Page 46 of Rejected Mate's Baby for the Alpha King

“Sure. A graveyard where they don’t bury their dead. Idiot,” Dante muttered. “What are the chances the humans gleefully sent us to our deaths?”

“Humans? What humans?” Paisley asked, his teeth chattering. “You don’t mean that settlement south of Gideon, do you? Those are not humans.”

This gave me pause. “They’re not wolves, and they don’t claim to be witches.”

“They’re lying. They’re a coven. Have to be. One night, about two years ago, on a dare, I snuck into the settlement and saw them in a big circle chanting. There was a woman levitating in the air between them and she was surrounded by this green glow. She started screaming about the darkness. No way humans did that.”

“The darkness?”

“Yeah. A few months ago, all the magic on the mountain disappeared. I actually lost control of my wolf. I don’t know how long it lasted, but a strange black mist started to rise from the ground. I think the witch foresaw it or whatever. She sent you here?”

“She sent us this way to wolves named Jax and Anna.”

Paisley stopped abruptly, and everyone stumbled behind him. “Keep moving kid, or we’re all dead.”

“Did you say someone named Jax? Jax Bishop? You don’t know who that is?” he asked incredulously as he started to walk again. “Who the hell are you? I know you can control my wolf.”

I ignored the question and the continued crunching of bones under my feet. When the amulet warmed, I turned only to have Paisley tug me in the other direction. “Who is Jax?”

“He’s alpha of the Blood Diamond Pack.”

“Pack? There are no packs here.”

“You really aren’t from around here. Who the hell wants to come here? There are four packs here on the mountain.”

“Is Gideon’s one of them?”

“What? No, Gideon has a camp. I’m talking hundreds, maybe even thousands of wolves. Jax has the biggest pack. London has the smallest pack, but they have an awesome brewery. You were drinking some of his beer at dinner. Snake River. Um…there’s Indigo Peak, but I heard their alpha died recently. She was this insanely old and powerful wolf. And there’s Blood Moon Pass. Their alpha is Emerson Tiggs.”

This time, I was the one who stopped short. “Emerson,” I growled. “Are you sure?”

Paisley tried to ease away from me, but I grabbed him and pulled him closer before he got himself killed. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I’m sure. Why?”

“Emerson is an alpha on Shadowed Moon Mountain?”

“Shadowed Moon Mountain? Is that what you call this place? Whatever, dude. Yeah, he’s an alpha. I was going to try to make my way to him when I was older. He has a reputation for taking in rogues.”

This changed everything. “How do I get to him?”

“Uh…I guess the way we’re going is the best way. He’s over the peak, but I think we’d have to go more west than east. Jax is east.”

Every bone in my body screamed to go east, but something didn’t add up. “Does everyone know about these packs?”

“Sure. They’ve been around for ages. You can’t really explore the mountain without having to deal with them. Why?”

“What about the humans who aren’t humans?” They’d been awfully vague about going to see Jax. If everyone knew of the packs, then so should they. Why didn’t they give me directions straight to Emerson?

“Probably.”

My amulet went white-hot, and I stopped. “Shit,” Paisley muttered. “A lot of magic ahead of us and to the left of us.”

“And to the right?”

“Still magic, but not as much.”

I turned right. The fog was still so damn thick. “Get behind me,” I muttered. “Form a single line. Duke, bring up the back. Maya and Tessa in the middle.”

Nobody argued, and I turned right. A few steps in, the hair on my arms started to rise, and electricity tickled at my skin. A wet drop hit my nose, and I looked up.

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