowly, I lifted my shirt up and showed them the bruises I had woken up yesterday with.

My little brother, Andrew, sprang out of his seat, looking ready to run out the door. “Did he hit you?” he asked calmly. Andrew was always easily annoyed. Knowing him, he would go to Thane at the slightest chance to try and beat him up.

“That’s not it,” my mother whispered, her eyes widened with shock. “With who?”

“Julia. When I was in the hospital, he…”

“He cheated on you with the Gamma’s daughter?” Father asked.

I nodded, unable to speak because of the tears choking my throat. “He…he might force his mark on me.”

My dad’s expression became cold. Forcefully marking someone was one of the most painful things you could do to a wolf. “I see…if you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”

I glanced at his calm expression to check if he was serious. He smiled and nodded at me. My heart soared. “Thanks, Dad.”

He waved his hand as if swatting a fly away. “I’m a little concerned. Where will you go?”

I glanced back at Mom. “W-Well, I was thinking of joining Aunt Maggie.”

Mom raised an eyebrow. “You want to be a wandering hunter?”

I nodded. “It’ll be winter soon. No pack would want an extra mouth to feed unless the said extra mouth is contributing to the food.”

Suddenly, the somewhat light mood in the room plummeted. “You'll have to escape in the middle of the night,” Mom whispered so lowly that I had to strain my ears to hear her.

“What of the Alpha?” I asked worriedly.

“We'll cover for you. In the meantime, we'll start training Andrew to take your place,” Dad added. I glanced at Andrew. He nodded with a nervous smile.

Despite the reassuring words, I could see them fidgeting. It wasn't just going to blow over when Alpha found out. He might punish them or worse, have the whole pack looking for me. Tears filled my eyes at the willingness to take the fall. “Are you sure? If it will cost you that–”

Dad patted my head. “We're your parents. Allow us to worry about you.” I nodded. “Tonight won't be too early, will it?”

I shook my head. “I want to leave as soon as possible.”

The next few hours were a flurry of packing, instructions and strategy discussions. Finally, it was nightfall and the whole family took a walk to a cliff near the border. “You'll have to go through here. It's the least guarded area.”

I clutched my pack and tried to take a step forward. My feet refused to budge. I squatted abruptly, my body shaking with sobs.

The three of them wrapped their arms around me, all of us crying together. “It'll be okay, Clara. You'll be safe.”

I only sobbed harder. “But I don't know when I'll see you again.”

“We'll find you, no matter what,” Mom said and pulled away, kissing me on the forehead. “Be safe, okay?”

I nodded and with a final wave, darted into the forest. As soon as I crossed the border, I felt something rip out of my chest. I was no longer a member of the pack. I gasped and stumbled forward at the loss of my pack’s connection. A pair of arms wrapped around me to break my fall.

“Come on,” Aunt Maggie's familiar voice said. “I've got you.”

It had been six months since I joined the Nightshade pack. Before that, I had followed Aunt Maggie around for six months, learning how to hunt.

The first few months had been hard. Getting up at the crack of dawn to hunt while rolling in pain all night as I felt Thane screwing another female. My wolf had suffered more of the pain, causing me to be heavily dependent on weapons. But we healed. The pain was still there but not constant or intense enough to be a disturbance.

In that short time, my strength had grown astronomically that when I visited the Nightshade pack to help with their hunting, the Alpha had begged me to stay.

“Anika, don’t you ever get exhausted?” Thomas, one of the hunters of the Nightshade pack asked, calling me by my new name.

I smiled and continued shining my weapons. “Of earning the food I eat? Never.”

I stood and swung my bow onto my back, preparing to march into the forest for the day's hunting.

Thomas frowned and turned to stare at the other hunters who were still sleeping in their tents. “Huh? You're leaving already. You were out till midnight. Rest up a little.”

“Gotta meet my quota for this month,” I replied, trudging deeper into the woods.

“You met that two days ago and it's not even the twentieth of the month yet,” Thomas yelled after me.

I ignored him and started to run, following the scent of an animal about half a mile away. The poor deer didn't see me coming until I stabbed a dagger into its back.

The animal fell and I lifted it, hauling it back in the direction I came. I had only taken a few steps into the woods before the scent of human blood drew my attention.

I walked in that direction and stopped in the middle of a clearing. When I saw the grotesque scene, I grimaced, especially at the smell of the bodies of the freshly killed rouges.

My gaze fixed on the man in the middle. He laid on the ground covered in blood but he was the only one with all his limbs intact. Judging by the shaky rise and fall of his chest, he was the cause of the mayhem.

I laid my kill on the ground and walked to him, trying to avoid the scattered limbs and blood puddles in the grass. When I lifted him up, he whimpered and sagged his entire body weight on me.

Pulling him to a nearby stream, I tore off his shirt with my knife and poured water all over his body and his wounds to clean them. With all the blood gone, I could see his face properly.

My hands hovered above his face. With his long eyelashes, round, kissable lips and chiseled jawline, he had looks that could rival royalty. I tore my gaze away from his abs and muscles, berating myself for the lewd thoughts that were running through my mind.

“His mate must be a lucky girl,” I muttered bitterly before tending to his wounds with my first aid supplies.