Page 100 of Unforgivable

The work is monotonous, mindless, which makes it an excellent time to mull over the puzzle that is my female.

Lyri has been completely shunned by her pack because she slept with a male. A male who was sober and clear-headed at the time. I remember the feel of her that night, the night of her Shaming. She was as tight as a virgin. If I hadn't known that she had fucked Daan, then I would have thought she was a virgin. Whatever they did together, it wasn't often.

I'm not proud of how we secured our female, but I'm glad we did it, anyway. I wish that I would have fought for her, fought to Claim her that night no matter what Jax-ass said. The three of us, we could have kept the other males away. Maybe.

Fuck, who I am kidding? Eleven other males showed up that night. Eleven. We couldn't protect a chained female for that long. If she hadn't been chained up, we could have grabbed her and ran, but that night, nothing would go our way.

I'll be honest, part of me thought she deserved the lesson, harsh as it was. I needed her to learn that she can't use her body to climb rank, even as I plotted to make her use her body to keep us from going feral. It's such an awful thing, and a personal thing. I had my own shitty experience with females who would claw over each other to try to make it into a high rank's bed. I let it color my vision of Lyri that night.

I'm an asshole, but at least I can admit it. I know how wrong I was to think that any female deserves that, especially my beautiful Lyri. I wonder if Jax feels any remorse for what he did to my female? There's no doubt that she would have died that night if we didn't keep the males from coming back for more. There were shifted wolves on paws trying to maul her. She most likely would have died from her wounds, anyway, if we didn't bring her back home. Jax sentenced her to die in the worst way a female can.

All of the revelations we've had about Lyri since bringing her home have made it clear that her Shaming was unjust and barbaric. She's a good female, strong, smart, kind, and caring. She's not a fated MateLess, so whoever her truemate is, he's most likely also a strong male. With how tight she clings to her morals, it's hard to imagine that she ever wanted to fuck Daan just to make some prick jealous.

My feet slow under me. I hold the water bucket, barely aware when Wheat gets impatient and shoves his ugly mug into it, sloshing water over the brim and onto my boots.

Carefully, suppressing the shaking in my hands, I set the bucket down and step away. I edge my boots off, hoping that Wheat doesn't eat them, but not in any frame of mind to really give a shit. The tearing of my clothes catches his attention. With a snort, the horse moves away from my massive wolf.

Growling, I bound into the forest. I need to run and clear my head. Pieces start to come together. Lyri having nightmares. Her murmurs in her sleep about 'why her?' Her fear of telling us who the asshole who rejected her is.

I thought maybe she was protecting him, her mate who nearly killed her, but what if she's scared for herself?

How have I been so blind?

If I'm right... then this situation is a clusterfuck. My Lyri is going to start a war. A war that I intend on winning.

I shift back to feet when I hit my cliff-face. This is the first spot I saw when Thjis and I came here nearly a decade ago. We stood right here and saw our valley for the first time. We needed a new home, a new place to settle. Life in our birth pack had become unbearable because of the deaths of our mates. Our families understood. We had to make our own way.

I howl. My wolf is burning, his anger red-hot. I rage and scream into the wind, letting the earth hear my fury. Rage descends, and for once, I let it happen. We lost our mate and our pack. We lost so much.

And now we have Lyri. A female who is everything, absolutely everything I could have ever wanted in a mate. The idea of an alphason deliberately rejecting his truemate is so horrendous that I can barely wrap my head around it. He has betrayed my female in the worst way. My Luna.

I can still remember being a pup and listening to my uncle lecture my cousins and me about never, ever rejecting your mate. His mate was murdered, so he would know all about taking every moment you can with your mate. When my mate passed away, he was the one who got my pain.

My Lyri. My angel suffered this. I will slaughter Daan. Kill him and his false mate. I will put the confidence and joy back into my angel.

Sucking in a breath, I howl again, scratching the earth with powerful rakes of my claws. Muscles bunch, ready to pounce on the phantom prey.

Can I kill him? His wolf will weaken from the loss of his truemate, but not right away. First, he'll become feral, then cold. There's no way to know if Daan's wolf feels the effects yet or not, but my thinking is not. Otherwise, he would have hauled ass back here when Lyri was Shamed, or even when she started to sleep with us.

I need a plan. I need to understand all of the pieces so that I can protect my family and my female.

I need to call my cousin. But first, I need to make sure that Thjis and Ezra know the truth.

---

"Go to town and find out everything about our female," I tell Ezra.

He eyes me doubtfully. "I did? It's just rumors and bullshit, Rhet."

"No, you went to the Watering Hole, Ez. You spoke with our friends, wolves our age. Lyri is only nineteen. You need to talk to the teenagers, her friends," I spit out. "We need to know who she seemed to watch, if any male ever watched her. Stared at her too long, spoke to her too often. Hell, we need to know if any male avoided her."

"You have some idea who it is?"

"No, yes, maybe? Fuck, Ez. I don't. Just..." I blow out my breath. I want him to draw his own conclusions before I tell him what I suspect is the truth. "Go and ask around, Ez. I want you to form your own opinion, right?"

"Alright," Ez says reluctantly. His eyes drift towards the house where the pups are trying to teach Lyri how to boil an egg or something easy. She's determined to learn to cook without poisoning all of us. I'm going to go in and see her, screw working, the animals are fed, the rest can wait for tomorrow. I need to see my angel and make sure she's here and with me, with us.

---

---