Page 22 of Dante's Circle Reborn

Because Alec and Liam had already stepped foot into the circle.

They didn't need to fight, the magic of the stones had already done the work for them.

And it was nothing like they had planned or imagined.

“Quiet down,” Hunter said, their Alpha’s voice booming.

The crowd quieted at once.

“For the past few years, we have all known that we would have a Beta and a Tracker when the time came. We all knew that I would be Alpha, and I fought in this circle, bled for you both here and in hell itself to make sure that happened.” There were murmurs, memories whispered, yet no one spoke too loudly. They all knew the story.

“We all thought we would have our Beta and Tracker in the positions we’d always placed them in.” Hunter raised a brow at them, and Alec and Liam just shared a look. No need to get in trouble again, they had wasted enough time on too many things.

“We were wrong.” Murmurs, mostly because nobody knew what was about to happen next.

“We thought that Alec would be our Tracker, the one who would find those rogues, the one with the best skills for the scent. We thought he would be the one to stand apart, to keep our Pack safe from outside forces that came against us. But we were wrong.”

More murmurs.

“And we thought Liam would be our Beta, the one right under me, my second in command. The one to handle the Pack’s needs, to find the threads within our Pack and balance those ideals. But again, we were wrong.”

Now there was full-out talking, speculating.

Alec held back a smile.

“So, we don’t have our Beta and Tracker?” a woman asked, and Hunter shook his head as everyone shushed her. They wanted answers, and they were about to get them.

“We were wrong because our own biases got in the way. The goddess has spoken, and so have we. Meet our new Tracker, Liam.”

There was silence and then shouts of happiness and surprise.

“He has always been the one at Alec’s side, training right along with him. He is the one who we have been waiting for, for what feels like centuries. He’s the one who will keep us safe from afar.”

“Finally!”

Alec didn’t know who said that, but he just grinned.

“And our Beta, he has always been here, as well. The one who will listen to you, who has always listened. The one who is a bit calmer than the other.” Hunter winked, and Liam blushed, considering Liam was anything but calm most days. A personality trait that was needed for the Tracker, but not the Beta.

“Meet your Beta, Alec.” There was shouting then, howls, and Alec just shook his head, bouncing Mili on his hip as she laughed and giggled and clapped her little hands.

Liam leaned forward, brushed a little baby hair from her forehead, and then whispered into Alec’s ear. “You ready?”

He met his mate’s gaze, knowing that this was it. This was the start of their future. “Always.”

He had his home, his Pack. A family. He had thought he’d lost it all when he was forced to kill his uncle and then his brother. When the Pack disintegrated, everything had changed.

But then he had fallen for his wolf, his mate who wasn’t the Alpha, but an alpha wolf in every way that mattered. He had fallen for his best friend. And that, in the end, was always going to be a fate worth fighting for.

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