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.