Page 21 of The Alpha's Heart

He’s gonna challenge u

Challenge HIM

HellO/

It’s been twelve hours. No one’s heard from him

Call me back

Sofe, call me back

Anything from Guy yet?

Please tell me you have. You’re the only one who can stop this. He’ll listen to you.

Anything??

The messages started yesterday morning. The most recent one was from four hours ago.

Guy? Why would I have heard from Guy? What the hell is going on?

I suck in a breath.

Luna, don’t be what Ithinkit is…

With trembling fingers, I select Declan’s number, pacing nervously around the room as it dials, praying to the goddess above that he answers.

Ring.

Ring.

Ri—

“Sofe? Sofia? Is that you?”

My voice is thick with a mixture of renewed anxiety and relief that Declan’s on the line. “Yeah. It’s me. I got your messages. What’s going on?”

Instead of answering me—probably because he did give me a rundown with those messages—Declan says, “What about Guy? Did he send you any texts? Have you heard from him?”

“No. A crap ton of calls, but no voicemails. No texts. Declan… is he really coming here?”

Please say no, please say no?—

“He might already be there. I’m trying like hell to beat him to Hickory. Like I said, he’s got a truck, but I flew. It’s up to the Luna which one of us gets there first.”

What? “What are you talking about? You’re coming, too?”

Wind rushes past Declan. Is he driving? Running? I can’t tell. “Sure am. I’m on my way. Kendall approved letting me take a flight out when he realized that Guy took one of the pack trucks to drive out to Louisiana. That was two days ago. It’s a twenty-hour drive with no stops for food or sleep. If he ditches the truckand runs, he could be there even faster. There’s no way to tell. I’m pretty sure he ditched his phone hours ago.”

Pulling the phone away from my ear, I look at the call history. Declan’s right. The last call I got from Guy’s phone was from this morning.

And, yet, all signs point to him still heading toward me.

I know what Declan’s saying even without him saying it. Guy is on a time crunch. He has until the Luna rises tonight and I bond myself to Bishop to get his one last chance to change my mind.

And he’s going to challenge Bishop for me if he doesn’t.

He has to. Alphas can’t challenge a weaker wolf. It’s an unsaid rule for all shifters. If you’re responsible for a pack, you can’t risk the safety of all of its members by randomly throwing down challengers and taking out competitors. An alpha wolf—a dominant shifter who doesn’t lead a pack—can challenge whoever they want, of course. Same with betas and deltas. But anAlpha…the lesser ranked wolf would always have to issue the challenge in some way.

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