Page 53 of Wild Fated

Kael paced, his hands running through his hair. "We need to go after them. The alphas. We can't just let them go."

Lana nodded. “We will. I promise.” She stood and motioned to the warriors, her eyes flicking back to Rowan, then to me. “This is . . . my pack.” I stilled, looking between her and the wolves. “I’m Shadow Pack, I?—”

The wolves shifted to their human forms in a blink. One of them stepped forward. “She’s our alpha.”

Alpha. That was what I felt from her. I bristled, and my wolf, he didn’t know what to think. We hated alphas. But Lana . . .

Lana locked eyes with me and swallowed hard. "I don’t know what this means.” She motioned at the book in her hands. “They say I’ll learn, but—” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I don’t know how to do this.”

It felt like that power had landed back on my shoulders. “Do what?”

Her face broke. “Say goodbye.”

The shifter warriors stepped forward. They were tall, imposing figures, their eyes sharp and their movements precise. One of them, a man with dark hair and piercing eyes, spoke first. "You are Shadow Pack now, Lana. You must start by finding Shadow Pack blood."

Lana glanced down at the dagger on her hip. “How?”

My pulse quickened. I knew that look. She’d gotten it in the maze and on the crumbling stone steps. Then as she’d conjured flames and launched them at a bone stalker. “Lana?—”

"You are alpha. You will know.”

Lana lifted her head, her wolf pressing toward me so intently, her eyes glowed. My wolf stood at attention, as if readying to answer her call. “Lana.” My voice was low and rough. I didn’t know what I was saying. What she was trying to say to me.

She stepped forward, lifting the dagger from its hilt.

Chapter

Twenty-Three

Lana

Icouldn’t do this. Not by myself. It wasn’t selfishness, it wasn’t using my newfound power to get what I wanted. I had been tasked with building a pack, with hunting down the other relics, and the only way I’d found the book was with Destin’s help.

All my life I’d believed alphas were the strength of the pack, but I’d had it all wrong. The pack was the strength of the alpha.

“Lana, what are you doing.” Destin’s breath came quickly. I would make this quick.

“You don’t want a pack. You don’t want an alpha, I know this. But you have a Shadow Pack heart.” Destin frowned. He opened his mouth, but I placed a finger over his lips. “You didn’t want to take me to the stone, but you did.”

“You forced me?—”

I pressed harder against his mouth. “You stayed in the shadow realm, you were the reason I completed the challenges, and we were still able to help your wolves.”

The three warriors stepped forward. Their eyes, sharp and discerning, scanned over Destin. "He's not Shadow Pack," the tallest warrior stated, his voice deep and authoritative.

Lana dropped her finger. "You don't know that."

The second warrior, with a scar running down his cheek, crossed his arms over his chest. "We can sense it. His blood doesn't carry the mark."

Lana's voice trembled with intensity. "And yet I've seen him. I know his heart." Lana held up a hand to silence them from another retort, never breaking her gaze with mine. "Where I'm going, you can't follow unless you're Shadow Pack."

My wolf pressed against my consciousness, the pressure so intense, I blinked to clear my vision.

Lana lifted a hand to my jaw. "Would you follow me? Would you let me be your pack?"

Destin's fists clenched, and he pressed his lips together. His jaw tightened, the muscles in his neck straining. "I can't leave my wolves."

I nodded. "I know. They're your family." I took another step closer, my heart pounding in my chest. "But if you could. If you could have both. Your wolves and me, would you?" I swallowed hard. "Would you let me be your alpha? Your mate?"

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