A/N: @jinxie578, thank you for always being there :) always voting first, I will forever appreciate all your comments!

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Tristan stood in the large foyer; everything sounded oddly loud with his wolf so furious and alert.

Despite being in skin, the furred beast within always hovered close to the surface. His wants and his instincts were one.

The sound of each breath he took, the rain pounding on the shingles of the roof, the fierce arguing of the males around him, and the soft whining cries of the mourning females locked in the room somewhere on the other side of the large wood house.

Everything was too damn loud.

Even though he strangely couldn't focus on any of it. It was like background noise...

His wolf was concentrating on the distressed heartbeat, the soft breathing, and sniffles of one female in particular.

Nothing else mattered but her.

Tristan was fighting with himself. Trying to yank himself out of his wolf's primitive mindset. He wanted nothing more than to go claim that little juvenile female. He wanted to put his mark on her so no one would ever think to touch her again.

His wolf was suddenly furious about the mating mark that had once felt like such a comfort after losing his littermate. It had been four years to the day since he mated Emma. Not once had he ever regretted it, despite his mother, aunt and grandmother's protest. He hadn't listened.

Now it felt... wrong.

He felt sick.

Sick and furious and foolish.

The distress in her crystal blue eyes was haunting him.

Tris grit his teeth and forced that image out of his head. He was shaking with the effort to keep his beast contained. Even with the collar, he was struggling. He felt his eyes fully glazed as he tried to bring himself back to the sanity of his skin mind. He knew he wasn't thinking rationally...

His other half didn't care about reason.

He just wanted that little female. He wanted her badly.

"Tristan!" His father snarled. Tris's eyes snapped to his with a snarl of his own.

He never challenged his father in anything. He knew he wasn't ready to lead. He was the muscle of their pack, and he highly enjoyed the battlefield. He had no intention of leaving it any time soon...

But his wolf was willing to take him down. He knew he could.

Because his father nearly killed his mate...

The rage of that thought was nearly blinding. Tristan felt himself lose the battle with his wolf for the briefest of moments.

His mind blurred with animalistic fury.

It took immense effort to pull himself back, and when he did he was being held down by Noah, Reed, and Hugh; all three betas present, and two Delta enforcers.

His wolf was a beast of a male. Immense, ruthless, and monstrous. He knew even at the age of twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven, he could take down any of the Alphas present despite the fact they had years on him. And it would be easy at that.

By the look of alarm on their faces, they knew it too.

His furious wolfish eyes were fully focused on his father. He felt his frightening beast nearly breaking through.

The image of her being stripped in front of all those males suddenly flashed through his wolf's mind and threatened to drive him back into that void with a furious snarl. It didn't matter that being bare was nothing to them.

His wolf was still furious they had seen her at her most vulnerable.

His wolf wanted blood. He flicked an angry glance around him. All their blood. The terrified look in her eyes as she pleadingly looked at him was haunting him.

"KNEEL!" His father snarled his Alpha command. Tris felt only the slightest urge to obey him, he had managed to get his wolf to relent to him at least that much... but Tris couldn't subdue his fur side completely. Not now, not with how furious he was.

Tris grit his teeth and fought even harder for control. He shook his head and took several hard breaths, but it had the opposite effect.

He could still scent her. Sweet and feminine. Like the freshness of the first snow of winter and ripe sugared berries. She was all female.

No one ever told him finding a fated would be like this. 

Not that he believed he would ever find her. At some point, he didn't even truly believe she existed...

Why had he been so stupid?

Tristan felt himself losing control. He stared at his father with furious glazed eyes; his wolf didn't care that they were kin.

The realization of what he would do for the little female he didn't even know shocked him to his core.

"SUBMIT TO ME NOW!" Ivan snarled. Tristan felt the urge to obey, but it was trampled by the urge to taste his blood.

He was a threat to his little mate. His father wanted her dead. She was just a juvenile, so small, fragile and defenseless. The protective instincts inside him flared to a degree he'd never felt before.

Tristan realized quickly he was going to lose this battle. So he did the only thing he could.

He broke away from the betas and ran hard for the forest, shoving passed anyone who got in his way. His felt his fur side rising, and he knew even with the collar he wouldn't be able to stop him.

He needed to get distance. He needed to run it off before he did something truly regrettable.

The shouting faded as the rain pounded around him, and as her scent dulled from his senses the more distance he put behind him, he gained more control of himself. Not that the tension and anger left him.

Tris finally let his wolf take over when he knew their minds were finally in synch again. He snapped through the collar, something he knew he shouldn't have been able to do so easily, and let the beast take over as he shifted and ran full out into the woods.

He fully intended to wear himself out. To hunt. To get the aggression out any way he could.

Hours went by of intense running and several unfortunate bucks who crossed his path that met his full fury, before he finally felt his wolf start to retreat back enough for him to shift to skin. Tristan found himself beside a foreign lake and panted hard to catch his breath. He was far from the Varga land.

And his mind was a jumble of chaos.

He thought back to standing on that platform having freshly defeated that vile excuse of an alpha that murdered his littermate.

Elly.

Tris forcibly pushed his sister from his mind. He just managed to reel in the rage. Thinking of her would only bring it right back...

He tried to focus his mind on anything else. But his next thoughts weren't much better.

He knew full well he shouldn't have won that fight so easily, not against a full-grown powerful Alpha of Alik's stature. That damn male was feared for a reason, his bloodline was older than any of the woodland packs. He came from a long line of Alphas, he was powerful, he was viscous, and fought like he had nothing to lose.

Wolves like that were dangerous.

But something had taken possession of him; he couldn't explain it. He sought out any scents he recognized who had killed his kin and showed them no mercy, then he fought his way through, took on far too many at once just to get to Alik. He knew he shouldn't have fought him; he didn't know why he didn't wait for the others to catch up.

Tris had never been the wreckless type; he never felt he had anything to prove. He had never lost a fight, even as a child, and though his brute strength often took credit for his accomplishments, it was his strategic mind that he knew served him far better.

But he had started to feel incredibly restless the moment they reached the Varga land and quietly took out their border guards. It had been painstaking, waiting for the weather to cooperate so they could approach unnoticed. The heavy rain storm was the perfect cover.

His wolf was exuding a nervous excited energy he never felt before, even in the heat of bloodshed and it wouldn't abate; it just kept getting stronger.

Once the hard fought battle was over, Tris had kept glancing at the other Alphas throughout his father's speech. He could barely control his wolf from snarling at them. Suddenly they had felt like competition to him.

He didn't understand it at the time.

Something had been calling to the deepest part of his soul. It was like a hard itch deep inside he never realized was there until now, out of nowhere, it suddenly needed scratching.

He knew now what it was. His wolf had sensed her nearby... even during the fighting.

It had made him reckless.

The moment he laid eyes on her... the moment he finally caught that sweet scent through the rain and mud as she lay crumpled and crying on the ground... he knew right then what she was to him.

It was a shock to his system. But it was everything that happened that kept him rooted to the spot. That kept him from doing everything his fur side wanted to do.

His father had found his gifted mate, and she was killed right in front of him.

His father's fated... was his fated's mother?

A hard mixture of emotions hit him then. Confusion, anger, shock.

His father always told him true mates were nonsense. That to 'wait and see' would lead to a wasted life.

Tris truly believed it...

But why? He felt so confident in his choices until just hours ago.

His aunt had one. She found hers. His grandparents...

But so many others didn't. Many in their pack aged out of having families waiting to find a mate that never appeared. They chose to be alone.

He thought they were fools...

Tristan took several deep breaths as he thought of her, so broken.

Rage and sorrow had hit him hard.

He nearly went to her then until it hit him. The familiarity of her scent.

She was that bastard's daughter. The one that had brutally killed his sister and her small pack. The male that had just ordered his father's mate killed.

The Alpha who everyone agreed would die, along with every single one of his offspring to keep the past from repeating itself.

But even then the pull was overwhelming. It took everything in him to keep distance from her and force himself composed. It was his father's clear loss of control that really kept him distracted. That kept his attention split.

What his father had ordered had shocked him. Killing pups in war was not unheard of, but what he did was cold.

He had to force himself to take charge. It took immense restraint, especially as he felt his little fated's distress. His wolf became instantly in tune with her from the very first moment he noticed her. But his father has lost his mind. His wolf was torn in two places.

Tristan had never seen him like that.

He had forced himself off the stage to ensure those females of her pack weren't further harmed. They were true victims. Kidnapped from their homes.

He couldn't think straight. He didn't know what he was supposed to do.

She was supposed to die. His mate...

His wolf nearly lost it at just that thought. And that's when he heard his father's words, saw him kneeling in front of her.

He suddenly lost control and he attacked his own father when he realized what he planned to do to his little female. He had nearly been too late...

Tristan stood there in the unfamiliar wood. He had run clear passed the storm, the sky was clear there, and the sun was sinking now. The sky was pinking with sunset.

They had attacked just before dawn.

Tristan felt the fatigue of his body from all the physical exertion. Emotional turmoil had taken a toll as well. He looked at the lake; the setting sun's reflection was harsh off the rippling water. The afternoon breeze ruffled his hair.

He took a painful breath when the true reality of his situation crashed down on him...

His fated was the daughter of that twisted male... the Varga Alpha he had been hunting for five years.

The male who killed his sister and her family. The male responsible for their entire pack's brutal slaying.

Elly...

She was more than just his sister. She was his littermate. His best friend. His closest confidant. Images of her flashed through his mind, of them as pups, throughout their childhood and juvenile years.

Then when she became fond of the Alpha's son in a small neighboring pack, the Akala, and decided to leave them.

It was a very small pack, barely even enough wolves to truly be considered a pack, but the Alpha and his son were good wolves. It was a bittersweet parting, but he was happy for his sister. His whole family was. She and Tris were the oldest. They had ten younger siblings.

Elly found love. True contentment. And she and her mate quickly started a family. He had three nephews and a niece. Tris had made it a point to make the half-day journey whenever he could to visit. They wrote letters. He never lost touch.

Until the day their pack messenger never returned. Tristan waited almost a day before running the trek in the middle of the night when a nagging feeling wouldn't go away

He was not prepared for what he found there. It still haunted him.

Brutal. The entire pack was dead. Their bodies littered the forest. Males, females, pups.... And not just slaughtered. Many adult females had been brutalized in the worst way. And many of the juvenile females were missing.

When he finally reached the Alpha housing, he had little hope. The scent of blood and death was overwhelming; he'd smelled it from miles away before even arriving on their lands, and... he caught his sister's blood well before he reached her.

Tristan couldn't help that the very thought of it made the images of what he found flash through in his mind. He fisted his hands in his hair as he tried to stop. He hadn't let himself think of it in so long. He started to pace mindlessly. His wolf was suddenly agitated.

She didn't have the luxury of a quick death. And she had been violated like so many others in her small pack. The disgusting scent of it was everywhere. She died terribly. His young nephews, still toddlers, all dead.

Tristan would have lost himself to his wolf for days hunting down those male's scents if he hadn't found his niece, just an infant, still clinging to life. That soft weak cry had made him instantly stop his shift.

The air saturated with blood and death had nearly obscured her living scent. Weak but alive. Elly had died trying to protect her young... and she had managed to save one after all with her cleverness. Her youngest, Willa. Newly birthed by only a few months.

His father and their pack enforcers met him partway home as he rushed to get his niece back to their pack, to his aunt, who had recently had a pup, to keep the infant from starving. She was already so weak. Tristan was numb at that point.

His father took Elly's death as hard as he expected. His mother too was beside herself with grief. His whole family was devastated.

Elly was a gentle soul. Sweet and loving. She did not deserve this.

No one did.

The year following was chaotic. They tried to track down the Varga's with no luck. They kept running into territorial disputes with the other woodland packs, and had to deal with refusals to enter land occupied by rival packs to continue to track their scents.

The trails kept going cold by the time they made arrangements.

The current Varga pack had been a menace to all for over twenty years. But no one had ever been able to find them. They attacked packs at night with frightening efficiency and would disappear without a trace, skirting territory lines.

The brutality of their killings and the kidnapping of young females were finally starting to unsettle the entire region into a collective hatred for the Alpha who broke all their laws.

And that hatred and anger finally led to a ceasefire of all ongoing conflicts. They all fought with each, they had for centuries, mostly over land. He himself had been on that war front since he was fourteen years old.

He made a name for himself. A beast to be feared. By the time he was sixteen all packs knew of him. They had all tasted the wrath of his angry inner self. It made them hesitate to engage the Lykaia and their ally, his mother's pack, the Adalwolf.

They had been allied since his father took his mother as a mate in a peace treaty. They were neighboring packs, and that treaty had kept their homes mostly safe from the other war-hungry packs in the region.

It made both their pack's populations expand. They were thriving, but a population boom meant they needed more land to hunt and sustain it.

For a time, they became the aggressors. And they dominated. Largely thanks to him, he could easily take down Alphas. And they all knew it.

Within him clashed two long-standing Alpha bloodlines. He knew a lot of his fierceness came from the generations of Alpha ancestry in his blood. Among the oldest in all the packs of the region.

But after Elly and her pack's slaughter, the Lykaia and Adalwolf, led by his grandfather Alpha Hutch Barette, began a crusade to find the Vargas and their twisted Alpha. At the time, his father wasn't sure who led them. He had a suspicion of who it might be, as they used the same pack name as another pack that had once terrorized the land for centuries.

He didn't know if it was symbolic or if the bloodline continued its reign.

Their biggest obstacle was the Eyolf pack, led by Alpha Arthur Gaudin. His lands were extensive, and he had one of the largest packs in the woodland territories that rivaled even theirs. Every time they managed to track the Varga wolves, the trail always went cold nearest his lands, and he adamantly refused to aid them.

They had the longest history of violence between their packs. The woodland packs all fought with each other, but the Lykaia and Eyolf were true rivals. Generations of ancestors hating each other and centuries of fighting.

It wasn't until the Vargas hit them where it hurt the most that things changed. Gaudin's only son died in an altercation when he inadvertently stumbled upon the returning Varga raiders. Jude was his name. Tristan and he were the same age.

There were many times Tristan spared Jude's life in their clashes in the past. He was a decent fighter, they had an uneasy mutual respect.

Despite them being rivals, Tristan was deeply bothered when word of his demise reached them.

With his death, came the full rage of Gaudin and he finally agreed to join them in hunting them down on one condition. A mating arrangement between Tristan and his eldest daughter, Emma, now that he had no heirs. They would merge their packs when Tristan and Emma took the Alpha positions.

It had all made so much sense at the time. It was the start of a massive treaty between all six woodland packs. The only ones left after the Varga wiped out many of the smaller ones that used to occupy the lands between them all.

So he mated her, despite his mother, aunt and grandmother's protests. They told him... they warned him, what would happen if he met his fated after mating a chosen. The causalities it would leave behind.

He didn't believe them.

His father forsook his own, and he never found her in all the years he had mated to Tristan's mother, Ada. He never once thought his life would turn out differently.

Emma was strong. She was beautiful. Tall, lithe, and graceful. He was proud to have her mark, proud that she held his mark. She was everything an Alpha's daughter should be. Poised, articulate, well mannered in all pack affairs. She was everything he thought he wanted in a mate. She would make a good Alpha partner when they finally did take over.

... but that all changed now.

How had he been so blind to his own wants? Those crystal blue eyes were so different then Emma's dark brown. Her silky long white hair was a sharp contrast to Emma's shorter dark hair. Her soft feminine face, so different to Emma's sharper features.

He once thought Emma a beauty. Now, in his head, he couldn't find a single thing he liked about her.

That little juvenile... even being a juvenile and ragged as she was, was more beautiful to him then any female ever would be.

But... she was the daughter of that vile Alpha. He felt it, like a spike through the chest.

Thoughts of Elly, of everything that twisted fucking male had done throughout the years. How many slaughtered packs they had discovered.

Tristan felt his breathing increase as agitation washed over him. Even his wolf felt restless, knowing whose blood she carried. What blood their pups would carry if they mated.

He glanced backward in the direction of the Varga land. It was hidden at the edge of the human region. A few small humam settlements lay between the woodland packs and the Varga land, but it was nestled in a protected valley with water almost completely surrounding it. None of them had thought to look there... and they were good at covering their trails.

Tris grit his teeth. So many thoughts were still flowing through him. It was hard to focus.

But one thing became clear in his mind. He couldn't abandon Emma.

She had been a good and loyal mate to him. And their whole treaty would fall apart. It had all started with the agreement to mate with her. The two largest and most rivalrous packs in the woodlands signed an unprecedented treaty, it was that above all that truly led the other packs to join them. That and the collective hatred for the Varga.

Tristan took several painful breaths.

He thought of that little female. His wolf felt fiercely protective of her even still, even as the realization was dawning on him that he couldn't have her. That it would be wrong on so many levels to mate her.

All six packs agreed to end Alik's bloodline. They had a extensively long history of being vicious wolves. Twisted wolves. But nothing had ever been as bad as what they saw when they arrived there... the condition of those females...

What their scouts had learned of the lives they led there. They were shared by the pack and forced to bear pack pups.

Tristan's thoughts were still racing. The treaty. Her parentage. Her innocent blue eyes were burned into his brain...

And her very existence was proof of what happened to his father's fated mate.

He couldn't accept her.... His wolf snarled inside him at that thought, but Tristan had a hold of his mind now and shoved his other half away.

Logically, he knew what they should do, it had been a part of their treaty... but he knew he couldn't. He couldn't let them kill her.

His wolf would never allow it.

It would kill him inside. It would make the dangerous beast inside him go on a murdering spree. But even his skin side didn't want her death.

She was innocent of this.

Having met her, faced her, changed everything.

As long as he didn't mate her, as long as she never had pups... the bloodline would end with her. That would have to be enough. The council should accept that...

But she would have to be a lifelong prisoner... to ensure she'd never mate with another. Once she came of age, she'd have to be locked up during her heats.

He couldn't let himself think of what a torturous life that would be for her. What it may mean for him, being around her...

But the thought of her somewhere else was unbearable. Now that they'd met, his wolf would go crazy constantly trying to hunt her down. He knew he would need to keep her close to him.

He hated how much his wolf agreed with that, because his fur side fully intended to mate the little female once she was ripe with maturity. His wolf was acting like a damn juvenile himself. One that had just found a favorite new toy.

It was clear his inner self had not yet come to terms with his decision, but he would have to find a way to subdue his beast before things got to that point.

At least he had a year or two to figure out what to do... she looked to be only around sixteen or seventeen. She hadn't even had her first heat.

Her scent was still immature.

Tristan stood there and stared at the lake until the moonlight replaced the sun's reflection.

When he finally forced himself to start the long trek back, he paused to pick up his kills he'd left in the woods. They were nature's people, they did not waste.

Several enforcers met him when he neared the land again and took the burdens from him. Tristan paused to reel himself in again before going to seek out his father, he knew he'd have to submit to him, and his wolf was still restless.

But he didn't fear that... although angry, his wolf still respected his father. What he truly feared was catching that little female's scent again.

He didn't know how he was going to keep away from her.

When he approached the cabin, he fully expected to walk into enraged arguing. He heard their raised voices from nearly a mile away.

The arguing died down as he headed up the stone steps and shoved the door open.

"Tristan..." His father's tone was odd. Tristan avoided his eyes and instead looked to his grandfather. Alpha Hutch Barette was looking at him with worried eyes.

"Have you gained control?" Ivan asked with a stern tone, but not hostile. It sounded more like pity.

It irritated his wolf.

"I'm fine." Tristan said as he finally met his father's eyes with an expectant look. He assumed he'd make him kneel, but he didn't.

An awkward silence followed.

Tristan cast another glance between the three. He assumed they discussed it, and he wanted to know what they decided... or didn't decide. The arguing sounded unresolved.

"What do you plan to do?" Alpha Arthur Goudin growled. Tristan looked to Emma's father.

He stared at him for a moment. He felt his wolf gnawing just beneath the surface at what he was about to say.

"I won't abandon Emma. But I cannot let you kill her." Tristan said firmly.

"The child's name is Lo." Hutch said. Tristan felt his muscles tense, his hands tighten into fists.

Why did hearing her name make everything feel so much worse? Clearly her mother had given her a mountain pack name. They were typically one syllable.

The woodland packs on the contrary had been adopting more of the human language and along with it, their names in the last few centuries. It made it easier when they interacted for trade.

It was almost impossible to avoid human interaction those days. But the mountain wolves kept to their roots and maintained distance from humans even still.

Lo... he let it settle in his mind. It suited her...

He glanced up at Hutch, his maternal grandfather, and Tristan's eyes were drawn to the mark of fate beneath his eye.

He stared at it for a moment. Tristan's own had become mostly obscured by his scar. His grandmother, Vera, and he were fated mates...

His grandmother had warned him. His mother Ada, his aunt Edith, his father's only sibling, who had a gifted as well, and Vera had all tried to persuade him not to take the deal. They begged him for over a week to reconsider. They even tried to persuade his father to change the conditions of the treaty to not include a mating. They all had hope for him to find her.

He hadn't listened.

Tristan looked at his father. His gaze lingered on his father's mark as well. A mark that will now be a constant reminder for him that he once had a gifted that was gone.

"You know his claim on her will fade now that he's met his fated. It's inevitable." Hutch said harshly. He seemed angry. Tristan tensed his jaw as he glanced to Arthur.

"I won't let it fade. I will not change my mind." Tristan said firmly. He vaguely heard what could happen after a wolf met a gifted after mating a chosen. They didn't usually stay mated to the chosen, the pull of fate was too strong. And even if they tried, their claims wouldn't stay. He would have to reclaim Emma constantly.

A brief silence followed.

"I need a word with my grandson alone," Hutch said with a hint of anger.

"Whatever you have to say to him you can say in front of us." Arthur snarled. Tristan once more looked to his father when he noticed he wasn't speaking.

His eyes were focused on the window, and he seemed suddenly listless.

He had never seen his father like that.

"Ivan needs time to grieve. Leave Arthur, we will call a council to deal with the change in events, there is much to discuss with all of us." Hutch said firmly. Arthur snarled.

"I don't take orders from you old man." Arthur growled. Tristan tensed, he felt his wolf rising at the insult to his kin.

His grandfather had ten daughters before he was blessed with a son, but Tristan's uncle was still a few years away from taking Alpha. Hutch was Alpha long passed the age one would typically be one, but his grandfather was tough. Arthur was out of line challenging him.

Hutch was still the stronger of the two.

"Let's not let emotions get the best of us. Return in a two weeks. I will send messengers to the others requesting their presence here. Now go." Hutch said, and though his tone was level to start, it grew dangerous toward the end. Arthur glared at him, and they stood in a tense stand-off for a moment, before Arthur turned and angrily left.

The room grew thick with silence the moment the door slammed.

Tristan finally looked up at his grandfather when he felt his heavy gaze. Hutch seemed to be trying to collect his words carefully.

"Tristan. You are young and naive. Listen to me, you cannot forsake your gifted mate. Nothing good will come of it..." Hutch said firmly. Tristan stared at his grandfather, before he looked cautiously to his father.

Ivan had buried a hands in his hair as he leaned his head's weight on his elbows resting on the table. He didn't appear to be listening to anything they said.

He looked...bad.

With Arthur's presence gone... he seemed on the verge of some kind of breakdown.

The death of a female he met for mere seconds... the death of a female he didn't even know... did this to him?

Tristan knew how foolish that thought was. He had barely met his, and he already knew what effect she had on him. It was powerful, the pull.

But... he had made up his mind.

"I made my vow." Tristan said firmly.

"You well know that every pack has a clause that a gifted will always supersede a chosen. You have an out. We will negotiate with the packs to allow you to keep her. It is your path in life to mate that female. She is yours. She was given to you, and though you may think it's not ideal, fate is something we do not question. This path was decided for you. You don't get to turn your nose up at it because you think you know better." Hutch growled at him,

"But she... she's the daughter of that-" Tristan stopped himself. The rage of it all started coming to the surface again.

"She had no more choice in that then you had in who you were born to." Hutch said.

"We all agreed his bloodline stops!" Tristan growled. Hutch sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. He seemed weary.

"I clearly don't understand why fate chose this course for you, but she was put in your path. Denying fate leads to heartache." Hutch said.

Tristan was feeling furious now at his grandfather's lack of support. He was already feeling torn; he needed them to agree with him, not split his mind even further. Tristan grit his teeth and looked at his father.

"You had no problem with my parents mating!" He growled.

Both his parents had fated mates, and yet they chose to mate each other.

And now his grandfather just wanted him to accept that female? With her vile bloodline?

"You well know your mother lost her mate long ago. It nearly broke her. When your father showed interest in her, I saw a slow improvement in her demeanor.

Even so, she attempted to persuade your father from choosing her, knowing what she may suffer in the future if he did find his fated, and when it was clear your father would not listen to my advice, and my daughter did feel something for him, yes... I did agree. And every time Ivan left home to venture the land, I worried.

Then after they had you, and continued to have more healthy happy pups, I thought maybe she was safe. Maybe Ivan's gifted had died before ever meeting him. He never seemed affected with wanderlust like many who hadn't found their mates.

Vera always told me she worried when only two of you grandchildren were born with a mark... but at that point I didn't care, my daughter was happy. I see now it's fate's way of punishing us for mating a chosen. Your siblings were robbed of that gift. Every time we allow it, more and more wolves are born unmarked. Clearly I was wrong." Hutch said with a strange quiet anger. Tristan was staring at him oddly.

He'd never heard him talk of this. He knew his mother found her fated as a juvenile in the midst of an attack on their lands. He was part of the aggressors, a rival. She locked eyes with him as they fled for safety, and it was her distracting him that had caused his quick death.

It had devastated her.

Tristan glanced away from him. Only himself, and his youngest sister, amidst all his siblings, were born with a mark. The rest of his siblings had no fated mate. His father would often remark how it was a blessing to not have fate forced upon you. He was glad for it.

He often saw the saddened expression of his mother whenever he went on one of those rants when his grandmother Vera expressed worry that so few wolves were born with fated marks every year.

Tristan looked at his father now. He looked so broken. Clearly he was right... Tristan felt this damn mark was a curse, not a blessing. 

"So I don't want you to make the same mistake. Mate that female the moment she comes of age. You have no idea what happiness you will be robbing yourself if you don't." He added.

"No... he cannot accept her." Ivan said with a hoarse tone as he shook his head, but he kept his eyes down.

"Ivan..." Hutch began.

"It's not your decision. She's... her bloodline, it's-" Ivan was fumbling with his words.

Tristan strangely knew what he meant. She smelled vaguely of the mate he lost. She held a bit of her mother's scent.

It was painful for him.

And she was the living breathing proof of how much his father had failed his mate.

And the other part of her... her father's blood, it was a reminder to him of her unfortunate parentage.

It dawned on Tris then his father would always hate her.

"Go home Ivan. Grieve. We will handle all the arrangements here, be back in two weeks for the meeting. Go home to your chosen, she will know best how to comfort you..." Hutch said firmly.

Tristan tried to swallow the lump in his throat at the thought of his mother... of what she will feel when she hears what happened there.

And he almost feared facing her after word of what he planned to do reaches her. His grandmother too.

But he had no choice. How could they not see that?

"Go rest Tristan. They've cleared out some cabins to the east. We have a long few weeks ahead of us boy, I'll see to your father." Hutch said. Tristan looked at his father once more, and still he didn't meet his eyes.

Tristan turned and quickly left. He no longer wanted to see him like that.

If a fated female had reduced his powerful father to that broken pitiful state, he suddenly had even more resolve to keep distance from his own.

-

Lo sat numbly on the ground in the corner. She had stared at the same spot of wood for what felt like hours.

The other females around her eventually quieted their crying, only a sniffle broke the stillness here and there.

No one spoke.

A few of the younger females eventually slumped down and drifted to sleep on the wood floor. There was nothing in the large room they'd placed them in besides the reinforced steel and silver walls to keep them from breaking out and a tiny slitted window near the edge of the ceiling.

She had never been in that large room. It was a space meant for prisoners. It had been where they kept the newly kidnapped females until they broke their spirits. When their raiders came back, they always had females.

Fear, blood, and death had seeped into the wood in every inch of that space. After the raids, the amount of females that emerged from there to join them in their misery was always less than what went in.

But that was just the way of life there...

She felt like she should be scared, or tired in the very least, but she just felt numb.

The evening sunlight faded and the moonlight replaced what little light came through the window.

Lo felt a shiver roll down her spine when the cold began to seep in. It was late fall, nearly winter. The leaves had taken on their vibrant oranges and yellows and had begun to fall.

The nights were cold.

Lo put her arms around herself as she felt the shivers take over. She was still wet, covered in mud and blood.

Her mother's blood.

Lo took a shaky breath as she felt a warm tear trickle down her cheek and she closed her eyes as the tug of sleep finally began to pull at her.

But the moment she closed her eyes, she saw her mother's lifeless face.

Lo snapped her eyes back open with a hard breath. She felt herself shaking even more and curled her knees up against her chest.

Her mother was gone.

How could she accept it?

The grief was just too much to bear...

Lo felt a soft sob come out of her unwillingly, and when it started she couldn't stop. She buried her face in her knees and hugged herself as she cried out her heartache again.

The whimpering wolf inside her was a jumble of emotions. The deep sadness of her loss... worry, fear, and the strange sliver of hope at the thought of her mate. But she kept trying to keep herself from thinking of that...

All the horrified looks on those male's expressions...When Tristan came back to his senses, would he be horrified too? She didn't want to think of what he would feel. How he would look at her.

She knew her father had done terrible things to other packs. When they returned from their raids, they smelled of blood and death. The stories from the captured females of what happened to their packs were always hard to listen to.

Lo just hugged herself tighter.

...were they still going to kill her?

She felt her wolf grow restless inside her. Her wolf felt a strong connection with her mate's wolf, she kept feeling the urge to seek him out. To call to him. But Lo forcibly ignored it.

She couldn't...

Lo closed her eyes and took several shaky breaths as she tried to calm her crying, but tears just kept pouring out of her.

Eventually over exhaustion took hold, and even as cold, wet and grief stricken as she was, she slumped down against the wall and found the smallest of comforts in unconsciousness.

-

It felt like an instant before she was startled awake, the door to their prison was shoved open and a large enforcer stood there at the threshold.

"You, you and you, come with me." He said. Lo tried to swallow down the lump of emotion building in her throat when the females all began whimpering in fear again. The three females he gestured to reluctantly stood and followed him out.

Obedience had been beaten into them.

A long time passed before he came for another three, and the same process continued for some time. Lo just sat there quietly. It was clear they were ignoring her, and it became especially obvious when she was the last left in the large empty room.

Lo folded her legs up against her chest again and buried her face in her knees. The mud and blood was dried on her skin now, it felt uncomfortable. It just added to all the emotional heartache inside her.

An even longer time passed before the door opened again.

"You... come with me." The male said. Lo looked up at him. She recognized him immediately as one of the Beta's on the platform the day before. The enforcer that had fetched the other females was behind him.

The Beta was giving her a strange look. Something between sympathy and pity. Lo felt a tightness in her stomach.

Maybe they were going to execute her after all...

Lo shakily pushed herself up and forced herself to follow the male out. The enforcer trailed behind them.

They went down the long hallway and out the door. The cool breeze was a welcome reprieve as it ruffled her hair. Her wolf enjoyed the fresh air.. especially with her mood.

Lo nervously fidgeted at her dress as she glanced behind her at the enforcer. He had a solemn expression.

When they circled around the house to the field, she tried not to, but she couldn't stop herself from glancing to the spot where her mother lay the night before. It was empty now.

She felt her vision blur with tears and her heartache felt immense again. It felt hard to breathe. Lo wished she could see her one more time... but she knew she was in no position to ask to see her.

Lo glanced around them. It seemed all the dead had been cleared from the surrounding areas. The sound of pounding wood drew her attention. The platform and the whipping post were being dismantled. To the right, other males were tearing down one of the secondary pack houses. Further into the trees, she could hear more wood being broken down.

It seemed they were going to tear down everything and start again.

She glanced ahead when she almost tripped and the Beta sent her an annoyed look. Lo looked down and kept her eyes on the ground.

It didn't take her long to realize where he was taking her. They had a building they used for bathing, the piping was connected to the groundwater. He opened the door and gestured her in. Lo complied.

The bath was filled and steaming. She stared at it for a moment; it was clean. They must have recently heated and refilled it. She looked to the corner where  there was a pile of discarded clothing.

"There are clothes for you to the right. Come out when you're done." The Beta said and closed the door. She could hear them just outside, speaking quietly between them.

Lo stared at the closed door for a moment, not entirely trusting, before she managed to shake her nerves and took her torn dress off. And she sudddnly felt an immense relief that she would be able to get the grime off.

The blood off...

She pushed that thought away before it made her emotional again and she gently placed the dress in the corner with the others before she climbed into the almost too-hot water.

Having a warm bath wasn't something she'd ever had. She sunk down into it and just sat for a moment, marveling at how good it felt, especially from the aches of the bruising she'd got the day before.

Lo glanced to the table beside the bath, on a plate, sat a brand new bar of soap with little flowers inside it, and beside it two buckets of hot water.

Lo stared at it for a moment, confused.

She couldn't help but find it odd. Why would they take the time to heat water for her? They only had the one bath house for the entire pack; there were three tubs there. It was difficult to get time in there, let alone enough time to heat water over the hearth and make a hot bath.

Most of their pack just bathed in the lake or with buckets in their homes instead. This place was mostly used by mothers to clean their infants, toddlers and young children.

And to give her new soap? She assumed she'd get what was left after all the others were done.

Wasn't she just a war prisoner? Or... she didn't know what she was.

She was confused at that the most.

She glanced briefly to the fireplace in the corner. It was warm and bright, making the room a pleasant temperature. Her thoughts inevitably turned to Tristan. If he hadn't come to see her, if he wasn't here, she was starting to realize her earlier fear was likely true.

He didn't want her.

Lo swallowed down the growing lump of emotion in her throat and instead tried to concentrate on how good the warm water felt, even as it quickly turned brown. She scrubbed herself with the soap and brush and when she was done she stood and used the two buckets of water to pour over herself and rinse it off.

She wrapped herself in a towel that was left on the bath table and walked over to the water pump to fill the bucket again and throughly clean her hair with the cold water.

Sometimes, she hated being a white wolf. Her white hair was difficult to clean. Lo took her time, kneeling with her head down to scrub her hair in the bucket, when a hard knock rattled the door and made her jump.

"Hurry up." The male barked. Lo quickly finished and toweled her hair mostly dry. She was shivering by the time she got to the clean dress that was left on the table in the corner.

Lo stared down at it with dismay when she quickly realized it wasn't hers. Her mother sewed all their clothes for a reason. This wouldn't fit her properly. The male enforcers probably just grabbed handfuls of clothes from whatever cabin was nearby. Or at least... she thought so, until she reached down and felt the material.

It was soft and silky, not the rough material she was used to wearing. Lo furrowed her brow in confusion, especially when she realized it didn't smell of anyone else. It had never been worn before. It was new.

Lo fidgeted with the towel. Did the other females get new clothes too? Maybe they brought supplies from their own packs.

Lo looked at the door nervously, before she flicked a glance back to her old dress in the pile of clothes in the corner.

As quickly as the thought came, she shook it away...

... she couldn't wear that again. She felt her heart pound at the thought.

It smelled of blood and death. Even if she washed it, she doubted that would ever come out.

Lo took a shaky breath and pulled the new dress on. It was tight over her hips and chest, but even tight, it was the most comfortable thing she had ever worn.

Lo combed her fingers through her damp hair and put on the simple slippers that were left before she nervously moved for the door to slowly open it.

Both the Beta and enforcer was still there. They turned to her with blank expressions.

Lo felt odd. Why did she warrant two escorts? And important ones at that. Certainly the Beta had better things to do. She glanced at the enforcer. He too seemed above an average rank.

"Come." The Beta said and started walking. Lo nervously moved down the steps and followed him. They headed into the woods.

Lo kept her eyes on the ground as they walked, careful of her steps. She could hear other wolves moving around, the sounds of objects being moved and doors slamming. They were probably emptying the scattered cabins.

Not that they would find anything valuable. None of them had anything, they lived very simply. Lo bit her lip slightly when she thought of her mother and her's.

They didn't have anything valuable... but her mother knew some mountain medicine. She had a book where she kept everything she remembered. Her mother had been writing in it for years. She managed to convince the Alpha to give her paper sometime before Lo was born. And they had some jars of medicine her mother had made to treat the injured females when the males got too rough or there were whippings.

It had become her mother's duty in the pack. She even helped with females during births. Lo always liked the two times of year when pups were born, the males typically steered clear of their cabin with the laboring females.

And Lo loved to hold the newborn pups. To nuzzle their fresh skin and snuggle them.

Lo glanced up at the Beta with the briefest of hopes when they turned down a path that would lead them back to the home she was used to, but dismay quickly replaced it when they made a second turn down an unfamiliar path.

Lo cast a forlorn glance back in the direction of their hut as she reluctantly followed him. They walked for some time before Lo saw the remote cabin that he seemed to be headed toward.

Lo felt nervous, she never came out this way, it was far from the central area she stayed within. Not even when she went on frequent runs in fur with her mother. They often circled the lake, it was one of the only joys in life she had.

With the slightly overgrown foliage, she knew this was likely a cabin that had been unused for some time. But fresh scents lingered in the area... and it was one in particular that made her heart flutter.

Tristan had been here...

Lo glanced up as the Beta opened the door and gestured her in. She cast a cautious glance back at the enforcer. Neither had said anything.

The remoteness of the place was starting to really spike her nervousness. Confusion too.

What were they intending to do with her?

Panic slowly rose inside her. She couldn't help the fear and distrust she had of males. She had never known a decent one...

"Go on little wolf. You will not be harmed." He said with some irritation. Clearly, he could hear her heart start to pound. Lo studied his face. He revealed nothing in his expression. It just made her more nervous. Even though her wolf felt no malice from them.

She still didn't trust him. Some males were good at hiding their intent...

Lo couldn't make herself move. She felt herself shaking slightly, fear was really setting in, especially as the Beta's face grew annoyed. She looked at the cabin, it was small and confined.

She didn't want to go in there.

It was then that the thought hit her hard from her wolf.

Run.

She cast a brief glance to the forest. She was fast... She might make it, especially if they were all distracted tending the land. She doubted their new border guards had set up patrols yet.

Maybe... maybe she could get away, and somehow find her way to the mountains.

To her mother's people.

Lo felt her heart really start to race in fear and anticipation. The Beta's face grew angry as he started to move down from the front step. Lo's breath halted when he seemed to gauge what she was about to do.

She knew this might be the last chance she had. Maybe she didn't have to die...

Lo didn't let herself think. She shifted and darted off into the woods, just barely missing the Beta's lunge. She heard both males snarl and quickly go after her.

Lo ran as hard as she'd ever run in her life, and she was relieved when she heard them falling further and further behind as she barreled through brush and swerved around trees.

She pushed herself even harder to gain more distance and ran as if her life depended on it...

Because she truly believed it did.