Page 121 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
“I am alpha,” I rumbled.
“If you do this, the pack will fracture,” Elder Germander said warningly. “You have supporters still, yes. But the majority do not want her here. If you challenge us, you will harm them. You will break friendships and even family bonds. You will force them to take a side while many are still mourning. Don’t do this.”
“What would you have me do?” I asked of them.
“Let her go,” Elder Germander said softly. “Side with us and tell her to leave. She is nothing.”
“She iseverything!” I shouted, stepping forward. “I cannot just let her go. She is so much more than nothing. She is the one I ache for. The one I need. She is the moon that my wolf cries for in the night.”
I snatched up Sylvie’s hand, staring daggers at Elder Jackson, fully aware he was the one behind all this. The one forcing me to make a decision that would tear me apart in the depths of night—a decision I could not do anything but make, for one simple reason. “She is my mate.”
“What are you doing?” Elder Germander demanded.
“Weare leaving.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Sylvia
“Are you sure about this?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe and staring into my grandmother’s sitting room.
I didn’t go in. With the big oak gone now, the second-floor sunroom had lost some of its former aura. Now when I glanced out the window, all I saw was the blackened grass and empty place where the tree had once stood. So many happy memories now overshadowed by the evil thing that had burst from within.
At least we had solved the mystery of the bones that fell from it. After leaving his pack, we had come back to the house to stay while we tried to come up with a plan for what to do next. Lincoln had continued to burn the remains, and in doing so, had come across a memorial plaque.
The tree had been planted many years ago over the grave of one of my great-great-grandmothers. We weren’t sure how many generations back since there was no date, just a name. Florence Anne Wilson.
I knew that Anne was a common middle name in our family, but seeing it there was a little eerie, knowing I was connected that far back.
“Yes. We can’t stay here for much longer,” Lincoln said. “We should keep moving.”
“You make it sound like we’re fugitives.” I sighed, scanning the room one last time.
My eyes landed on the table next to the window. There on it was my grandmother’s journal. It had fallen there after the lightning strike, and I had never moved it. I entered the room now, picking it up and turning my back on the window so I didn’t have to see the image outside.
I carefully thumbed the pages, but as always, I came back to that final entry. The one I had been reading when everything, my entire worldview, exploded in one giant lightning strike.
Is that it, Grandma? Is that why you couldn’t just up and tell me what was going on? You knew I wouldn’t believe it. That I would, as you said, call you crazy. You were right. Again.
I absolutely would have labeled the message as crazy if it had said something like “go into the woods and find the man who can change into a wolf, and look out for the tree-monster that will try to snatch you in the dark. Oh, you also have magical powers.”
My grandmother knew me better than that. She was fully aware she’d have to slowly lead me to water, that I couldn’t be trusted to make the connection on my own. Who could blame me, though? It still felt crazy two days later.
I looked at my hands once more, turning over the one not holding the journal, as if the other side would somehow hold clues. I’d not been able to replicate a single thing I’d done that night, despite trying until I gave myself a headache and sorethroat. I still possessed my sense of danger, but that was it. Nothing more. It was in there, but I couldn’t access it.
“We’re not fugitives,” Lincoln said, coming to the doorway. “I just don’t trust some of the pack not to … follow us.”
“You fear they’ll act against you.”
His jaw worked. “I don’t know. That’s the problem. With me gone, Noel will have assumed the position of alpha. I can’t trust him, and that alone is good enough reason to move on. For now.”
“Or,” I said, pointing a finger suggestively, “you could just go back. Leave me here.”
“No.” Linc grew angry every time I suggested it. “I’m not leaving you, Sylvie. You’re my mate.”
“But your pack needs you!”
“So do you. At least you want me here.”
