My paws bounded out in front of me.

Haunches driving into the soil and propelling me forward, I was running quicker than I ever could on two feet.

I had Bates's clothes in my mouth, holding them tight against the wind that blew in my face.

Thankfully, the oversized clothing hadn't ripped the first time I'd shifted, but I wasn't taking any chances the second time.

I bolted through the trees, following the metallic odor of blood that wafted through the pack land. I could only hope I wasn't following the smell of my own injuries.

Hearing a deep growl, I skidded to a stop, coming up a portion of the densely wooded area where a large wolf stood in my path.

The dark gray wolf stared me down, the fur on his neck standing at attention.

I dropped the clothing from my mouth and snarled as a warning for him to move.

He stood his ground, maintaining his gaze.

Snapping my teeth, I took a few quick steps forward. But his stance remained solid, still blocking the path.

A vision of Bates's bloody skull danced before me, eliciting a rush of courage and panic.

I don't have time for this.

Just before I could attack, the wolf kneeled down on his front two paws and began to shift back into his human form.

I was shocked to see Lincoln standing in front of me, covering himself with both hands.

"You shouldn't be here," he told me firmly.

I picked up Bates's bloodied shorts with my teeth and dropped them on the path in front of him.

He stared at the shorts for a moment before reaching out to grab them.

Lincoln's eyes widened as he smelt the blood that stained them, realizing whose shorts they were and whose blood they were covered by.

"Where is he?" He asked. "Luca's house? The tower? The meeting house?"

I began to shift back, Lincoln turning to give me a moment to cover myself with Bates's shirt and boxers.

"He's in the basement of the meeting house," I said, trying to catch my breath from the exhausting run.

Lincoln turned back to me and I saw the hesitation in his eyes, torn between his loyalties to the pack and those to his friend.

"My dad was there," I told him. "Bates lost a lot of blood. He needs help."

"You're hurt," he said, stepping towards me.

I backed away from him.

"Bates needs your help more than I do. Please. I need someone to go to him that can help," I begged.

"I'll go get Dr. Witt and I'll tell her to meet you at the meeting house," Lincoln said. "But you need to leave here."

Suddenly, a loud howl echoed through the trees, the branches shivering at its intensity.

That was the call of an Alpha.

I took off running, ignoring Lincoln's shouts behind me.

I ducked and dodged the protruding tree limbs in the path that I took, running as quickly as I could and ignoring the sharp debris on the forest floor that cut into my feet.

When I emerged from the trees, I froze.

Portion of the border gate was bent inwards, laying on the ground. It opened into the pack land, offering a gateway inside.

There was a pile of bodies—some of wolves, others in their human form—stacked atop each other on the bent metal.

I could hear the buzzing of the fence as it electrocuted the corpses touching it.

The evidence of carnage was everywhere.

Slain bodies, strewn organs and dismembered limbs littered the ground, staining the green grass of early summer.

I felt my stomach twist at the grotesque scene and doubled over to puke.

As soon as my stomach emptied onto the foliage I stood next to, I wiped the remaining vomit from my mouth with the collar of the t-shirt.

I promise I'll wash it before it give it back, Bates, I thought.

Hearing the crunching of leaves behind me, I turned to see a matted auburn wolf approaching with teeth bared.

Before I could make a move to shift, he lunged.

I held out my hands in defense, but all I felt was a gust of wind against them.

After taking a moment to realize I was still alive, I heard a yelp followed quickly by a sickening crack.

I pulled my hands down from my face to see a half-dressed Luca in his human form, stepping over the dead wolf and approaching me quickly with a concerned countenance. 

"What happened?" He asked me quickly, taking my battered face between his hands to examine each wound.

"My dad was there and then Bates, he tried to..." my voice fell off as it caught in the back of my throat, tripping over every word I wanted to say but didn't have the breath for.

"I'm fine," I assured him, taking a deep breath. "Lincoln said he was going to get Dr. Witt to go to Bates."

"You can't be here," Luca said, eyes narrowed at me. "Leave, go back–"

"I heard the call," I said, my hands gripping his biceps. "What's wrong?"

His eyebrows furrowed.

"It wasn't mine."

The sound of a gunshot echoed through the landscape and Luca immediately tackled me to the ground, the wind knocking from my lungs on impact.

We both sat up after a few moments, looking around to see where the noise had come from.

I heard a woman's wailing, prompting me to my feet.

Luca followed after me as I ran towards it, hoping the cry wasn't as familiar as I recognized it to be.

To my horror, it was.

I stumbled upon Mady, cradling someone's head in her lap. For a moment I thought it was Blaine, but then I saw his face.

Alpha Reid.

My knees gave out from under me as I fell into the tree I stood next to, leaning on it with my entire body weight.

His eyes were open, lifelessly staring into the abyss above him while blood flowed freely from the corner of his mouth into the hands of his daughter who held him.

I felt my bottom lip begin to quiver, a feeling washing over me that wavered between grief and shock.

Mady looked down at him, tears falling uncontrollably from her eyes, rolling down her chin and neck.

Her cry could be heard throughout the forest, making Luca visibly nervous as he looked around us to see who was listening.

"Mady, we need to get you and Carrie out of here, okay?" He said gently.

She fisted her father's flannel shirt in her hands as Luca touched her shoulders, urging her to stand.

"You can come back to him when it's safe," Luca told her. "But right now you need to leave."

Mady shook her head, struggling to breathe through her convulsive sobs.

I could tell Luca was growing more and more anxious, watching our dark surroundings for any signs of a threat.

Someone was bound to hear her and come for us.

I got down on my knees next to Mady, taking her face in my hands gently to make her look at me.

"Listen to me," I encouraged her. "Your dad would want you to be safe. Blaine wants you to be safe. I want you to be safe. We need to get out of here. Please, Mady."

A few moments passed before she nodded slightly, her hold on her father's shirt releasing.

I helped Luca pick her up, revealing a wound on her outer thigh that was bleeding profusely.

"Shit," I whispered.

She wouldn't be able to shift in that condition, much less make it back to the meeting house.

I turned to look around for something to help stop the bleeding as Luca noticed the wound himself.

I began to take Alpha's Reid's flannel off of him, sliding his arms out of the sleeves to leave his body in the blood-stained t-shirt he wore underneath.

I rolled the torso of flannel up, wrapping the sleeves around her upper thigh. I tied them around her leg, just a few inches above the wound.

Mady cried out as I tightened the tied sleeves.

Looking around, I grabbed a sturdy stick and placed it on top of the tie and then knotted the t-shirt around it, twisting the stick to create a makeshift tourniquet.

Hopefully that will stop the bleeding well enough until we can get her to a doctor, I thought.

Luca and I each took one of Mady's arms around our shoulder as we helped her begin to walk away.

I heard something approaching and looked up to see a large brown wolf running towards us quickly.

Before I could panic, the wolf shifted mid-stride into its human form and Blaine stood before us on two feet, running to Mady's aid.

"Where are they?" Luca asked him.

Blaine just shook his head, pulling Mady into his arms.

"We rounded most of them up about five miles northwest of here," he answered, his breathing heavy. "I wasn't able to keep up with the Beta, though. There was no scent to track him."

I watched Luca's jaw tighten as he nodded.

Before anyone could say anything further, a second gunshot echoed throughout the landscape.

Each of us took a spot behind a tree, hiding from the direction the sound had come from.

Turning to one side, I could see Blaine holding Mady's body tightly against his, her back pressed into a tree to help support her weight. Her face was pale, her glassy eyes staring off into nothing.

Turning in the other direction, I saw Luca peering around the trunk of the tree he stood behind, looking out over the land to investigate the sound of the bullet being fired.

Before I could turn to look myself, I heard him:

"I'd like to tell a story..."

My father's deep voice reverberated across the clearing, straight towards where we were hiding.

"Once upon a time, about fifty years ago, two young men were working in the Northern Montana mountains. They worked for an Alpha who died after unsuccessfully attempting to defend his pack against an attack," he said.

My eyes trained on Luca, I watched his eyebrows furrow with confusion.

"After the Alpha died," my father continued, "the two men stepped up to be elected the new Alpha of their pack. But there could only be one. The Code of the Alpha dictated that an Alpha could only be chosen in the event of a dead Alpha with no descendant and that the choosing would be entirely based on who, between two challengers, could physically overpower the other."

Where is he going with this?

"So, the two friends were left with two choices: they could risk their own life and the life of a friend, or they could walk away... In the end, only one decided to walk away. The other killed him in his sleep, leaving behind a mate-less woman and her eighteen-month old son."

I gulped, turning to look at Blaine, who struggled to keep Mady conscious.

But what my father said next made my blood run cold:

"I was only an infant when my mother fled with me, crossing state lines. She left your grandfather, Ronan, to be crowned with the bloodied title of Alpha. A title that should have been my father's and, eventually, mine."

My mouth dropped open, eyes wide with shock as I turned to Luca, who wore an equally staggered expression.

"You expect me to answer for something that happened half a century ago?!" Luca shouted incredulously.

"Someone has to," my father said.

His voice was close, only a few yards away.

I closed my eyes, listening carefully to every footstep he took towards us.

"And I'll start with your mate."

His voice was right in my ear, my eyes flying open and elbow popping back in a reflexive instinct.

I nailed my father in the corner of his eye socket with the sharp joint of my elbow, sending my entire forearm numb with the sensation of the struck nerve.

He was only dazed for a moment, stalking after me as I began to back away.

I tripped over something and looked down briefly to see the body of a guard who had been standing along the border gate.

My father used this moment of distraction to lunge at me, but Luca jumped between us and tackled him to the ground.

I reached down and pulled out the combat knife that was strapped to the dead guard's vest.

Just as I stood up, my father threw Luca's body fifteen feet through the air. He flew against the wide trunk of a tree, falling to the ground beneath with a groan.

My father turned to me and I immediately swung the knife as he reached out, slicing the inside of his palm.

He reached out with the other hand and I swiped the blade again, trying to keep as much distance between us.

It cut into his forearm, but I wasn't quick enough in pulling the knife away before he grabbed it with his bloodied palm and turned it on me.

"Please stop," I begged him, as he approached me, wielding the weapon.

"You've joined this pack built on nothing but the innocent bloodshed of others," my father said. "I have no choice."

"And you think that spilling the blood of more innocent people is going to right the wrong?" I asked him, eyes filling with tears.

"I will end this pack, no matter the cost," he growled.

"I'm your daughter," I whispered, voice breaking. "Does that mean nothing to you?"

For the first time, I glanced up to his face, making eye contact with him briefly.

I saw a flash of humanity reflected in his eyes for a split second before it was replaced again by the icy blue irises, a reminder of the stranger he had become.

"I've gone too far," he told me. "I can't be stopped now."

I shook my head as I backed into a tree, stopping my body from moving any further.

"It's not too far," I said. "We know someone who can help you get out from under this spell–"

"I don't want help!" He bellowed, lunging at me.

I took in a last deep breath.

My entire body jolted as the gunshot rang out, expecting to feel the pain that followed.

But there was none.

I opened my eyes to see my father's body collapse to his knees in front of me. He fell forward and I caught him, my arms hooking under his.

His weight pulled me to the ground with him, my body barely able to keep him upright against my chest.

"Dad," I said quickly, watching the glowing blue fade from his irises.

I laid him down on his back, seeing the blood gush from the wound on the side of his torso.

Placing my hand against it, I applied as much pressure as I could, trying to stop the blood that ran between my fingers.

I felt his bloody hand press gently against the side of my face, pulling my gaze to meet his.

His eyes were back to the way I'd always remembered them to be, startling me.

"I promise that I love you," he choked out, gasping for air.

"Dad, no, stop," I said quickly.

"I'm sorry that I never did enough to prove it to you..."

His voice whispered so only I could hear him as he tried to use his dying breath to apologize.

I was frozen in shock when his voice finally stopped, his brown eyes staring blankly up into the night sky above us.

With a bloodied hand, I reached out and felt for his pulse, letting out a sob when I felt none.

I looked up to see Mady and Blaine watching me, tears still falling from her own eyes.

Seeing a shadow move in my peripheral vision, I turned to see my mom standing a few feet away gripping a pistol firmly in a hand that hung by her side.

"Mom," I whispered, realizing what she'd done.

With a quivering bottom lip, she gulped.

"This went too far," she admitted. "I wanted you back as much as he did, but I never knew he would go through with this."

I couldn't help but notice the blue glow of her own eyes.

"I love you," she said. "I never wanted this for you. You were able to create your own life and I am so proud of you."

Her eyes drifted behind me to look at something.

"I know Luca loves you as much as I do," she said, her gaze returning to mine. "Let him take care of you."

"Mom," I repeated, standing to my feet. "I–"

"I love you," she said, cutting me off.

I watched in horror as she raised the gun, pointing it under her chin.

Just before I could run forward, I heard rushing footsteps behind me before a hand covered my eyes.

The gunshot echoed in the forest, bringing me to my knees.

- - -

I hate this part :(

This chapter took me three weeks to write... so damn heavy.

So I have a question for you guys... After this chapter, there is one more and then a relatively short epilogue. However, I am so not ready for this story to end and, in reading it through, I feel like it will end somewhat abruptly. SO, I am considering writing another two or three chapters. What do you think?

The only caveat is that I am going on vacation this weekend and into next week. I wouldn't be able to write much during this time, so the story would go on pause starting now. I anticipate I could get this done within the next week and a half. But you would you guys rather just go ahead and finish the book now? Or wait it out for another week for a few more chapters?

Let me know in the comments!

MaybeManhattan .x