Page 47 of Nyte's Rejected Luna

“Paige is pregnant with my child,” I answered, smiling at Alpha Alexander, showing my victory. “That means Markus didn’t just kidnap my witch mate. He kidnapped my pup, and Katya helped him.”

Alexander let out a disgusted growl, claws digging into his desk as he leaned over. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

“I was protecting her,” I answered honestly. “I didn’t think anyone would care that my half-witch child was in her womb, and the thought of Markus learning she was pregnant and attempting to end the pregnancy felt like a real threat.”

“This changes things,” Alexander growled, looking at an equally angry Beta Jose. “We can’t condone our children being taken. No matter what the circumstances.”

“I agree, Alpha,” Jose nodded. “Our children are our most important resource.”

“Go and round up the pack,” Alexander ordered Jose. “Tell them they will answer to Nyte by retrieving his pregnant mate from the Oceanside Pack. All mothers and their children must go with the midwives into their caves. The packhouse will not be safe while we are gone.”

Beta Jose nodded, turning and leaving the office to carry out the orders. Alexander narrowed his gaze at me.

“You get your mate back, Nyte. Now, you better hope we don’t lose too many wolves in this fight. We need our full numbers to go up against the Vampires and whatever witches are helping them.”

“The only wolf we will be missing is the one holding my mate from me,” I told him, turning and leaving the office with Chase and Madilyn behind me. “No one touches Markus but me,” I told them, their responding growls confirming my order.

“I’ll try to contain myself,” Madilyn growled. I smiled at her, heading to the front door with the newly growing pack of wolves ready to retrieve my mate. Their eyes were bleeding with blood lust as their instincts to protect the young overtook their disdain for the witch mother.

“Nyte,” Dasha called out, stepping from the crowd and immediately baring her neck to me. “I’m sorry for what my sister has done. Please allow my mother and me to earn our place by helping retrieve your mate and child.”

I rolled my eyes. “I won’t turn away from any help, and I don’t fault you for the crimes of your relatives. We all make our own choices, Dasha. I just hope that yours are better from this point forward.”

I spotted Katya being cuffed and handed over to the midwives for guarding while the rest of the pack left to right her crime; her eyes were flooding with tears. Her gaze met mine momentarily, a flash of pleading crossing her face before I turned away, the little hope she seemed to hold vanishing.

She would be banished and made a rogue for what she did. Whether she knew that Paige was pregnant or not, the crime against a child of the pack could never go unpunished. It was among the laws we had put into place to protect our children. Laws that no one was above, not even Alphas.

Chase and Madilyn joined me in my car, the others piling into SUVs together; many pack members were already parked in vehicles with engines running along the side of the road of the packhouse. They were waiting for me to lead the charge.

“Hold tight and buckle up,” I warned Chase and Madilyn. “And call any witch or wolf we know in law enforcement. I don’t want to deal with any cop who chooses to chase us over us speeding.”

I took off, my tires squealing behind me, emitting a plume of smoke and the smell of burning rubber. The others took off behind me, a convoy of vehicles speeding through the small Point Loma Neighborhood, turning north to reach the interstate and leave the peninsula behind.

Chase called every wolf and witch we knew who worked in human law enforcement, getting a trooper to escort us through the interstate toward Oceanside. It didn’t take much time to reach the pack’s territory, and we quickly rolled up to the packhouse.

I stepped out first, frowning as members of Markus’s pack stared at us; no one was making a move to stop us as we approached.

“You’re here for the witch, right?” a woman asked, spitting at her feet. “She’s inside. Third floor in Alpha’s private rooms.”

“You don’t have any objections to our pack entering the territory?” I asked, suspicious of their lack of action.

“The fact you have come means the witch is important to your pack. We have no intention of fighting you for one we don’t accept. The Alpha has been making questionable decisions for years now, but with this choice, we cannot stand at his side. We will not stand in your way.”

I looked away from the she-wolf, finding the rest of their pack backing away from the door, parting like the Red Sea to allow me to pass. Only one wolf stood at the end of the path, still blocking the front door.

Beta Thompson.

I growled, walking toward him, my eyes taking in his stance while watching how his eyes shifted nervously. A battle raged inside him. The struggle of a beta forces them to choose between his duty to his Alpha and his commitment to the pack.

Given the bond with Paige, he was just as torn between following his orders and engendering disapproval at what his Alpha was doing. In the visions Paige had sent, I saw that he was reluctant to take her, but he did as he was ordered, like the good Beta he was.

“Will you stand between me and my mate?” I asked him as I reached the first step of the packhouse, narrowing my gaze at him.

“Don’t be stupid, Thompson,” the she-wolf from behind me urged him. “The pack can’t stand against him with his entire pack on his side. Step aside. The pack needs you more than Markus.”

“Sophia,” he growled, looking past me to her. “He’s our alpha.”

“He hasn’t been our alpha for some time now, Thompson. Nothing he has done in the past year has been for our benefit, especially not taking that witch from Nyte. He doomed us when he kidnapped her. I could smell just how doomed the moment he brought her into the packhouse. Step aside and let him pass.”

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