Page 24 of Exiled Mate

“And why did you decide to make this choice?”

“I didn’t have any other skills after I left the pack, Alpha,” I say from between heavily clenched teeth. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

Thorne looks at me. He looks over at Chet.

Chet says, in the most pathetic voice I’ve ever heard, “Come on, Alpha. You know me. You know I’d never. What my dad did hurt me as much as what yours did. I’d never act like him,” he whines.

He’s lying through his teeth.

Thorne nods. He turns back to me. “You were never supposed to contact anyone in the pack again.”

“I know.”

“You have an hour. If you do not leave pack lands in that time, I’ll order them to kill you,” he says evenly.

I shut my eyes. It’s the same as my banishment two years ago. Everything feels exactly the same. The hurried departure, the fact that he believes this slimeball over me.

“And James?”

I open my eyes.

“This time, do not come back.”

Chapter 7

Terra

The meeting clearly doesn’t go well.

Rylan storms out after, coming down the steps before shifting. As the wolf, he catches my eye for a second before he runs away.

After he goes, Thorne and the enforcers saunter out onto the porch. I overhear Thorne mutter a command to them. “He gets an hour before we go find him. If he’s still on pack lands when the hour is up, kill him.”

Kill him.

I step forward, ready to defend Rylan, but my mom’s hand on my wrist stops me.

“Terra,” she whispers. “Stop. We can’t.”

We can’t.

That’s the truth. We can’t afford to have this pack taken away from us. In the grand scheme of things, Oakwood is a wonderful pack to be a part of. Thorne is a kind alpha. We all have a relatively equal stake in the pack, and while the enforcers are definitely the most powerful ones, they don’t bully the rest of us.

Well. They don’t bully us as much as they could, or as much as they do in other packs.

The whole reason my mom and I were lone wolves is that she left our original pack when I was a baby. She told me that she couldn’t handle it, that the abuse was out of hand. That it was so terrible, she escaped in the middle of the night. She would rather be a lone wolf with a baby than stay in that pack for another minute.

When we found the Oakwood pack, back when we still lived in Alaska, it was like a dream come true. I don’t want to ruin that dream for my mom.

Rylan would understand.

I nod and step back, holding my mom’s hand. “Should we head back to the house, or…?”

“You,” a voice snarls.

My mom and I both freeze. One of the enforcers from inside the compound is staring at us. I haven’t the foggiest clue who he is. I don’t even know his name.

“You brought him here,” he snarls.

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