Until the moment Caleb rejected me, I didn't realize how intimidating putting myself out there for a guy was. Flutters of nerves ran through my veins, racing my heartbeat. The paths of goosebumps trailing down my arms and up the back of my neck urged me closer to him.

Inspired by his genuine honesty, for once, combined with Lumi's internal howls for closer contact, I thought if we connected closer then maybe he... we...

It doesn't matter. Sorry, I tried but... He doesn't want us, Lumi.

She didn't answer, offering a soft whine as the sting of rejection bit into both of us. While my steps retreated, one fluff of my white skirt after another, her tail tucked in between her legs. She slunk into the dark corner of my mind for her own comforts while I licked my wounded ego.

"Zara?" A warm hand enclosed around my upper arm.

Through her glasses, a warm pair of brown-hazel eyes offered a kind, sympathetic look before tears blurred my vision. "What happened?" Elena asked in a half-concerned, half-demanding tone. "What did Caleb say now?"

"Elena." Cole put a hand on her shoulder. "This is a mate issue, we shouldn't -"

She threw him a glared so heated that I was surprised he stood still on the spot. "Shouldn't what? Have you put your fist into Caleb's face?"

"Why would I punch him?" Cole's wide eyes shifted past me and her angry glare. "He's pretty level-headed... And I'm willing to bet -"

"Finish that statement and you'll be the one who's level-headed." Elena jabbed an index finger in the air an inch from Cole's nose, then pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her hands gestured to my face. "Look at her! She's heartbroken."

I'm... Am I?

The pressure crumpling in my chest agreed with her.

"That doesn't even make... never mind," Cole grumbled then turned back to me. "I'm not punching your mate for you, Zara. Sorry not sorry. You two have proven you're capable enough of punching each other."

"It's fine, I..." A heavy, invisible weight pushed down my shoulders. "Need to leave. I'll be in my room."

"I think I'm ready to go too." Elena's eyebrows squeezed together Cole, then she linked her elbow with mine. The near desperate look he threw back at her paused my feet and a lump swelled in the back of my throat.

"No, stay." I looked back and forth between them.

'We already had our... goodbyes,' she clarified, although by the pained look on his face, he hoped for another round of them.

She pressed her lips over Cole's, then threaded her free hand in his and led both of us through the house and back to the front foyer. I let go of Elena's grasp when my tears pricked again at the base of the stairs... where Caleb had looked at me like I mattered to him.

He even told us some things that were true. And his wolf isn't gone.

'Mate.'

Lumi's whimpering wrapped around that single word mirrored my own reaction, pushing tears over the edges of my lashes. Careful to not trip over my dress, I made my way upstairs. After much quicker steps down the hallway, I locked the bedroom door behind me and paused at the sight of myself in the mirror.

With my slumping shoulders and damp, red-rimmed eyes, I looked more like I'd been stood up at the altar than rejected by my mate. With trembling fingers, I swiped my raccoon eyes clean, removing all concealer layers until my pale, blonde facial features returned to my reflection.

Stupid Caleb. Having a mate that doesn't want you is worse than none at all.

A sigh filled my lungs when I changed out of my dress. Kicking my feet, my heels landed with a thud and I tossed them into the bottom of the garment bag. After stuffing the dress on top, I slipped into my pajamas.

Toothbrush in mouth, my stupid heart fluttered in my chest at the knock on my door. False hopes of Caleb changing his mind infiltrated my brain and rushed my bare feet.

My shoulders dropped when I cracked it open to a pair of concerned yellow-hazel eyes.

"He didn't," Rose's voice wavered between disbelief and irritation, echoed in the deep frown creasing her forehead.

"That summarizes it." I sighed, stepped sideways while she entered my room, and shut the door behind her. "He didn't... Or, more like he doesn't."

"I'm so sorry." Her eyes pooled with sympathy, then flashed with a spark of humor. "I have an herbal recipe for some IBS-like symptoms I can slip into his morning coffee if you'd like."

Her offer flinched a smile across my lips. "I don't think that'll help the situation, but thanks."

"It'll make me feel better." She pursed her lips once, which looked like her plum lipstick had been smudged off of, then released them. "Sorry he's being a butthead. I can have Idris punch him in the face, if you'd like."

"It's okay," I assured her and leaned into my door frame. "Listen, I'm not going to ruin your last night with Idris."

"Apparently, you didn't see how we hung out downstairs for five minutes, then went back to our room because no one was up here." Her eyes warmed but a slight pink tink flushed across her cheeks.

With my emotions all over the place, I now noticed how her hair hung in messy strands and lips puffy and swollen. She still wore her dress, crumpled wrinkles bunched at her hips.

Who knew Rose was a little minx.

"I stopped by Elena's room, she's almost done changing." Her words snapped me back to attention. "I'm all set after I change. One small bag of personal items, thanks to you."

"Yes, right." I stepped back with the realization that we were leaving. "We should say goodbye to Alpha Sandolf and Luna Sierra."

Her forehead tensed for a moment. "Of course, except they started Raina's pack ceremony."

"Oh." The muscles in my face sagged at the idea I wouldn't say goodbye to Raina. "I'll get changed, pack the last stuff, and we'll meet outside after the pack run."

"Sounds like a plan." She nodded, gave me a fleeting smile, then turned for her room.

I shut the door with a soft click, then leaned my forehead against the hard surface for a few breaths.

Feeling sorry for myself won't help anything.

***

I left the Southern territory with a similar impression I felt when I left the Western territory, that I hadn't had enough time to see the territory and learn about Red Valley pack dynamics. However, I also left with the utmost respect for Alpha Sandolf and Luna Sierra's hospitality and commitment against my own father's evil, unforgivable crimes against wolves within his own country.

My eyes took in the rolling hills, blackened shapes in the night, as I sat down outside the packhouse. Even in the night, a hot, stale wind kissed my cheeks, clamming my skin with perspiration.

Once the bitterness of Caleb's rejection sank in my stomach like I swallowed a rock, the reality that I also might have ended up living within the Red Valley pack myself slipped from realistic possibility into an unrealistic fantasy.

Closing my eyes under the weight of my own self-pity, I clung to the hopes of my brother's safety. While I was more than happy to stay hidden in my room, Elena encouraged me outside to see the end of the Southern territory's pack run. I was glad when she and Rose joined me on the packhouse's front yard, gaping at what approached us.

The sight of more than a hundred and fifty wolves ran like a reddish-brown river that surged its course after a heavy rainstorm. Heads lifted and spines flexed like tumultuous waves. Tails straight up like proud banners in the wind in a sight both breathtaking and intimidating.

Alpha Sandolf, I assumed, ran first, with his gigantic wolf bumping shoulders with a more lean, slender wolf with a white stripe down her snout that I assumed was Luna Sierra when she bumped him back. The corded muscles of Theo's hulking wolf were followed by Mist, her light grayish coat glistening in the moonlight. Behind them followed the thundering pads of hundreds of paws.

"Beautiful," Elena murmured as the pack descended on the circular drive around Sandolf, Sierra, Theo, and Raina.

Her voice drew me out of my reverie and my eyes shifted to her. "Elena, why didn't you have a pack ceremony with Raina?"

"I was fine with that but Cole wanted me back in the East, stay there in case..." Her voice softened and she swallowed. "I mean, until things quiet down. Everyone knows the initial fighting won't be there."

"I get it." I placed one hand over hers, which stroked over her lower abdomen. Elena was about sixteen weeks along. "Too early for baby Zara to make her presence in this world."

One by one, the Southern pack's wolves shifted back to their human forms. I averted my eyes at the sea of naked bodies that approached. Once Sandolf and Sierra dressed, we embraced them. I hid back my tears the best I could when my arms wrapped around Raina's shoulders.

"Before you say it," I muttered as my throat squeezed inward, making my voice raspy and thick. "I know you don't do hugs."

"I can make an exception," she whispered and her arms tightened around me. "But if you tell anyone then I'll deny it completely, Flower."

"Take care of yourself," I whispered and pulled back, turning my head so she wouldn't see my tears.

Raina exchanged similar goodbyes with Elena and Rose, then our collective sniffles climbed into our packed up vehicle and I drove off. A dark navy sky dotted with gray clouds and tiny white specs of stars hung all around us. Clenching the wheel, I started out on the back road route I went over so many times with Cole that the roads were ingrained in my memory.

The realization that I didn't Caleb before we left hit me once the Southern packhouse disappeared behind a few rolling hills in my rearview mirror. The lump in my throat returned and my chest felt like a hole was carved where my heart used to rest.

Guess that's that.

The overnight drive was long, boring, and quiet. Background music hummed while Elena and Rose both slept, with cute smiles on their lips and heads propping together. I occupied myself with making sure I stuck to the correct driving route, recalling each turn by turn while wallowing in self-pity about Caleb.

Fortunately, the longer I felt sorry for myself and the more distance I put between us and the pack house, the less attachment I felt to Caleb. A dull ache replaced my initial bitterness. When I reached the Southern territory's border with the East, I held almost no ill will about him.

If I don't make him happy then I guess I wish he finds someone else who does.

Hour after hour and countless bumpy, weaving turns, the midnight sky morphed into golden highlights in a beautiful sunrise. The rays of sunlight that poured out from the horizon reminded me of beacons of hope. The grassy, rolling hills leveled out into familiar, sloping plains.

Bumping over a pothole, my traveling companions jarred awake. The sounds of soft groans pulled a smile on my lips.

"Oof." Elena stretched her arms and legs out, then blinked her eyes behind her glasses. "Where are we?"

"We're East already!" Rose ran the back of her hand across the corner of her lips, wiping off the drool that I giggled at while she'd slept. "Did you... not stop?"

"I did not," I confessed, super proud of myself that I drove eight hours with a bathroom break and quick fill up for gas.

"Wow, are you okay to keep driving?" She leaned forward and ran her eyes over me. "At this rate, we'll be there by breakfast."

"Are you within mindlink distance?" I glanced into the rearview mirror, catching her head shaking.

"Not yet but soon." The eagerness and excitement Rose felt to be home were obvious in her voice. Sitting back, she stretched again and bounced in her seat.

A small smile played on my lips during the last leg of our drive. Unlike the agonizing trip from East to West elongated through the Southern scenic, turtle-populated route, the direct drive from South to East was much shorter. With the pleasant company of Rose and Elena, the past few hours zoomed by quickly.

We chatted about random topics, including how we beat every detail of my lack of relationship with Caleb worse than a piñata at a child's birthday party. Elena refused to accept that he wanted nothing to do with me.

Rose however, took a more pragmatic approach. "It's not much consolation." Her yellow-hazel eyes scanned out her window. "But you did say you'd come back to my bonehead brother."

I did say that to Torak.

Lumi however, wanted nothing to do with that idea. Her fur bristled when the terracotta roof of the Eastern packhouse came into view.

'Not mate.'

Yeah, well 'mate' doesn't want us Lumi... So, maybe we're going with sloppy seconds.

A small gathering waited outside the front entrance, where I recognized both Elena and Rose's parents. Once I pulled the car into park, my eyes skimmed over and widened when they found Torak's already studying mine. Warm with recognition but a heavy, unfamiliar emotion filled his eyes, guilt. His eye gaze looked so heavy, like he struggled to keep them lifted to mine.

A drawing back, recoiling feeling hit me when I realized the source of his guilt stood shoulder-to-shoulder next to him.

He's not alone.

Disbelief burned inside me while my eyes blinked at the sight in front of me. Next to Future Alpha Torak, whose hazel eyes wore the weight of a decision that wasn't his, stood a tall, muscular, and pissed off-looking Beta Baron.

Every feature on the man was gray. His receding hairline, his steel-cold eyes, even his skin had a grayish cast to it. If death walked, then its form was Beta Baron. He wrenched his mouth into an unpleasant scowl at the sight of me.

Approaching him, my shoulder slumped and my heart flipped. Refusing to succumb to the sneer curling back his lips, I lifted my chin and focused my gaze between his eyebrows.

Right when his mouth parted, his eyes snapped behind me. "You're late." The glint appearing in his eyes prompted my eyes in the same direction.

My heart sank at the sight of Caleb's tall, muscular frame approaching. I saw more of his dark-haired head because his chin was tilted down, hands stuffed in his pockets, and eyes tracking the ground ahead of his feet. His toned shoulder and bicep muscles shifted and flexed under his T-shirt and jeans.

His look reminded me more of a casual afternoon than a complete stab in the back.

"She left early," Caleb grumbled with his eyes looking past me. An unsettled feeling surged in my stomach while I glared at him but he ignored my presence. "Not like you weren't tracking her anyway."

I'm sorry, what!?

"You were supposed to come alone." Also speaking like I didn't exist, Baron's large frame blurred in my peripheral vision. "Now we have to bring two more."

I needed a moment before I realized Baron meant Elena and Rose, then parted my lips, "No."

"Not up to you." Baron dragged his gray eyes back to mine. The air chilled around me when one side of his upper lip curled up. "Princess."

"They're not the one he wants." Caleb stopped a few feet from me. A quick whiff of his awful scent passed from my nose straight into my brain, where it flipped on an internal switch.

He... set me up?

That's why I didn't see him at the pack run.

The longer I stood, the more my leg muscles tightened until they locked rigid. My hands balled into fists, running lines of tension from my wrists up to my shoulders. Strain pulled my eyes wide and unblinking as the weight of his betrayal hit me like a kick in the gut.

My shoulders trembled, anger and betrayal bubbling up beneath my skin, flushing heat until my blood boiled. One flick of Caleb's soft brown eyes, also a complete and utter lie, lifted them to mine.

"You!" My feet surged me at him and I pulled back a tight fist. "Traitor!"

Again, he offered no evidence if my words had any effect on him, raising one hand and blocking the punch I swung at his stupid face. Tears sprung into my eyes at his firm grasp around my wrist, not at the tightness he grabbed me with but the warmth that radiated through my skin.

"Zara," his voice weighed with the same guilt his eyes carried.

My nostrils flaring, I flung my weaker fist at him with a grunt. His hand encircled my wrist, shackling it down to my side. Glaring so hard that my eyes strained, hot, angry breaths pitched my chest, he averted his eyes. Before either of us moved, a pair of large hands grabbed my shoulders, pulling me from Caleb's grasp.

"Sappy reunion later," Baron's cold voice in my ear sent chills down my spine. "You've caused a lot of problems for your father, Zara."

"Must be so flattering to run errands like his bitch -" I started over my shoulder when his hand flew across my vision. With a knife-sharp contact, pain struck my right cheek. My head pitched sideways and vibrations from Baron's hit pulsed over my skin.

"Keep your smart mouth shut or I'll finish what Cassius started on your back," Baron growled under his breath.

Heated throbs pulsed in my cheek as I gnashed my teeth. With a wrench on my wrists, he yanked both my arms back. At my silence, the click of a metal sound and hot sensation searing my bare skin brought my attention to him bounding me with silver. One shove into my back after another, he pushed me away from the Eastern pack members.

"Bring the runts separately," Baron barked at the security guys in black Kevlar gear standing near the second SUV.

Despite her constrained state, Lumi bristled at his words.

'Friends.'

"Not part of the deal." Alpha Stephen lifted his chin, jaw clenching under his beard, and stepped forward. "You have what you want. Now leave my territory while you still can in one piece."

Guess that's two Alpha traitors.

I turned and shot what I hoped was a murderous look at Torak, whose mouth flinched and his shoulders lifted slightly. At my movement, Baron grabbed my arms and pressed the silver cuffs into my skin. A hot, searing pain bit into my flesh at the contact point, clenching my stomach and rounding my spine until I hunched halfway over.

After a hiss pushed itself out of my mouth, Caleb's shoes stepped into my line of vision.

Still hinged over, my chin lifted and I glared up at him. If my fingers hadn't trembled from the pain then I would've stuck up the middle two to him.

"Aren't you supposed to say, 'You promised you wouldn't hurt her!' at this point?" I snarled.

He matched my eye glare with a frown. "What kind of shit are you reading on that site?"

"Guess that's my answer, traitorous jerk," I grumbled, straightened up, and looked away.

Baron's tight palms on my shoulder yanked a few inches between Caleb. With another hard shove that stumbled my feet, he directed me into one of two familiar black SUVs. They pulled up behind the car I parked not five minutes ago.

With one last shove from behind courtesy of Baron, I stumbled over the open back door's frame. Falling onto my chest and knees, I inhaled a scent of leather as my cheek slammed into the seat. After the door slammed behind me, I lifted my chin up when Caleb was shoved into the other seat.

Fabulous.

Pulling up my back muscles, I shifted to a seated position. Grounding my feet on the floor, I moved as far away from him as possible. With one last look out the window, I caught Elena and Rose's forlorn expressions before the car turned. With squealing tires, we lurched back against the seats and left the Eastern packhouse out of view.