Page 4 of What's Rogue Got To Do With It

I ran to the clearing where all den business took place to discover that everyone was already there. Children sitting on their parents’ laps in the back. Silent. This hadn’t just begun—whatever was happening was already well underway. No wonder I hadn’t seen anyone. They had all been here and I hadn’t been notified.

My stomach dropped and I ran to the front, pushing my way through, without so much as an excuse me. My father stood where he always did and the look on his face told me everything I needed to know. This was why I had been asked to make the run. If I hadn’t been so fast, I wouldn’t have heard the bell. He didn’t want me to witness this. He knew it was coming.

“Alpha,” I dared not call him father now, despite, in that moment all I wanted was my father to hug me and tell me that everything was fine and there was nothing to worry about.

He opened his bond to me, the one that was usually only between Alphas and Betas, but somehow found us. He was scared. Terrified. But not for himself. No… he was scared for me.

I crossed over to him, baring my neck, and he gave me a nod and then said so low that only I could hear, “No matter what, keep your skin.”

I nodded and took my place behind his right shoulder, as was custom for all official den gatherings.

And as I was turning around to face the center, Rayne walked into the circle.

“I, Rayne, officially challenge you for the position of Alpha.”

This wasn’t the official call to challenge. That had been done before the bell was rung. He was doing that for me. His eyes glaring at me as if I somehow was at fault for any of this.

I’d never particularly liked or disliked Rayne before now. I knew that he was not pleased he’d been overlooked for the job of Beta, but that was to be expected. Not once had he acted in a way that caused me to worry he would pull something like this, that was for sure.

While he was within den law to challenge the way he did, he was going against tradition. Instead of challenging Ryan, he went straight to the top.

My father dropped his robe, stepped into the ring. “Challenge accepted.”

Ryan’s job as the highest-ranking member outside of the challenge was to call it to begin. He recited the rules one at a time. I didn’t hear a single one of them. It was all coming at me too hard, too fast, too loud. Someone was going to die and as much as I didn’t always see eye to eye with my father, I wasn’t ready to let him go.

Ryan stepped out of the ring and officially started the challenge.

Both men shifted, only Rayne’s shift was faster than my father’s, and his feet barely touched the ground before he lunged at my father, grabbing his neck mid-shift and clenching down on it hard.

Both of them landed on the ground with a thump. Blood everywhere.

My father hadn’t stood a chance.

There was no rule that stated challenges needed to be fair. Once they were called, it was game on. But I’d never heard of one where the challengers didn’t wait for the shifts to be completed before attacking.

More than anything, I wanted to race in there. Just be by my father’s side as he took his last breath, to tell him I was sorry, that I loved him.

But his words kept echoing in my head.Keep your skin. Keep your skin.

He’d been warning me… telling me not to go in there. Because the second I did, I, too, would become part of the challenge. I was no match for Rayne. Not in my skin. Not in my fur. Not in anything—except for possibly bookkeeping, and there was no challenge for that.

Instead of acting on impulse, I crumpled to the ground, sobbing.

The ceremony announcing Rayne as the new den Alpha began, one by one, the den members walked up to him, bore their necks, giving their allegiance… beginning with Ryan.

I doubted Ryan would see the sunrise. In Rayne’s mind, he was the enemy too. But he didn’t need to challenge Ryan. He could just kill him. He was the Alpha, after all.

And his strategy of going straight to my father finally made sense. Why go up the ranks when you can start at the top and destroy everything below you? Fuck. If I’d only seen Rayne for who he was earlier, maybe my father would still be alive.

The entire den, including the children, had sworn their allegiance, leaving only me. It took all I could do to get up. My eyes blurry, my cheeks tear-stained and burning.

I didn’t need to walk to him. He came to me. Bastard was loving this.

As I tilted my head, unsure what to do next but knowing I had to live to see another day he snarled, “Don’t bother.”

His hand darted out in a partial shift, swiping my shoulder once and then again in an X format, the pain searing.

“You, Creven, are no longer den. You are not welcome here. You are not welcome in the world of shifters. You will leave here with nothing but a backpack. And you shall never return. It’s that or death. Choose now.”

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