When a Pack Dies Read Free Page A

and useless.
    In their world, power was held by the strongest. Alphas could be challenged for leadership although it was usually done honorably, one-on-one. Rogues and strays were viewed with distrust and often eliminated but unless the rogues that had killed her pack went after another pack, no werewolf alive would be quick to challenge them. They’d be monitored of course and nervous, wary eyes would track them. But the cruel truth of it was that her pack lands had been taken over and Fina had two choices—bond with the rogues or leave. She’d already made that choice and was about to press down harder on the accelerator when her foot shifted to the brake pedal. She switched on her turn signal and pulled up in front of the local primary school.
    Fina’s wolf eyes spotted something that defied logic. There was a small boy sitting on the curb in front of the locked, dark school, with a backpack beside him and a small, electronic game in his hands. He didn’t even look up when she stepped out of her vehicle.
    “Ryan?” Fina said, her voice barely above a whisper. Ryan Upton was the son of her father’s Beta and she’d babysat the loud, exuberant six-year-old often enough that she’d considered foregoing the pleasures of motherhood entirely. She knelt in front of him. Ryan loved his toys, especially his electronic gizmos, but she saw that the game in his hand was simply cycling on a Game Over message, even though his small, dirt-crusted fingers were moving randomly over the buttons. She brushed his dark-blond hair off his forehead. Like any werewolf, even as a child, he inhaled, instinctively focusing on her scent before her face. He jerked upright and scooted back from her.
    Fina knew why. She smelled like the rogue wolves.
    Ryan’s brown eyes were frightened and too large for his small face but his shoulders went down when he recognized her.
    “How did you get here, Ryan?” Fina asked as she picked him up. He didn’t protest. Even when she leaned over to pick up his backpack, he sat with disturbing stillness in her arms, his thumbs still pressing buttons. She sat him in the passenger seat.
    “My dad and I, we were going to have a sleep-out last night. In the tree house he built.” Ryan Upton continued to focus on the game in his hands and lifted his arms only when Fina fastened the seatbelt around him.
    Fina knew Ryan’s mother would die before letting her only cub wander out alone. Ryan’s father would die before letting rogues take over his pack.
    Ryan continued unemotionally. “Something happened because he told me to climb up into the tree house by myself. He told me to get into my sleeping bag and stay there until he came and got me. I waited and went to sleep but I knew I had school today and I got here early.”
    Fina was astonished that Ryan had obeyed his father and stayed put overnight. The kid only listened to her when she threatened to take away his toys. She shut the passenger-side door, looked around, scented the air deliberately, got back into her vehicle and drove back onto the road. She turned on the air conditioning, closed the external air vents, checked the rearview mirror and pressed on the accelerator.
    *     *     *
    An hour before dusk, Fina opened the motel room door and held Ryan back so she could walk in ahead of him. She was so used to him barging ahead, being loud and annoying that his acquiescence was eerie. It wasn’t just letting her check out the room before letting him enter either. After she’d picked him up, she drove for two hours before stopping for gas and breakfast. She paid with cash. Ryan didn’t complain when she ordered pancakes, fruit and milk without consulting him. He just picked up a fork with one hand after she cut his pancakes up into bite-sized pieces, started eating and kept playing with his game with the other hand. Lunch was the same, only they had cheeseburgers. By then, Fina’s brain had stepped out of autopilot. It had to. It wasn’t just her